Overview

Willamette's mailgroups, or "listservs", are provided via Google Groups. In the standard configuration, a Google Group receives messages sent to one or more email addresses, then delivers those messages to the email accounts of all group members. Additionally, those messages are also made available to group members on the web via a forum-like interface.

Details

Viewing your Google Groups

The Google Groups directory can be found at https://groups.google.com/my-groups. By default, this page will list all the Google Groups of which you are a member. Clicking "All groups" in the left nav will list all groups published to the directory. The search bar at the top of the page can be used to filter the group list.

If you are a member of a group in the list, clicking on the group will take you to the group's conversation history. If you are an Owner or Manager of the group, this will also give you access to the group's configuration settings.

Group Addresses

A Google Group must have a single "primary" address. It can also be assigned any number of secondary "alias" addresses. Email sent to any of a group's addresses will handled as if it was sent to the "primary" address. To have an "alias" address added to your group, please submit a "Groups and Mailgroups" service request.

Group Types

Willamette offers three types of Google Group: Official, Data-Driven, and Unofficial.

Official Groups

Official groups belong to specific departments, administrative units, or student organizations, and are used in some way as part of the official business of the group to which they belong. Primary addresses of official groups must include a hyphen, and should not make use of acronyms or abbreviations that are not universally known. The primary address should also make use of any appropriate standard group prefixes and suffixes. Secondary addresses are not bound by those restrictions. To request a new "official" Google Group, please submit a "New Google Group" service request.

Data-Driven Groups

Data-driven groups are a special subtype of Google Group. Rather than being conventionally managed, the group's membership is automatically updated based on information from university data systems. Examples include groups for all students enrolled in a specific school ("law-students@willamette.edu"), students majoring in a specific discipline ("chem-majors@willamette.edu"), faculty, staff, and student associated with a particular course, or all occupants of a specific building ("eaton-bldg@willamette.edu"). The primary addresses of data-driven groups must adhere to the same restrictions as standard official groups, To request a new data-driven Google Group, please submit a "New Google Group" service request, including details of exactly which user population should be selected. Please understand that we may not be currently equipped to set up a membership query that can select the exact set of users you're looking for.

Unofficial Groups

Any Willamette user can create their own "unofficial" Google Group through the Google website. Navigate to https://groups.google.com and click the "Create group" button at the top-left. Groups created this way will always have a primary address with a suffix of "-group". No other type of group will have this suffix. Unofficial groups should not be used in any official role.

Legacy Groups

Willamette still has a number of groups originally created before we began using Google Groups. Many of these have primary addresses that do not match requirements. WITS continues to update these groups as we encounter them, replacing the primary address with one that is standards-compliant, but retaining the original as an "alias" address. That way communications are not interrupted for correspondents unaware of the address change.

Group Roles

A user can be assigned one of three roles in a Google Group:

Member: Group members receive messages from and posts messages to the group, but have no other privileges.
Owner: Group owners can manage group membership and all other settings not reserved for Google administrators.
Manager: If used, this role allows for a user to be assigned additional privileges in comparison to a standard Member, but not the full rights of an Owner. Frequently this role is used to grant a user the right to moderate incoming messages sent to the group.

In the case of Data-Driven Groups, the Owner role belongs to the automated process that updates the group membership - no users will be granted that role.

Google Groups