Copiah-Lincoln Community College

ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY FOR COMPUTER USAGE

 

The computing resources at Copiah-Lincoln Community College support the instructional, research, and administrative activities of the College.  Users of these facilities may have access to College resources, sensitive data, and external networks.  Consequently, it is imperative for all users to behave in a responsible, ethical, and legal manner.  This document presents specific guidelines to appropriate behavior and use of CLCC computing equipment.

 

I. SCOPE

 

These guidelines apply to all users of computing resources and computing equipment owned, leased or rented by Copiah-Lincoln Community College.  This includes all students, faculty, visiting faculty, staff, guests of the administration, and external individuals or organizations.  Computing equipment includes, but is not limited to, the dialup modems, terminals and microcomputers in public labs, minicomputers, file servers, and networking equipment used to link these components together and to the Internet.

Copiah-Lincoln Community College is not responsible for the content of any material the user prepares, receives or transmits.  Thus, as a condition of using the College's computer system, the user represents that he/she is in compliance with all federal, state, and international copyright and other intellectual property laws and agreements and other federal and state laws, nor in his/her use of the system will the user violate any federal or state civil or criminal laws.  Furthermore, the user will indemnify, exonerate and save the College (and its representatives) harmless from any claim, damage or cost related to the user's use, including any legal fees the College decides it is necessary to incur to defend itself.

 

II. ACCEPTABLE USE

 

Those who make use of the CLCC computing network are required to behave in a manner consistent with CLCC's codes of conduct. As a user of this network, you agree to the following usage guidelines:

1. You are responsible for any computer account you have been given.  You shall set a password on the account that is not easily guessed and shall not share this password with other people.  If you discover that someone has made unauthorized use of your account, you should change your password immediately and immediately report the event to your immediate supervisor.  You also shall not use an account not belonging to you.
2. You agree not to intentionally seek out information about, copy, or modify password files, other users' files, or disks and tapes belonging to other people, whether at CLCC or other facilities.
3. You should not attempt to decrypt material to which you are not entitled or attempt to gain rights you have not been specifically granted by the owner.  If you observe or discover a gap in system or network security, you agree to inform the Network Manager and not to exploit the gap.
4. You agree to refrain from any activity that intentionally interferes with a computer's operating system or its logging and security systems, or that may cause such effects.
5. You must be sensitive to the public nature of computer systems and refrain from transmitting, posting or otherwise displaying material that is threatening, obscene, harassing or defamatory.
6. You agree not to make copies of or distribute software the College owns or uses under license, unless permission to copy has been specifically granted by the owner of the software or the owner of the license.  If in doubt as to whether you have permission to copy software, assume you don't.
7. You agree not to install any software (including downloading from the internet) that has not been specifically authorized.
8. Messages, statements, and declarations sent as electronic mail or public postings should be treated as if they were tangible documents. From electronic identifiers used in the transmission of messages, addressees can see the College is the source of the message or its system is being used to  transmit it, similar to how letterhead or a return address on a  tangible document would identify the College. To make sure  that no addressee can infer that your personal opinions are  necessarily shared or authorized by the College, it is your obligation to clearly identify them as your opinions and not those of the College. 
9. You agree not to create, alter, or delete any electronic information contained in any system that is not your own work, without the owner’s permission.
10. You agree not to create and send, or forward electronic chain mail letters.  You agree not to attempt to alter or forge the "From" line or any other attribution of origin contained in electronic mail or postings.
11. You shall not use CLCC computing equipment as a means of obtaining unauthorized access to any other computing systems.
12. CLCC's computing disk storage is a College resource with costs attached and should be used with care and discretion. It is not meant to be used for archiving programs and data not currently being used or for storage of files publicly available elsewhere.  It is meant for current class work, research and development projects, and temporary storage of other files.  Users shall attempt to keep their disk usage minimized and will refrain from maintaining duplicate copies of software already installed on the system.
13. Network addresses such as TCP/IP addresses are assigned by the Network Manager and may not be altered or otherwise assigned without the explicit permission of Network Manager. In addition, no equipment may be attached to the network without the explicit permission of the Network Manager.
14. The system is not to be used for the transmission of commercial or personal advertisements, solicitations, promotions or for extended reproduction of political, ideological or commercial material originated by a person or organization.
15. In the quantity and frequency of their personal use, users should not create unreasonable demands on the system.  Users are reminded that for volume or frequency beyond what is reasonable for their free access to the College's network and systems, they should contract with private providers of network facilities.

 

III. SECURITY

 

Users should use any available methods to safeguard their data, including regular changes of passwords, making duplicates of files, and encrypting sensitive data.  In the event that files have been corrupted as a result of intrusion, you should notify a system administrator immediately.  Please note that the computer systems are not completely secure.  It is possible that others will be able to access files by exploiting shortcomings in system security. For this and other reasons, CLCC cannot assure confidentiality of files and other transmissions.

CLCC staff attempts to provide reasonable security against damage to files stored on CLCC's computing equipment by making regular backups of systems.  In the event of lost or damaged files, a reasonable attempt will be made to recover the information; however, the staff cannot guarantee recovery of the data or loss of data due to media failure, floods, fires, etc.

The CLCC staff will make reasonable attempts to provide error-free hardware and software on our systems, however, it is not possible to guarantee this, and information provided by staff members is not guaranteed to be correct.

If there is sufficient cause to suspect a security violation, the CLCC staff may deny the user access to the CLCC network and computers.

 

IV. PRIVACY

 

Users should exercise caution when storing any confidential information in electronic format, because the privacy of such information cannot be guaranteed.

CLCC staff are expected to treat the contents of user files as private and confidential and shall not log into another user account or access user's files unless specifically granted permission by the owner of the file.  Student staff should avoid situations where helping another student or a faculty member would give them access to data relevant to a course that the student staff person is currently taking.

Exceptions to this policy are made under certain circumstances.  These include: system backups, which access all files in a user's account; software upgrades which may require editing startup files in a user's account; diagnostic and trouble-shooting activities, which may, for example, require viewing the address headers of e-mail messages to determine the cause of problems; and keystroke monitoring of sessions to determine inappropriate use of the computing facilities.  Another situation is a suspected violation of the tenets in this policy, the Student Handbook, Faculty Handbook,  local, state or federal law.  If there is sufficient cause to suspect such a situation, a user's files may be duplicated and stored for later review by appropriate personnel without the user's permission. The consent of the user to give access to his or her stored electronic communications for these purposes is a condition precedent to the user's use of the system.

In the event that user files need to be copied or viewed for reasons other than security, diagnostic, system backup or in compliance with law enforcement, the CLCC staff will attempt to inform the user of this access.

 

V. POLICY VIOLATIONS

 

Policy violations should be reported immediately to your immediate supervisor.

Depending on the nature of the events, violations of this policy may be dealt with as described in the Student or Faculty Handbook, any relevant contracts, and possibly State and/or Federal law or regulations.