Skip to main content - Skip to contact information

Class List Email

Sending Email to all Students in Your Class

A new feature has been added to the web access to SRS which allows any faculty or staff with permission to view a class list to send an email to all the students in that class. This feature can be invoked in two different ways:

  • Call up the class list on the web. Towards the bottom of the page you will see an icon like the one at the top of this message. Beside it you will see a link that says "Send an email to everyone in XXXX NNN/SSSSS" ( i.e. "Send an email to everyone in ENGL 112/S07N02" ). Clicking on either the icon or the link will open up your email program to compose a message to the class. You will notice that in the "To:" box it says CCCC_NNN_SSSSSS@srsmail.viu.ca
    ( i.e. ENGL_112_S07N02@srsmail.viu.ca).
    Or
  • Simply enter the email address directly into an email that you compose as you would any other. The format of the address is:  
    <course code>_<section code>@srsmail.viu.ca
    where you replace all spaces in the course code with underscore characters
    (i.e. "ENGL 112" becomes "ENGL_112" and "A E 101" becomes "A_E_101").
top of page top

Then

Simply compose the message as you normally would and click on the send button. In a short time ( generally less than a minute ) you will receive a confirmation email from srsmail@vaxmail.viu.ca which will list all the students to whom the email was sent ( and list the students who weren't sent the email because they have no email address in their student record ).

Note:

For either method to work the "From: " address of the email must be your VIU email address ( i.e.<username>@viu.ca ). This will automatically be the case if you are logged into your Capitan account on an on-campus computer. It is also possible to send the emails from your home computer, but you will have to make sure the "From:" address in the email program on your home computer is set properly. For Outlook Express you do this by clicking on "Tools/Accounts" in the main menu bar, click on the "Mail" tab in the "Internet Accounts" box, select your email account and click on the "Properties" button. Near the middle of the "General" tab you will see a box labeled "E-Mail Address" - make sure this is set to your VIU email address. When you're satisfied it is correct click "OK" to close this box and "Close" to close the "Internet Accounts" window.

top of page top

Email will be sent to all students who are active in the class or have completed it. It will not be sent to students who have withdrawn or been flagged as a "no show". Because mail is sent to both active and completed students this feature is not recommended for use with a continuous entry class.

The list of recipients is built each time you send a message, so you can always be assured that the message will be sent to the current class roster, you don't need to worry about making manual additions or deletions to allow for course adds and drops. You may find it useful to create entries in your Outlook contacts list for each of your courses, this may be done as you would for any other contact - just enter the address in the format specified above.

Mail sent in this fashion will generate a separate email message personally addressed for each student in the class. You don't need to worry about any student being able to determine the address of any other student in the class through an email you send. This personally addressed email also in unlikely to trigger the SPAM filters found on common mail hosting services such as Hotmail, so your messages will not be likely to end up in the students "Junk Mail" folder (unless of course the student specifically says to send them there).

top of page top