Download draft - Union College

DRAFT - 5/11/2005
DRAFT
ITS Policy on
College-owned Computer Technology
[This document will be given to those faculty members who are having their
computers replaced by ITS. It can also be posted on the campus website and
distributed by other means.]
Commitment and rationale
Union College is committed to providing each faculty member, staff member and administrator
with the necessary computer to do his or her job. For faculty members, the College will provide
one standard configuration, networked, college-owned computer. These purchases will include 3year warranties, technical staff time for setup and support, and basic software licenses. In order to
best meet the needs of the Union College community, standards for hardware and software have
been set. Each year these standards are reviewed and revised to reflect industry and higher
education trends. This is done to insure that hardware and software that is supported is up-todate, cost effective and fit to the task.
Desktop or Laptop Computer
Faculty members may elect to have either a desktop computer or a laptop computer. Each year
Information Technology Services (ITS) will select standard models for purchase. ITS has
funding to provide for the replacement of faculty computers and it is the goal to replace
computers on a regular basis, usually on a timetable from 3-5 years depending on need and
availability of funding.
ITS maintains an inventory of all college-owned computers. It is this list that will be used to
generate a list of computers for replacement. Working with departments and individual faculty
members a replacement schedule is drafted and in general, those with the oldest computers are
moved to the top of the list. Each year replacements are scheduled for those deemed to be most
in need.
The current standard supported models are listed at the end of this policy.
Policy
College-owned computers assigned to faculty and staff will be purchased from approved vendors
and configured with a standard set of software licensed by the College. The standard software is
listed in a table at the end of this policy.
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ITS will configure college-owned computers and will be responsible for ongoing maintenance
and support. Beginning with the standard configurations, departments may select (at their
expense) upgrades to the standard configuration
College-owned computers are to be used primarily for college-related work. Support for software
that is not related to the individual's work is the responsibility of the individual to maintain. If
such software interferes with other software or causes problems the individual will be asked to
remove the offending software.
College-owned computers, either desktops or laptops, are not to be used regularly by other
people (e.g. family members) and should not be loaded with software that is unrelated to the
faculty member's work.
To ensure virus protection and other security patches are current, college-owned computers will
be configured to automatically update Windows critical patches and virus protection software. In
addition any computers that connect to the College's network must have up-to-date virus
protection
Support
ITS staff are trained to troubleshoot hardware problems on the standard computer
configurations. Standard 'disk images' are maintained for a limited number of configurations.
The supported vendors for personal computers are IBM and Apple. ITS does not install or
troubleshoot unix (including linux).
ITS does not troubleshoot problems on privately owned computers although general support
will be given, especially if the computer has been purchased from one of our standard
vendors.
ITS will provide support (including troubleshooting, configuring, etc.) for the standard software
that is loaded on a computer. ITS will make a "best-effort" to assist with support that is related to
the faculty member's work. In most cases the best support for special purpose or special use
software will be provided by the vendor of the software.
Privacy and Security
ITS is committed to protect the security of all College-owned computers (and in fact of all
computers that connect to the College's network) and the privacy and security of data that may be
stored on them.
However, in today's environment it has been noted that individuals should not consider electronic
communications (e.g. e-mail) either private or secure. In fact, e-mail should be considered similar
to a postcard. It is too easy for an e-mail message to be misdirected (incorrect address, outdated
address, etc.). In addition, information stored or transmitted electronically may be considered by
courts as a public records and might therefore be subject to disclosure and discovery in litigation.
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The College is responsible for operating the computing facilities it provides in a manner that
offers security and integrity of computing. In order to protect users from viruses and other threats
from operating in a networked environment ITS installs some special software on College-owned
computers. For example, virus protection software is licensed by the College for use on collegeowned computers and for any computer that will be connected to the College's network. It is also
important that this software is updated frequently. For this reason the virus protection software is
configured to regularly check for and install updates. We continue to have incidents in which
machines with old virus protection software get infected and cause problems for the campus
network. College-owned computers are also set up to regularly check for and install security
patches. This process has been automated so that computers are enabled to accept these patches
and updates automatically (for virus and security updates).
The College will treat your files and information as both private and confidential and will not
examine your information without just cause or due process, nor disclose that information to a
third party unless required for use in a disciplinary or criminal investigation.
The College does not normally monitor individual usage, although all usage of a general nature
may be monitored, especially network performance. Monitoring of individual usage is only done
when it appears that network performance is being degraded due to a particular computer or
group of computers on the network.
The College, however, reserves the right to inspect, copy, remove, or otherwise alter data files,
system resources, or user files in the regular conduct of its duty to maintain efficient and well-run
computing facilities. The College may track user activities and access any files or information in
the course of performing normal system and network maintenance or while investigating
violations of policy or statute.
Summary
Information Technology Services is responsible for making sure that Union's computing facilities
and network is available on a 24-hour, 7-day a week basis. ITS is also responsible for making
sure that Union's faculty members, students, staff and administrators have the computing
resources necessary to do their work in a productive and efficient manner.
The above policies have been established to insure that these goals are met in as efficient,
effective and cost-effective manner as possible.
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Software Loaded on College-owned Personal Computers
that are configured by ITS(5/10/2005)
Windows
Macintosh
Word processing
Spreadsheet
Presentation
Database
Web page development
e-mail client
Virus protection
Web browser
Software for pushing out updates
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsolt PowerPoint
Microsoft Access
Microsoft FrontPage
Microsoft Outlook
McAfee Viruscan
Internet Explorer
EPO agent, Kcyscrver client
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft PowerPoint
Secure ftp access
CD burning software
Secure Shell (SSH)
As appropriate
Mac SFTP
As appropriate
Other
Microsoft Publisher
iLife for brand new
Macintoshes
Entourage
McAfee Virex
Safari
Keyserver client
In addition, if requested, remote access software is loaded on notebook computers as requested.
Appendix (supplied by Doug Klein, based on references provided by Diane Keller and Dave
Cossey).
Other college and university computer support and
computer privacy policies consulted
SUNY Albany
http://www.albany.edu/judicial_affairs/CRR-7_04.pdf
(see Appendix G, which begins on page 35)
Hamilton College
http://www.hamilton.edu/college/its/policies_standards_plans/policies_print_finder.html?number=100
Bowdoin College
http://www.bowdoin.edu/it/contract/facultypolicy.shtml
Reed College
http://web.reed.edu/cis/policies/equipment.html
Case Western Reserve University
http://www.case.edu/its/features/pdf/itsaup.pdf
University of Minnesota
http://www2.cla.umn.edu/admin/claoit/policies/supportpol.html
Aurora College
http://www.aurora.edu/is/purchasing.htm
Syracuse University
http://casecomputing.syr.edu/support-policy.html
UCLA
http://admin.cdh.ucla.edu/hardware.php
Villanova University
http://unit.villanova.edu/policies/policy/procurement.html
Abilene Christian University
http://www.acu.edu/technology/employees/CPRpolicy.html
Ohio State University
https://humanities.osu.edu/cohi/FacultyDocuments/QuickReferenceGuide/yr200405/collegeadmin/ca05.cfm
http://his.osu.edu/service/supportpolicy.cfm