Emailing your lecturers and email etiquette
University of Galway’s systems are organised in such a way that we can only contact you on a universityofgalway.ie email account. You must check your email regularly – at least twice weekly during term and frequently during the summer months.
The University of Galway is GDPR compliant and as such we will only respond to emails from students from that student’s University of Galway email. Please use your University of Galway email address for all correspondence with the university. You may not receive a response if you use a personal email address.
Email etiquette
Email is a formal written document, and forms part of your record at university, so it is advisable to treat it formally. Normally students will address the lecturer formally (e.g. “Dear Dr X”) and will also include details of their name, class and student number. Do take time to use proper grammar and spelling. Avoid informalities such as text-speak or casual forms of address (“hey” instead of “Dear X”) so as to ensure that you are properly understood.
Email response times
As academic staff receive a high volume of email, you should normally expect a response to your email within three working days and sooner if possible. The working week is Monday-Friday, excluding bank holidays.
You should never expect responses to emails during weekends, public holidays or outside ordinary working hours (9-5pm, Monday-Friday).
Email outside of the teaching term
Unlike primary and secondary school teachers, academics do not take holidays for the entire summer period but instead will take two or three weeks’ leave during the summer holidays and otherwise are on duty and are required to make themselves available for student contact from April through to August.
However, during the summer months, we also engage in research or related activities such as attending conferences. This means that we are often away from Galway for long periods; we can also be out of email contact for protracted periods. So while you are welcome to contact staff during this period, you should be prepared for a longer-than-usual response time.
Social media
We will endeavour to contact you on your official email address but there may be occasions when we need to reach you on your mobile phone number. You may wish to set up your own closed WhatsApp group for ease of communication. University staff are generally advised against ‘friending’ students on networks such as Facebook. Students should therefore not take offence if a friend request to a staff member is declined.