It turns out that when person A sends email to person B, there are big machines in between them that actually send and receive the mail. The one that sends the mail (the relay) generally wants to know who you are and approve you as a sender before it lets you use its services. If it is promiscuous and lets anyone uses its services to send mail, it is said to be "open". Left unsecured, can you imagine how such a machine might be used nefariously?

Scripting is a fancy word for a type of programming that does not require the machine to pre-process the programming code in advance.

There are many ways to skin a cat. Your best bet would be to explain your general needs to your IT staff and let them figure it out. Some organizations do not permit open relays, others have strong feelings about who programs what.