How would you like it? E-mail use is becoming a problem for teachers

The experience of university lecturers should be taken as a warning of what does happen when the use of e-mail develops without attention to workload. In her book Digital hemlock: Internet education and the poisoning of teaching (UNSW Press, 2002), Tara Brabazon quotes one lecturer:

"During 1997, I was able to complete 2 hours of research and administration before my teaching day started. By 1999, these 2 hours were filled with answering e-mails. After teaching in the morning, though, I was able to go to the library some afternoons. By the middle of semester one, 2000, I was unable to complete any administration through the course of a working day …The number of e-mails has permanently changed the shape of my working day. Hour-long blocks are set aside to read and reply to an ever increasing stream of professional, academic, research and teaching inquiries. Administration and research are now conducted early in the morning, late at night and on weekends."

Teachers and schools must consider this experience and negotiate e-mail protocols that will allow them to retain control of their working day and manage their workload.

Privacy is a second concern that has been raised by teachers.

Many schools reserve the right to randomly monitor e-mail communication as they see fit, without notification to the writer that their e-mail has been monitored and without requiring any substantiated reason for accessing the e-mail account. Some school policies warn staff of this, others don't. Legally the computer system and all that resides on it is the property of the school, and legally the school can proceed in this way. But is this really necessary, or productive, or professional?

There are better, fairer policies that promise to protect the privacy of e-mails except when required by law or substantiated complaint to open them - and that promise to notify the holder of an account when their e-mail has been opened. Fairer policies give specific directions to technical-support staff to keep private and confidential the contents of e-mails that they read in the course of their work, and direct all staff to respect the privacy and confidentiality of colleagues' e-mail. Fair policies promote better work relationships and workplace environments that can only benefit productivity.

Then there is the question of teachers' names and e-mail addresses being published on the Internet. Think again of the Internet fraudsters and their schemes. Is it a breach of privacy if staff have not been consulted and have not given their individual consent for their names and addresses to be published on the school website? Is publishing on the Internet different to publishing in newsletters or school magazines ? Teachers think so, and want the opportunity to say so.

A third issue regarding e-mail communication in schools is that of security. Personal security (confidence in safety from harassment, vilification and hoaxes) and job security (confidence that e-mail communications will not result in parental complaints or academic malpractice appeals - such as HSC appeals - that could threaten employment).

The simple solution is that teachers should not engage in e-mail communication with parents or students. After all, teachers cannot currently write to parents or students on school letterhead without authorisation. Why should electronic letterhead be any different?

Some schools filter incoming e-mails. That is, all e-mails go to one address, and are re-directed to appropriate staff. This solution has merit, especially for the potential risk of harassment, vilification, and hoax. Further, this type of filtering system slows down communication, overcoming the other blight of e-mail - the expectation of instantaneous response.

Most schools, however, do not filter e-mail. Staff receive them directly, no matter what the content, and are expected to respond promptly. As anyone who uses e-mail will affirm, it is easy to make embarrassing mistakes by attaching the wrong document to a message or forwarding e-mails that include another writer's confidential comments.

It is just as easy to use incorrect grammar, punctuation and expression. The fact that e-mail seems to have grown its own mode of expression and language code for common usage is irrelevant, as parents have high expectations of teachers' use of the written word, and will complain about professional incompetency when informal or 'incorrect' language is used.