WHAT TO AVOID
Education IT asks that users please avoid mass-distributing MS Word or other non-text documents to COE email lists as attachments for reasons of security and efficiency.  Since we live in a web enabled world, it makes sense to distribute documents via the web.

SIZE and EFFICIENCY

There are consistently 160  to 200 users on COE-L and the size of any document you send as an email attachment will be multiplied by the number of users on the list.  Thus even a small attachment sent to an email list can consume large amounts of disk space and network bandwidth and make reading email via a modem very slow.

For example, lets say we wanted to send a document that has a size of only 350k or 350,000 bytes.  Multiplying we get,

    160 users x 350,000 bytes (~350k) = 56,000,000 total bytes, or 56 million bytes.

This means that a single small document will consume 56 megabytes of disk space on all the servers combined where users read email.

Many email accounts on the Internet impose disk quotas on email accounts.  This means that a single email message could completely fill someone's INBOX preventing them from receiving further messages.

Some email servers will not accept documents over a certain size (often 1 megabyte), so a large document may not reach some people who need it.

Modem users will have to wait for attached documents to be downloaded before they can read their other messages.

SECURITY

Viruses are increasingly being sent to mailing lists and it is a good idea not to trust documents being sent to a list.  Sending a URL is a more trustworthy means of transmitting data to multiple users.  A web server is a trusted focal point and an authoritative source.  A document that has been deliberately placed on a web server ensures that a document has not been: (a) re-sent by a virus or worm (without the sender's knowledge); (b) tampered with by others before re-transmission; (c) infected by a virus before re-transmission.

WHAT TO DO

We recommend that users copy the text from a word processor and paste it into an email message if possible.  Plain text is always smaller than word processor documents because word processor documents add extra information such as printer driver and font info, page layout data, etc.  Plain text is safe an generally cannot be infected by a virus.

If a rich-content message needs to be sent via email (images, fonts, formatting, etc.), please place Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other documents on a web server and send the URL only via email.  For example, one can simply copy/paste the URL (web address) of a document into an email message, making sure to type the http:// at the beginning of the address, and most email readers will turn it into a clickable link in the body of the email message after sending:

 http://www.education.purdue.edu/edit/emailstuff/email_list_attachments/msword.doc

THE BENEFITS
(1) Email messages will be smaller, transfer faster, and consume less space in each user's inbox.
(2) Placing a document on a web server is safer than using an email attachment since many viruses use email to spread.
(3) Email servers will not have to store large numbers of duplicate documents.
(4) All users on the list will not be forced to download your file, only those that need it!
(5) When a user wants to look at your document, it's only a click away and can be easily archived and bookmarked on the web.

To learn more about placing documents on a web site, please contact Education IT, edit@purdue.edu.

Thank you for your help!!!
Education IT
http://www.education.purdue.edu/edit