Effective date of the policy: October 2009
Last updated: November 2010
Policy owner: ICTS
Policy approved by: UICTC
Table of contents
Background

IT Liaisons (ITLs) and IT staff in all departments and faculties were sent a draft copy of the "Retention of old non-@uct.ac.za addresses" proposal and asked to comment on the three options suggested. 

The feedback from ITL's of the various departments and faculties received confirmed that the:

  • majority of the mail addressed to the old email addresses is spam;
  • forwarding of old email addresses is not a general requirement;
  • forwarding is required by a small group for whom it has a business impact;
  • forwarding is not required for more than 2 years.

In summary:

  • 50% of the feedback suggested that the recommendation should be changed to option one;

  • 16.7% suggested the recommendation be changed to option two; and

  • 33.3% agreed with the original recommendation, option three.

Definitions
IT Liaisons (ITL) IT Liaisons are a fundamental point of contact between their department and ICTS - especially in a crisis. They:
  • pass on information received via the icts-announce-l mailing list or voicemail.
  • co-ordinate the gathering of information as requested by ICTS.
  • offer feedback about ICT services to ICTS.
  • assist by assessing the ICT needs of the department.
  • represent the department's ICT needs at faculty or department IT meetings.
Applicable to
  1. Old staff, masters and doctoral students, as well as postdoctoral research fellows email addresses

All staff and postdoctoral research fellows' addresses have changed to the new email address naming standard within the @uct.ac.za domain. Undergraduate, honours, masters and doctoral students are using the @myuct.ac.za naming standard. Mail sent to the old email address is currently being forwarded to the new email address.

  1. Research and functional email addresses

Some published academic papers and articles and some printed material contain the “old” email addresses. It is, therefore, necessary to maintain a mechanism to service or direct email sent to these old email addresses.

Exclusions

All UCT staff and third parties that are using the new name.surname@uct.co.za email address and don't use or need emails to be forwarded from an old UCT email address. It also excludes all email addresses serviced by a non-ICTS managed mail server.

Policy summary

This policy details the requirements for the retention of “old” email addresses (non-@uct.ac.za) used to deliver email to the central UCT email system.

Policy details

Based on the feedback received a fourth option was created and approved by the University ICT Committee (UICTC) for implementation at UCT as follows.

  1. ICTS to maintain the forwarding of requested non-@uct.ac.za addresses only.

  2. Mailbox owners must request mail forwarding to continue beyond 31 December 2008, but can request that the forwarding be stopped at any time.

  3. ICTS to stop all forwarding of old addresses on 31 December 2009. This date will be reviewed in consultation with the address mailbox owners towards the end of 2009.

  4. Forwarding of messages sent to old email addresses will be removed in the case of termination of employment.