The listserve is an incredibly powerful tool for communicating at UVa. Need to update your CIO members about something new happening at UVA? Want to give visitors to your group’s website an easy way to get in touch with you or your Exec Board? The uses and benefits of using a listserve as opposed to long email chains are almost endless.
On June 2, 2010 ITC did one thing to make listserves even easier to manage than ever before: they switched over to using SYMPA. SYMPA allows you to create new lists, manage members and content on lists you “own,” and even view all of the lists you currently subscribe to. However, this does not mean that SYMPA does not have its own learning curve! Below I have included a few tips and how-to’s on the basics of using SYMPA from my own personal experience.
The Home Page
Visit lists.virginia.edu/sympa to get started and visit your SYMPA home page. You’ll notice that the simplest difference between SYMPA and past platforms is that SYMPA allows you to log-in with your NetBadge you use for Collab & Virginia Google Mail.
On the left-hand side of the screen is a list of all of the listserves you currently are a member of. You’ll notice that there will be a small box saying “Admin” next to any lists that you are an owner, admin, or moderator for. Here’s a screenshot of mine for example:
How to Create a New Listserve
Creating a listserve with SYMPA is easy and takes less than 5 minutes of your time. Here are the steps for how to do so:
1) Click “Create a List” at the top of your SYMPA homepage:
2) Enter the name of your new listserve in the box “list name.” Remember to only put the name of the listserve (“consultthevpo” in this case) and not the full listserve email (i.e. “consultthevpo@virginia.edu”) in the box:
3) Do you want this to be a private listserve amongst your CIO’s exec board? Or would you rather this be an open forum to the entire UVA community? Choose what type of listserve you would like to create:
A few tips here: The option “2. Public_discussion_no-archives” is perfect for creating completely open email forums that any UVA community member can join. “4. Notification_no-archives” is great for streamlined news or updates-based messages; this is what I use for the studco-cios@virginia.edu listserve. This could be used for letting subscribed UVA community members know what’s going on with your group; however this is not the best option for two-way conversation.
The option “6. Contact_address_no-archives“ is best on a website as a “contact us” email address. I prefer to create lists with this option because it allows anyone to freely post to the list, yet gives you the freedom as owner to control who can subscribe to the list. On the other hand, “8. Members_only_no_archives” is the best option for creating Chat Lists where members of the list can chat and email amongst themselves, but the owner controls subscription. This is another good option for Exec Board listserves.
4) Determine the Subject, Topic, and Description for your listserve.
Here’s an example of what I included for the consultthevpo@virginia.edu listserve:
Note: You will absolutely need to include something under “Subject” and “Description” on the page. If not, SYMPA will not allow you create the listserve! For “Topics,” it does not matter which you chose. I usually choose “Other.”
5) You’re almost done! Click “Submit your creation request” to finish creating your new listserve.
On the next screen, don’t forget to click “Subscribe” on the left-hand side of the screen. Otherwise you will not be subscribed to the listserve you just created!
After you have created a listserve, how exactly do you add new owners, subscribe members, and unsubscribe any readers? Read on to find my how-to’s on some of the basics.
Adding new owners
You have just created your listserve and now you want to add other officers or friends as owners of the listserve. Here are the basic steps on how to do that:
1) Go to the home page your your listserve. On the left-hand side of the screen click Admin. Then click Edit List Config. on the menu below. Then click List Definition. Here’s an example on the consultthevpo@virginia.edu list I created:
2) On the next screen, you will see a box listing all of the list’s Owners (see the picture example below). You can simply add any new owners, their emails, and other important details.
Now just click Update at the bottom of the page and you have successfully added a new owner to the listserve.
How to manually “subscribe” new members to the List
There are multiple ways for subscribing new emails to a list. However, here are a few steps on how to manually add emails to a list you own.
1) Go to your listserve’s home screen. Click Review Members at the bottom left corner of the screen:
2) You will then be brought to a screen similar to the picture below. To subscribe or add new email addresses to the listserve one-by-one, simply type the email address in the box and then click Add:
You’re done. The person will receive an email letting he or she know that you’ve added them, unless you click the box next to Add that says quiet.
Unsubscribing someone from your Listserve:
Manually unsubscribing: To unsubscribe someone from your listserve, simply go to the same screen above, search for the person’s email address, click the box to the left of his or her name & email, then click Delete selected email addresses at the bottom of the screen.
The easier way of unsubscribing someone from your listserve: Go to the homepage of your listserve (https://lists.virginia.edu/sympa/info/consultthevpo in the case of my hypothetical listserve consultthevpo@virginia.edu). Send the person wishing to unsubscribe a link to the listserve’s homepage. Then have the person simply click “Unsubscribe” on the left-hand side of the screen and follow the instructions.
These are only some of the basics of managing a SYMPA listserve. If you would like some of the details on the more complex processes, check out ITC’s SYMPA website. ITC’s SYMPA FAQ page is also a phenomenal resource. You can email ITC any specific listserver questions at postmaster@virginia.edu.
As always, the CIO Consultants are open to help your CIO with any your needs or questions. Feel free to email them at cio-consultants@virginia.edu. And now you can email me directly at consultthevpo@virginia.edu.
Best,
Evan A. Shields
Student Council Vice-President for Organizations
