Board Policy: Responsible Use of Information and Technology
Information systems provided by St. Louis Community College are to be used to further the College’s mission and in accordance with the College’s mission, vision, and values. Users of the College's information systems are responsible for the appropriate use and protection of the College's information systems.
Definitions
- An “Information system” is a set of resources structured to store, transmit, or process College data.
- “Users” are individuals who make use of the College's information systems.
Scope
This policy applies to all users of STLCC information resources, whether located at the College, or elsewhere. Users who access College information systems through personally owned devices must also abide by this policy.
Responsibilities
Users must use information systems in accordance with:
- Applicable local, state, federal, and international laws and regulations.
- STLCC’s mission, vision, and values.
- IT security measures, including the responsibilities to:
- Protect access to systems and data by ensuring it is restricted based on the needs of job function;
- Protect systems and data from unauthorized modification;
- Prevent the unauthorized disclosure of data;
- Protect system and data availability and accessibility for authorized users;
- Collect personal information for specified, explicit, and legitimate purposes.
All users must acknowledge and accept the responsible use of information and
technology prior to initial access and on an annual basis.
Prohibited Activities
The following activities are prohibited:
- Sharing an individual’s digital identity (user ID and password, or other authenticator);
- Disrupting the intended purpose of an information resource to others;
- Violating copyright or patent protections, as well as licensing or other third-party agreements;
- Gaining unauthorized access to systems or data, or invading the privacy of another individual or entity;
- Using College information resources for personal gain, or promoting political campaigns or issues;
- Collecting personal information without an explicit, specific, and legitimate purpose;
- Other activities that compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of
an
information system.
Incidental Personal Use
Information systems are provided to further the College's mission. Brief, incidental use of the College's telephones, computers, and other technology to attend to personal matters is permissible provided it does not interfere with an individual’s work, departmental business, or educational use.
Privacy and Monitoring
All College owned information systems are subject to review. Information systems are monitored for reasons that include, but are not limited to, security, performance, backup, and trouble-shooting. The College reserves the right to monitor any information systems, for any legitimate business reason.
Principles of Responsible Use of Information and Technology
The following principles provide direction for responsible use of technology resources by students, faculty and staff at the College. While not comprehensive, they define behaviors that serve as a reference for acceptable use;
- Respect the privacy of others.
- Do not access any files or data for which you are not expressly authorized.
- Do not use the passwords of others or access files under false identity.
- Do not request personal information unless it is required to perform or deliver a College service.
- Never store student or customer credit card primary account numbers or sensitive authentication data.
- Email should adhere to the same standards of conduct as any other form of professional communication. Respect others you contact electronically by avoiding distasteful, inflammatory, harassing or otherwise unacceptable comments.
- Remember that you are responsible for all activity involving your account. Keep your account secure and private.
- The network is available to students for purposes of academic and nonacademic communications and entertainment to the extent that such use does not compromise the network or the amount of bandwidth available for academic-related uses.
- Much of what appears on the Internet is protected by copyright law regardless of whether the copyright is expressly noted. Do not copy or disseminate copyrighted material without permission.
- Today’s information technology is a shared resource. Respect the needs of others when using computer and network resources. Do not tamper with facilities or interfere with the normal operations of computers, networks and facilities.
- Although a respect for privacy is fundamental to the College’s values, understand that almost any information can in principle be read or copied; that some user information is maintained in system logs as a part of responsible computer system maintenance; that the College reserves the right to examine computer files, and that the College may be compelled by law or policy to examine personal and confidential information maintained on College computing facilities.