On Sun, 6 Aug 2000, stan wrote:

> Thanks Daniel and Trish for your interestings ideas regarding subscribing
> students to their respective Listserv lists. I had not considered just
> creating one list per course, but its certainly easy enough for me to
> implement. A couple of issues come to mind about that. How do you name
> each list?

This may not be something you have control of or input into at the
administration level.  Fortunately, all of our course names are unique and
never change, i.e., 4 character subject or department code (EDUC, MATH,
STATS, CHEM, PSYC, etc.) and all of them have 3 digit course numbers
assigned (EDUC203, MATH220, etc.) so we are in a position to create a
mailing list for each class and never delete it unless the dept. tells us
that the course will never be offered again. This is also how courses are
identified in the student database, on student registration forms and
listings in the course calendars.

> <....> We
> do not track instructors' email addresses so I cannot automatically assign
> ownership of each list to the appropriate instructor so I am thinking of
> assigning ownership of each of these lists to both the manager of our
> computer services help desk AND the general helpdesk email address.

I wanted to avoid this if at all possible so I didn't go that route,
though we certainly could have and I'm sure it would have worked just
fine. We had a policy in effect, even if it was a faculty member teaching
a class, that they were responsible for the day to day management of the
list. We just extended the policy and said "If you want a list, it belongs
to you or your dept. and we do not want or have the authority to change
list owners on your lists".  We encouraged depts with large numbers of
mailing lists to designate a class list co-ordinator who, when completing
the form for a new mailing list, would automatically have quiet list owner
status on the list.  When a faculty member in a new term says "I'm
teaching MATH 334, but I don't have access to MATH334-L", we refer them to
the class list co-ordinator in the Math & Stats Dept.

> What I would also like to do is set up a separate subdirectory under
> ~listserv/home for each semester, such as fall2000, summer1, spring2001,
> and so on and keep the list's and their archived postings in those directores
> so that I can easily archive and delete them at the end of each semester.

I ran into a similar problem because Listserv does not permit multiple
directories for the web archives so I couldn't keep the courses together
as I could the ones without archives.  However, I keep a single file that
lists the listnames of all class mailing lists and run a script to delete
all archives of those mailing lists.  I also have a web form so that the
instructor can do it as well, whenever they want.  Because instructors use
a web form to update/add their own students automatically, there was no
need to separate mailing lists into fall200, summer1, etc.  They use the
same list header as a previous instructor and alter it depending on how
they want to run their list when they teach the course.  When they add a
new set of students for a new Term, the old list of students is
automatically removed/deleted at that time.

> <...> I figure its easier (and cheaper on
> disk space) to just delete each semester's set of course related lists and
> create new ones starting a few days prior to the start of the comining
> semester. Does this sound reasonable?

If the deletion of lists and archives and the creation of new lists is
automated, it is reasonable. :-)  I would be doing the same thing if I had
assumed responsibility for changing list owners on course mailing lists.

I know I have made it sound like the concept of a "class mailing list
co-ordinator"  dumps most of the responsibility and work onto
faculty/depts leaving me and our helpdesk free to do other things.
However, from a customer service perspective, it has really turned out to
be a benefit for everyone: 1. class list co-ordinators (or course
administrators as some like to call themselves) actually like having the
control over their dept mailing lists (empowerment) and of course they
like the title, 2. It also puts the entire class mailing list process,
including any decisions, closer to the customer, i.e., in the individual
depts.  I'm confident that if I were to do what you are planning, I would
get a fight for control.  People grumble when you give them
responsibility, control and authority and they also grumble if you try to
take it away. ;-)

Sorry this is so long. I hope the information is of some use.

--Trish