E-Mail Protocols

The procedures below provide general e-netiquette guidance to supplement those of individual courses.

1. When first starting on the net, use the "buddy system" . Find a friend or anyone with experience sending and receiving email using a hardware and software system similar to yours through your same Internet Service Provider. Ask your buddy to walk you through the process for the first couple of times until you feel confident on your own.

2. In general, keep email messages simple, short and to the point. It is easy to spend a lot of time getting little accomplished via email unless we keep things simple. (Our speed at keyboarding is much slower than speech and the opportunity for clarification much more fragile and delayed.) Let's emphasize learning both content and process in an organized fashion.

Occasionally, the messages will be longer especially for major assignments. If the message gets too long, break it up into multiple messages and in the Subject line of each message, include the course identifier and part information (such as _x/y_ or < x of y parts > for part x of y parts).

Example: Subject: mgmt391: Retrospective 1/2 (for part 1 of 2 parts of the Retrospective assignment in course mgmt391).

3. Subject line for ALL E-MAIL in a course begins with the course identifier such as <bmgt350> without the <> .

Email is faster than snail mail, but less reliable. Reportedly up to 5% of the email messages do not reach their addressees for one reason or another and we stretch that number even more because some of our connections in Europe are even less reliable.

Some of your correspondents get MANY emails each day. Help them see which relate to you or your course.

4. My messages of continuing importance to the class will include a two digit sequential suffix <e.g., BMGT350-01> so each of you will know if you are missing a message in the sequence.

Messages to individual students will not normally be numbered sequentially.

5. When you send a message that you cannot afford to have ignored, use the return receipt function on your emailer if you have one. Check your settings or preferences file and turn on this feature if possible.

Not all programs have this capability, and both sender and receiver -- and their servers -- must support this function for it to work properly.

If you find it does not work, request the recipient to acknowledge receipt.

Follow-up on any important messages that are not acknowledged.

6. As a matter of policy and courtesy as well as to avoid later misunderstandings, please acknowledge email messages you receive in my courses.

If you have a return receipt function activated, messages which requested such a receipt will be pre-formatted for you to dispatch or will be sent automatically.

You can manually acknowledge receipt simply by replying to the message BUT replace all but the first few lines of the message with the word <received> or <acknowledged> or <got it>. If the message transmitted an attachment as well, send back the one line attachment details so the sender knows that the attachment as well as the covering email made it.

Save capacity on the net while achieving the objective of letting each other know we are still in touch and messages are getting through.

7. Submit a separate message for each topic, even if you have three questions, each on one line or three words in length. Believe me, you will save all of us a lot of time.

8. Put the word end at the close of each message that does not have a closing, recognizable signature element from you. It is not unusual that email messages will be garbled or truncated and this helps the receiver confirm that s/he has the complete message.

9. Ensure your email account is functioning properly and that your email software allows you to make easy connections, send and receive email. Email is a back-up and supplemental mode only for our classes. Contact your Internet Service Provider in the first instance if your encounter problems with email..

10. Some students may have persistent problems sending/receiving email. Please try a second and third time to gain access, checking in between that all your settings are correct to the best of your knowledge. Space out your attempts to allow any congestion or malfunction at the UM server end or with your access or service provider to work itself out. Let me know by alternate means when you have persistent problems.

11. I suggest you use a standard email package to compose and send your email as text. I personally know that Eudora is good for a Mac and Pegasus is good on Windows/DOS platforms. Seek advice from your Internet Service Provider or one of the large number of books on the subject if you have problems at this stage.

You may of course use a web browser's email function to do the same. My only caution is that in the past, most of the problems with email occur with students using the email functions of Internet Explorer, Netscape, CompuServe and AOL.

For all of my courses, words in the body of the email message are best sent as text only. Use attachments for formatted text.

Many hours -- yes, hours -- are lost trying to sort out email problems related to web browser bells and whistles. Don't you be the source of the problem.

12. Send a two paragraph test message to yourself to confirm that the system is working. For messages your originate, keep the line length to 65 characters or fewer.

You need several lines of text to see how email formatting will change the way your message will look. Each line is commonly truncated to about 75 characters.

Reply and forwarding functions typically insert 1, 2 or more characters at the beginning of each received line of the original message. Several back and forth exchanges and line length approaches 75 characters.

Below is a 65 character line

12345678911234567892123456789312345678941234567895123456789612345

13. Continue to use capitals letters in the normal way. Do not capitalize entire messages under any circumstances. Capitalize phrases only with the understanding that it is the equivalent of shouting and when used continuously, it makes messages much more difficult to read. Use formatted text (styles, varied font faces, sizes, etc.) sparingly within email messages.

14. After your self-addressed message to test your end of the system, address your initial message to me at this address: Phil Richardson <par.uk@btinternet.com>. Later in the course, you will be mailing to one or more addresses. Again, make your initial message a test and request confirmation of receipt from the receiver (ask them to simply reply to the message with the word <received>). Also use your emailer's return receipt function. (See also discussion above.)

Use the TO: address line for all addressees whom you expect to respond directly to your message. These are your Action addressees.

Use the CC: address line for others who might be interested in what you have to say. You will not expect a response from these addressees, but you may get one.

Use the BCC: address line only if you do not want the To: addressees to know that anyone on this line (Blind Carbon Copy) is receiving the message. You should have no need to use the BCC: address line in this course.

15. Ensure the Subject line of the message is the same as prior messages on the same topic (i.e., continue the thread). When you Reply to a message, the program should automatically insert <RE: + prior subject> on the Subject line. This is what you want if the subject is the same. If you want to change the subject, you may still use the Reply function, but you must change the Subject line to a new subject that reflects message content.

16. When responding to another's email, repeat only enough of the prior message so that others who have been following the discussion can see the context of your comment. That is, it is RARELY necessary to repeat the entire message and you will aid communications if you direct the reader's attention to the most relevant part of the prior message. In particular, the entire header and signature element rarely need repeating.

a. When you use the Reply function, the entire message will be presented to you for editing with beginning of the line characters inserted to show quoted passages. You may choose your own editing technique, but make sure that the new readers can tell which part is your comment and which is the quote you are referring to.

Ex. 1:

In the passage below you will notice . . .

> ... and he was anxious to tell me what had happened.

> I then saw the supervisor coming down the aisle and the worker

>stopped talking. ...

Ex. 2:

---- (snip) -----

>Jerry mentioned yesterday that he had several examples of telecommuting

> that he wanted to share with us.

---- (snip) -----

Did you send Jerry's examples as an attachment? All attachments in my email from yesterday were garbled. Please let me know ahead of time and them retransmit. Thanks.

b. At the start of the body of each Reply, please show the originator's name, email address and date (time if appropriate) of the original message.

17. Keep a electronic copy of all submissions and responses.

18. With new correspondents, send text and graphics separately. Text can be sent in the body of an email message; where formatting is useful, send a formatted message an attachment. See my special email attachment instructions.

19. Include your complete Internet email address as the last line of your message or in the signature element added to your message for every message.

20. Most email programs have filters to automatically direct incoming email into a desired mailbox location. Those of you that have a filter facility and that get a largish number of email messages, I suggest you use filters.

If you set up a course mail box and have all messages From the class go directly there or to your personal mail box, it will not get mixed up with other messages you may be getting. You can filter on the From address of classmates and me, or on your own personal To: email address (to separate out numerous mailing list items that are delivered to list subscribers but without personal addresses in the To line.) You can also filter on the Subject line or any header.

(Please note that people interpret instructions differently and the presence or absence of spaces/letters affects filters directly. Thus you may want to adjust your filters after using them a while to redirect more or fewer messages automatically.)

I use my email filters in several ways. I have all mail personally addressed to me or with me as CC go to a mailbox named "personal". I check that every day. I have mail from various discussion groups which I monitor (like the Deming network and Millennium Project list) sent directly to selected mail boxes to wait for me to check it in due course.

If you get a lot of mail like I do, set up and use your email filters.

21. Another reminder:- keep your email message length under control, especially when you use the Reply function.

Copy back to the sender only those parts of the original message needed to make you point or clarify your comment.

Note: Some of you may want to improve on these protocols. Please feel free to suggest changes that will add clarity, completeness, better detail or examples to this procedure. If I agree, I will incorporate your ideas here.