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F/1.5 Email policy |
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1.5.1 Purpose of email 1.5.1 Purpose of emailThe purpose of electronic mail (email) is to allow greater efficiency in teaching, research, community service and administration at QUT. Email provides a cost-effective and speedy means of communication amongst staff and student users, and amongst staff and the external community. The Information Technology Services Department is responsible for providing and supporting QUT's electronic mail systems and mail agents on central servers. QUT has adopted standard messaging systems and support for non-standard systems is not provided. 1.5.2 Availability and useStaff, students and approved affiliates (eg honorary and adjunct staff, members of QUT Council) are provided with a QUT email account to be used for University purposes. In this, it is the same as other facilities such as telephones. QUT recognises that email may be used for incidental personal purposes, but stipulates that such use must not:
Further information is available in the Information Facilities Rules ( Schedule 1 - Acceptable Use of Information Facilities). Email messages should be as short and specific as possible, having regard to their function as records of University business. Given that email is generally an insecure means of communication consideration should be given to the appropriateness of using email to distribute confidential or sensitive information. Individual work groups within the University should establish their own standards for expected response times to emails, but given the immediacy of email as a method of communication short response times would normally be expected. Further advice on other aspects of email etiquette (or best practice) is available from the Information Technology Services website. 1.5.3 Email address aliasesQUT email addresses or aliases (for both individual accounts and email distribution lists) are created based on a strict set of criteria and naming conventions . The Director, Information Technology Services, has responsibility for determining the email alias conventions. Additionally, heads of departments, schools, faculties and divisions have the capacity to create and use alternative email aliases based on their position description (eg registrar@qut.edu.au ). This strategy may also be employed by other positions or for specific functions (eg privacy@qut.edu.au). The Staff IT Helpdesk provides further advice on set-up and management. 1.5.4 Staff email as official recordsEmail messages sent or received by QUT staff in the performance of their duties are official records of QUT and must be managed as such. As official records, ownership of email messages rests with QUT rather than with the individual staff member. All staff using email as a means of communication have a responsibility to capture and retain messages so that they are accessible as records to meet business and evidential needs over time. QUT's policy is that emails are captured and managed in an electronic records management system (refer to records policies in MOPP F/8 ). Minimum standards for managing emails which are not captured in an electronic records management system are found in Interim guidelines for managing electronic records and documents . Given QUT's obligation to retain records under relevant legislation and standards (see F/8.1 ), periodic deletion of email messages irrespective of their content or the business activity they support is inappropriate. In general, email messages must be stored and retained for the period specified in QUT's General Records Disposal Schedule . 1.5.5 Email attachmentsThe size of attachments to be sent with email messages is limited to 5 megabytes. Staff should use the Fileshare service located at https://fileshare.qut.edu.au to transfer files larger than 5 megabytes. Executable attachments (programs) are not accepted by the QUT email system. This reduces the risk of malicious software and viruses being spread via email at QUT. Senders of emails with such attachments receive a message that their transmission has been rejected and the reason for this. 1.5.6 Email quotaUsers of the email service are allocated a standard amount of storage on the QUT email system. This is referred to as the email quota. Users are expected to manage their email within this quota. Details of this quota and a procedure to obtain an increase in quota are available in the Email Service section of the Information Technology Services website. 1.5.7 QUT email distribution lists (Interest Groups)Organisational lists Information Technology Services is responsible for the implementation, management and system support for an organisational email list system, the objective of which is to provide email distribution lists based on organisational units or groupings of staff or students. These lists form the main structure of internal email communication and staff are unable to opt off organisational lists, campus lists, and certain other groups set up to inform staff about important matters such as security or health and safety. In some cases, affiliates can be added to an organisational list and this must be authorised at the level of head of school / head of department. The ability to send to organisational email lists can be limited to certain individuals. In particular, sending messages to large email distribution lists such as the " all staff " list is restricted to the Vice-Chancellor, heads of division and executive deans of faculty in order to avoid excessive load on email servers. Email to these lists is normally scheduled to be sent three times per day. Large email distribution lists and attachments For email distribution lists containing more than 100 members the Fileshare service must be used to transfer attachments. For some email distribution lists attachments are not permitted and the use of the Fileshare service is mandatory. Staff self-subscribe email distribution lists QUT provides some email distribution lists or news groups to which staff may subscribe according to their individual needs or interests. Staff add or remove themselves from the staff self-subscribe lists via QUT Virtual. Some lists may allow any staff member to send an email message to subscribers (eg qut.forum) and where this can occur, messages should be relevant to the purpose of the list. Self-subscribe email distribution lists are restricted to staff only. The creation of new self-subscribe lists must be approved by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Technology, Information and Learning Support). Given the need to conserve information technology resources, requests to create new lists should address the appropriateness of restricting the ability to send to the subscriber group (eg qut.parking). Further information on QUT email distribution lists is available from the Interest Groups Main Menu in QUT Virtual .1.5.8 Decommissioning of email accountsStudent email accounts Student access to email ceases 30 days after their notified graduation ceremony date (or alternative completion date for courses without a graduation ceremony). Staff email accounts Staff email accounts remain active for 30 days after the staff member's resignation date. After 30 days, the account is deactivated for a further 30 days before removal. It is the responsibility of the head of department or school to ensure that email records of a staff member who has resigned remain accessible and are retained for the period of time required by the QUT General Records Disposal Schedule . 1.5.9 Email transaction recordsThe University does not log the content of email. However, logs of internet access and email are automatically generated and, in the case of email, include the time a message is received and the location of its origin, the time a message is retrieved by a user, the user name which was used to authorise the sending of a message, and the size of the message and the identity of the sender and receiver. Access to these logs is available to a small number of Information Technology Services technical staff solely for the management of the email resource, for diagnosis and resolution of faults, or to detect and manage IT security breaches. Consistent with QUT's privacy policy (see F/9.1), information contained in these logs is released beyond this group only with authorisation of the Director, Information Technology Services, and only if:
Other requests to analyse material retrieved by a QUT user in terms of content will not normally be authorised. Related DocumentsMOPP F/8.1 Records management policy MOPP F/9.1 Privacy policy MOPP Appendix 1(c) Information Facilities Rules Modification History
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