Course E-Mail Netiquette

The protocol for academic settings is the same as obtains in professional and other formal circumstances. As always, be very careful not to mistake e-mail, especially in formal or institutional situations, for the type of radical informality, or even discourtesies, apparently tolerated in on-line social media.  Nor is there any academic or professional place for the grotesque and brutish abbreviations which degenerate certain modes of electronic—and, alarmingly, now increasingly in spoken—communication.

1. E-mail (indeed, all communication) between Instructor and student is a formal and professional exchange. Accordingly, proper salutation and closing is essential.
2. Business e-mail is courteous but, of professional necessity, concise and direct. It rejects roundabout or ornate language, informal diction, and any appearance of what is termed in the vernacular, 'chat.'
3. Customary response time for student e-mail to the Course Instructor is two to three business days. E-mail on weekends will ordinarily be read the Monday following.
4. Use only your BCIT account for e-mail to the Course Instructor. All other e-mail is blocked by whitelist.

In general, Course e-mail is for matters of Course administration solely. It is not an alternative to, nor substitute for, face-to-face discussion on class days. All questions about understanding of lecture material, course reading, assignment criteria, and deadlines are reserved for one-on-one discussion at close of class on scheduled course days.

Missed classes and deadlines are not to be reported by e-mail: if a medical or bereavement exception is being claimed, the supporting documentation is handed in, along with the completed assignment, either in person or to the Instructor's mailbox in the SW1 & 2 Connector, 2nd floor..