DEOS-L Advertising Policy

DEOS-L Advertising Policy

Staff persons of the American Center for the Study of Distance Education (the sponsor of DEOS-L) will review for posting ANNOUNCEMENTS of new products (courses of study, books, videotapes, software, etc.), services (conferences, workshops etc.) and new distance educational endeavors (virtual universities, etc.)

These ANNOUNCEMENTS shall not contain any reference to fees or costs, nor contain order forms nor registration forms. They may contain the name and contact information of a person or organization from whom such order or registration forms can be obtained. Contact information may be postal addresses, electronic mail addresses, telephone numbers, URLs etc.

If a product or a service is being provided free of charge, that may be so stated in the ANNOUNCEMENT.

Vendors may respond privately or publically to postings inquiring about or pertaining to products and services that they offer. Unsolicited postings containing vendor/product information will not be posted.

For the purposes of this policy, the content of signature files (URLs, slogans etc.) is not considered "advertising."

The content or subject matter of all products and services must pertain to teaching and learning at a distance. The use of technologies commonly used in distance education to convey content unrelated to teaching and learning at a distance (e.g. workshops on child care methods or general accounting procedures or conferences that do not have a Distance Education theme or track) is not sufficient to qualify an ANNOUNCEMENT for posting to DEOS-L.

Posts will be returned to senders for re-formulation or for distribution to other lists if they fail to meet the above guidelines.

Final determination of suitability for posting shall rest with the Moderator and the Director of the American Center for the Study of Distance Education.

THE HISTORY OF THE POLICY (from 1994)

The Pennsylvania State University used to be a member BITnet, a network managed by the Corporation for Research and Education Networking, (CREN). CREN had an written policy which set out acceptable use of their networks (see the CREN Acceptable Use policy in the file CREN NET_USE, that used to be available from LISTSERV@BITNIC.)

PSU was required, as a participating site, to uphold the CREN standards, and ensure our users also complied. (see CREN Terms of Membership and Affiliation, CREN TERMS from LISTSERV@BITNIC). DEOS-L used a BITnet address (DEOS-L@psuvm), as did our listserv (LISTSERV@PSUVM) and many of our subscribers received their mail at BITnet addresses.

CREN expressly forbade the use of its networks for "commercial purposes, such as marketing. . ." and "Advertising is forbidden".

List members have always consistently stated their preference for a minimum of "advertising" materials on this list. However, it is the desire of the American Center for the Study of Distance Education (the sponsor of DEOS-L) to inform the readers of DEOS-L of new products and services that pertain to the subject matter of this list (Teaching and Learning at a Distance).

In order to meet both objectives, the DEOS-L policy was formulated to ensure our compliance with CREN Acceptable Use Guidelines.

September 10, 1994 mauri collins, Moderator, DEOS-L