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Media Centre

Official Email

The Internal Communications Strategy aims to reduce the volume of Offiicial Email currently being sent. This is to ensure that the impact of business-critical messages that are sent via Official Email is not diluted.

What are the changes to the Official Email policy?

The existing policy has been updated to reflect the improvements to internal communications at Swinburne. You can access the updated Official Email policy online at the Policies and Procedures Directory, under Information Support Services.

The policy outlines criteria for Official Email - we encourage staff to run your message by the Media and Communications Unit (MCU), to see if it complies with the policy. If your message does not meet the criteria, we will suggest other ways you can get your message out to staff within the university.

How to submit an Official Email message

  • Requests for Official Email should be submitted according to the current procedure outlined in the Official Email Policy.
  • Please also refer to the policy for guidelines on appropriate and relevant content.

Guidelines to writing Official Email messages

  • Keep your message clear and concise. Web users tend to scan the email for relevant keywords - a message that is overly wordy and lengthy is likely to lose the reader's interest. A limit of 250 words is generally a good rule.
  • Always include a link to your website, if available, where readers can visit to obtain further information. This will direct readers straight to the source of information, and avoid the doubling-up of information.
  • Avoid the use of informal language and exclamation marks. As Official Email messages are disseminated to the entire University, it is essential that they maintain a professional tone.

Targeted email groups / bulk email lists

If your email is relevant only to a particular group or cohort within the university, email groups or bulk email lists can be used to communicate your message, in place of Official Email.

You could set up a targeted email group using Groupwise, or use one of the bulk email lists that ITS have already been set up on Groupwise:

How to create your own email group

How to access existing bulk email lists

  • Go to Swinburne's Email List Manager
  • To view the lists just enter your email address (eg. jsmith@swin.edu.au), then select "Browse All lists".
  • If you know the name of an existing list (e.g. h_staff is the Hawthorn campus staff list), you can just select the "Find" button and type in the list name. Press GO to search.
  • If you have selected to view All lists - scroll down the page to find the list you want. Tick the box of the list you want to view and click Apply. You will need to request approval to view the names on the list. Once that is done you will receive an email saying that your request has been sent to the owner of the list for approval.
  • If you want to send an email to all the people on that list - just type the name of the list into the To: field of a new email message e.g. h_staff@swin.edu.au