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New Electronic Communications with Students policy

July 12, 2013 — 

Every year at the U of M, students miss emails with crucial information from the university, their instructors, faculties, and other service offices. A related concern is that the university must protect student privacy. In order to improve in both of these areas, the university is implementing a new policy on September 1, 2013 — the Electronic Communications with Students Policy.

This policy will provide consistency, limit risk, and help to ensure that students use their U of M email account, so that your important messages are received. The full support of the entire university community is anticipated, and is needed to encourage student compliance. As it affects all instructional and support staff who communicate with students via email, as well as administrative heads responsible for policy compliance, it is important to know what this policy means for you!

The Electronic Communications with Students Policy states that all university communications must be sent to a student’s U of M email account — no other email address can be used to communicate with a student about official university business.  In most cases, this will require a change to current practices, including internal systems used to contact students and store their contact information.  The Registrar’s Office has begun this process by requesting changes from IST that will ensure JUMP, D2L, Aurora Class Lists, and Aurora Self Service reports are compliant with the policy and do not include personal email addresses.

Supporting this change is a move to a new email service for students called “myumanitoba.” You will begin to see the new student email address extension “@myumanitoba.ca” in class lists throughout the 2013-2014 Academic Year.  Helping to ensure students use their U of M email accounts, myumanitoba features increased storage capacity and is more user- and mobile-friendly than the current system.

Answers to frequently asked questions, including suggestions for how to change your own processes to accommodate the new policy and deal with non-compliant students, will soon be available on the Registrar’s Office Staff and Faculty Resources website.

You may send any questions you have which are not answered by the FAQ (coming soon) to my attention; the FAQ page on our website will be updated continually.

 

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