Faculty & Staff Campus Announcements

Guidelines for Posting Messages

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Appalachian Announcements (Announce) is a moderated Google Group for App State faculty and staff announcements. 

All active faculty and staff are automatically subscribed to the Announce group. The membership is refreshed every evening.

Students do not receive these messages. Engage, managed by Student Affairs, can be used to share news and events with students. Visit Engage Support for more information.

Emergency messages are not sent via Announce. These messages will continue to be sent through existing campus channels.

Moderation and Message Delivery

All members can submit messages for moderation that are relevant to App State employees and related to university business or activities. Review Message Guidelines before submitting.

  • Messages are moderated on workdays. 
  • Messages are not moderated on weekends, during university closures or on holidays.

Moderators can only “approve” or “reject” submitted messages. 

  • They cannot edit or resubmit messages. 
  • Moderators can delete posted messages that contain errors and/or incorrect information but cannot guarantee that these messages have not already been viewed by group members. 

Announce Digest

A curated digest of approved messages is sent weekly on Tuesdays. Messages posted by 8 a.m. each Tuesday are moderated for the weekly digest email. 

The Announce digest includes the subject line of each approved message and a link to the full message, and these are sorted into categories:

  1. Upcoming events*
  2. Announcements
  3. Grants, Research and Calls for Submissions
  4. Meetings
  5. Workshops
  6. Health and Wellness

*Submitting an event? To adhere to university policies and procedures, only events that are directly aligned with and officially sponsored by the university are eligible for advertisement.

Remember: You can read recent messages at any time — no need to wait for the weekly digest.

Message Guidelines

As a reminder, messages submitted for moderation must be relevant to App State employees and related to university business or activities. 

Drafting your message

  1. Write a descriptive subject line. Only the subject line is included in the digest; therefore, it should be descriptive and concise.
  2. Keep it short! Include the critical information only and clearly define the connection to university business or activities.
  3. Point the audience to more information. Link to a page and/or news or event post on an App State website for more information. Announce messages should not be the sole source of information about news or events.
  4. Make it accessible. Images and graphics must be accompanied by descriptive text — messages containing only images will be rejected.
  5. Check for errors. Review your message carefully for spelling and grammatical errors, dates/times and check all links.

Reasons for “Rejection”

  • Significant spelling and grammatical errors and/or other errors such as dates/times. 
  • The subject line is not descriptive or does not relate to the message. 
  • The message is a duplicate message.
  • The message is a reply or forward. Please refrain from submitting any replies or forwards. Only original messages should be submitted, and responses should be directed solely to the sender of the original message.
  • The message is promoting an event that has already taken place or the time frame for advertising the event is too short.
  • The message contains only an image or images with no descriptive text.
  • The message is intended for students*. 
  • The message is not related to university business or activities. 
  • The message relates to unauthorized business usage, political campaigns or personal advertising.

*Note: If your intention is for employees to share the message with students, please include this statement or something similar: Please share this message with your students.

What happens if your message is “rejected?”

You will receive a reply notification that your message has been “rejected” and a reminder of common reasons. Please correct the message and resend for moderation. 

How to Post a Message for Moderation

Members can submit messages for moderation in three ways:

  1. From your @appstate.edu email account
    Send an email to announce@appstate.edu, exactly as you would like it to appear.

  2. From the Announce website
    Select “Post a message” and you will be taken to the message archive screen.
    Select “New conversation” to compose your message.
    Hit “Post message” when ready to send for moderation.

  3. From My Groups
    Select “Announce” and you will be taken to the message archive screen.
    Select “New conversation” to compose your message.
    Hit “Post message” when ready to send for moderation.

When you post a message for moderation, your message moves to the moderation queue but you will not be notified. 

You will be notified via email if your message is approved or rejected.  

Questions?

Contact ucomm@appstate.edu with questions, for assistance, or to request deletion of a posted message.

Updated 06/12/23