Technology Services July 26, 2007

Appropriate Use Policy

Objective: see below

Approved/Revised: 08/01/05
Scope: see below

References: Campus Information Technology Committee, meeting minutes of April 06, 2000 and April 07, 2003

Policy:  

Approved 7/29/05

Members of the St. Mary's College of Maryland community have a responsibility to act honorably, with integrity, fairness, and respect for others.  This responsibility extends to the information resources of the College.  In order to support and enhance the educational mission of St. Mary's College of Maryland, access is granted faculty, staff, registered students, and special guests to information resources owned and supported by the College.  These resources should be used in a responsible manner, with care and concern for the needs and rights of others.  St. Mary’s College of Maryland has developed an "appropriate use" policy. 

This appropriate use policy is a guide that is intended to inform and heighten awareness of the issues that are involved in the use of information resources.  It is not intended to replace common sense and concern for the needs of others.  If members of the campus community have any questions about activities that could potentially be in conflict with this appropriate use policy, these questions should be directed to Campus Technology Support Services. Please send these questions to appropriateuse@smcm.edu.  

Be Considerate In Your Use of Our Limited Resources

It is important to be considerate in your use of shared resources.  Users should avoid controlling or degrading computer systems, overloading networks with large e-mail attachments, or wasting computer time.  Consideration of shared resources should include connect time, disk space, printer paper, support staff and other computer and information resources.  For example, campus networks may not be used to transmit mass e-mails unless these mailings are for official College purposes.  If you are not sure if your mass e-mail is an official College communication, or, if you have an official e-mail and you don't know how to send it, please send a message to HelpDesk@smcm.edu.

Equipment Replacement Policy

The College shall replace or repair lost, stolen, or damaged equipment loaned to individuals with equivalent units.  Should funds not be readily available for this purpose, the College shall attempt to replace the unit from its stock of existing equipment. Should that be impractical, an inferior unit shall be provided until such time as the original unit is scheduled to be replaced with a new unit, or a better unit is available. 

Observe the Intended Use of Campus Networks

The purpose of campus networks is to support research, education, service, and administrative activities, by providing access to computing resources and the opportunity for communication and collaborative work.  All uses of the campus networks should be consistent with this purpose.  Violation of this standard can result in the loss of user privileges.  If you are not sure about what is appropriate or have a complaint about use by someone else, please send a message to appropriateuse@smcm.edu.   

Maintain the Confidentiality of Your Password(s)

Your computer account userid identifies you to the entire Internet community.  Anyone who knows your password can use your account.  If he or she does anything that affects the system, it will be traced back to your userid.  If your userid or your computer account is loaned to someone else, you can be held responsible and may lose your user privileges.  In addition, the creation and maintenance of appropriate passwords are the responsibilities of the user.  Users that don't establish and maintain their passwords according to College recommendations may subject College resources to abuse and this could result in a loss of user privileges. Willful misrepresentation of yourself as another individual or remaining anonymous is not allowed on campus networks.  

Comply with the Laws Governing Copyrighted Materials

Many software programs, images, sounds, text, and related materials are owned by individual users or third parties, and are protected by copyright and other laws, by licenses and other contractual agreements.  You must abide by these restrictions, because to do otherwise is a violation of copyright law. 

Such restrictions may include prohibitions against copying data, images, sounds, or programs, the resale of this material or the use of this material for non-educational purposes or for financial gain, and public disclosure of information about programs (e.g., source code) without the owner's authorization otherwise might make you subject to criminal or civil penalties.  Please direct your questions about copyright to appropriateuse@smcm.edu.

Comply with the Laws Governing the use of Electronic Resources

Use of College electronic resources to violate city, state, federal or international laws, rules regulations, rulings or orders, or to otherwise violate College rules is prohibited. Please direct your questions about laws governing electronic resource use to appropriateuse@smcm.edu.

Comply with the Laws Governing the Privacy of Other Users

Federal law protects the privacy of users of wire and electronic communications.  Maryland State Law (Annotated Code of Maryland, Article 27, Sections 45A and 146) also protects your rights as a user of campus computing facilities.  You should make sure that your use of campus networks and other computing facilities does not violate the privacy of other users, if even unintentionally.  Specifically don't try to access the files or directories of another user without clear authorization from that user.  Typically, this authorization is signaled by the other user's setting file access permissions to allow public or group reading of the files.  If you are in doubt, please direct your questions to appropriateuse@smcm.edu. 

Assure Ethical Use of Your E-Mail Privileges

Guidelines on the use of e-mail are not based on etiquette alone.  E-mail sent with the intent of disrupting communication or other system services is not allowed.  The proliferation of electronic chain letters is abusive to the mail system and the network.  Chain letters and huge attachments waste valuable computing resources, and may be considered harassing.  You may lose your network privileges by creating or forwarding chain letters.  In addition, users who forward messages with viruses can disrupt the entire computing infrastructure.  Users are responsible for using and updating the virus software that is made available through the College Help Desk.

(The CITC amended this policy on April 7, 2003.)

Student access to “All” lists shall be limited to the following:

·         SGA club presidents shall have access to the use of All Students, All Faculty, and All Staff lists only after consulting with and obtaining permission from their respective faculty club advisors.

·         The SGA President, or the SGA President’s designee, shall have access to the use of All Students, All Faculty, and All Staff lists only after consulting with the director of student activities and obtaining permission. All student e-mails must be reviewed and approved, and then sent by the appropriate authority on behalf of the student.  Club sponsors are responsible for approving e-mails with information about club activities. The Vice President and Dean of the College or Director of Student Activities are responsible for approving all other student e-mails.

Faculty and staff shall have access to the use of “All” lists.

The following guidelines are strongly recommended in order to enhance the efficient and effective use the College’s e-mail system:

·         Regarding the use of All Students, All Faculty, All Staff or other “All” lists, ask yourself whether the message should be sent to everyone on the “All” list.

·         Construct your own lists of recipients whom you know are interested in receiving messages about specific topics, especially when the topic is probably not of interest to the entire community.

·         Avoid, if possible, the use of attachments, especially when using “All” lists. Place your information into the text window of your e-mail message. Attachments typically use more than 10 times as much storage space and bandwidth as the same text sent in the text window. Avoiding attachments will reduce bandwidth and storage demands on the College’s system, considerably speed up downloading e-mail from remote locations with modems, and reduce wasted remote storage space such as your own hard drive. When possible, refer recipients to web pages instead of attaching documents to a message.

·         Avoid, if possible, the embedding of graphic images in your e-mail messages or attachments, especially when using “All” lists. Graphic images take up a great deal of space, typically more than the entire text of a message. Also avoid the use of images and animated sequences to spruce up your recipient’s message window.

·         Always use a clear subject heading to assist recipients in dealing efficiently with your message.

·         Limit announcements of events to the 1/1 rule (once, well in advance of an event, and once more a day or so before the event).

The guidelines shall also be posted on the College’s web site. In order to publicize the guidelines, directors and department chairs shall direct all staff and faculty members to the Appropriate-Use Policy on the College Website and encourage adherence at the beginning of each academic year. Technology Services shall notify to all students of the Appropriate-Use Policy and encourage adherence as part of the student computer registration process and upon login to any computer lab machine.

E-mail message language is discoverable and can be used against the sender in litigation.

For further information please refer to the Electronic Mail Policy.

Comply With the Laws Governing Harassment

Harassment is any verbal or physical conduct, on or off campus, which has the intent or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's or group's educational or work performance or which creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational or work environment.  Harassment on the basis of race, color, gender, disability, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or age includes harassment of an individual in terms of a stereotyped group characteristic, or because of that person's identification with a particular group.  With reference to sexual harassment, the definition also includes unwelcome sexual advances and requests for sexual favors which might be perceived as explicitly or implicitly affecting educational or employment decisions concerning an individual.  Sending unwanted and/or offensive e-mail or messages (flaming) may constitute harassment and is in violation of the intended use of the system. To report incidents of on-line harassment, send e-mail to the College's affirmative action officer at harassment@smcm.edu.  Students sending unauthorized or offensive messages will be referred to the College’s judicial system.

Assure the Use of the System is for College Related Activities

The purpose of the campus network is for the use and support of the activities that are part of the St. Mary's College of Maryland experience.  Computer resources are not to be used for commercial purposes, for personal business, or non-College related activities.  All members of the College community are given Web space for their own use.  The Web space may include professional and personal information.  College e-mail accounts should be used to perform College-related business and may also be used to communicate with friends, family, classmates, and associates locally and off campus.  Any e-mail sent with “@smcm.edu” is the property of the College. Questions about the use of these resources should be directed to appropriateuse@smcm.edu.

System Administrators Will Respect Your Privacy

It is not the routine policy of administrators or their designees to view others' files, and the intention is to keep files private, but such privacy cannot be guaranteed.  A personal password does not guarantee the confidentiality of e-mail messages.  Even when a message is deleted or erased, it is still possible to retrieve and read the message.  E- mail on campus networks is private; however, privacy of e-mail and computer files cannot be guaranteed.  Attempts to read another person's e-mail or other protected files will be treated with the utmost seriousness.  System administrators will not read mail or non-world-readable files unless absolutely necessary in the course of their duties, and will treat the contents of those files as private information at all times.  If you believe that a system administrator has accessed your private files you may submit a request to the system administrator within five working days of the suspected access to find out if such action was taken, and if so, when it was taken and why.

When an individual is alleged to be abusing network or other computing resources, any or all of his or her network and computing privileges may be suspended immediately to protect the resources and to assure reliable service to the rest of the campus community.  Any alleged infraction that results in suspension of any or all privileges will be forwarded to an appropriate campus authority for timely review.  The individual will be notified through campus or US mail.  If appropriate, the matter may also be referred to the appropriate County, State, or Federal authorities.