Setting Up a ListServ (ListProc)

Johns Hopkins University provides e-mailing lists through a program called ListServ (also called ListProc). These e-mail lists allow instructors to e-mail large numbers of people without having to manually enter in everyone's e-mail addresses and reveal those addresses to other people. This service is provided through a Hopkins Web server (a networked computer).

Steps for Setting Up a Mailing List:

• Apply for a mailing list through the Johns Hopkins Information Technology department. The application for a mailing list can be found here: www.jhu.edu/~hac/hcf/mlist/form.html. It generally takes one week for the IT department to process your request and set up a mailing list (if you are approved for one). To avoid any potential confusion which might delay the application of your list, please follow these detailed instructions:
• For "List Owner Name" and "E-mail Address" fields, enter your name and e-mail address.
• For the "Affiliation" field, select the appropriate option (if you are unsure, the "Faculty/Staff in Sciences/Social sciences" option would be appropriate).
• Complete the "Organization" field.
• You can leave the Address and Phone Number lines blank.
• If this is a list you want to share with another faculty member, you may want to enter that person's name and e-mail address in the "Co-Owner" and "E-mail Address" fields.
• Enter Question 3 (expiration date of the list)
• Enter your choice for Question 4 (name of list).
• Leave Question 5 alone (it is better if you list remains "Unmoderated." As list owner, you will still be able to control the list anyway)
• For Question 6, select the "closed" subscription option. This will give you complete control over who can interact with the mailing list and prevents unwanted posters.
• For Question 7, select "yes".
• Leave the remaining questions on their default settings, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the "Submit LISTPROC Mailing List" button.

Once the IT department sets up your mailing list (which takes approximately a week), there are still several more steps we need to go through to get your list fully functional. Please follow these detailed instructions to make sure your list is up and running properly:

• You interact with your mailing list by issuing commands to the ListProc (another name for ListServ) server via e-mail. The e-mail address you will send commands to is: listproc@listproc.jhu.edu. Commands are sent in the body of the e-mail. You must make sure that the Subject line of the e-mail is left blank!
• Now, you must ensure that the mailing list is in fact closed subscription, so send the following command in the body of an e-mail to listproc@listproc.jhu.edu:
  "con listname listpassword CLOSED-SUBSCRIPTIONS". Where "listname" is the name of your list and "listpassword" is the password. So an example (using the AAP mailing list, which is aap-info@listproc.jhu.edu) would be: "con aap-info notrealpassword CLOSED-SUBSCRIPTIONS".
• Now that you have ensured that your mailing list is closed to the general public, we need to add all your users. To add a user, you need to know the person's e-mail address.
• Once you have the user's email address, send an email to listproc@listproc.jhu.edu (remember to leave the subject line blank!) with the following text in the body of the e-mail:
  ADD list password address name
  Where "list" is the list name, "password" is your administrative password, "address" is the new user's e-mail address and "name" is the username. An example looks like:
  ADD aap-info notrealpassword joebob@nowhere.com joebob
  You can send an e-mail containing as many ADD commands as you like, just make sure each ADD command is on a separate line in the e-mail. Once you have added all your users, you're good to go! To send an e-mail to all your mailing list subscribers, simply send an email to listname@listproc.hcf.jhu.edu

For more detailed instructions on LISTSERV commands and other types of LISTSERV mailing lists, check out these following links:
http://www.jhu.edu/~hac/hcf/mlist/listproc.html
http://www.jhu.edu/~hac/hcf/mlist/listproc2.html

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