The Policies for IT Use at AUC

The following rules apply to the use of Computing and network facilities at AUC, which include IBM compatible PCs, Macintosh machine, workstations, and all the VAX and UNIX machines. These rules are devised for users’ protection and to ensure the effective utilization of computing resources.

General Rules for Computer Use

* Be careful to protect usernames, files, printouts and other computing resources from unauthorized use.

* Never unnecessarily prevent others from using a computing resource.

* Try to conserve resources. This includes disk storage, printer and plotter supplies.

* Pick sensible hard-to-guess passwords and change them periodically.

* You are responsible for reporting to Computing any violation of these rules by any individual.

You Must NEVER

* Use a “user id” or “username” other than your own.

* Use or intentionally seek access to an ID other than yours.

* Copy data or programs without proper authorization.

* Frivolously use electronic mail.

* Play or download games in public access labs.

* Distribute a program that damages the user or system environment.

* Use computing facilities for harassment, plagiarism or other illegal or unethical activities.

* Leave a terminal or PC without logging out from your account

* Give out your account password to ANYONE.

* Run a program sent to you unless you know exactly what it does and completely trust the source.

* Use your account for commercial purposes.

Policies

* All SLIP/PPP student account holders are limited to a maximum of 2 hours per day from off campus (via the dial-in facilities). Upon completion of a continuous 2 hours connection, the system is to cut off the account and send e-mail notifying the user that the account will be disabled for a 24 hour period to allow others to use the time.

The above stated rules should be strictly followed. Access to computing and network resources will be immediately denied to those who do not comply with these rules. And in the case of violations in public access labs, users will be prevented from using the computing facilities altogether.

E-MAIL POLICY

Preamble

The use of information technology to improve academic quality is one of the principal themes of AUC’s Long Range Plan. Making e-mail readily available contributes significantly to this objective.

Policy Statement

AUC will provide a University Wide Network, Dial-in services, and central electronic mail accounts for all staff, faculty, students and alumni of the University, and to other members of the AUC community at the University’s discretion.

The University will encourage the AUC community to use electronic mail to support teaching, administration and research and will promulgate best practice guidelines to make that usage efficient and professional. Although social use of electronic mail is accepted as having positive outcomes for the University, priority will be given to University-related activities.

The University will place constraints on the use of electronic mail to protect its legal position with respect to telecommunications, copyright and contractual law, to provide the confidentiality of communications and the protection of privacy, to comply with record keeping requirements and to implement other University policies.

Legal Framework

All users must operate within the laws of all appropriate jurisdictions that apply.

Electronic mail is subject to the full range of laws applying to other communications, including copyright, breach of confidence, defamation, privacy, contempt of court, harassment, vilification and anti-discrimination legislation, the creation of contractual obligations, and criminal laws.

The immediacy of e-mail, and the ability to use it to contact a wider group of people conveniently can, in some cases, make it easier to inadvertently be in breach of the law. The wide dissemination of electronic mail in some circumstances may lead to more severe legal consequences than other communications, and may lead to consequences in other jurisdictions.

For the purposes of disposal and retention e-mail should be treated in the same way as regular mail.

If required by law, AUC will provide relevant information to law enforcement agencies.

Principles and Guidelines

Electronic mail may not be used for commercial purposes, and must be consistent with the relationship that the individual user has to the University.

The sender, whether institutional or individual, must be clearly identifiable in all transmitted messages.

Electronic mail must not be sent in such a way as to harass users. If a recipient indicates that (s)he does not wish to receive further messages on a topic, or from an individual or group, then no further messages should be sent, unless there is a clear institutional need to do so.

Users must not engage in frivolous, disturbing, or otherwise inconsiderate use or conduct in violations to the University’s status as an independent, non-profit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal-opportunity institution.

The following will be considered to be violations of these guidelines: tampering or interfering with the delivery of electronic mail or news postings; eavesdropping on network traffic; possessing a file or a program to fraudulently obtain unauthorized privileges or access, or accessing other computer networks to which the AUC network is connected, unless authorized for academic instruction. Engaging in behavior not specifically stated in these guidelines, but which is nonetheless a violation of the spirit and intent of these guidelines will be considered a violation of the same.

ENFORCEMENT

Any violation of these guidelines may result in disciplinary action by the University. Violators may also be subject to civil and/or criminal prosecution.

The Associate Vice President for Computing (AVP) is responsible for investigating alleged violations of the guidelines, and is authorized to restrict or suspend user privileges, although a reasonable effort will be made to accommodate the academic computing needs of the individual. The AVP is authorized to take actions that include restricting access, decreasing the disk quota, removing files in the system’s temporary or scratch area, or denying the privilege of exhibiting a web site. Appeals of decisions by the AVP may be made to the Provost.

The AVP may also refer the case to the appropriate office for further disciplinary action up to and including expulsion or cancellation of appointment. The appropriate offices are: Provost’s Office for faculty, Human Resources for staff, and Vice President for Student Affairs for students.

Administration and Regulation

The Associate Vice-President for Computing is responsible for the implementation of the Policy, and for securing central facilities required to provide electronic mail. The University Network Services (UNS) will maintain central servers available to all members of the University, and regulate their use.

Use of electronic mail must be consistent with all relevant AUC policies and guidelines. Self-regulation is encouraged and the University will impose limits or take actions only where and when necessary. Members of the University must not provide external organizations with copies of directories or subsets greater than those accessible via the Internet.

The UNS will monitor usage of the central e-mail service and will discontinue the service to any user who is considered to be in breach of this policy or the rules applying to AUC computing. A decision to deny service may be appealed to the AVP.

Any user aware of misuse of e-mail has a responsibility to report it to the UNS.

The UNS will monitor the performance of the existing central e-mail system and its usage in order to ensure the service meets the needs of its users within the available resources without compromising privacy. The UNS Helpdesk will provide support for faculty and staff using the central e-mail facilities.

Availability and Termination of Access

Electronic mail accounts will be available to all enrolled students, alumni and all full time faculty and staff. Other members of the AUC community must apply annually.

Mail accounts for AUC alumni are granted for life. Accounts for staff will remain active as long as he/she is employed, and will be closed within 6 months of the end of employment. Tenured faculty will be granted lifelong accounts, and other full-time faculty are entitled to accounts which will be closed within six months after termination of their term of contract.

Provision of computers to enable access to electronic mail accounts for staff and other non-student members of the University community is the responsibility of individual units.

Security

Electronic mail is not a secure form of communication, and privacy and confidentiality are not guaranteed. The University will employ best efforts to avoid unnecessary exposure of information, but current methods used to transport e-mail, especially outside the University, cannot be regarded as secure.

While most users operate electronic mail in an ethical and legal manner, forgery of electronic mail can and does occur. If electronic mail suggests an unusual course of action, recipients should seek to verify the authenticity of the message via some other form of communication such as personal contact, paper mail, fax, or telephone.

Digital cryptography may be used to enhance the trustworthiness of material. In small groups, this can be accomplished by secret key cryptographic methods using a large variety of cipher methods. However, for organizations as large as the University, this implies the use of public key cryptographic ciphers.

Performance and Good Practice

Performance and cost of the electronic mail systems for all users can be adversely affected by inconsiderate use by particular individuals. Therefore, the University reserves the right to set limits on:

Ø The size of individual electronic mail items sent.

Ø The total volume of electronic mail sent.

Ø The amount of electronic mail retained on central electronic mail servers.

Users should not solicit large volumes of incoming mail with no, or marginal, relevance to their role within the University. The University reserves the right to request that users unsubscribe from external mailing lists where unacceptable levels of traffic are experienced.

Mail can be either saved on the main servers or can be saved on the user’s personal computer and cleared from AUC servers, whenever read. The University encourages users to clean up their centrally reserved storage regularly, and download their data from the central storage facility to their local disks. The University will set limits on the central storage provided and publish these regularly.

All users should erase old public mail to provide more space for their own quota. If such an action is not taken, all public announcements such as “allauc, faculty, staff and student announcements” will be deleted the following semester without prior announcement.

Good practice guidelines will be developed and disseminated to users periodically.

Mailing Lists and Broadcasts

Users should refrain from transmitting mail unnecessarily to multiple users so that users do not receive a large quantity of unwanted and unsolicited mail. Users may solicit mail on a particular topic by subscribing to a mailing list from which they can also unsubscribe at will.

Group mailings may be undertaken by a formal mailing list or by sending individually addressed mail items.

Unsolicited mail may be sent to multiple users only when the mailing is related to their university function and the sender has an appropriate work relationship, such a Dean of a School mailing to the faculty of the School, or faculty mailing to students enrolled in their classes.

Special interest groups must issue invitations to join before including any group or individual in a mailing list, and members have the right to unsubscribe at will.

Sending unsolicited mail to all members of the University, or a substantial subset (such as all faculty), requires the approval of the Associate Vice-President for Computing.

Centralized Mailing lists

The UNS will make available the “majordomo” system for creating e-mail lists and will establish lists for valid purposes.

The University broadcast e-mail services will be issued under three major categories (mailing lists):

a. Academic Announcements:

An advertisement broadcasting academic activities specifically related to students and faculty, such as lectures, student discussions, book fairs, new courses, lists of students graduating, calling for articles, journals, Newsflash, course changes, drop and add dates.

b. Academic Events:

These are ‘happenings’ pertaining to academic activities, such as receptions held at AUC or other premises; seminars held either by professors or invited guests.

c. General Announcements:

These are general announcements for all constituencies of AUC (i.e. students, faculty and staff). These include advertisements for events held within the University, fund donations, vacancies available at AUC, virus alerts, career development workshops, orientations, official holidays, training for staff members and/or students, books available at the Bookstore or Library, international day, films, sports competitions, club announcements and trips. This may also include advertisements by an external group if it relates to the activities of AUC, such as news from CIB of concern to all working staff, or entry visas for foreigners. Any other business that does not fit these categories may be submitted for consideration, but it must be endorsed by the department head before being submitted.

Users will be able to subscribe/unsubscribe from these lists at will. The Chair or Head will assign one person within a department or unit to be responsible for issuing mail within each appropriate mailing list. The assigned person will be fully responsible for the contents of any message sent, and the message, should not exceed 10 Kbytes.

All mailings to ALLAUC, STAFF, FACULTY and STUDENTS (including Graduates and Undergraduates) lists, will be under the control of the System Manager and must be approved by the Associate Vice President for Computing (AVP). The Offices of the President, Provost, Vice-Presidents and other selected administrators mail may use these lists without prior approval of the AVP office.

No more than one reminder of a message or event may be sent.

Mail Attachment Limits

As part of regulating the performance of the e-mail servers operation, the University will set a limit of 10MB on the size of any attachments to an e-mail. However, in exceptional cases, these limits can be waived.

Mail with attachment(s) exceeding this limit will bounce back to the user unsent.

Back-up and Retention Periods

Backing up the e-mail data is currently not practiced since this will result in the stoppages of the service for a long period. Instead, UNS is currently using the RAID 5-disk system, which enables recovery of data on a daily basis in case of disk failures.

Evaluation

This policy and its technological implementation will be evaluated regularly, and changed as required.

Acknowledgment:

Published Policies of the following universities and organizations were consulted during the preparation of this policy statement. For academic integrity’s sake we acknowledge the following sources as contributors to the text of this policy:

University of Bath

http://www.bath.ac.uk/bucs/policies /email.shtml

The University of the South Pacific

http://www.student.usp.ac.fj/web/content/SemailPolicy.html

University of Baltimore

http://www.ubalt.edu/hr/policies/p_email.htm

Staffordshire University

University of Tampa

http://technology.ut.edu/email/policy.html

University of Colorado at Denver

http://www.cusys.edu/policies/General/email.html

The University of Kansas, Lawrence

http://www.ku.edu/~provost/email_policy_final_10-15-02.htm

University of California, Riverside

http://www.cnc.ucr.edu/policy/epolicy.htm

New South Wales University

http://www.infonet.unsw.edu.au/poldoc/email.htm



	The Policies for IT Use at AUC The following rules apply to the use of Computing and network facilities at AUC, which include IBM compatible PCs, Macintosh machine, workstations, and all the VAX and UNIX machines. These rules are devised for users’ protection and to ensure the effective utilization of computing resources. *General Rules for Computer Use* * Be careful to protect usernames, files, printouts and other computing resources from unauthorized use. * Never unnecessarily prevent others from using a computing resource. * Try to conserve resources. This includes disk storage, printer and plotter supplies. * Pick sensible hard-to-guess passwords and change them periodically. * You are responsible for reporting to Computing any violation of these rules by any individual. *You Must NEVER* * Use a “user id” or “username” other than your own. * Use or intentionally seek access to an ID other than yours. * Copy data or programs without proper authorization. * Frivolously use electronic mail. * Play or download games in public access labs. * Distribute a program that damages the user or system environment. * Use computing facilities for harassment, plagiarism or other illegal or unethical activities. * Leave a terminal or PC without logging out from your account * Give out your account password to ANYONE. * Run a program sent to you unless you know exactly what it does and completely trust the source. * Use your account for commercial purposes. *Policies* * All SLIP/PPP student account holders are limited to a maximum of 2 hours per day from off campus (via the dial-in facilities). Upon completion of a continuous 2 hours connection, the system is to cut off the account and send e-mail notifying the user that the account will be disabled for a 24 hour period to allow others to use the time. The above stated rules should be strictly followed. Access to computing and network resources will be immediately denied to those who do not comply with these rules. And in the case of violations in public access labs, users will be prevented from using the computing facilities altogether. E-MAIL POLICY Preamble The use of information technology to improve academic quality is one of the principal themes of AUC’s Long Range Plan. Making e-mail readily available contributes significantly to this objective. Policy Statement AUC will provide a University Wide Network, Dial-in services, and central electronic mail accounts for all staff, faculty, students and alumni of the University, and to other members of the AUC community at the University’s discretion. The University will encourage the AUC community to use electronic mail to support teaching, administration and research and will promulgate best practice guidelines to make that usage efficient and professional. Although social use of electronic mail is accepted as having positive outcomes for the University, priority will be given to University-related activities. The University will place constraints on the use of electronic mail to protect its legal position with respect to telecommunications, copyright and contractual law, to provide the confidentiality of communications and the protection of privacy, to comply with record keeping requirements and to implement other University policies. Legal Framework All users must operate within the laws of all appropriate jurisdictions that apply. Electronic mail is subject to the full range of laws applying to other communications, including copyright, breach of confidence, defamation, privacy, contempt of court, harassment, vilification and anti-discrimination legislation, the creation of contractual obligations, and criminal laws. The immediacy of e-mail, and the ability to use it to contact a wider group of people conveniently can, in some cases, make it easier to inadvertently be in breach of the law. The wide dissemination of electronic mail in some circumstances may lead to more severe legal consequences than other communications, and may lead to consequences in other jurisdictions. For the purposes of disposal and retention e-mail should be treated in the same way as regular mail. If required by law, AUC will provide relevant information to law enforcement agencies. Principles and Guidelines Electronic mail may not be used for commercial purposes, and must be consistent with the relationship that the individual user has to the University. The sender, whether institutional or individual, must be clearly identifiable in all transmitted messages. Electronic mail must not be sent in such a way as to harass users. If a recipient indicates that (s)he does not wish to receive further messages on a topic, or from an individual or group, then no further messages should be sent, unless there is a clear institutional need to do so. Users must not engage in frivolous, disturbing, or otherwise inconsiderate use or conduct in violations to the University’s status as an independent, non-profit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal-opportunity institution. The following will be considered to be violations of these guidelines: tampering or interfering with the delivery of electronic mail or news postings; eavesdropping on network traffic; possessing a file or a program to fraudulently obtain unauthorized privileges or access, or accessing other computer networks to which the AUC network is connected, unless authorized for academic instruction. Engaging in behavior not specifically stated in these guidelines, but which is nonetheless a violation of the spirit and intent of these guidelines will be considered a violation of the same. ENFORCEMENT Any violation of these guidelines may result in disciplinary action by the University. Violators may also be subject to civil and/or criminal prosecution. The Associate Vice President for Computing (AVP) is responsible for investigating alleged violations of the guidelines, and is authorized to restrict or suspend user privileges, although a reasonable effort will be made to accommodate the academic computing needs of the individual. The AVP is authorized to take actions that include restricting access, decreasing the disk quota, removing files in the system’s temporary or scratch area, or denying the privilege of exhibiting a web site. Appeals of decisions by the AVP may be made to the Provost. The AVP may also refer the case to the appropriate office for further disciplinary action up to and including expulsion or cancellation of appointment. The appropriate offices are: Provost’s Office for faculty, Human Resources for staff, and Vice President for Student Affairs for students. Administration and Regulation The Associate Vice-President for Computing is responsible for the implementation of the Policy, and for securing central facilities required to provide electronic mail. The University Network Services (UNS) will maintain central servers available to all members of the University, and regulate their use. Use of electronic mail must be consistent with all relevant AUC policies and guidelines. Self-regulation is encouraged and the University will impose limits or take actions only where and when necessary. Members of the University must not provide external organizations with copies of directories or subsets greater than those accessible via the Internet. The UNS will monitor usage of the central e-mail service and will discontinue the service to any user who is considered to be in breach of this policy or the rules applying to AUC computing. A decision to deny service may be appealed to the AVP. Any user aware of misuse of e-mail has a responsibility to report it to the UNS. The UNS will monitor the performance of the existing central e-mail system and its usage in order to ensure the service meets the needs of its users within the available resources without compromising privacy. The UNS Helpdesk will provide support for faculty and staff using the central e-mail facilities. Availability and Termination of Access Electronic mail accounts will be available to all enrolled students, alumni and all full time faculty and staff. Other members of the AUC community must apply annually. Mail accounts for AUC alumni are granted for life. Accounts for staff will remain active as long as he/she is employed, and will be closed within 6 months of the end of employment. Tenured faculty will be granted lifelong accounts, and other full-time faculty are entitled to accounts which will be closed within six months after termination of their term of contract. Provision of computers to enable access to electronic mail accounts for staff and other non-student members of the University community is the responsibility of individual units. Security Electronic mail is not a secure form of communication, and privacy and confidentiality are not guaranteed. The University will employ best efforts to avoid unnecessary exposure of information, but current methods used to transport e-mail, especially outside the University, cannot be regarded as secure. While most users operate electronic mail in an ethical and legal manner, forgery of electronic mail can and does occur. If electronic mail suggests an unusual course of action, recipients should seek to verify the authenticity of the message via some other form of communication such as personal contact, paper mail, fax, or telephone. Digital cryptography may be used to enhance the trustworthiness of material. In small groups, this can be accomplished by secret key cryptographic methods using a large variety of cipher methods. However, for organizations as large as the University, this implies the use of public key cryptographic ciphers. Performance and Good Practice Performance and cost of the electronic mail systems for all users can be adversely affected by inconsiderate use by particular individuals. Therefore, the University reserves the right to set limits on: Ø The size of individual electronic mail items sent. Ø The total volume of electronic mail sent. Ø The amount of electronic mail retained on central electronic mail servers. Users should not solicit large volumes of incoming mail with no, or marginal, relevance to their role within the University. The University reserves the right to request that users unsubscribe from external mailing lists where unacceptable levels of traffic are experienced. Mail can be either saved on the main servers or can be saved on the user’s personal computer and cleared from AUC servers, whenever read. The University encourages users to clean up their centrally reserved storage regularly, and download their data from the central storage facility to their local disks. The University will set limits on the central storage provided and publish these regularly. All users should erase old public mail to provide more space for their own quota. If such an action is not taken, all public announcements such as “allauc, faculty, staff and student announcements” will be deleted the following semester without prior announcement. Good practice guidelines will be developed and disseminated to users periodically. Mailing Lists and Broadcasts Users should refrain from transmitting mail unnecessarily to multiple users so that users do not receive a large quantity of unwanted and unsolicited mail. Users may solicit mail on a particular topic by subscribing to a mailing list from which they can also unsubscribe at will. Group mailings may be undertaken by a formal mailing list or by sending individually addressed mail items. Unsolicited mail may be sent to multiple users only when the mailing is related to their university function and the sender has an appropriate work relationship, such a Dean of a School mailing to the faculty of the School, or faculty mailing to students enrolled in their classes. Special interest groups must issue invitations to join before including any group or individual in a mailing list, and members have the right to unsubscribe at will. Sending unsolicited mail to all members of the University, or a substantial subset (such as all faculty), requires the approval of the Associate Vice-President for Computing. Centralized Mailing lists The UNS will make available the “majordomo” system for creating e-mail lists and will establish lists for valid purposes. The University broadcast e-mail services will be issued under three major categories (mailing lists): a. Academic Announcements: An advertisement broadcasting academic activities specifically related to students and faculty, such as lectures, student discussions, book fairs, new courses, lists of students graduating, calling for articles, journals, Newsflash, course changes, drop and add dates. b. Academic Events: These are ‘happenings’ pertaining to academic activities, such as receptions held at AUC or other premises; seminars held either by professors or invited guests. c. General Announcements: These are general announcements for all constituencies of AUC (i.e. students, faculty and staff). These include advertisements for events held within the University, fund donations, vacancies available at AUC, virus alerts, career development workshops, orientations, official holidays, training for staff members and/or students, books available at the Bookstore or Library, international day, films, sports competitions, club announcements and trips. This may also include advertisements by an external group if it relates to the activities of AUC, such as news from CIB of concern to all working staff, or entry visas for foreigners. Any other business that does not fit these categories may be submitted for consideration, but it must be endorsed by the department head before being submitted. Users will be able to subscribe/unsubscribe from these lists at will. The Chair or Head will assign one person within a department or unit to be responsible for issuing mail within each appropriate mailing list. The assigned person will be fully responsible for the contents of any message sent, and the message, should not exceed 10 Kbytes. All mailings to ALLAUC, STAFF, FACULTY and STUDENTS (including Graduates and Undergraduates) lists, will be under the control of the System Manager and must be approved by the Associate Vice President for Computing (AVP). The Offices of the President, Provost, Vice-Presidents and other selected administrators mail may use these lists without prior approval of the AVP office. No more than one reminder of a message or event may be sent. Mail Attachment Limits As part of regulating the performance of the e-mail servers operation, the University will set a limit of 10MB on the size of any attachments to an e-mail. However, in exceptional cases, these limits can be waived. Mail with attachment(s) exceeding this limit will bounce back to the user unsent. Back-up and Retention Periods Backing up the e-mail data is currently not practiced since this will result in the stoppages of the service for a long period. Instead, UNS is currently using the RAID 5-disk system, which enables recovery of data on a daily basis in case of disk failures. Evaluation This policy and its technological implementation will be evaluated regularly, and changed as required. Acknowledgment: Published Policies of the following universities and organizations were consulted during the preparation of this policy statement. For academic integrity’s sake we acknowledge the following sources as contributors to the text of this policy: University of Bath http://www.bath.ac.uk/bucs/policies /email.shtml The University of the South Pacific http://www.student.usp.ac.fj/web/content/SemailPolicy.html University of Baltimore http://www.ubalt.edu/hr/policies/p_email.htm Staffordshire University University of Tampa http://technology.ut.edu/email/policy.html University of Colorado at Denver http://www.cusys.edu/policies/General/email.html The University of Kansas, Lawrence http://www.ku.edu/~provost/email_policy_final_10-15-02.htm University of California, Riverside http://www.cnc.ucr.edu/policy/epolicy.htm New South Wales University http://www.infonet.unsw.edu.au/poldoc/email.htm