Months

• January
• February
• March (No News)
• April
• May (No News Items)
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December (No News Items)

JISCMail Newsletter - 31/01/11

The JISCMail Newsletter for January has now been distributed. Please see https://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=JISCMAIL-NEWSLETTER;d747d881.1102p If you would like to subscribe to the JISCMAIL-NEWSLETTER list, send an email to listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk with SUBSCRIBE JISCMAIL-NEWSLETTER in the body of the email.

Introducing JISCMail Labs and BigBlueButton - 05/01/11

JISCMail labs: a hub to showcase our newest features. Here you can find out about potential new developments and send us feedback on features before they reach our production system. This helps us too! We'll know that new developments meet our users' requirements and ensure that the features are bug-free.

We have currently installed BigBlueButton on 'JISCMail Labs'

Features include:

• Video Conferencing
• Screen Sharing and Broadcasting
• Live Chat

Join a test meeting and try it out. Please note there is only one demo meeting room and this is open to anyone who wishes to join.

Please let us know what you think by filling out our survey or e-mailing helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk.

Upgrade to Institutional log on - 05/01/11

On Tuesday 18th January 2011, JISCMail will be upgrading the 'Institutional Log on' software. This is to give all owners notice that JISCMail will be unavailable for 15 minutes in the scheduled at risk period between 8 - 9am and 'Institutional Log on' will be unavailable for 1 hour between these times. Any mail delivery will only be affected for the 15 minute period and should be queued for delivery when the service is available again.

Please email enquires to helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk

JISCMail Newsletter - 28/02/11

The JISCMail Newsletter for February has now been distributed. Please see https://jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=JISCMAIL-NEWSLETTER;e1ec911e.1102p If you would like to subscribe to the JISCMAIL-NEWSLETTER list, send an email to listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk with SUBSCRIBE JISCMAIL-NEWSLETTER in the body of the email.

JISCMail delivery problems resolved- 10:40 - 22/02/11

The JISCMail delivery problems have now been resolved and queued mail is being delivered.

JISCMail delivery problems - 10:00 - 22/02/11

JISCMail is currently experiencing network problems, causing delays to delivery.

Messages will be queued for delivery once the problem has been resolved.

We apologise for this inconvenience.

JISCMail Service News May Day Bank Holiday- 26/4/11

The JISCMail Helpline will be unmanned for the Royal Wedding and May Day bank holiday break from Friday 29th April to Monday 2nd May inclusive. However, the JISCMail service will continue to operate as normal during this period.

If you have any problems, please email the Helpline and your enquiries will be dealt with upon our return.

JISCMail Web Server update Tuesday 3rd May 2011 - 20/4/11

The JISCMail web server will be updated during the normal 'At Risk' period on Tuesday 3rd May 2011. Web pages and the Listserv interface will be unavailable for approximately 10 mins between 08:30 and 09:00. Messages sent to JISCMail via email will not be affected.

JISCMail Service News Easter 2011 - 13/4/11

The JISCMail Helpline will be unmanned for the Easter break from Friday 22nd April to Monday 25th April inclusive. However, the JISCMail service will continue to operate as normal during this period.

If you have any problems, please email the Helpline and your enquiries will be dealt with upon our return.

JISCMail Labs - 8/4/11

JISCMail Labs at http://labs.jiscmail.ac.uk/ which hosts the Big Blue Button feature will be unavailable for the weekend of 9-10 April. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The Future of JISCMail - 15/6/11

A formal review of the JISCMail service was recently carried out by JISC Advance. It concluded that the JISCMail service - which has in the last month recruited its one millionth subscriber - is a highly valued element of JISC Advance’s portfolio. It is therefore essential that we continue to serve the community with a secure mailing list service, enhanced for future requirements.

It was also found that a change of platform may provide a better solution to our community’s needs in the future.  We hope that this development will enable us to provide new benefits beyond JISCMail’s traditional boundaries. Therefore, the current service provider - The Science and Technology Facilities Council -will continue to provide JISCMail for the next year, whilst we work together to migrate this service onto a new platform.


Further announcements will follow

Heavyweight Mailing Lists Celebrate Millionth User - 15/6/11

In May 2011 the JISCMail National Academic Mailing List Service celebrated the subscription of its millionth individual user. The JISCMail service, running at STFC for over ten years, provides the UK academic community with collaborative tools including over 8,000 mailing lists. These mailing lists provide an easy to use communication forum for universities, colleges and research institutions.

Each mailing list provides a forum for a project, announcements, or a specific topic of discussion. JISCMail lists host topics ranging from traditional academic pursuits such as Performance Art and High Energy Physics to the list whose huge subscriber base includes the millionth user: the Galaxy Zoo project.

Galaxy Zoo’s purpose is to invite members of the public to help in classifying over sixty million galaxies . Members see an image of a galaxy and are asked to describe properties such as whether it is round or flat or whether it has any spirals. This is an example of crowdsourcing, a practice where a large undefined community (the “crowd”) are recruited through an open call to perform a task. Galaxy Zoo joined JISCMail in August 2007 to send updates on the project to over 80,000 members . Since then Galaxy Zoo has grown to over 370,000 subscribers.

JISCMail is a prime example of STFC providing critical infrastructure to support not only scientific research but the entirety of UK research along with Higher and Further Education.

JISCMail Mobile app/site

We are interested in how you would like to use a mobile app/site for the JISCMail service and have created a survey to collect your views: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/67F66BV.

The survey will be open until 31st July as it is part of an investigative project being conducted by a student who is working with us for the summer. Depending on the results of user feedback and the success of technical work to be undertaken, we would hope to release it later in 2011.

JISCMail access 1/8/2011

On 9th August at 08:00 the site firewall will be rebooted. It is expected that it will take up to 30 minutes to reboot and stabilise.

During the reboot the JISCMail website will be unavailable and mail will be queued for delivery once the firewall has been restored.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause - please email helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk if you require further information.

Site Firewall Replacement Interface 5/9/2011

On the 13th of September, the JISCMail service will be experiencing a site firewall replacement interface at 08:00. This will only last 5 minutes. Also on the 20th of september, the JISCMail service will be experiencing a possible outage to reconfigure the new interface between 08:00 and 9:00 for about 30 minutes.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this outage.

JISCMail Networking problems 5/9/2011

The JISCMail service experienced a site networking problem overnight. This started at 01:10 and lasted until 08:05 when access to the website was restored. However, a further intermittent server problem after the network came back up caused our mailer not to be able to deliver properly, and this was resolved at 08:34.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this outage.

JISCMail Networking problems 18/10/2011

The network infrastructure that the JISCMail service uses at STFC will be undergoing maintenance during the ‘At Risk’  period between 08:00 and 10:00am on 1st November 2011. There may be intermittent access problems to the JISCMail service during this time, and we apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.