E-mail Policy

Expectations for use of Connections portal and University provided email accounts for official University communications

Effective: November 15, 2005  •  Last updated: November 15, 2005

Purpose and General Policy

The University must be able to communicate quickly and efficiently with employees and enrolled students in order to conduct official University business. Email is one available and appropriate medium for such communication, as are the various announcement channels (Campus Announcements and Personal Announcements) in the Connections portal.

The University will send official communications to employees and students by email to an account assigned by the University with the expectation that such emails will be read by the recipient in a timely fashion.

In addition, the University may post official announcements (see above) and communications in the Connections portal, again with the full expectation that such announcements will be read by the recipient in a timely fashion.

Assignment of Connections ID's and University E-mail Accounts

Beginning Fall Term 2005, all students and employees will automatically be assigned a Connections-ID that will permit access to the Connections portal as well as other University systems and services. They will also be assigned an email account in the webster.edu domain. This email account will be designated as their official "Webster email account."

The Webster email account name and Connections-ID is generated by the Information Technology department and may not be changed absent extenuating circumstances and University approval. There will not be any alternate or preferred email accounts. All University communications to employees and staff that are sent by email will be sent to the Webster email account.

Expectations and Responsibilities

Employees and students are expected to review messages received through their Webster Connections portal announcements (see above) as well as through their Webster email account on a frequent and consistent basis.

Webster faculty and staff generating official communications to students or other employees should use Connections announcements and/or Webster email accounts for all University-related email communications.

Employees and students may access their Webster email accounts however they prefer, either by using the Connections portal web-mail interface or by using a desktop email package (such as Outlook, Netscape, Apple Mail, etc.). Individuals may also choose to use the Connections portal web-mail interface to manage external email accounts.

Employees and students are expected to also regularly access the Connections portal in order to receive and review announcements that have been posted there, whether they retrieve their email from within the portal or from their desktop.

Forwarding of E-mail

Students and Adjunct Faculty may forward their Webster email account to ANY valid email address. 

Staff and Full Time Faculty may NOT forward their email to a non-Webster account. Staff and Full Time Faculty may forward their Webster email account to an account they have on another Webster email server (example: someone in Leiden may forward their @webster.edu email account to their @webster.nl account).

Instructional Use of Webster E-mail Accounts

Faculty should use the official Webster email account for any email communication with students.

Faculty and other instructional staff should also clearly explain this expectation to their students, and help communicate this policy to them.

Faculty and staff are also encouraged to use additional communication methods that are available via the University course management tools, WebCT and/or Connections Course Tools.