We have all suffered trying to find a correct distribution list: our mail system has had many lists that are
- dead
- not maintained / outdated
- confusingly and inconsistently named (differently between Ethiopia and Kenya e.g.)
To rectify this, hopefully permanently, ICT Services in collaboration with People & Organizatonal Development have undertaken a review of all distribution lists. Details of some planned changes follow.
From Now On
- P&OD will be responsible for official lists (names and relationships of organizational units, and the affiliation and categories of individual staff)
- Control of unofficial lists will be delegated to their owners and, eventually, to individuals
ICT Services will make changes to official lists only upon authorization by P&OD. We anticipate that official list memberships will be managed automatically in future by means of synchronization with OCS. We plan to enable opt-in/opt-out lists by means of a web page. This will make it possible for individuals to manage for themselves which non-organizational lists they wish to be members of, dispensing with the need to have a list manager.
The Following Conventions Will Apply
- All lists will start with the word ILRI, unless they span multiple organizations or are for hosted institutions.
- Lists will be created with the entire institute in mind.
- There will be lists for all organizational units and they will be hierarchically aggregated as needed (e.g, lists will contain lists where appropriate).
- The non-hierarchical and ISO standard term Organizational Unit (abbreviation OU) will be used instead of various alternatives. (Example of use: ILRI OU Heads; ILRI Corporate Services OU Heads).
- For all the departments under Corporate Services directorate: there will be sub lists for ILRI Kenya and ILRI Ethiopia both of which will be members of the main list for the unit.
- For ease of identification and understanding, the main lists for organizational units will end with the word Unit.
- Distribution lists for teams within organizational units, g., ILRI ICT Infrastructure, will end with a common word, e.g. Team.
- Lists will make use of an understandable suffix to facilitate identification of recipients. Suffixes will include, project, committee, unit, directorate etc.
As a first step toward the implementation of these conventions, several lists will be renamed with effect from 1st of March, 2015. In addition, several new lists have been created and several marked for deletion.
Kindly find the details of the changes by clicking on the link below. If you are using any of the lists marked for deletion, kindly inform the ICT helpdesk by 27 February, 2015.