Guide to Mailing Lists @ Reed
Who needs a mailing list?
A mailing list is useful for sending information via email to a group of people. Instead of composing an email with multiple recipients, you can send an email to the list address. Learn more about the options at Reed:
- Google Groups are a feature-rich mailing list that are great for departments, committees, student organizations, and other adhoc groups. Besides email communications, Google Groups can be used for Google Docs/Drive sharing, and calendar invitations.
- Course Google Groups have all the same functionality as a regular google group, but are intended for specific courses where membership is automatically driven by enrollment data.
- A shared email account (also referred to as a delegated account) can be used by a department where a shared Inbox is necessary for sending/receiving communications. Contact CUS if you need one set up.
Google Groups
Google groups may be suitable for most clubs, groups, or other organizations at Reed. This allows email correspondence to a group address (e.g., @groups.reed.edu), plus the sharing of google docs and invitation to google calendar events. To create your own Google Group, simply fill out the online request form. You'll receive a confirmation email from CUS when your Google Group is set up. Learn more about Google Groups at Reed.
Administrative Options
Owners of Google Groups can manage various settings. These options include, but are not limited to:
- Adding or removing other group owners and/or managers
- Choosing to publically advertise your list (if the list is private, it won't appear on the public google group page for other Reedies)
- Changing archival options for the list
Using Google Groups
To write to the members of your group, address an email to the group address, and send it out. That's it!
Course Google Groups
Designed for faculty use, a Course Google Group is an email list of students, using your specific course title and section as the list address (eg, CHEM101-2s@groups.reed.edu). List members are retrieved from the registrar automatically upon list creation. Since Course Google Groups are tied to an academic year, they deleted after the semester is over, but can be re-created each semester as necessary.
To request your Course Google Group, fill out the online form.
Course Google Group Administrative Options
As the moderator of the Course Autolist, you can choose:
- To manually manage the course list members, or set the list to auto-update nightly from the registrar.
- To set your course list to Announcement mode (only the moderator can email to the list) or Discussion mode (anyone can email to the list).
- To make the list Public (anyone can read archives and look up the list in LDAP) or Private (only list members can read the archives, and the list cannot be looked up in LDAP).
You cannot change the name of the course group email address--it is determined by the course and section number.
Using Your Course Autolist
To write to the members of your list, address an email to the list address, and send it out. That's it!
Feel free to contact us at cus@reed.edu with any questions you may have.