Email Policy

Background

The email system provided by the School is to facilitate the work of its staff and to enhance communication both within and without the School. In making provision for such facilities, the School must be in compliance with relevant laws of Hong Kong. Any infringement of the law arising from misuse of the email facility may implicate its provider, the School.

The purpose of this policy is therefore, to ensure proper use of HKU SPACE email system and to make users aware of what the School deems as acceptable and unacceptable use of its email system. This policy also covers area of accessing other email systems by using the School's computing facilities. In addition to the School email policy, this document also includes a section on suggestions for good practice.

HKU SPACE reserves the right to amend this policy at its discretion. Amendments will be announced via the School's Staff Intranet for staff and via the Learner Portal for students.

Email Accounts

The email system and its associate facilities are the property of HKU SPACE, and their use is restricted to HKU SPACE employees. Use by outsiders without explicit authorization by the Senior Management of the School is strictly prohibited. You should not give your email account password to other people and should change it regularly, for example, once every three months.

Email accounts that have been inactive for three months without special arrangements will be disabled.

General Prohibitions

The School strictly prohibits the following acts:

Sending or forwarding emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene materials. If you receive any email of this nature, you should promptly notify your supervisor and the email system administrator at postmaster@hkuspace.hku.hk.
Including personal data in the content of email. All personal data, if needed to be sent, should be sent in a password protected attachment. The password should be sent out in a separate email, or even preferably by different means, such as by telephone call or Short Message Service (SMS).
Sending junk emails, or advertising emails in an unsolicited manner.
Forging or attempting to forge email messages.
Disguising or attempting to disguise your identity when sending email.
Copying or forwarding materials (explicit or implicit) in knowing violation of copyright law.
Sending an attachment known to contain, or has been infected by, computer viruses. If you have any doubts about incoming emails, contact the email system administrator at postmaster@hkuspace.hku.hk.
Sending emails to a group of recipients and disclosing their individual email addresses without the consent of the recipients.

Email Retention

All emails are retained on the Microsoft Exchange Online server in the first instance and kept for two years. Emails that are older than two years will be automatically transferred to the archive mailbox that can be accessed by using the standard email interfaces provided by the School.

Computer Virus Prevention

The email system scans the content of messages to prevent the spread of computer viruses such as worms, Trojan Horses, or other executable items that could pose a threat to the security of the systems and network. Infected emails will not be delivered to the user and will be analyzed by the email system administrators. System administrators are responsible for creating and maintaining the procedures for handling infected email messages consistent with this policy

Spam Email Prevention

The School employs protection mechanism against SPAM (unsolicited emails sent in bulk over the Internet) from entering the School's email system. It will subscribe to a SPAM identification system to block all suspicious emails of this kind. Colleagues may wish to reinstate any blocked emails from the software system on a timely basis. System administrators are responsible for creating and maintaining the procedures and guidelines for handling SPAM emails consistent with this policy.

Questions or Comments

If you have any questions or comments about this Email Policy, please contact the Head of ITS via the email system administrator postmaster@hkuspace.hku.hk.

Objections

Unless specific objections are formally raised, HKU SPACE presumes that you understand and are aware of the rules and guidelines in this Email Policy and will adhere to them. Contravention to the stated General Prohibitions (paragraph 3) may lead to disciplinary actions by the School.

Suggestion for Good Practice

HKU SPACE considers email as an important means of communication and recognizes the importance of proper email content and replies in conveying a professional image and delivering good service. Users should take the same care in drafting an email as they would for any other communication. Therefore the School also would wish to attention to the following suggestions for good practice for greater effectiveness and efficiency:

Do's

Make sure you have the correct email address.
Write well-structured, get-to-the-point emails, avoid SPAM keywords.
Use simple and straightforward style and language as far as possible.
Use informal style as far as possible.
Set up a signature with your name, job title, name of the School and the URL of its home page (https://hkuspace.hku.hk)
Always spell check your mails prior to transmission.
If you forward emails, state clearly what action you expect the recipient to take.
Only mark emails as important if they really are important.
For internal communication, send hyperlinks of documents, if available, instead of the document itself.
Provide hyperlinks from the School's home page instead of the relevant text whenever practicable.
Organize and archive the necessary email messages systematically in the sub-folders of the inbox and outbox.
Delete any email messages that you do not need to keep a copy to prevent clogging of your inbox.
Special consideration should be given as to whether it is necessary to send message to a large mailing group.
Use the non-disclosed recipient function when sending mass email to a group of students/externals to avoid disclosing individual email addresses.

Don'ts

Do not send unnecessary attachments.
Do not write emails in capitals [some consider it rude, i.e. flaming].
Do not use Cc: or Bcc: fields unless the Cc: or Bcc: recipient understands why you are copying a mail to him/her and what action, if any, to take.
Do not send attachment to a large mailing group, unless absolutely necessary and the file size of the attachment should be kept to a minimum.
Never send any confidential information via email.
Do not use reply all unless absolutely necessary