Posted October 31, 2016 by Academic and Institutional Technology
Tags:
Upgrades
New Notification Policy Implemented to Improve Communication
For the past several years, students and employees alike have reported a recurring problem: too many emails.
Students, faculty and staff received emails for campus lectures and events, several reminders for each lecture or event, multiple announcements each month from the same department, corrections for errors in previous emails, reminders about deadlines, activities, and fundraisers, and much more.
This volume of email made it difficult for members of the College community to read everything they were sent, much less keep track of the information that applied to them.
Chief Information Officer Wendy Woodward explained, "The technology governance committees brought up how swamped people, and especially students, were by the amount of email they received. It created a real problem where people would miss important information because they lost it in the middle of everything."
The Internal Digital Notification Policy addresses this issue by providing guidelines for email communication along with alternate methods for disseminating information. These methods include bulk email to all students, faculty, and staff for critical or time-sensitive information, department newsletters for consolidated announcements and information, digital signage, Wheaton Portal announcements, and the biweekly Wheaton Announcements email.
"The policy is designed to help encourage departments and student groups to think more carefully about why, how, and to whom they send their notifications," said Woodward. "When people think critically about these how they communicate, our community members can trust that the information they receive is correct and relevant to them."
During the 2016-2017 academic year, AIT will work to implement subscription and participation based communication methods, including email subscription lists and Schoology groups.
These methods allow departments to more accurately gauge interest in resources and events and allow recipients more control over the information they receive. Users will be able to subscribe to mailing lists and join groups relevant to their interests. At this stage, these projects are in their testing and pilot phases.
AIT will continue to update the College community during the process to improve communication across campus.
If you have any questions, please email us at ait.service.desk@wheaton.edu or call 630.752.4357 (HELP).