Enrol pageboy

Examples

1999s1.COMP1021

Addresses all students who were enrolled in the COMP1021 course for session one of 1999. Note: The default option -cse-unsw applies here, which means that CSE addresses are generated for those who have CSE accounts, and UNSW address generated for students with no CSE account.

COMPB13645-unsw

A list of UNSW addresses is generated for all students enrolled in the COMPB13645 plan in the current year and session. Note:

• The current session may be a summer session which does not usually have many official enrolments.
• If the current session is undefined (ie: we are between sessions) then the previous session is used instead. This might be a summer session.
• UNSW addresses are generated for all students meeting this criteria, regardless of whether they have a CSE account.

curr.1650-cse

Generate CSE addresses for all students who are enrolled in the 1650 program in the current major year and session. Note:

• The current major year and session will be either session one or two of the current (or previous) year. Major year/sessions usually have the most numerous and complete set of official enrolments.
• If we are actually between sessions, or if the current session is a summer (non-major) session, then "curr." refers to the last major year/session.
• CSE addresses are only generated for those students with CSE accounts. Those without CSE accounts do not receive the email.

pgc.yr3

CSE/UNSW addresses of all students currently enrolled in a CSE postgraduate program by coursework, AND who were also enrolled in any third year CSE course. Note that the conjunction (the AND) was inserted by default.

pgc.yr3.and

The equivalent enrolment expression to the previous example with the AND explicitly specified.

2008s2.COMP.SENG.BINF.or.or.5.6.7.8.9.or.or.or.or.and.COMP3.SENG3.BINF3.or.or.and-cse-unsw

Fully specified equivalent to the previous example. The components: COMP.SENG.BINF.or.or selects students enrolled in a CSE plan; 5.6.7.8.9.or.or.or.or selects students doing a postgraduate by coursework program; while COMP3.SENG3.BINF3.or.or selects students enrolled in a third year CSE course.

2008s2.COMP3.SENG3.or.BINF3.or.5.6.or.7.8.or.or.9.or.COMP.SENG.or.BINF.or.and.and-cse-unsw

Another equivalent, fully specified variation of the previous three examples (assuming that the current year and session is 2008s2).

2007S2.COMP.1

CSE/UNSW addresses of all students enrolled in a COMP plan, in a phd program (a program number starting with 1), in session 2 of 2007. Note the difference with the next example.

2007S2.COMP1

CSE/UNSW addresses of all students enrolled in a COMP1 course (ie: any course starting with COMP1) in session 2 of 2007. Note the difference with the previous example.

2008s2.comp1911.cse.2008s1.comp1910.cse

All students who in session 1 of 2008, were enrolled in a CSE plan, and were enrolled in COMP1910 AND who in session 2 of 2008 were enrolled in a CSE plan and enrolled in COMP1911.

comp1911.cse.not

CSE/UNSW addresses of all students currently enrolled in COMP1911 who are enrolled in any plan that is not a CSE plan.

comp1911.COMP.SENG.BINF.or.or.not.and.

Equivalent fully specified enrolment expression to the previous example. Note that in this example the NOT operator follows immediately after a binary OR operator, and not, as has been recommended elsewhere in this document, immediately after a PATTERN (like BINF). This is because the parser delays its evaluation of the enrolment specification for as long as it can, in the hope that it can join related patterns together (like COMP.SENG.BINF.or.or) and optimise the eventual evaluation. If this makes no sense to you, don't worry - just make sure that you normally use the NOT operator only after PATTERNs (or risk getting sent the cryptic error message: 'Cannot negate an evaluated expression').

comp1011.not

All students that are enrolled in any course other than COMP1011. Note that this is not the way you select those students that are not enrolled in COMP1011 because a student who is enrolled in COMP1011 and at least one other course, is obviously enrolled in a course other than COMP1011, and will therefore be selected by this enrolment specification. See the next two examples for how to select students that are not enrolled in a course (or combination of courses).

COMP1011.not.COMP1011.sub

This enrolment specification first selects the set of all students enrolled in any course other than COMP1011, and then subtracts from this the set of all students enrolled in COMP1011. This final set of students is usually what is informally meant by "all students not enrolled in COMP1011", although the size of this final set of students will depend on what other course enrolments are recorded in the enrolment files used by this pageboy. A better defined example follows.

ug.COMP1011.COMP1021.or.sub

This first selects all students enrolled in a CSE undergraduate program, then subtracts from this the set of all students enrolled in either COMP1011 or COMP1021.

ug.csecourse.sub

Subtract from the set of all students enrolled in a CSE undergraduate program, the set of all students enrolled in any course run by CSE. This effectively selects all CSE undergraduates not enrolled in any CSE course.

COMP1911.tut=M14A

All students enrolled in the M14A tutorial in COMP1911 in the current year and session. Note: the central enrolment records relating to tutorial and lab allocations are not always kept up to date by students, and so mailing lists that rely on these sorts of course enrolment records may not always be accurate.

COMP1911.tlb=?

This is an example of a field query that will email to the sender a list of all the COMP1911 tutorial or lab groups that students have enrolled in the current year and session. This inhibits the calculation of any address lists and the delivery of any accompanying non-empty email. An example of the list of values returned would be: M10A:18, H12A:19, H12B:18, F09A:15 (See the section on listing course field values)

2011s1.COMP3411.type=?

This field query emails a list of all field types that students were enrolled in session 1 of 2011 for the course COMP3411. An example of the list of values returned would be: LEC, TUT

Restrictions and Operation

• Only users who are employees of CSE or who are members of Subject_Utility (as classified by the UDB) may send email directly to an enrolment pageboy address. Other users (including addresses from outside CSE) may be permitted to send email to enrolment pageboy addresses indirectly via CSE's mail alias system (mlalias). See the section below on Links with mlalias
• An error message is sent back via email to the sender, and no email is sent to any other recipient, if:
  • The user is not authorized to send to the enrolment pageboy;
  • There is an error in the enrolment address specification;
  • The enrolment specification expands into an empty list (ie: there are no recipients)
• The enrolment pageboy virtual address remains in the To: address line in the email header of the email that is finally sent to all recipients. The final expanded list of recipient addresses matching the virtual address remains hidden from all recipients.
• If the sender sends an empty email message to an enrolment pageboy address, then the list of email addresses of the students matching the enrolment specification will be sent back to the sender, and no email is sent to the recipients at all.
• If the sender uses either of the listing options, then the list of addresses and/or registration numbers will be sent back to the sender.

Address Specification

Syntax

Parsing

• The enrolment specification is read, parsed and evaluated from left to right.
• Case is not significant.

Plans

• At least the first FOUR letters of the plan prefix on their own. eg: COMP, COMPA1, COMPA23645
• plan=prefix where prefix is at least one character.
• One of the plan shortcuts (described here)

Programs

• At least the first number of the program on its own. eg: 1650, 72, 3
• program=prefix where prefix is at least one character.
• One of the program shortcuts (described here)

Courses

• At least the first FIVE letters of the course prefix on their own. eg: COMP1, COMP39, COMP4911
• course=prefix where prefix is at least one character.
• One of the course shortcuts: 'hons', 'thesisA', 'thesisB' or 'csecourse' (described here).
• field=value where field is the name of a course enrolment field, and value is the value that this field should have in the enrolment record of the selected student.
  
  The basic fields are:
  • TYPE: This field defines the type of enrolment being recorded. It's values include: LAB (laboratory), LEC (lecture), TUT (tutorial), TLB (tutlab)
  • ID: This field defines the identifier assigned to this particular course enrolment type (eg: T13A)
  • SCHOOL: This identifies the school (or "Organisational Unit") that is responsible for running this particular course enrolment type. ie: the school responsible for running the tutorial, lab, or lecture (eg: COMPSC, ELEC)
  Thus an enrolment record for COURSE=COMP1234 with TYPE=TUT and ID=T13A, records a student's enrolment in the COMP1234 course tutorial T13A. Such enrolments might be specified by: COMP1234.TYPE=TUT.ID=T13A
  
  The next section tells you how to obtain a list of the actual valid values assigned to any particular course's fields.
• typevalue=idvalue where typevalue is the value of TYPE, and idvalue is the value of the ID. This short cut allows both TYPE and ID to be specified together, such that:

  LAB=value

  is equivalent to "TYPE=LAB.TYPE=TLB.or.ID=value.and."

  TUT=value

  is equivalent to "TYPE=TUT.TYPE=TLB.or.ID=value.and."

  TLB=value

  is equivalent to "TYPE=LAB.TYPE=TUT.TYPE=TLB.or.or.ID=value.and."

  XXX=value

  is equivalent to "TYPE=XXX.ID=value.and."

  The next section tells you how to obtain a list of the actual valid values assigned to any particular course's typevalue fields.

Listing course field values

• 2011s1.COMP5678.TYPE=?@enrol.program would return a list of all the COMP5678 enrolment TYPEs in which there are any students enrolled in session 1 2011. eg: LEC:396, TUT:396, SEM:396
• 2011s1.COMP1234.TUT=?@enrol.program would return a list of all the COMP1234 tutorial IDs in which there are any students enrolled. eg: M10A:18, H12A:19, H12B:18, F09A:15

• Each list value is returned, one per line, in the form: string:number, where string is the value of the course field or shortcut, and number is the number of students whose enrolment record have this field value.
• The list of values is sent back to the sender with the subject line: "Value expansion of pageboy address".
• Tutorials, labs, and seminars are usually given names of the form: day time id, where M,T,W,H,F represent Monday to Friday, time is given in a 24 hour format, and id is an alphabetic character which is unique when there is more than one type assigned to the same day and time.

Operators

• The AND operator specifies that the students that match both of the two previous enrolment expressions should be selected. ie: If a student matches one enrolment expression but not the other, then the student is not selected.
• The OR operator specifies that the students that match either one of the two previous enrolment expressions should be selected.
• The NOT operator reverses the sense of the previous enrolment expression so that instead of selecting all students enrolled in the previously specified course, plan, or program, you select students enrolled in any course, plan, or program other than the one specified. In general, the NOT operator should immediately follow a pattern or shortcut (rather than a binary operator) as the negation of an arbitrarily complex enrolment expression is not well defined. See the note below on the combined use of NOT and SUBTRACT.
• The SUB operator subtracts the last set of students from the second to last set of students. ie: if the students that match the last expression are in the set B, and the students that match the second to last expression are in the set A, then (A B SUB) is the set of students that are in A but not in B. This operator is generally used to define disjoint enrolment sets in conjunction with the NOT operator. See the note below for an example and explanation of this.

Year and Session

Absolutely

A specific a year and session may be specified by year session where year is a four digit year (starting from 1999), and session may be s1, s2 or x1.

Relatively

All relative year/session specs refer to major sessions. Major sessions are sessions one or two, and exclude all other sessions (currently only summer session).

curr

Refers to the current year and session if we are currently in a major session, or to the previous major year and session at any other time.

prev

Refers to the previous major year and session.

next

Refers to the next major year and session.

Note:

• Relative year/session specifications are typically used in automated scripts and/or aliases.
• There are currently very few official non-major session enrolment records.

Back_ref

Shortcuts

Course Shortcuts

Plan Shortcuts

Program Shortcuts

Options

Address Options

-cse

On its own, this option generates addresses for only those students that have active CSE accounts. The addresses used are the students' CSE addresses. Students who are selected by the enrolment specification that do not have CSE accounts, have no addresses generated, and will not receive the associated email.

-unsw

On its own, this option generates UNSW addresses for all students selected by the enrolment specification regardless of whether or not they have a CSE account. UNSW addresses are of the form: z1234567@student.unsw.edu.au, which depend only on the uniwide central account and email system, and not on the CSE account and email system. Note that the generation of a UNSW address for the student does not imply that a UNSW address or account exists for the student yet (or that it might ever have existed).

-cse-unsw or -unsw-cse

When used in combination these options causes the pageboy to generate and use CSE addresses for those students with CSE accounts, and UNSW addresses for those students without CSE accounts. Note that the generation of a UNSW address for the student does not imply that a UNSW address or account exists for the student (or that it might ever have existed). If neither -cse nor -unsw address option is explicitly specified, then both options are enabled by default.

Listing Options

-addr

Email the address list back to the sender with the subject line: "Address expansion of enrol_addr@enrol.program". The address list returned is the same as the one that is automatically sent back to the sender if an empty email message (ie: with no body) is sent to the pageboy.

-regno

Email back to the sender the list of student registration numbers corresponding to the enrolment address. The list is sent back with the subject line: "Student number expansion of enrol_addr@enrol.program".

Note: the list returned corresponds to the list of addresses selected by the enrolment address, including any address options. In particular, an address specification with the address option of -cse, would send back to the sender the list of student registration numbers of only those students meeting the enrolment specification who also had an active CSE account.

Enrolment files

1. Enrolment data files only record official student enrolments. Any student that has/had made private or unofficial arrangements with the school to enrol in any course, program, or plan will not be able to be contacted via these addresses.
2. Enrolment data files only extend back to session 1 of 1999.
3. The course enrolment data for the previous, current and next session is updated daily from the University's central enrolment system and consequently may change from day to day. The full set of program and plan enrolment data for the current session is updated weekly, although a subset of these enrolments may be obtained and updated from the daily updates. No other enrolment data files from previous years or sessions are routinely updated. These data files remain static and archival from the time that the last update was obtained for these enrolments (generally one session after the session in question has ended).
4. The enrolment files are also used as the basis of student UDB course/program class membership. However, you generally cannot rely on UDB membership being an accurate reflection of current enrolment. This is because the UDB enrolment based class expiry dates will usually extend beyond the end of the enrolled session and into the following session or, depending on the course or program, possibly well into the following year.
   
   For this reason, the enrolment pageboy will always provide a more accurate list of students enrolled in particular courses and/or programs in particular years and sessions than will the virtual addresses that rely directly on current UDB class membership (see virtual aliases. Although the sets of addresses produced by both methods should coincide very closely when they are produced for current enrolments anytime from the middle to end of the current session, you cannot and should not rely on this.
5. These enrolment files are the only local source of data refering to enrolments in CSE plans (the UDB does not store any information relating to CSE plans).

Inspecting the expanded address lists

• The sender uses either (or both) of the Listing Options, or
• The sender sends an empty email message to an enrolment pageboy address. This is equivalent to using the -addr listing option, except that no email at all is sent to the resulting recipients, and the address list is sent back with the subject line: "Empty email address expansion of enrol_addr@enrol.program".

Links with mlalias

• The non-standard users must either be:
  • Explicitly named as one of the owners of the mlalias. Non-CSE users can be mlalias owners by adding their external (non-CSE) email address to the list of owners.
  • A local user who is a member of one of the explicitly named group owners of the mlalias. Group owners start with a '@'.
• The mlalias must be closed. This ensures that noone can add themselves to the mail alias that can send to the enrol pageboy alias;
• The first owner of the mlalias must be a member of 'Employee'. This ensures that non-employees cannot create their own mlaliases forwarding to enrol pageboy aliases.
• The enrol pageboy address to which the mlalias forwards its mail must include a special backward reference to the forwarding mlalias of the form: enrol_pageboy_spec.alias=mlalias_name@enrol.program.
  
  This is the only way that the enrol pageboy can check the sender against the mlalias owners (as described above). The enrol pageboy also confirms that it is called with the same enrol_pageboy_spec as is recorded in the mlalias system. This ensures that the enrol pageboy does not permit a non-standard user to use it with a pageboy spec that was not specified in the mlalias.
  
  The backward reference .alias=mlalias_name must occur immediately before "@enrol.program". Any address or listing options must be included at the end of the enrol_pageboy_spec, immediately before the backward reference.

Mlalias Examples

• Was owned by a CSE employee (typically sue herself);
• Included "karen@external.site.com" as an additional owner;
• Included "@random" as an additional owner;
• Redirected its mail to "3927.alias=XYZ@enrol.program";