Allegheny College Computing Policies
All members of the Allegheny community have access to the campus-wide computer network. As with any system, however, be it social or electronic, this network operates by a set of rules of conduct. The following policies are designed to
Your use of computer facilities at Allegheny College implies that you have read and understood these policies.
Respect for intellectual labor and creativity is vital to academic discourse and enterprise. This principle applies to works of all authors and publishers in all media. It encompasses respect for the right to acknowledgment, right to privacy, and right to determine the form, manner, and terms of publication and distribution. Because electronic information is volatile and easily reproduced, respect for the work and personal expression of others is especially critical in computer environments. Violations of authorial integrity, including plagiarism, invasion of privacy, unauthorized access, and trade secret and copyright violations, may be grounds for sanctions against members of the academic community.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Allegheny College assumes liabilities as an on-line service provider and must therefore take steps insure that our electronic resources are not used to violate the act. Specifically, we must take steps to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted work as well as steps to prevent the unauthorized copying of such material through Allegheny College's web site.
Notice and Takedown. If a copyright owner notifies Allegheny College of a claimed infringement (see note 1) or if the College becomes aware of an infringement, the material under discussion will be immediately removed from the site or access to that area of the site will be blocked. In addition, the owner of the site in question will be notified of the action and will be informed of his or her rights and obligations under the Notice and Putback and Repeat Offenders policies.
Notice and Putback. If the owner of material that has been removed from an Allegheny College website believes that the material is not covered by or is exempt from current copyright laws, e.g., fair use provisions for academic use, he or she may appeal the decision to remove by notifying the College's Notification Agent. Upon receipt of an appeal (see note 2), the Agent will instruct the System's Manager to restore or unblock the material. In addition, the Agent will notify the complaining party that the material has been restored or unblocked. Further action on the part of the College will await settlement of the issue between the two parties involved.
Repeat Offenders. After the receipt of a third complaint about copyrighted material on a specific web site, that site will be closed and will not be reopened without intervention of a senior administrator (e.g., Dean of the College for faculty, Dean of Students for students, and Vice President for Administrative Services for all others).
Notes:
Users must be aware that because of ordinary and necessary procedures, the absolute privacy of individual personal accounts on the network cannot be guaranteed. As part of the normal and routine operations necessary to maintain the computer network, the staff of Technical and Network Services find it necessary from time to time to determine the characteristics (size, type, etc.) of the files of network users. These operations do not involve examining the contents of any file. They are designed, for example, to determine if some users have exceeded their allotted disk space or to ascertain if accounts should be moved from one part of the system to another to equitably distribute the load. Just as with the ordinary and necessary examination of personal data in other parts of the campus (e.g.., grades by the Registrar, family income by the Financial Aid Office, etc.) all information gathered by such routine work is treated in a confidential and professional manner. If, under system critical circumstances, it becomes necessary to examine the contents of the files of a particular user in order to protect the integrity of the network, such action will be undertaken in consultation with the Dean of Students, the Dean of the College or the Vice President for Finance.
Network accounts are issued to individual students, faculty, and staff with the understanding that the account will not be used by anyone other than the person to whom the account was issued. The distribution of password(s), either with or without the owner's permission, is prohibited. Attempts to access account other than one's own, including using, copying, modifying, or deleting anyone else's files, is a violation of local policy and may also be a violation of state or federal law. All such attempts will be turned over to the appropriate office for inquiry (Dean of Students or Dean of the College). Such behavior, if used for personal gain, is plagiarism and will be treated as an Honor Code violation. Due process procedures as outlined in The Compass, Faculty Handbook, and the Personnel Policies Handbook for Staff Personnel will be used as appropriate.
See below for policies dealing with joint accounts.
One of the wonders of the late 20th century is the ability to send messages anywhere in the world. In addition to its speed and ease of use, perhaps the thing that distinguishes e-mail from other forms of communication is its propensity to evoke emotional responses in its recipients. Of course, overly emotional or inappropriate messages are not unique to e-mail communication; however, this electronic medium lends itself well to hasty and intemperate missives. First and foremost, remember that the person on the other end of your message is a human being. Do not attack people if you cannot persuade them with your presentation of the facts. Profane, hostile, or abusive messages serve only to make people think less of you.
Stop and think a moment before you send a message that you may regret later. Users who receive or become aware of material that they consider obscene, personally offensive, hostile, or threatening, should bring the incident to the attention of the Allegheny College Computing Services staff, the Office of the Dean of Students, or the Advisory Council on Sexual Harassment. All such incidents will be handled under existing policies concerning harassment, and formal college judicial procedures will be initiated where appropriate. Specific attention is called to the following policies and regulations:
SEXUAL HARASSMENT POLICY AND PROCEDURES
Any form of sexual harassment is against the law and will not be tolerated at Allegheny College...examples of verbal or physical conduct prohibited at Allegheny College include, but are not limited to:
The intent of this last item is clear: this community will simply not tolerate inappropriate, obscene, and offensive material. A complete listing of all college regulations, including the Sexual Harassment Policy, may be found in the COMPASS.
College computing facilities (disk space, paper, etc.) are
a valuable but limited resource that must be conserved. Students, faculty,
and staff are all expected to cooperate in sharing these scarce resources.
Because of the special problem with disk space available on the network,
from time to time restrictions may be placed on how much material individuals
may store on the system. These limits, which may be adjusted to fit specific
circumstances, will be monitored by the personnel of ACCS and implemented
according to a set of ACCS policies and procedures. Appeals from these decisions
may be made using the
procedures provided for under normal College policies governing students,
staff, faculty and administrators. As an additional measure to conserve disk
space, chain letters and mass mailings are not permitted. (See Broadcast
E-Mail for exceptions.)
At the present time the limit for student accounts is set a 8M. Faculty and employee accounts are adjusted according to the needs of those involved.
A broadcast e-mail (sometimes called a mass mailing), is a message sent to everyone with an account on the system, or to a significant number of accounts. Broadcast e-mail is restricted to urgent or emergency matters, or to messages directly related to use of the computer system.
Requests for broadcast e-mail should be submitted to the Office of Public Affairs (Barb Steadman, bsteadma@allegheny.edu). Requests sent to Computing Services will be forwarded to Public Affairs for evaluation.
Non-emergency notices should be distributed electronically through Inside News Weekly,(Barb Steadman, bsteadma@allegheny.edu) or the Master Calendar.
Computing Services reserves the right to shutdown any/all servers anytime between the hours of 6am and noon every Sunday for routine maintenance.
Allegheny College provides remote access to its network facilities in a variety of ways including the Allegheny Modem System (AMoS), the Allegheny/Alltel Internet Service, as well as direct access from residence hall rooms.
Just like other users of our network, all users accessing the network from a remote location are bound by all Allegheny Computing Policies. Copies of these policies are available on the Allegheny home page or from ACCS Help Desk. Any violation of these or other college policies while using Allegheny computer facilities from a remote location will result in immediate removal of the violator from access to the College network, and due process procedures as outlined in the Compass, Faculty Handbook, and the Personnel Policies Handbook for Staff Personnel will be used as appropriate.
Details on how to access our network from a remote location may be found in Allegheny College Network Dial-In Options.
WORLD WIDE WEB POLICY STATEMENT
Purpose: This policy is designed to promote the appropriate use of the World Wide Web medium by defining the responsibilities of the authors of such media. Allegheny College recognizes the importance of publishing on the Internet and encourages students, faculty, and staff to publish electronic materials for themselves and their respective departments.
Range: This policy is to affect all students, staff, and faculty of Allegheny College, as well as all entities affiliated with Allegheny that, by permission of the President's office, have web sites within Allegheny's Web server.
ANONYMOUS AND FORGED NETWORK NEWS ARTICLES
Allegheny College provides, as a service to its students, faculty and staff, access to a wide variety of computer-mediated communication services. These services range from electronic mail, to access of library catalogues worldwide and off-campus news groups. To maintain the integrity of this system, users must be responsible for the postings they make, both on campus and off. The policies below are designed to help maintain that personal responsibility.
All postings made to news groups either on campus or off must include identification information about the individual who made the posting. That is, anonymous postings (author listed as "anonymous") or postings using a pseudonym (e.g., author listed as "superman") are not permitted.
Postings that are made in the name of a real individual other than the author are considered forgeries and are clearly against College policy and may be illegal.
Exceptions to this policy will be made if needed. For instance, it may be appropriate for students, faculty or staff to use an alias when posting to a local or off-campus news group concerned with an especially sensitive issue. Individuals or groups wishing to receive an alias should see the Director of Technical and Network Services or the Network Manager to register their aliases before attempting to use them.
Individuals violating this policy will have their computer accounts closed immediately and the matter forwarded to the Dean of Students, the Dean of the College or the Vice-President for Finance for action. Accounts will be re-opened upon recommendation of the Dean of Students (for students), the Dean of the College(for faculty) or the Vice-President for Finance (for staff and administrators).
The following policy concerns the issuance of network IDs to groups of faculty, students, staff, and/or administrators at Allegheny College.
USE OF ALLEGHENY COLLEGE COMPUTER FACILITIES
Allegheny College computing facilities, including the campus network, are designed to be used by the faculty, staff, and current students of the College. Exceptions to this general policy are noted below.
The College recognizes that Allegheny alumni, especially those recently graduated, may have legitimate reason to continue to use our computing facilities. Student accounts will remain available until August 1st, at which time they are closed and all files are erased. Any material that students want to retain beyond that period may be stored on diskette for use on other computer systems.
Alumni who need to prepare resumes, complete applications for employment or graduate school, etc., may apply to Educational Computing Services for permission to access the "alumni" account on the computer network.
Upon approval by the Director of ECS, the user will be given the password for this alumni account. The password on the account is changed monthly (on the first of every month) and users must re-apply if they wish to continue to use the account.
The alumni account is provided as a courtesy to our former students. However, due to the limited available disk space, any work generated during a login session must be removed before logging out. All files to be saved should be transferred to a diskette. Any files found in the alumni account will be removed without warning.
Over any short period of time, there may be multiple users of the alumni account. Therefore, this account provides no privacy to users, or protection of their work, and consequently Allegheny College can take no responsibility for the security or loss of any work generated while using the alumni account.
SPOUSES, CHILDREN OF EMPLOYEES, ETC.
The Dean of College (for faculty) or the Vice President for Finance (for staff and administrators) must approve accounts for spouses, children, and domestic partners. Before such accounts are issued, the individual requesting the account and the sponsor (a faculty member, staff member, or administrator) must sign an agreement acknowledging that they have read the policies concerning network use and that they agree to abide by those policies.
MINOR'S USE OF COMPUTING FACILITIES AT ALLEGHENY
All underage members of the College community who wish to use the computing facilities must sign, with their legal guardian(s), the appropriate form with the understanding that the guardian(s) takes responsibility for any inappropriate or illegal materials that minor comes in contact with.
OTHERS WHO MAY USE OUR FACILITIES
Only under the most extraordinary circumstances will those with no immediate connection with the College be allowed to use our computer facilities. Such permission, when granted, must be approved by a senior member of the administration (the President, the dean of the college, etc.). Before such an account is issued, individuals involved must sign an agreement acknowledging that they have read the policies concerning network use and that they agree to abide by those policies.
The following policies concern computer use by Allegheny College employees.
EMPLOYEES LEAVING THE COLLEGE PERMANENTLY
The network accounts of former employees of the College will be closed upon the separation of the employee from the College. For a period of up to two months after the employee leaves the College, Technical and Network Services will forward electronic mail to an off-campus location, if requested to do so. Dial-in access to accounts will not be provided to former employees. Exceptions to this policy must be approved the President.
POLICY CONCERNING REMOVAL OF COMPUTING EQUIPMENT FROM CAMPUS
Computing equipment purchased by Allegheny College is for the on-campus use of the faculty, staff and students of the College. Computing equipment may be removed from campus only under the circumstances described below.
Faculty may remove computing equipment from campus for use at home if such removal is essential to their pedagogical and/or research efforts and if the computing equipment will be used exclusively for college related efforts while off campus.
Procedures governing the removal of computer equipment from campus for local use are as follows:
Faculty may remove computing equipment from campus for use during a sabbatical leave if such removal is essential for their pedagogical and/or research efforts and if the computing equipment will be used exclusively for college related efforts while off campus.
Procedures governing the removal of computing equipment from campus for use on a sabbatical leave are as follows:
Staff and administrators may remove computing equipment from campus if such removal is essential to their work efforts and if the computing equipment will be used exclusively for college related efforts while off campus.
Procedures governing the removal of computer equipment from campus by staff and administrators are as follows:
