With distance learning on the horizon, many UC Davis faculty members are taking advantage of the electronic age by plugging their students into class mailing lists.

These electronic lists soon will become easier to administer, thanks to a new program that will make it possible to update class lists automatically.

Class mailing lists facilitate course-related communication, allowing faculty and students to interact outside the classroom quickly and easily.

Currently, class lists are created as is any electronic mailing list. After the instructor establishes the list, students are directed to subscribe by sending a standard message to the listprocessor.

While straightforward, this system is not without its problems. Students unfamiliar with e-mail may find it difficult to subscribe, or errors may occur in their subscription requests that prevent them from being processed.

All this will change with the automated class mailing list. Once the professor requests a class list, the program will extract e-mail addresses from the Student Information System (SIS) database, using the CRN (Course Reference Number) to determine which students to subscribe. This will eliminate the possibility of subscriber error, and it will ensure that students are added at registration.

When students add or drop the course, the mailing list will be updated automatically to reflect the change. Students who are officially wait-listed via the BANNER system also will be included in the automated program.