Implementation of Lyris Mark Engebretson School of Public Health

Background In early 2006, SPH had…  One biweekly internal newsletter for all students, faculty, and staff (SPH News)  An all-school listserv (manually updated)  A communications problem

Background  AHC and SPH focus groups learned that students didn’t know if SPH News (and AHC News Capsules) was intended for them; these newsletters didn’t seem relevant  list was spammed by people within the school and by people outside the school

Background This was typical: “Attention SPH students, faculty and staff: In the interest of promoting wellness and togetherness I would like to start an informal tradition of a morning group run/jog for anyone interested. … Lets meet Tuesday and Thursday (April 3rd and 5th) at 7:45 am at the gopher statue outside the rec center.”

Background Two days later… “Attention SPH students, faculty and staff, I am sorry if anyone came to the run thursday morning and didn't find me there. I was not feeling well that morning and could not make it. I will be at the gopher statue this Tuesday and Thursday at 7:45 for those who would like to run. See you there!”

Solutions  Develop policy  Develop targeted e-newsletters  Implement Lyris  Create opt-out student-to-student listserv

Policy  Modeled after other colleges/universities  Intended to reduce the volume of  Intended to promote more planning when communicating with internal audiences

Policy Types of , Approval and Delivery:  Urgent messages  Important messages (messages of school-wide importance)  Informational messages

Policy Lists affected:  All School  All Faculty  All Students  All Staff Approvers:  Dean  Associate and Assistant Deans  Student Services Director

Delivery Process/Guidelines  Lyris must be used to deliver messages  Lists must be managed in Lyris  Divisions urged to use Lyris  Guidelines provided regarding subject/body of message, attachments (none), sender info, etc.

SPH e-newsletters Internal:  SPH News (faculty/staff) biweekly  The Weekly SPHere (students) External:  SPH Alumni News (quarterly)  Research Brief (monthly)  Welcome ‘U’ News (monthly)  SPH Mentor Connection (monthly)  CPHEO News  MHA alumni info

SPH e-newsletters

SPH e-newsletters (text)

GIL Segments All internal mailings (newsletters and other mailings) use the appropriate GIL segment:

Advantages  Central record of all mass ings  GIL segment is updated automatically prior to each mailing  Tracking of opens, clickthroughs  More control over formatting of e- newsletters (text version is link to web)

Disadvantages  More of my time spent managing manual lists and sending s:  For the Dean  Associate Deans  HR Director  Etc…..

Some Numbers  Opens average 34%  Clickthroughs average 22.5%  20,203 pageviews and 4,157 visitors for online Weekly SPHere in school year

Other Tools  Deliver blogs, podcasts via to subscribers using:  Feedburner (  Feed Blitz (

Feedburner

 Feedburner’s “BuzzBoost” provides a snippet of JavaScript to paste into your pages so you can republish feeds.

Thank You: Peter Riemenschneider Peter Wiringa Jane Gehan Joann Gustafson John Kellogg