Use of Email for Official and Mass Communications

Unless otherwise prohibited by law, the University of Oregon (University or UO) may send official University communications to employees and students by e-mail to an account provisioned by the University with the full expectation that such e-mails will be read by the recipient in a timely fashion.

1. Assignment of E-mail Accounts

All UO students and employees are provisioned an account in the uoregon.edu domain, which is designated as their “UO e-mail account.” The UO e-mail may not be changed absent University approval. University communications that are sent by e-mail will be sent to UO e-mail accounts.

2. Responsibilities

Employees and students are expected to review messages received through their UO e-mail account on a frequent and consistent basis. Individuals must ensure that there is sufficient space in their accounts to allow for e-mail to be delivered. Communications may be time-critical. Individuals should use UO e-mail accounts for all University-related e-mail communications.

3. Use of Mass E-Mail

University mass e-mail is an e-mail message sent to any large campus audience (e.g. all students, all undergraduate students, all faculty, all staff, etc.). In this policy, mass e-mail does not include messages sent within a unit, department, school, college or similar subset of the university population. All mass e-mails shall follow the UO’s mass e-mail guidelines and procedures and be consistent with any applicable state and federal laws.

Mass e-mail is restricted to information that (i) pertains to the majority of the recipients, (ii) is critical or time sensitive, and (iii) meets one or more of the following standards:

• Alerts the campus community to situations about health and safety risks, as defined in the UO Crisis and Emergency Notification procedures;
• Provides information essential to the operation or execution of business;
• Notifies the campus community about changes in university governance, policy, and practice; or
• Communicates important information from the president, provost, or other member of university senior leadership as defined in the mass email guidelines and procedures.

4. Forwarding of E-mail

Individuals who choose to forward e-mail received on a UO e-mail account to a different e-mail address do so at their own risk. The University is not responsible for e-mail, including attachments, forwarded to any e-mail address.

5. Instructional Use of UO E-Mail Accounts

Faculty should use UO e-mail accounts for e-mail communication with students. The University’s course management system requires that faculty and students use their UO e-mail account to gain access to the system.

6. Departmental Servers

E-mail accounts with addresses such as hr.uoregon.edu or law.uoregon.edu do not qualify as a UO e-mail account for purposes of this policy. Employees and students who prefer to use such accounts must forward e-mail to them. Such accounts are subject to Section IV above.

7. Accessibility

E-mail sent by the University must use best practices for being accessible to message recipients. When creating an HTML mass e-mail message, senders must follow University guidelines and procedures.