Please carefully
consider the way you address issues on SECUSS-L. Remember the list is
public, archived and everything you say will be maintained for years to
come. As with your campuses, institutions, organizations, and even
ISP's there are appropriate use rules that you should consider in your use
of email, personal/professional interactions on SECUSS-L, etc. Although it
is difficult to predict what will appear or be said during conversations
or in the media it is clear one should seriously consider the implications
of what is said on SECUSS-L. CAREFULLY THINK ABOUT YOUR POSTINGS BEFORE
SENDING THEM.
SECUSS-L has over 3000 members as of May 2006 in over 44 countries
and in a range of professional affiliations. DO NOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS
ABOUT THE MEMBERSHIP OF THIS LIST. Therefore please read the
following carefully:
Do not use the SECUSS-L network for messages intended for an individual
receiver. It is not professionally appropriate to carry on detailed,
judgmental discussions about individual programs on a public network such as
SECUSS-L. In addition such discussions cannot be permitted for legal
reasons.
The primary purpose of
SECUSS-L is information-sharing and professional discourse among the
membership of SECUSSA. Advertising and program information is not permitted on
SECUSS-L TOPIC: DISCUSSIONS. This prohibition represents the
overwhelming consensus of current subscribers, as confirmed by a user survey
conducted in May, 1996, and approved by the SECUSSA Team during the Phoenix
NAFSA Conference.
Subscribers seeking to post or
receive announcements about established or new study, work, internship, etc.
programs, deadlines, significant changes in direction, location, structure,
and the like, should sign-on to the SECUSS-L TOPIC: PROGRAMS sub-list.
In this way all interested parties can give or seek further information about
programs. [See below for information on how to sign-on to this sub-list]
Stay on topic and use the
topics! Do not post messages that are not directly related to your work in
international education. Messages about dying boys, internet taxes,
computer viruses, etc., are not appropriate to professional listservs.
Be nice to one another. Bear
in mind that your posting will go to a very wide international audience,
representing many different languages and social, cultural, religious and
ethnic sentiments. Most list participants will know you only
by the words they see on their screens. What kind of impression do you want to
make? Be aware of your "tone". Email messages often come cross more bluntly
than their senders intend. Avoid sarcasm, which is even more easily
misunderstood.
Respect the time and other
resources of your colleagues. Remember that every time you send a posting to
you are -- in essence -- forcing thousands of your very busy colleagues to
download and spend perhaps 5-10 seconds of their time determining the initial
worth of your message to them. In practical (and conservative) terms, a single
message sent to the entire list in early 1997 came at a "cost" to
international education of at least 225 minutes/3.75 hours of corporate
time!
In addition, some of your colleagues -- especially those in other
countries -- are paying dearly for their Internet access. It is not unusual
for them to pay for every minute it takes them to download postings. In some
areas, they pay by the character for e-mail that is
downloaded (even if it is unread).
Never send anything by email
that you would not be willing to see published on the front page of your local
newspaper or in a professional journal. Remember that email is
not private or secure and can easily be copied or forwarded
to others - even after you have deleted it from your email account.
Remember that using ALL CAPS
is the Internet equivalent of YELLING! Mix cases as in standard English style.
Uppercase text should only be used occasionally, if needed for STRONG
EMPHASIS. More often than not, it is better to use the asterisk key to
*emphasize* key points.
OUT OF OFFICE REPLIES - these
cause serious clutter and strain on the system. Either set your email software
to not automatically reply to messages from SECUSS-L or reset your account to
NOMAIL in the settings and this will avoid your automated OUT OF OFFICE REPLY
from going to 3000 members every single time there is an email posted to
SECUSS-L. Alternatively you may want to reset your SECUSS-L settings to
DIGEST, this will allow you to get one email per day, however remember do not
set your email to automatically reply to messages from SECUSS-L with an OUT OF
OFFICE REPLY. The list managers reserve the right to modify your account
in the event you forget to reset your settings, this includes removing your
account from the list.
One good rule is to remember that
what you say in person or over the phone verbally is one thing, however often
similar discourse or expressions are often not proper within the written forms
of expression. Similarly what might be appropriate in one context in writing may
not be appropriate in other written contexts. For email responses especially in
a real time context or for issues which evoke an immediate response a useful
suggestion is for one to think about the response for 24hrs, then write the
response and again read it several hours later or even the next day. Responses
to surveys can be more accurate, responses to hot topic issues can be more
reflective and most importantly the writer has a chance to ensure that the
appropriate use rules are adhered to for whatever the context such remarks are
made for.
The SECUSS-L list managers acknowledge that there are many
differing professional and personal opinions about many subjects and
issues. However SECUSS-L is a moderated forum that adheres to some basic
rules of appropriate use and structure which does not include posting
opinions, statements on political issues, debates, comments or discussions on
issues that would be considered unethical, personal, defamatory, or outside
the boundaries of professional standards. Please consider the following
instead:
If you would like to talk to colleagues about a specific
opinion, practice, business dealing or any other hot topic issue you are
encouraged to post an announcement (under the appropriate topic) that you
would like to hear from or talk to anyone working with, doing business with,
interested in discussing a particular viewpoint, or who has a particular
interest in "such and such" and include your email address. All further
comments (again good or bad or otherwise) should be made off the SECUSS-L
listserv.
If you have a book review, opinion about a given
subject/program, business dealing, etc., your most appropriate
professional venue for such remarks, opinions and comments would be to post
those remarks to a web site other than SECUSS-L such as on your institution's
server or that of your Internet Service Provider and then send an email to the
list with a message such as FYI - I have posted some comments, summaries,
etc.. at "www.name.somewhere" regarding the following topic: XXXXX. Your
comments/remarks should be brief and directional without including
"statements" or similar remarks
Specifically if you have a business dealing with a
colleague, agency, institution, etc. that you are having problems with you
should NOT post your personal or even professional comments about such
dealings on the listserv - GOOD or BAD or OTHERWISE. If you have a problem
with a law, regulation, or policy by any given institution or organization
appropriate use rules would deem that your opinion be shared in an appropriate
forum, through NAFSA ethics committees, etc. and not on SECUSS-L.
Equally if you have a summary of remarks and feedback regarding any given
business or service (regardless of the nature of the feedback, positive,
negative, or otherwise) you should offer to share these with colleagues by
posting a message indicating that you will send a summary to anyone wishing a
copy. Alternatively you could post such a summary as noted above on a
web site
All subscribers should be advised that these guidelines
include as a violation of appropriate use the forwarding, replying to and/or
posting of messages from private conversations taking place off the listserv.
Said postings of remarks, opinions, etc. shared through personal conversations
are NOT to be forwarded to the list in any way unless those individuals have
expressed their written consent for such postings.
Replies to the list are not allowed and such should be
sent directly to those posting the message or topic of interest. For more
information go to: managing.htm#replies
For additional codes of ethics and professional standards
please check with the international education, registrar, admissions officer and
other professional organizations appropriate to your area of
specialization. Such codes and standards provide the basis for management
of SECUSS-L and its diverse membership. Additionally, be AWARE that SECUSS-L
policies continue to be based on the guidelines under which SECUSS-L was
originally established with limited updates and modifications.
The primary purpose of SECUSS-L is information-sharing and professional
discourse among the membership of SECUSSA. When a colleague or member of
SECUSS-L posts a request for information all the REPLIES should go the person or
individual requesting the information. Program providers, institutions and
others in the field should refrain from posting replies to the list that can be
construed as advertising or marketing.
AGAIN, advertising, marketing and program announcements are not
permitted on the SECUSS-L topic DISCUSSIONS (DISC:). This prohibition
represents the overwhelming consensus of current subscribers, as confirmed by a
user survey conducted in May, 1996, and approved by the SECUSSA Team during the
Phoenix NAFSA Conference. In regards to announcements of new professional
resource books, training opportunities and calls for journal articles, your
listserv managers and your SECUSS-L colleagues ask you to consider carefully
whether your post might be construed as "marketing"; in most cases, posts of
this type should be made to the PROGRAMS Topic.
Subscribers seeking information in specific program information, seeking
to post or receive announcements about established or new study/ work/internship
programs, extended application deadlines, significant changes in program
structure, and the like, should sign-on to the SECUSS-L TOPIC: PROGRAMS
sub-list. Such REQUESTS should be posted to SECUSS-L using the TOPIC
called PROGRAMS or PROG. Announcements of book reviews,
conferences, workshops, study abroad fairs and calls for papers may be
distributed over PROG: using the general format below. We ask that messages of
this kind not exceed one word-processed screen (60 lines)
In the
subject line, write:
PROG: (Event/Program name)
In the message area, write:
(Name of institution/organization) is pleased to
announce (name of event/program). [Brief description of program change, or
workshop particulars] If you would like to receive further information,
please contact (contact person) at (address or web-site).
How do we as list managers address these issues? What are the
standards of actions by the list managers behind the scenes? -- When we receive
a posting that is determined to be a breech of the appropriate use guidelines we
contact the list member directly. In our contact we advise the person who posted
the message of our determination that the posting crossed the threshold of
appropriate use and to take any further discussion off the list.
FIRST VIOLATION: The user is warned that further violations
can lead to several actions.
SECOND VIOLATION: For a second violation the user may be put
on a period of "review" whereby all emails from a given user are monitored
before being posted. Depending on the violation and if there are questions about
professional standards the notice could be taken to the professional leadership
colleagues
for further review.
THIRD VIOLATION: A third violation of the list protocols
could then subject the member to removal from the listserv for a given period of
time. Further violations could lead to permanent removal from the list.
SUBSEQUENT VIOLATIONS FOLLOWING RETURN TO THE LIST: The
list managers reserve the right to permanently suspend anyone who continues to
violate the appropriate use rules of SECUSS-L following warnings and previous
suspensions.
We do not discuss such actions publicly as there are privacy
as well as professional standards that must be followed. Additionally
depending on the nature of the violation we do reserve the right to immediately
restrict user access to the list following the first posting.
Again,
although many members of SECUSS-L are not members of NAFSA we would urge you all
to read the NAFSA code of professional ethics as many of us are members of this
organization. Furthermore many professional organizations have their own code of
ethics as well. This code of professional ethics provides a good background as
well for any professional discourse on the SECUSS-L listserv.
WEB AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS APPROPRIATE USE AND
COPYRIGHTS
Many of you are also members of institutions or even ISP's
with "Appropriate Use" rules for your email, web and technology systems. We
would urge you to review such rules. You may find that a posting of certain
types of messages could subject you to actions by your institutions, ISP's,
etc.
With respect to Copyright laws, please be aware that there
are many copyright rules associated with not only paper publications but also
with news and informational items posted on the web or through web access to
news and other publications.
As mentioned in the welcome message subscribers receive, one
of the suggested uses of SECUSS-L is : "Offering succinct summaries of new
articles, books, essays, and other writings on education abroad, perhaps with
comments for discussion. Please give full documentation. Respect 'fair
use' copyright laws. Please do not post whole articles." Posting of
entire articles to SECUSS-L clearly does NOT follow the appropriate use
rules.
Prior to posting any articles you should check the
copyright rules for the specific item you are reading. Posting a title,
date, author and a very brief summary plus a link to the article online would be
appropriate. If the site is password protected, one should note this so
colleagues can be ready to either use or create their own login or to look for a
hardcopy in print. For instance the following are the copyright notices
from the sources of some recent postings on SECUSS-L:
"Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company All
rights reserved. All materials contained on this site are protected by United
States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted,
displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of The
New York Times Company. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or
other notice from copies of the content. However, you may download material from
The New York Times on the Web (one machine readable copy and one print copy per
page) for your personal, noncommercial use only. For further information, see
Section Two of the Subscriber Agreement. To contact other Times departments, see
the Site Help area of our Member Center. "
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/copyright.html
NYT Copyright Notice "Educators may not sublicense the foregoing limited and
non-transferable rights. Except as specifically set forth above, the Content may
not be published, broadcast or reproduced without the prior written permission
of The New York Times Company.
Educators may not alter or remove any
trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the Content or otherwise
alter or modify the Content. Any reproduction of the Content is limited to the
number of students to whom the lesson is directed."
Be aware that although authors of articles may give you
permission to reprint or post their specific articles such permissions may also
be controlled in part or in whole by the PUBLISHER of the article, book,
newspaper, web site or other location in which the information appeared.
The author in fact may NOT have full permission to authorize unfettered
circulation of the document published. Check with the publishers as well
as the authors.
When making an authorized posting of such information note at
the beginning of the posting who authorized the posting, name of the affiliated
organization, date of the authorization and LIMITATIONS of further circulation
of said documents. For instance:
“XYZ LNAME author and/or WXY
ORGANIZATION on MM/DD/YEAR authorized the circulation of the following article
in its entirety. Please be aware that this is a limited approval to
circulate the information only to SECUSS-L and not for further circulation by
others. If you wish to further circulate this document please contact
XYZ/WXY directly.”
SECUSS-L DISCOURAGES THE POSTING OF LISTS, SUMMARIES AND
COMMENTARIES on SECUSS-L. Be aware that when posting commentaries,
summaries or creating lists for distribution to members you should clearly
identify any criteria you used to create the information and indicate any
endorsements. For instance include statements such as “There were no or
were XXXX criteria for selection of the information included in this
document. This is a list, summary or review, just like the IIE catalog,
studyabroad.com, or the phone book. For anyone who sees, gets, reads, passes on
the list: NO ENDORSEMENTS WERE/ARE IMPLIED or EXPLICITLY STATED.”
Also be aware that many professionals include confidentiality statements in
their emails as footer or in their signature files. Unless the sender has
specifically approved distribution of the comments or information shared the
receiving party should refrain from circulating said information.
COMPLAINTS, APOLOGIES, CONFIDENTIALITY AND THE
LIKE
Confidentiality
If you feel that a member has violated the SECUSS-L
appropriate use guidelines you are welcome to make a written complaint to the
list management. Such complaints should be made in a timely manner and
specify the exact nature of the concern and include a copy of the specific
posting, emails, etc. It is highly recommended that if you feel that you
have been inappropriately commented about that you take your complaints directly
to the sender of the posting as SECUSS-L takes no responsibility for the views,
opinions or comments made by those posting to the listserv. Be aware that
such review may take up to a week or longer depending on the time of year and
nature of the complaint.
The posting of apologies to SECUSS-L by those who may have
inappropriately commented or otherwise erred in their posting must be succinct,
professional and must refrain from further commentary.
The SECUSS-L management team reserves the right to refer
professional complaints to the sender of any posting and where appropriate to
appropriate professional organizations such as NAFSA, ACRAO, etc. professional ethics team for review. Although the
SECUSS-L will manage all actions as confidentially as possible we cannot
guarantee total confidentiality for all cases when actions are required.
With the exponential growth in free email accounts as well as
similar growth in ISP’s many members of SECUSS-L use email accounts that end
@yahoo.com, @hotmail.com, etc. Furthermore individuals may use account
identifiers such as “someone1234@someisp.com” therefore when when making remarks
to the list or in posting requests for information it would be most useful to
have your name, title and institutional affiliation signed in the text at the
bottom of the email. Please be careful NOT to attach "signature" cards or
to implement HTML code in formatting your email or signature as this may be
rejected by the listserv.
CLOSING REMARKS:
We understand there are on occasion very fine lines of
distinctions on many subjects and we are not interested in blocking discourse,
freedom of expression, etc.. however we also realize there are 3000 members on
this list around the world with as many different approaches to every topic as
there are members. The SECUSS-L membership has over the years expressed a desire
for a managed environment for professional discourse and exchange of information
under certain appropriate use guidelines which are agreed to when subscribing to
SECUSS-L.
Again be aware that violation of the SECUSS-L appropriate use
guidelines can lead to warnings and suspensions from SECUSS-L
If you wish to contact only the list owner(s) for a
specific request, send your email to:
