E-lists at Cornell

Creating an E-list

Any member of the Cornell community -- whether faculty, staff, alumnus, or student -- may establish an e-list, as long as it supports instruction, research, administration, or other recognized university activities. There is no charge for creating a CIT-hosted e-list or using the CIT list service. (Some units also host lists locally. Contact your local technical support provider.)

Each list must have one "Primary Owner" who bears ultimate responsibility for all aspects of the operation of the list. The primary owner may arrange to share or delegate list owner duties to additional list administrators.

1. Meet the Criteria for E-list Creation

CIT restricts the creation of new e-lists to the following groups and purposes:

• Cornell work-related activity, such as class instruction, research, and administration
• Student clubs and organizations registered with the Student Activities office
• Alumni groups, for activities related to Cornell alumni affairs
• Other Cornell-related requests not matching these categories will be considered.

Any student-requested list requires the approval of a Cornell faculty or staff member.

List owners must have a legitimate Cornell NetID. (Tell me more about "legitimate Cornell NetID.")

2. Decide on E-list Configuration Options

You will need this information to fill out the online form Creating a New List. You may wish to make a note of your choices on paper to keep a record of them.

• Submitting false information will be viewed as a violation of the Campus Code of Conduct and referred to the Office of the Judicial Administrator.

Name of E-list (must end in -L):

Your list name can be up to 32 characters long and must end in -L (a hyphen and the letter L). It should contain only letters, numbers, hyphens (-), and underscores (_), with no spaces. It does not matter whether you use uppercase or lowercase letters (that is, CIT-ALERT-L is the same as cit-alert-L). Good list names are short but meaningful (for example, discussion-L is too vague and would be rejected; discussion-of-goats-at-Cornell-L is too cumbersome). Choose the name carefully, because changing to a new list name is difficult and confusing for members. Remember that other groups on campus may have similar lists, so consider including identifiers meaningful to others, like LAW-staff-L or ILR-staff-L.

On these web pages we follow the convention of always using an uppercase "L" at the end of the e-list name. This is simply for clarity; a lowercase "l" can be mistaken for the numeral one ( 1 ), the letter I, or a vertical line ( | ). In communicating with your members, you should probably follow this convention as well.

Purpose of list:

Your proposed list must support one of the following areas:

• Academic instruction
• Academic research
• Academic department
• Administrative department
• Professional
• Student organization
• Alumni
• Other

If you choose "Other," you will need to explain the list's purpose. These will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

If your group is included in the Academic and Administrative Listings in the Cornell Telephone Directory, please do not choose "Other." Instead, use the appropriate Academic or Administrative purpose.

One note of clarification: E-lists are a convenient and, usually, quick method of communicating with a group, but if you require a guaranteed "right away" delivery, you should not rely solely on lists. As with all e-mail, delivery occasionally can be delayed.

List Administration

• Name of primary list owner:

  The Primary List Owner has ultimate responsibility for the list. He or she serves as contact point for issues and problems related to the list, both technical and content.

• NetID of primary list owner:

  List owners must have an active Cornell NetID.

• E-mail address of primary owner:

  This should be the e-mail address from which you will be sending messages to the list or commands to Lyris. Lyris uses this address (and your password) to verify that you are the list owner.

• Status of primary owner:

  Faculty, staff, student, or alumnus.

  If the primary owner is a student or an alumnus, you will need to provide the name, NetID, and e-mail address of a list advisor. For students, the advisor must be faculty or a staff member, preferably associated with the organization the list supports. For alumni, the "advisor" must be a staff member of the Alumni Affairs Office.

  If the primary owner is staff or faculty, an advisor is not needed.

• Unit/Department/Organization this list supports or is sponsored by:

  If the sponsoring department or organization is listed in the departmental or student organization directory or is registered with Cornell Alumni Affairs, you'll enter that name in the online form. Otherwise, you'll enter none. We strongly recommend that you identify a department or organization.

• E-mail addresses of secondary owners (if any):

  Secondary owners are optional; you do not need to designate one for your list unless you want to. Secondary owners have full administrative rights to the list, but cannot have the list shut down.

List Characteristics

• Brief Comment (3 or 4 words):

  This comment is displayed on various reports that may be available to subscribers or the public. It should be brief, only three or four words, and should contain only letters, numbers, hyphens (-), underscores (_), and spaces. It does not need to have the words "e-list" or "mailing list" in it because the comment will only appear this context.

• Who may become a member:
  
  

  Open:

  Anyone can join by sending Lyris the appropriate command. Best for public discussion lists.

  Private:

  Lyris will send all requests to join to the list's administrators, for approval or rejection. Best for a list where members must meet some criteria, such as being enrolled in a particular class.

  Closed:

  The list's administrators must add members manually; any other attempt to join will be rejected. Best for small, private lists, such as administrative lists for departments.
  
  

• Who may post:
  
  

  Restricted:

  The list will accept postings only from members and list administrators. This option is recommended to help prevent unwanted postings to your list.

  Announcement:

  The list will accept postings only from the list administrators, and no one else. Use this option when the purpose of the list is to post periodic announcements rather than to serve as a vehicle for interaction.

  Open:

  Anyone with an e-mail address, even non-members, can post a message by sending it to the list address. This option is generally not recommended, since your list can become a target of unwanted postings such as spam.
  
  

• Posting Moderation:
  
  

  No:

  All postings will be distributed, without changes, directly to the list.

   

  Yes:

  Administrators will have the opportunity to review each message. They then either approve or reject it. If approved, the message will be posted to the list. Best for controlling lists on a narrow range of topics, or where the list owner wants to keep the "noise" level down to a minimum. If rejected, the message will not be distributed to the list. Administrators have the option of providing feedback on why a message was rejected.
  
  

• Where replies go:
  
  

  Sender:

  When a reader replies to a post, the reply will be addressed to the original sender, not the list. This option helps prevent personal responses from going to the whole list, and is recommended particularly for large lists to avoid mistakes and distribution of unwanted mail. Lists used primarily for announcements should also have this option set. However, a subscriber who wants to reply to the entire list can change the "To:" field in his or her e-mail program while composing the reply.

  List:

  When a member replies to a post, the reply will be addressed to the list, not the original sender. This option is best for discussion lists, especially small, informal lists. (However, a member who wants to reply to an individual sender can change the "To:" field in his or her e-mail program while composing the reply.)
  

  These options are not foolproof; many e-mail programs (including Eudora) can be set up to override them by following a user's preference. Users can also manually re-direct their replies. Remind your members to check the "To:" field when replying to a mailing list message.

• Make archives publicly available?

  Lyris keeps archives of your list messages. If you wish to make them publicly available, answer Yes. The CIT e-list adminstrative team will contact you for further information.

3. Fill Out and Submit the Online Request Form

Now that you've made your choices, you need to fill out and submit an online form requesting your new e-list.

1. Follow this link to Creating a New E-list.
2. Fill out the form using the options you chose above.
3. Submit the form by clicking the Submit button.

   A copy of the form will be sent to the Cornell e-list administrative team; they will respond to your request within two business days. (The beginning of each academic term is always very busy, so the response may be slower then.)

4. Set Your Administrative Password

When your list is ready, you'll get an e-mail message (at the address you used when you requested the list). You'll need to pick a time when you'll be at your computer for the next 20 minutes or so to set your password. Here's the short version of what you need to do then (the e-mail message will have all the details):

1. The message you get telling you that your list is ready will include a link to a web site where you'll enter the e-mail address you specified when you requested the creation of your list.
2. Lyris will send a message to that e-mail address with a link to the "reset password" page. (Depending on the time of day and the amount of traffic the list server is handling, that message may be sent within seconds; it will almost always arrive within 10 minutes.) For security reasons, that link will only be valid for one hour. (This is why we said you need to stay at your computer; if you don't get to the reset page in time, start over at step A.)
3. You'll click on the link (or cut and paste it into your browser) to go to the reset password page.
4. On the reset password page you'll type in your new password. And you're done.
   

5. Announce Your E-list

After all the steps above have been completed, you should encourage people to join your new list. Announce its creation to those who might be interested in it, and give brief instructions on how to join. (See Helping Your Members for sample text.)

List administrators should not add anyone to the list who has not asked to be a member; it is bad manners to add people to a list unless they have requested that you do so.

6. Maintain Your E-list

Refer to the web page Managing E-lists at Cornell for an explanation of your responsibilities as a list owner, and the commands you can use to manage your list.

Steps in the Process:

Meet the Criteria for E-list Creation

Decide on E-list Configuration Options

Fill Out and Submit the Online Request Form

Set Your Administrative Password

Announce Your List

Maintain Your List