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Policy for Responsible Computing and Use of College Resources
  

Introduction

The Policy for Responsible Computing and Use of College Resources regulates the use of the College’s network resources at Goldey-Beacom College. All network users must comply with local, state, and federal laws relating to copyright, security, and electronic media.

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) assigns several accounts to network users for accessing the College Network Resources which includes the following:

  • Academic Computing Center (ACC)
  • Academic Resource Center (ARC)
  • Projection Classrooms
  • Library
  • GBC Wireless Network
  • Computers located in College offices
  • College servers

These resources are available to currently enrolled students for the completion of their coursework and to employees of the College. GBC network accounts are created for students when they start their education at Goldey-Beacom College. They are available for use throughout the student’s entire college career at GBC.

Downloading and sharing copyrighted material (mp3, video files, etc.) without permission is a federal offense. Downloading or sharing copyrighted materials may result in the loss of network access privileges.

NOTE: OIT does not provide technical support for personally owned computers.

A. Use of ACC, ARC, Projection Classroom, Library, and College Office computers   

These areas are intended to be a work place and the following rules are designed to safeguard the equipment and environment:

  1. Food, candy, and smoking are not permitted in the labs, classrooms, and library.  Only drinks which have screw-on lids are permitted provided that they are closed while the student is working.
  2. Only current GBC students and employees are permitted network access in these areas.
  3. Prospective GBC students are permitted in the ACC and must see the lab assistant to register for use of a guest account.
  4. Inappropriate language or offensive behavior is not permitted and will not be tolerated.
  5. These areas are working environments not student lounges or game rooms.  Therefore, noise will not be tolerated and students may be asked to leave.
  6. Cell phone use is not permitted in these areas.
  7. Students are permitted to logon to only one PC at a time.
  8. Illegally copying software is prohibited and violators may be prosecuted.
  9. Users should use a removable storage device, e.g., USB memory key to save their work.  Any work saved on the hard drive will be deleted automatically at logoff/reboot in the labs, classrooms, library, and student access computers located in College offices.
  10. Users are expected to clean up their workstations upon leaving, i.e., dispose of trash, pick up printed documents and push in chairs.
  11. Any logged on/locked computer, located in a lab or the library unattended for more than fifteen minutes will be rebooted.
  12. Printing is limited to requirements for GBC coursework and should be a reasonable amount of pages. Consider saving the information to a file and viewing it later.
B. Use of GBC Student Email Account

Email serves as the official means of sending information to students by faculty and staff. These messages are sent to the GBC email address.
  1. Students and employees are responsible for maintaining their official GBC email address and are expected to check it on a frequent and consistent basis.
  2. Students and employees have the responsibility to recognize that certain communication may be time-critical.
  3. Inappropriate language should not be used in email messages.
  4. Email is not to be sent to the entire student population.
  5. Sending junk email, unsolicited or offensive email is not permitted and will not be tolerated.
  6. Students are responsible for maintaining their mailbox size below 20 MB, i.e., empty deleted items folder, delete old and junk email messages.  File attachments increase the mailbox size; therefore, students and employees are advised to save them to a removable storage device and delete the email message.

C. Use of the College's Network

Services provided by the College in connecting to the Internet are for educational purposes and for communicating with family and friends. The College does not provide this service for other personal or commercial use.

  1. Users must change their initial password as a security measure. Refer to detailed instructions posted on the gbcTECH tab on Campus Web.
  2. All activities of College network accounts are governed by having the logon password, so it is important that usernames and/or passwords are not given to anyone (including family members).
  3. It is important that all network users protect username and password information as they would their social security number. Do not place them in an easily accessible place, e.g., on a desk in a dorm room.
  4. The student/employee will be held accountable for any abuse of computing resources under the use of his/her account (username).
  5. Do not log into Goldey-Beacom's network using anyone else's username and password. 
  6. Do not log into Goldey-Beacom's network and then allow someone else to use your account.
  7. Appropriate language should be used in all computing activities, e.g. email messages, homepages, etc.
  8. Server processes, including chat rooms, are not to be installed or run from the user’s directory, lab computers, or on personal computers connecting to the College network.
  9. Users should be aware that the computer systems are the property of the College and that email messages, Internet usage, and other computer files are subject to review at the discretion of the College. In the case of harassment complaints, illegal violations, or a system problem―hardware, software, or attacks by hackers―the OIT staff are authorized to look at and remove any information or files necessary to investigate complaints or solve the systems’ problems to protect the systems and the information they contain. In this situation, the staff is obligated to treat any information they might see that turns out to be unrelated to the problem as strictly confidential. In addition, email messages are subject to subpoena or otherwise discoverable in litigation.
  10. Users must follow local, state, and federal laws and regulations pertaining to computing activities.  In cases involving fraud, forgery, extortion, copyright violations, intimidation, humiliation, etc., violators may be legally prosecuted and may be subject to immediate loss of all computing privileges at Goldey-Beacom College.
  11. Users are responsible for reporting any activities which they believe to be in violation of these policies. To report such incidents, email abuse@gbc.edu.
D. Use of the Internet
  1. The Internet is an open forum for many subjects, opinions, and ideas, both appropriate and inappropriate to the educational values and/or goals of GBC. Therefore, it is up to the users of the Internet to be responsible, selective, and wise when dealing with people, topics, opinions, and/or ideas found on the Internet that do not serve the educational purposes of this College. Offensive materials on the Internet, including but not limited to adult sites and pornography, are not to be accessed through the College's network using the lab or any personal computer located at the College or connected to the College network. Anyone accessing these pages may be asked to discontinue doing so, may be asked to leave, and may be subject to disciplinary actions.
  2. Goldey-Beacom College is not responsible for any offensive or inappropriate material that is found on the Internet.
  3. The use of the Internet for non-class assignments is permitted provided a workstation is not needed by a student with a class assignment.
E. Use of the College's Wireless Network

The wireless network is provided for currently enrolled students and employees.
  1. Currently enrolled students and employees are permitted one connection to the GBC wireless network for a desktop or laptop, a second connection for a handheld device, and a third connection for a gaming system.  All devices must support WPA or WPA2 encryption.
  2. The use of bridges, hubs, routers, switches or other network equipment which could interfere with the College's wireless network is not permitted on campus.  Please note that 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz cordless phones and personal wireless computer access points interfere with the network. Therefore, they may not be used on campus. The use of 900 MHz cordless phones is permitted.
  3. Users are not permitted to share their wireless connection to another device which access has not been requested. 
  4. Users are required to follow the guidelines on the usage of the College's network and the Internet when using the GBC wireless network.
  5. Misuse of the GBC wireless network or not following the approved policies may result in losing complete access to the GBC network.
  6. All network users are responsible for the integrity of their own individual computers. It is each person’s responsibility to make certain that his or her computer is secured against viruses, worms, hacker attacks, and other intrusions. Further, they are responsible for all uses of their computer and will held accountable for network traffic originating from their computer or traced back to their computer’s IP address.
  7. Users should be aware that connecting to the GBC wireless network gives the College the right to investigate cases of harassment complaints, illegal violations, copyright infringement, or network problems in which the OIT staff may need to review email messages, Internet usage, and other computer files on any computer which has been configured for use on the Goldey-Beacom College wireless network.
F. Guidelines for Homepages
  1. Users are permitted to create individual homepages.
  2. Users are responsible for maintaining their account size below 24 MB.
  3. The account is for educational purposes and the content of the homepage must be related to activities at Goldey-Beacom College or to information about the student.  All page content must use appropriate language and must not contain inappropriate images.
  4. The user's homepage is not to be used for advertising or commercial purposes.
  5. The purpose of the student homepage is to learn how to create one--not to see how many hits are obtained. Links to several of the student’s favorite sites are permissible as long as they are not x-rated and the homepage is not registered in search engines for those links, e.g., creating several links to a favorite movie star and registering that star's name with the homepage address causing unnecessary usage of the College server.
  6. The content of all homepages is public and users should make sure that it is not in violation of copyright laws, e.g., publishing images or content from another website.
  7. Misuse of the homepages may be subject to disciplinary actions.

G. Prohibited Activities

A student/employee shall not damage, destroy, misuse, or otherwise endanger the College’s computing and information resources. This section is intended to aid in interpreting the policies stated above and should not be interpreted as complete. Examples of conduct in violation of the approved policies are:
  1. Using software or material known to have been obtained in violation of the Copyright Law or a valid license provision.
  2. Copying and providing to others any copyrighted material or licensed program contents, unless allowed under the fair-use doctrine or explicitly permitted by the copyright owner.
  3. Disrupting, hindering, or damaging the service, use, or ability of others to access or use any College computer, facility, equipment, software, network, other resource, including email.
  4. Accessing resources on the College’s network using a different username and password other than the one assigned.
  5. Providing any person with access to the assigned account, or in any way allowing others access to a machine/network under one's account.
  6. Creating, modifying, reading or copying files (including email) in any areas to which the user has not been granted access.
  7. Disguising one's identity in any way, including the sending of fraudulent email messages, removal of data from system files, and the masking of process names.
  8. Sending harassing or abusive messages via any digital means.
  9. Using College facilities to gain unauthorized access to computer systems on or off-campus.
  10. Use of campus computer facilities for commercial purposes.
  11. Attempting to interfere with the normal operation of computing systems in any way, or attempting to circumvent the restrictions associated with such facilities.
  12. Using any College computer, facility, equipment, software, network, or other resource, including email, to commit or attempt to commit acts prohibited under applicable federal, state, or local laws.
H. Disciplinary actions
  1. When a student is in violation of the 24 MB size allocation in section F-2, the student is notified of the violation via their GBC email account.  If the student does not respond within one week, the student’s account is locked.  Excessive abuse of the size allocation will cause the student’s account to be immediately locked at the same time as the email notification.  If the student still does not respond, all network accounts are locked.
  2. Students violating policies C-10 concerning copyrighted material will be informed of the immediate loss of both the wireless network connection and various College network resources should such activities continue.
  3. Students violating policy A-5 concerning excessive noise and not responding to the request by College staff to reduce the noise level may be asked to leave the area. Continued abuse of this policy will be reported to the Dean of Students and may result in the loss of the computing privileges for the area for which the violation has occurred.
  4. Any student found in violation of any of these policies may be subject to the loss of their access to one or all of the College network resources for a period of time and will be reported to the Dean of Students.
  5. Any illegal violations may result in the immediate loss of the use of all GBC network resources and will be reported to the Dean of Students.
  6. The student’s network account will be immediately locked and referred to the Dean of Students in the event of a network threat.
I. Changes to This Policy

The Office of Information Technology may change or amend this policy from time to time. When changes are made, they will be announced through Campus Web announcements. As with all matters of law and ethics, ignorance of the rules does not excuse violations.


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