Email tasks May 19, 2008

Task:  Undertake the Ohio State University Email Tutorial, then answer the following series of reflective questions.

Log entry:

1. What information about a user’s email, the origin of a message, and the path it took, can you glean from an email message?  
   • The email address can give us information about the sender – for example, the domain name may indicate the company the person works for.  It may also indicate the country the person is from – e.g ‘.au’ for Australia, and the type of organisation – e.g. ‘gov’, ‘edu’ or ‘com’. 
   • The message header can also tell when the message was sent, and whether it’s a reply or has been forwarded from someone.
   • The body of the message may also include the thread of previous emails, or portions of previous messages.
   • As emails can also be edited to change information from previous messages (and sometimes the email address), however, we also need to careful not to assume too much by the content of the email.
2. In what cases would you find it useful to use the ‘cc’, ‘bcc’ and ‘reply all’ functions of email? 
   • The ‘cc’ function can be used when you need to send the same information or message to a number of people, but generally implies that it is for information; those ‘cc’d’ do not need to take action.
   • The ‘bcc’ function is useful if you need to copy a message to someone but don’t want to let the sender know the identity of the other recipients – for example, an email to a client may be ‘bcc’d’ to the area manager for information, but you don’t want the client to have the manager’s email address.  It can also be useful if you want to send a group email but don’t want to share everyone’s email addresses with the whole group. In practice, I think ‘Bcc’ should generally be used sparingly, as it could imply a breach of trust where the addressee is not aware that the message is being sent to others. Good netiquette suggests that people should generally be aware of who a message is being sent or copied to.
   • The ‘reply all’ function is useful if you want to send the same message to a number of people. It implies that the message is for their action or comment.
3. In what ways can you ensure that an attachment you send will be easily opened by the receiver? 
   •  Some steps to ensure that the receiver will be able to option your attachment are to:
     • don’t assume that the recipient has the program or a program reader needed for the file – check first, even for more ‘common’ programs like Word and Excel and pdfs.
     • if the file is large, consider ‘zipping’ it – this may be particularly useful if the receiver is on dialup or behind a firewall and may have difficulty accessing a large file
     • if the attachment is a document, consider sending it in plain text (ASCII) or rich text (rtf) format
     • a document could also be sent in html format, although some people’s computers may have difficulty reading these, and some people elect to view emails in plain text format. 
4. What sorts of filters or rules do you have set up, and for what purpose?
   • Filters and rules can be useful if you receive a large number of emails, particularly if you like to keep a fairly empty inbox.  Some examples of rules and filters I use are:
     • Sorting email from newsgroups – I send these straight to a separate folder, so I can go through them at my own pace. Rules such as this can be useful for sorting emails that are not time-sentitive. Although this can make it easier to lose track of new messages, the folder icon notifies when I have unread emssages.
     • A rule that applies a coloured flag to emails from particular people – e.g. a red flag for my boss or a green flag from a friend. 
5. How have you organised the folder structure of your email and why?
   • I generally organise my email folders by subject, and this seems to be the most logical way to keep my mail organised. I may set up sub-folders according to date or sub-topic.
   • If I’m working on a large project, I also generally establish a separate folder for that project, perhaps with sub-folders on specific issues that arise – e.g. contracting, research, appointments.
   • I also try to review and re-organise my folder structure fairly often, especially if I’ve added a lot of new folders and I’m not using others as often.