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Re: Important update: Maillist changes in effect by February 1, 2024



As a thought: maybe one can collect, on this thread, examples like Nancy's. Then forward the entire thread to the VPR, VPA, CIO and others. As Oliver points out, this policy will make SFU look silly, at least to those of us who manage maillists.

At the very least the impact of this policy should be recorded.

Best
Nilima

 Nilima Nigam
Professor
Dept. of Mathematics
Simon Fraser University



On Tue, Jan 16, 2024 at 5:14 PM Mark Fettes <mtfettes@sfu.ca> wrote:
Hi Oliver,

as the director of the SFU Centre for Imagination in Research, Culture, and Education, I can confrim that this is a major pain in the ass. We have long used mail lists as one of our basic communication tools for (a) colleagues from other universities whose work aligns with ours, (b) SFU alumni in the education system here in BC and elsewhere, (c) a variety of non-academic collaborators around the globe. We are going to have to essentially recreate these lists in another application.

It does seem to me that in this case the technological agenda of greater security, spam control, etc is overriding the academic and community engagement agenda of easy low-cost communication with diverse audiences.

Mark



Dr. Mark Fettes
Associate Professor
Faculty of Education
Simon Fraser University
mtfettes@sfu.ca

Gratefully living and working on unceded Coast Salish territory, including the lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and Skwxwú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) peoples.



On Jan 16, 2024, at 11:59 AM, Oliver Schulte <oschulte@cs.sfu.ca> wrote:

Hi all, 

I wonder if anyone else is concerned about the upcoming removal of external recipients from our mailing lists. (Feb 1 this year, details below). Mail lists allow SFU faculty, departments, and other users to reach many users, including external users, both at SFU and outside SFU. 

While SFU ITS wants to stop us from using maillists with external recipients, UBC supports this service. 

Users (internal or external to UBC) are able to manage their own subscriptions through the web dashboard....All active Staff and Faculty can sponsor the creation of new mailing lists with the use of a FASmail account

I believe it is important that SFU match the email services that UBC offers to its users. What a UBC user can do with email, an SFU user should be able to do also. 

UBC is not the only peer institution that offers maillists with external recipients. You also have this capability if you work at UVic, U of Toronto, and the U of Alberta. In fact I would expect that SFU is the only Canadian university that does not want to offer its users this basic functionality (but I have not checked every other university). 

Nor are outgoing maillists the only email service SFU ITS wants to take away.

As I see it, SFU faculty have done well in competing in teaching and research on a national level. This will be made more difficult if we have worse IT support for basic communication and productivity functions.

Regards,

Oliver


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: IT Services <itsinfo@sfu.ca>
Date: Tue, Jan 2, 2024 at 10:02 AM
Subject: Important update: Maillist changes in effect by February 1, 2024
To: its-external-maillist-managers@sfu.ca <its-external-maillist-managers@sfu.ca>


SFU Maillist users, 

 

In the new year, SFU will be activating strict email protocols to comply with new industry-wide email regulations set by external email providers. 

 

In February 2024, Google and Yahoo! will introduce changes to help combat spam and phishing attacks. It is expected many other email providers will make similar changes to their email practices and large organizations like SFU will need to make changes to comply with these new regulations. These necessary updates to our email protocols will ensure that SFU emails continue to be received by other email services. 

 

The change: SFU Maillists will be restricted to sending to SFU email addresses only. Starting February 1, 2024, non-SFU email accounts will not receive emails from SFU Maillists. 

 

The impact: Maillist owners and managers are encouraged to update their lists. A separate message will be sent by the beginning of the year listing each of your maillists that contains at least one non-SFU address. 

 

Updating lists: Log in to the SFU Maillist application (https://maillist.sfu.ca). Select a list you own or manage and view the “Maillist members” tab. For any address in the list that does not end with “sfu.ca”, either uncheck the “Deliver To User” checkbox or click the trashcan icon to delete the entry altogether. Click “Save Changes” when you have unselected or deleted all external members. You can check and update your lists anytime to address necessary changes.  
 
Note: If you wish to keep a copy of the membership before making changes, use the “Download addresses to file” button to save a copy of the email addresses to a file on your computer.  

 

Support:Please submit a ticket toIT ServiceHubif you need help or support with this change.  

 

Thank you, 

 

SFU IT Services