Mailing lists are usually used to send a single message to a group of people, for example staff lists for research groups or division and student lists for courses. There are several different ways to do this, and the UIS have a good page explaining the different sorts: Email groups and lists

The department makes use of the Sympa mailing list system run by UIS. For lists run by the Engineering Department using this system we always provide an additional address within @eng.cam.ac.uk which points to the lists.cam.ac.uk address – for example eng-admin-all@lists.cam.ac.uk can also be reached using admin-all@eng.cam.ac.uk.

Using Mailing Lists

If you wish to contact a group of people and are not sure if they have a mailing list please contact the group or divisional administrator or the IT Helpdesk for advice.

• Sending messages to lists – You should only send relevant material to a mailing list – see Bulk Email Guidelines
• Subscribing and unsubscribing from lists
• Running Mailing Lists

Applying for new lists

If you would like to set up a mailing list for use in the Engineering Department, then please contact postmaster-query to discuss your requirements. Please do not contact UIS directly. There are various bits of information we require in order to set it up so it would be helpful if you can provide the following:

• The Address you would like for your list. eg: group-staff@eng.cam.ac.uk
• A Brief Description of the purpose of the list.
• A list of Managers who will run the list on a day to day basis.
• An optional list of Moderators who can approve messages.
• An idea of who should be able to send messages to the list (its Security Status, see below)
• The Visibility of the list (whether the list membership is concealed).

The initial security status of lists can be:

• Open: Anyone can post
• Opencam: People with cam.ac.uk email addresses can post
• Private: Only list members, managers and moderators can post
• Restricted: list managers and moderators can post
• Secure: All posts require moderation

Additionally Open and OpenCam lists can have optional spam filtering enabled to reduce the amount of junk mail received by the list.

Once a name has been agreed we will then apply to UIS for the mailing list(s) on your behalf and make any initial adjustments to the list configuration. We will also set up the additional Engineering addresses to allow the list to be accessed via both group-example@eng.cam.ac.uk and eng-group-example@lists.cam.ac.uk.  Once your list is ready we will let you know.

Further Information

If you require any further information on mailing list set-up or use, please contact the IT Helpdesk.