School and Faculty Communications - Staff Guide
Minerva has organisation areas for programmes, schools and faculties which can be used to send emails and announcements to the participants of that organisation.
Members who do not have a staff role are shown as participants. Any staff members with the appropriate staff roles (eg Leader, Assistant) in an organisation can send announcements and emails to that organisation or the groups within it.
| Please note: |
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| We have become aware of inaccuracies in the membership of student groups (specifically made for communications) within School and Faculty organisations. While these are investigated, we advise that you should not use these groups. For the latest update on this issue please see our recent news article on inaccuracies with automatically created Minerva Groups in School and Faculty organisations. |
Programme Communications
You can request the creation of Programme organisations. Once created, announcements can be used to communicate with all the participants of an organisation.
School and Faculty Communications
An organisation area exists for each school and faculty. Students are automatically enrolled on these areas. Staff can be manually enrolled on request, see requesting a staff role for an organisation. As with standard organisations, announcements can be used to communicate with all the participants of an organisation.
For more granular communications, a standard set of student groups are available in all school organisations. These groups can be used to send emails, but not announcements. Communications sent to these groups are managed by school staff. Staff should check that any communication adheres to the policy on Minerva communications before sending.
The same set of student groups are also available in faculty organisations.
Groups available in school and faculty organisations are:
- All UG
- All TPG
- All PGR
- All UG Y1
- All UG Y2
- All UG Y3
- All UG Y4
- All UG Y5
- All TPG Y1
- All TPG Y2
- All TPG Y3
- New starters
- Finalists UG
- Joint Honours – Not parented by
- Joint Honours – Parented by
- Year in Industry
- Year Abroad
Please note: membership of these student groups is updated overnight and should be accurate, however data quality issues (eg incorrect data inputted into Banner) may result in minor discrepancies with membership.
What school organisations will Joint Honours students be in?
Joint Honours students will be participants of the school organisations and groups for both their parent school and their non-parent school.
What school organisations will Natural Sciences students be in?
Natural Sciences students are not counted as Joint Honours students. They are all parented by the School of Chemistry, but they take modules in different schools. They will all automatically be participants of the School of Chemistry organisation, but will need to be manually added and removed each year from the school organisations they are taking modules in, and from the student groups within those schools (eg All UG Y2).
How can we communicate with students in a school who are not on campus because they are on a year abroad or year in industry?
Each school organisation will have a group each for students on a year in industry and students on a year abroad. These groups will include all such students, whichever study year they are in. Please note: membership of these groups cannot yet be considered to include all students on a year abroad/undertaking a year in industry. Work is ongoing to improve data quality in Banner to ensure group membership is accurate.
To send an email to a student group
Original organisation
1. Click Users and Groups from the left hand menu bar.
2. Click Groups.
3. Click the chevron next to the name of the group you would like to message, then select Email Group from the menu.
Ultra organisation
1. Click Groups from the navigation bar.
2. Click the chevron next to the name of the group set you would like to message, then select the email icon next to the relevant group from the menu.
Please note
Common Questions
Can we request additional groups to be created in our school organisation?
If you have a school-specific need for a group, you could set up a group manually within the school organisation and maintain its membership manually (by adding and removing people as appropriate).
We will consider requests for additional groups that are populated by data feed, however these would exist across all schools, so must have relevance across the university and not be school specific.
School and faculty organisations are in the process of being moved to Ultra Course View. When they are updated, it will also be possible to send Messages alongside emails when using student groups.
Can we still set up groups within modules and organisations ourselves?
Yes, but you will need to manage the membership of those groups manually (ie by adding and removing students and staff from a group).
Can I create a temporary group to send a one-off message to students about a specific issue?
If you need to send important University-level communications to a large group of students (eg publicising the National Student Survey), you can compile a spreadsheet of student usernames and request a Minerva announcement. To do this, please login to the IT website and log a general request. Please enter Request for Minerva announcement to list of students in the short description field and attach your spreadsheet of usernames.
Is there a data feed which automatically adds and removes staff from school organisations, as well as the data feed for students?
No, the school needs to manually add or remove staff from school organisations. For all organisation types, you will not be able to manually enrol users with any role other than participant. For staff level access please contact your Faculty Learning Technologists or the IT Service Desk.
Whilst you can manually enrol users as participants, you cannot remove them manually, please contact the IT Service Desk to request a removal.
Can I send the same communication to more than one organisation?
If you need to send the same communication to more than one organisation, you can copy and paste the content from one to the next. There is no automated way to send the same communication to multiple organisations.
Can joint schools send separate communications to students based in the UK and students based in China?
Where, for example, it is felt that some joint school messages may only be relevant to students physically based in the UK, a programme organisation can be created for just for the UK programme(s). Yes, see What are organisations and how to request one.
What if we would prefer to use an email mailing list to communicate with students?
IT have a system for mailing lists, see the page creating and using mailing lists on the IT website. You would need to manage the membership of the list yourself.
Requesting a new organisation
See, What are organisations and how to request one.
University Wide Communications
Minerva can be used to send announcements (but not emails) targeted at specific university-wide groups. These messages are managed by the Digital Education Systems Team. See request an announcement by submitting a Minerva Publicity Request.