A poll for this evening, as I am getting flooded with emails from student who shit the bed on my exam.....
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I am a junior faculty member working in a field of evolution, using a variety of different study organisms. The term ‘spandrels’ was adopted by Lewontin and Gould in a 1979 paper “to designate the class of forms and spaces that arise as necessary byproducts of another decision in design, and not as adaptations for direct utility in themselves”. I think this term can also be applied to life as a junior faculty member. email: proflikesubstance[at]gmail.com
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I'm a rare email responder -- we use a discussion board instead, and I let questions sit for a while before responding in the hope that a student will answer first. The discussion board has a 'private' function so students can send me private-ish messages. This made teaching >300 students tolerable.
Sounds like you need Piazza.
Students evaluate me and these evaluations are part of my tenure folder. So I answer them all. But in my 7th year, policy changes will take hold.
I require them to put the class number (SUBJECT101 or the like) and section number in the subject line -- I work very hard to respond to all of those. This allows them to be sorted as they come in so I can see them and they are not lost in my inbox. With hundreds of students and no graduate TA, this is the only option. If they did not follow the rules, sometimes I answer them, other times not. However, I too am aware of student evaluations and have to play that game.
I've been lucky with small class sizes (I'm at a PUI), and only a small percentage of my students bother to email me, so I can respond quickly to student emails. I can't imagine what it must be like for large classes, though - I'm not sure how I'd triage it, if it got out of control (I like CoR's Discussion board idea for most questions).
Constantly responding to emails. And I respond as soon as I get them. Overwhelming, really.
No problem. I retired before there were student emails.
We use a discussion-board thing, too. No responding to emails unless you go through the board. I'm already overwhelmed by emails sometimes, so I'm glad that the students don't really expect anything of me email-wise
I sometimes respond to emails by requesting that they ask their question on the class discussion board.
Other than that, I respond but I make a point of not responding quickly unless it is actually my office hours. When they get used to instant response they send more and more inappropriate emails (in my experience) and they get testy when they don't get responded to right away.
my policy (for sanity) is no email after 5pm and none on weekends. im trying to train them to be more like adults... though i will often spend sunday afternoons responding and saving the emails to send them first thing monday morning. helps the week get off to a better start!
A few of my profs would only allow email to set up an office appointment. If it wasn't important enough to get your arse in a chair in person, then it didn't deserve a response. I thought that was entirely reasonable.