Accessing Class Rolls and Communicating With Students
MSUCollege of Business
Fall 2004
Web-based resources are aviailble for you to identify and communicate with your students. Once you have registered with Allen Porter you can access up-to-date class rolls for all business classes at the following web site (update daily):
* Distribution listservs are created automatically and updated nightly for every business course.Christie Johnson forwarded a comprehensive set of instructions for using the course listservs which is provided below. THANKS CHRISTIE!!
USING MSU Listserv:
Each MSU student and employee has a "My Info" record with pertinent information, including a preferred e-mail address. MSU automatically generates an e-mail distribution list based on each class roll, which is continually updated as students add/drop the class or change their preferred e-mail address in the My Info record. If you subscribe to the distribution list for each of your classes, you can then simply type in a class e-mail address and your message will be sent to all currently enrolled students, rather than building and updating your own distribution list.
However, as was mentioned at the retreat, if your class is large enough, your message might be filtered as spam by Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, or others, so there are good reasons for students to use an MSU address for on-campus things and use their other accounts for personal mail. And for them to remember to actually check their e-mail from people other than their friends!
To subscribe to the distribution list for your classes, do the following:
First, if you have a signature file, turn it off!! [Anytime you send a message to subscribe (etc.) to listserv]
Then, to subscribe to the e-mail list for your class (and you will also receive the message you sent to your students) do the following:
TO:
SUBJECT: leave this blank
BODY OF MESSAGE - type something like this:
subscribe acct32701 christie johnson
using your course rubric (acct), number (327) and section number (01) with no spaces,
and your first and last name
Almost immediately after you do this, you will receive a message from listserv saying you have been added to the list, along with instructions about other things you can do.
To send (or forward) a message to your class:
In the TO: field you would simply type:
(again, using your own course-specific address)
One of the more useful things is the "review" message:
If you would like to see the names of students currently enrolled and their current preferred e-mail addresses, do the same as above, but instead, in the body of the message, type:
review acct32701 (again, using your own course-specific address)
You will once again receive an almost immediate reply with the names and e-mail addresses of your students at that point. I often pass this around on the first or second day of class so students know what e-mail address I will be sending messages to. It is a convenient way to remind them about 1) using appropriate e-mail addresses and proper e-mail etiquette (also discussed at the retreat), 2) discuss the potential that Yahoo and others might filter class messages as spam, so to check into that, and 3) to change their My Info preferred e-mail address if necessary/desirable.