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Telehealth: MANAGING PROFESSIONAL LISTSERVS

by: Marlene M. Maheu, Ph. D. January, 1998

If you are considering managing a professional email discussion group, here are a few helpful hints:

1. Find a reliable listserv site to house your list. A good site will make it easy for you to set up your list, and manage it over time. University systems often have Information Systems (IS) departments to help with these services for their faculty. An alternative is to find a university system generous enough to house such services for other professionals. One such example is L-Soft international, Inc. in New York. Some online services are also available for free. One well-organized site is http://topica.com
2. Familiarize yourself with listserv commands. They will prove invaluable over time. Join a listserv discussion group online, so as to have access to other listserv owners who run into management problems. Use your search engine or look for newsgroups devoted to this topic. Many exist.
3. Clearly outline your behavioral expectations for subscribers. While it may seem overly paternalistic to cover all forms of negative behavior when welcoming new members, the realities of anonymous online discussion have led to remarkably negative displays of human behavior, even among professionals. Be clear and firm in your expectations, and your lists will function more smoothly.
4. Most email discussion list software programs, such as listserv used by many university systems as well as Topica.com, will allow you to set up a Welcome letter, your list specifications, and a goodbye letter. Your welcome letter may be short or long, depending on the tone you want to set for your list. At minimum, it ought to have basic commands for subscribers to navigate with the software you are using. If you want to give your subscribers guidance for which topics are appropriate to your list, how to interact with the group, and the details of your list management style, this information may be included as well.

For example, this is an informative Welcome letter used with a list called Telehealth. It is updated and sent to the members of the list every quarter, so as to remind them of list procedures. Please feel free to use and adapt to your particular situation:

*************************************************

Welcome to the E-health Professional Discussion List

Please save this post - it contains all the information you will need to participate in this list, and most importantly, information for how you can change your list membership settings or unsubscribe.

(If you need to change your settings, please be aware that sending such requests to the entire list is considered inappropriate, and in essence, that you are notifying hundreds of your colleagues that you haven't saved this post, or haven't bothered to read or follow it. So please learn how to be a responsible member, which includes writing to one of the list administrators for assistance. Their email addresses are at the bottom of this letter.)

*************************************************

CONTENTS

I. AGREEMENT FOR PARTICIPATING
II. TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED ON THE Ehealth LIST
III. IF YOU CHOOSE TO PARTICIPATE
IV. Ehealth POLICY STATEMENTS
V. ENFORCING LIST RULES
VI. NETIQUETTE
VII. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER
VIII. Ehealth WEBPAGE IX. L-Soft LISTOWNER POLICY
X. LISTSERV HOW TO

I. AGREEMENT FOR PARTICIPATING

Ehealth is a loose "sounding board" for professionals with an interest in applications of psychology with the Internet. As a subscriber, you agree to adhere to the following guidelines as a condition of your subscription.

II. TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED ON THE E-health LIST

The E-health Discussion List is a forum for the professional discussion of E-health companies, products, services, capitalization, valuation, legalities and ethics.

Some examples of relevant topics may include the following:

• national and international Ehealth law,
• Ehealth ethics including security and confidentiality,
• Ehealth usage and demographic data,
• technological advances and developments,
• positive and negative influences in the lives of users,
• new additions to terminology and symbols related to new behavioral patterns resulting from Ehealth,
• positive and negative influences of current and innovative forms of Ehealth technology,
• funding resources in both the private and public sectors,
• innovative uses of telEhealth technology to treat identified disorders,
• innovative uses of Ehealth technology to treat identified disorders,
• reviews of resource sites, newsletters, and mail groups related to Ehealth,
• conference and meeting announcements,
• valuation and capitalization issues,
• research into comparative effects of visual and auditory information in consultation and distance learning,
• discussion of the role of interpersonal dynamics including defense mechanisms in Ehealth technologies,
• bandwidth, transmission, and encryption issues,
• interface design, hardware and access routes,
• medical records design and usage,
• comparative role of system integrators and equipment manufacturers,
• pilot project design, implementation and outcome assessment.

1. You do not have to be a trained healthcare professional to participate on this list. We encourage all points of view. We ask however that you do not hold yourself out to be a practicing clinician, either by implication or omission of fact, unless you are so credentialed.
2. We suggest that you post a short introduction stating how you'd like to be addressed, what you do, what you'd like to be doing, and what you are seeking from this list. Giving the specifics of your credentials, training, years in practice, and the exact nature of the service you deliver is helpful.
3. If possible, develop and use a signature file with your email that includes the state or country from which you work, your license number if you are licensed, and your full name and email address. If you are licensed, please post your license number in your signature. Keep your signature files limited to no more than six lines. If you are unable to use a signature file, please post your name and credentials at the end of each post.

1. Members who consistently ignore or violate common Netiquette as outlined in Section VII shall be denied membership. Inclusion is a privilege, not a right.
2. Members must clearly identify themselves. Members are not permitted to use an alias or otherwise conceal their true identity.
3. Any member using the Ehealth subscriber list to bypass the listserv to send private email to the list subscribers for any purpose at any time, will be subject to the immediate removal from this list and any other list administered by Dr.Maheu.
4. Anyone on moderated status who re-subscribes under another name/address to circumvent the moderated status, regardless of their motive, will be permanently unsubscribed.

To facilitate respectful discussion, essential Netiquette policies will be enforced in the following manner at the sole discretion of the list administrator(s):

1. First you will receive a courtesy warning from the list administrator, and possibly asked to refrain from posting to the list for a week. If you post nonetheless, you will be permanently removed from the list.
2. If for any reason you post a public complaint about the courtesy warning, however veiled, you will be permanently removed from the list.
3. If asked to refrain from posting for a week and you comply, you may simply begin posting to the list again. However if the unacceptable behavior is repeated, you will be permanently excluded from participation in the list without further warning.

Holding a discussion online is vastly different than a face to face discussion. It is easy to misinterpret a comment that is read as you are missing facial expressions, body language and vocal inflections. This list employs a series of guidelines we call "Netiquette" to help make your message come across as you had intended - in a word, polite. We ask that you please read over and adhere to the guidelines posted on this webpage: http://www.telehealth.net/netpsy/netiquette.html

VII. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER

This list is not intended to be a replacement for professional consultation or supervision, nor is it a professional publication. Individuals seeking professional journal references would do well to seek information in traditionally recognized sources. It is also not intended to offer direct psychological advice or supervision to any individual. As a condition of participation, you must accept responsibility for your own reactions and related behavior, regardless of what you read from this list.

Neither Ehealth, the list owner, administrators, assistants or their delegates; nor contributors can be held liable in any way for any information and/or data made available, or omitted, from any and all information distributed through this forum. Information distributed is not checked for accuracy. By continuing to remain subscribed to Ehealth, you agree to hold harmless the all above named parties against any and all liability for any action that you may or may not take; and any and all other consequences regarding all postings, regardless of the cause, effects, or fault of any of the parties. We are all here to help one another and our respective professions, but will act and accept full responsibility for ourselves as individual agents.

VIII. E-health WEBPAGE

Ehealth has a web page. There you will find these guidelines as well as listserv commands, L-Soft list owner policy statement and access to the Ehealth archives. The URL: http://www.telehealth.net/subscribe/ehealth.html

IX. L-Soft LISTOWNER POLICY

L-Soft international, Inc. owns the L-Soft Listserver which is host to several lists. Each list is independently owned and managed. L-Soft leaves list management to the Primary List Owner who is responsible for compliance with the policies of the lists on L-Soft. The L-Soft listserver requires its list owners to inform list members of its "Love it or leave it" policy. The primary list owner is responsible for the policies and conduct of their individual lists. If members do not agree with these policies, they are free to leave the list at any time. Of the policies each list owner must adhere to, the following two are important for list members to be aware of as well.

Excerpt from the PRIMARY LIST OWNER RESPONSIBILITIES

3) The Primary List Owner is the only person authorized to contact the L-Soft Postmaster concerning his/her mailing list, except to notify the Postmaster of the loss of a Primary List Owner from a mailing list.

9) The L-Soft Postmaster is the final authority of all lists hosted by the L-Soft international, Inc. L-Soft server. Those who do not agree with his/her decisions are free to leave the L-Soft system.

If you accept the above terms, Welcome Aboard! Please watch messages for a few days, and then begin communicating with other list members.

X. LISTSERV HOW TO

It is important that you understand the difference between the two listserv email addresses. Messages that are intended for the list to read are sent to Ehealth@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG and messages intended to send commands to the listserver are sent to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG

*HOW TO SEND A COMMAND TO THE LISTSERV

Send an email message to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG

*HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE

Send an email message to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG In the body of the message, type:
SIGNOFF Ehealth

*HOW TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO SUBSCRIBE

Send an email message to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG In the body of the message type:
SUB Ehealth <firstname lastname>

*HOW TO SET LISTSERV OPTIONS

Send an email message to: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG In the body of the message type:
SET Ehealth <option> The following are possible options:

• Option Description

• ACK/NOACK/MSG - Acknowledgements for postings
• CONCEAL/NOCONCEAL - Hide yourself from REVIEW
• Mail/NOMail - Toggle receipt of mail
• MIME/NOMIME - Prefer/avoid MIME format
• DIGests/INDex/NODIGests/NOINDex - Ask for digests
• REPro/NOREPro - Copy of your own postings?

• Options for mail headers of incoming postings (choose one):

• FULLhdr - "Full" (normal) mail headers
• IETFhdr - Internet-style headers
• SHORThdr - Short headers
• DUALhdr - Dual headers, useful with PC or Mac mail programs
• SUBJecthdr - Normal header with list name in subject line

• Informational commands:

• HELP Ehealth - Obtain a list of commands
• REV Ehealth - To see who is subscribed to the specified list

• More information on LISTSERV commands can be found in the LISTSERV Reference Card, which you can retrieve by sending an INFO REFCARD command to the Listserv at LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ICORS.ORG

  If you have questions of a technical nature you may send them to Marlene Maheu drm@cybertowers.com
  

  Marlene M. Maheu, Ph.D. / drm@cybertowers.com / http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com / Ehealth Administrator

  E-health List is Owned and copyrighted by:
  Pioneer Development Resources, Inc.
  All rights reserved.

  Dr. Maheu is the administrator for a number of professional and consumer lists. For a description of these lists, have a look at this page: http://www.telehealth.net/subscribe/subscribe_all.html

For more information on this topic, subscribe to one or more of
Dr. Maheu's free email discussion services.

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