Xebec McGraw-Hill has launched an online learning resource to help organisations reduce information overload by ensuring employees write, send, receive and manage their e-mails more productively.

Called E-ffective E-mail, the resource comprises three courses - Policies and Procedures, Sending the Right Message and Managing Your Email - which are available on a single CD-Rom or as three online (intranet-based) learning courses.

Policies and Procedures (20 mins) covers the benefits of using e-mail for communication - and the disadvantages - and provides tips on developing corporate procedures to protect IT systems and individual employees. It includes examples of company policies - such as passwords & security, inappropriate messages and legal restrictions - and can be customised to include specific organisational policies and information. The course also offers guidelines for combating viruses, flaming (thoughtless or aggressive e-mails) and hoax and junk mail.

Sending the Right Message (50 mins) helps users consider whether e-mail is the most appropriate medium for their audience and message and shows how to write clear, concise and appropriate e-mails. It also gives tips on checking your mail messages, prior to sending them.

Managing Your E-mail (50 mins) shows how to organise, filter and file what you receive. It describes eight ‘e-mail villains’ who use e-mail inappropriately - Information freak; Indecision-maker; Discussion groupie; Time-waster; Flamethrower; Mailaholic; Question master and Scatter gun - and gives tips on how best to handle them. It concludes with a highly interactive simulation to help users practise managing their e-mail, by choosing the most appropriate responses - read, delete, file, reply or acknowledge and deal with later - to a series of typical messages.

E-ffective E-mail includes a pre-course test to determine which sections would be most appropriate for each user and a post- course test to help assess each user’s understanding. Also included is a ‘Knowledge Bank’, which provides an alphabetical glossary of e-mail and internet-related terms - such as SPAM, FTP and URL - as well as additional information on e-mail transmissions, corporate policies, computer viruses and copyright issues. An accompanying workbook provides notes, summaries, exercises and examples.

The three online courses are available under an annual licence based on the number of users (a 250 user licence costs £8 per user and the price reduces as user numbers increase). The CD- Rom version is priced at £299.

Xebec McGraw-Hill telephone: 01453 835482.