Acceptable Use Policy for Students

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to outline the acceptable use of computer equipment at the University of New England. These rules are in place to protect the student, employee, and network of the University of New England. Inappropriate use exposes University of New England to risks including virus attacks, compromise of network systems and services, and legal issues.

Policy

The University of New England (UNE) requires users to maintain up-to-date Virus Software and Operating System (OS) security patches on their PC's, Macintosh computers, and workstations to protect and limit the exposure of UNE to risks associated with virus attacks, which may compromise the PC and the Network and/or both. It is the responsibility of every computer user to know these guidelines, and to conduct their activities accordingly. This policy applies to students, visitors, interns, residents, and other workers at University of New England. This policy applies to all equipment that is operated within the network of the University of New England.

ITS Service Policy and Enforcement

All students and others that are provided access to UNE's network must agree to install and update their virus signatures and OS patches on a regular basis. Any student not in compliance and found with a virus will have their Internet Access revoked until the student has proven compliance by having their computer cleaned, and protected by virus software and security updates.

The ITS office will not be responsible to clean the student's PC or laptop. If student wishes to have it done at UNE, the student will be charged a minimum $50.00 fee and will be charged $50.00 per hour thereafter. ITS is not responsible for any damage done to students' system during any virus/spyware repair and cleaning.

File sharing that violates copyright laws is illegal. There are legal services that you can use to download music, movies, etc by joining music services such iTunes, RealPlayer, and Napster. Illegal file sharing is detectable on our network through network monitoring, network overload, and the millions of connections it creates.

If network monitoring finds you participating in illegal file sharing, the computer in question will be blocked from the Internet; the student will be charged a minimum fee of $50.00 to have their computer cleaned. If the student wishes to have it done somewhere else they may do so. Although the computer will need to be checked by ITS before they will be allowed back on the network. They will be reported to Student Affairs Judicial officer for further judicial action up to and including prosecution.

For all other installation, repairs, hardware, software, peripherals, and troubleshooting of computer problems, students will need to call their hardware vendors for service. ITS will not fix, repair, or install computer equipment and software.

ITS will answer any help calls with issues regarding connecting to the Internet services, U-Online, and Campus Pipeline. We will be glad to direct you to a local computer vendor for all other repairs.

Unacceptable Use

The following activities are, in general, prohibited. Employees may be exempted from these restrictions during the course of their legitimate job responsibilities (e.g., systems administration staff may have a need to disable the network access of a host if that host is disrupting production services).

Under no circumstances is an employee or student of University of New England authorized to engage in any activity that is illegal under local, state, federal or international law while utilizing University of New England-owned resources. All students and employees are responsible for their own computers and the activities initiated on their computers no matter who is behind the keyboard.

The lists below are by no means exhaustive, but attempt to provide a framework for activities, which fall into the category of unacceptable use.

System and Network Activities

The following activities are strictly prohibited, with no exceptions:
  1. Violations of the rights of any person or company protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property, or similar laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, the installation or distribution of "pirated" or other software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by University of New England.
  2. Unauthorized copying of copyrighted material including, but not limited to, digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books or other copyrighted sources, copyrighted music, and the installation of any copyrighted software for which University of New England or the end user does not have an active license is strictly prohibited.
  3. Exporting software, technical information, encryption software or technology, in violation of international or regional export control laws, is illegal. The appropriate management should be consulted prior to export of any material that is in question.
  4. Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, e-mail bombs, etc.).
  5. Revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others. This includes family and other household members when work is being done at home.
  6. Using a University of New England computing asset to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the user's local jurisdiction.
  7. Making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from any University of New England account.
  8. Making statements about warranty, expressly or implied, unless it is a part of normal job duties.
  9. Effecting security breaches or disruptions of network communication. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which the employee is not an intended recipient or logging into a server or account that the employee is not expressly authorized to access, unless these duties are within the scope of regular duties. For purposes of this section, "disruption" includes, but is not limited to, network sniffing, pinged floods, packet spoofing, denial of service, and forged routing information for malicious purposes.
  10. Port scanning or security scanning is expressly prohibited unless prior notification to InfoSec is made.
  11. Executing any form of network monitoring which will intercept data not intended for the employee's host, unless this activity is a part of the employee's normal job/duty.
  12. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account.
  13. Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the employee's host (for example, denial of service attack).
  14. Using any program/script/command, or sending messages of any kind, with the intent to interfere with, or disable, a user's terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet/Intranet/Extranet.
  15. Providing information about, or lists of, University of New England employees to parties outside University of New England.

Email and Communications Activities

  1. It is an unacceptable practice to move confidential information by e-mail that is not encrypted. UNE does not have an encryption system, therefore at no time should anyone email confidential information at anytime for any reason.
  2. Sending unsolicited email messages, including the sending of "junk mail" or other advertising material to individuals who did not specifically request such material (email spam).
  3. Any form of harassment via email, telephone or paging, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages.
  4. Unauthorized use, or forging, of email header information.
  5. Solicitation of email for any other email address, other than that of the poster's account, with the intent to harass or to collect replies.
  6. Creating or forwarding "chain letters", "Ponzi" or other "pyramid" schemes of any type.
  7. Use of unsolicited email originating from within University of New England's networks of other Internet/Intranet/Extranet service providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by University of New England or connected via University of New England's network.
  8. Posting the same or similar non-business-related messages to large numbers of Usenet newsgroups (newsgroup spam).
  9. If you receive email from patients containing private health information, you may print and file in medical records and destroy email immediately.
  10. Do not forward University email from external sources containing PHI to your personal e-mail.
  11. If accessing work e-mail from home, secure e-mail from household members and shred any printed materials of a sensitive or confidential nature.
  12. All email going out of the UNE network will have a footer containing: This message may contain privileged and/or confidential information. This information is intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entity to whom it is intended even if addressed incorrectly. If you have received this email in error or are not the intended recipient, you may not use, copy, disseminate or distribute it; do not open any attachments, delete it immediately from your system and notify the sender promptly by email that you have done so. Thank you.

Enforcement
Repeating violators of this policy may face judicial action.

Revised
February 24, 2005

   
     

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