Overview
As part of its educational mission, York College of Pennsylvania maintains a system for distributing announcements to students, faculty, administration, and staff. The announcement system is meant to provide clear, effective, and timely communications to the York College community.
Purpose
This policy is designed to outline the various responsibilities that announcers have in creating and managing announcements. In addition, this policy defines LTS Department’s role in managing the announcement system.
Scope
This policy applies to all announcements created in the York College of Pennsylvania announcement system and all persons designated as announcers in the system.
Designation of Announcers
The designation of announcers is determined by the senior administration of York College. If an employee needs announcer privileges, the employee must contact his/her senior administrator. The request must then be submitted to the requester’s senior administrator then to the Dean of Administrative Services. Upon approval the announcement system administrator will add the requester to the system.
Individuals who have been designated as announcers for their respective areas are to only post announcements in regard to business for those areas.
Announcer privileges are restricted to employees of the college. Students will not be granted announcer privileges.
Posting Announcements
Announcements are to be restricted to official notices of departments, divisions, and the college. Topics may include, but are not limited to; technology services issues, college events, or notifications. Announcers should attempt to select the most appropriate target audience for announcements and are encouraged to limit the use of the send e-mail option.
The college offers three announcement categories (Priority, LTS Alerts, and Campus Announcements).
Priority Announcements:
Priority announcements are reserved for announcements that pertain to the entire York College community. Priority announcements are also visible to employees and students (6th grade and above) of York Country Day School.
Examples of priority announcement topics include parking issues, road closures, power outages, emergency notifications, full information system issues, etc.
LTS Alerts:
This announcement category is reserved for special instances where the campus or a large group of the York College community is impacted by an issue concerning the Library Technology Services infrastructure or applications. Although this category is reserved for employees in the Library Technology Services Department issues may be reported to the Library Technology Services Help Desk by anyone.
Campus Announcements:
Use for non-emergency notices and for limited audiences.
Notifications with limited scope should be posted as campus announcements.
Note that the ‘Entire Campus’ target option will make the announcement viewable to the entire York College community. Announcements that are given the target of “Entire Campus” are visible to employees and students (6th grade and above) of York Country Day School.
Pinning Announcements:
If an announcement is pinned it will stay at the top of the announcement list. An announcement will be pinned at the sole discretion of the announcement system administrator based on, but not limited to, the general criteria listed below. A request to pin an announcement may be made during the composition of the announcement by checking the “Request that this announcement be pinned” check box or by contacting the LTS Help Desk.
Criteria for Pinning an Announcement:
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The announcement has an immediate impact on academic or financial areas for students
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The announcement is of a time sensitive nature with an academic or financial deadline
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The announcement does not warrant being a priority announcement but has aspects of a priority announcement and must be given priority over other campus announcements
Sending E-Mail
The announcement system allows announcers the option of sending e-mail to announcement recipients. The system will automatically match the announcer with their respective department and apply the department alias as the “from” address in the e-mail.
The announcement system also allows for a "No Reply" option. If approved and requested by a department director, academic department chair, or a senior administrator, a department may opt to not receive any email replies. The announcement email will be sent with a special no reply email address and an appended message notifying the recipient not to reply. Any replies will be deleted from the email system and a "bounce back" message will be generated. It is important to note that replies will not be monitored by the Library Technology Services Department so all replies will be lost. Requests to apply the "no reply" option may only be submitted by the department director, academic department chair, or a senior administrator.
E-Mail Options
The announcement system allows announcers the option of sending announcements via e-mail. The system also allows individuals an opt-out option from e-mail announcements. Senior administration and a few certain offices have the ability to override the individual e-mail opt-out. If an announcer needs an announcement to be sent with the e-mail override and does not have the override option, then the announcer must contact the senior administrator of his/her respective division.
Enforcement
Users who violate this policy may be denied access to the College announcements system and may be subject to other penalties and disciplinary action, including possible expulsion or dismissal. Alleged violations will be handled through the college disciplinary procedures applicable to the user. The College may suspend, block or restrict access to an account, independent of such procedures, when it reasonably appears necessary to do so in order to protect the integrity, security, or functionality of the College or other computing resources or to protect the College from liability. The College may also refer suspected violations of applicable law to appropriate law enforcement agencies.
Revised 5/31/12