Acceptable Use of Technology

Respect the need for others to use systems to work. 

• Allow others to have normal response times and sufficient resources from the network, servers, printers and other multi-user systems.
• Never inadvertently or intentionally waste or usurp resources or access to resources such as storage space, processor time, network bandwidth, access ports, or printers and other peripherals. Such waste includes excessive storage for mail messages, excessive processes and excessive network messages such as chain letters, broadcasts, downloads and file sharing.
• Conscientiously limit your use of paper and other printing resources.

Respect the work of others.

• Never copy or modify information belonging to others without explicit authorization. This includes personal information, programs authored for sale and material authored for presentation in class or elsewhere. Unauthorized duplication may constitute plagiarism, cheating, theft and/or violations of copyright. The University respects software copyrights. Unauthorized modification includes generating and transmitting malware and other destructive programs.
• Never place files in folders for which you do not have explicit authorization.
• Check your files and folders for viruses regularly. The spread of viruses damages everyone's personal and system files and folders.
• Update and patch your software regularly to remove vulnerabilities.

Respect the sensitivities of others.

• Consider what you display on screen, what you print and what you send using mail, just like considering how you act and what you say aloud.
• Never act in such a way that another user would feel uncomfortable accessing systems, for example, by sending or presenting harassing, intimidating, abusive or patently unwanted material to others. This includes presentation in messages, on screen and in print, where others might see.

Respect the integrity of the systems.

• Never share a username and password to access information. A username should be associated with a single individual or position.
• Never use the identity of another or other methods to evade security to gain access to systems and information.
• Never conceal or misrepresent your identity or affiliation in communication.
• Never choose a password that is in any way associated with you or your name or that is in a dictionary or similar list. This information is too easy to search or generate with a program and/or to use to break into a system.
• Never choose a simple password. All passwords should be unique and with a minimum of 15 characters (preferably more).
• Never write your password down.
• Never leave an unsecured station unattended.
• Never attempt to discover the identities, passwords and encryption keys of others.
• Never intercept or alter network packets.
• Never upload university data to unauthorized/unapproved cloud systems (i.e., Dropbox, etc.)

Respect the equipment.

• Keep trash, smoking, eating or drinking away from hardware.
• Never damage equipment through acts of vandalism, spite, anger, negligence or overuse.
• Authorized users may not install and/or should not connect any device on a computer or to the network without authorization from the system administrator. These include, but are not limited to: laptops, cell phones, cameras, electronic media and/or flash drives.

Respect the law.

• Never use systems for any purpose that violates federal or state laws.
• Never use systems for commercial purposes without explicit authorization.

Use and maintain your University electronic mailbox.

The University provides each student and each member of the faculty and the staff with an electronic mailbox (@sxu.edu for staff and faculty; @mymail.sxu.edu for students) that is used as an official means of email communication by and with the University.

Only a Saint Xavier University email account (i.e., @sxu.edu for faculty and staff, @mymail.sxu.edu for students) is acceptable for official University and/or business related email correspondences. The use of personal email accounts to conduct such University business or to represent oneself or one's enterprises on behalf of the University is prohibited. Students should use the email account that has been provided by Saint Xavier University as their official means of email communication with the University.

All University email communication should be from and to sxu.edu and mymail.sxu.edu email addresses. All faculty should communicate with each other and students using the sxu.edu suffix, and faculty require students to reply using their mymail.sxu.edu email account. For security of the university, compliance with governmental regulations, and protection of university information, use the sxu.edu address, and direct your students to do the same. To restate, effective immediately, we will only use the sxu.edu address for University email communications.

Communication between faculty and student can also safely occur within the University's official Learning Management System. The LMS is an appropriate and secure means of interaction between instructor and students.

Members of the University community are responsible for the information that is sent to their University electronic mailbox and are expected to:

• Maintain their mailbox so there is sufficient space for the receipt of University announcements.
• Examine frequently the messages in their mailbox for University announcements and requests for information.
• Respond in a timely fashion to requests for information.

Members of the community should also recognize that these announcements will often point to the University's website for additional information and instructions.

Members of the community who send messages to large groups of recipients should limit their messages to short announcements that point to web pages with further information and instructions. This will conserve resources by not sending and storing multiple large documents and by providing a lasting copy for those who lost or did not initially get the information and instructions.

The University recognizes that individuals should be allowed to access, present and communicate information representing a variety of views on current and historical issues for the interest, information and enlightenment of the University community and within the concept of academic freedom. Nevertheless, because anything published through electronic resources of the University may appear to represent the views of the University and not just an individual author, it is important to explicitly recognize where the views are the individual's and not the University's. When presenting a product of the University, such as institutional web pages and electronic mail messages, the appropriate and established language and style should be identified and used.

Saint Xavier University reserves the right to periodically disable or delete email/computer accounts belonging to individuals no longer affiliated with the University.

"No longer affiliated" is defined as:

• Students who have graduated or are no longer enrolled.
• Faculty or staff who have voluntarily left or have been terminated.

For your own protection, you should recognize that:

• The security of your information, while seriously attempted, cannot be guaranteed.
• The University is the owner of these systems and, therefore, of the information stored there.
• The University could, if required to substantiate instances of interference, duplicate and examine information stored on these systems.
• There shall be no expectation of privacy in any computer system, hardware, software, email usage history or internet history. All computers are the property of the University and are subject to inspection and search at any time.
• The voice mail system is the property of the University. All communications and information transmitted by, received from or stored in this system is the property of Saint Xavier. Employees have no right to personal privacy within the voice mail system. The University, at its discretion , reserves and may exercise the right to monitor, access, retrieve, and delete any matter stored in, created, received or transmitted in the voice mail system without permission of, or notice to the employee.
• The nature of electronic mail is that it is not private. The sender has no control over the subsequent forwarding of a message by the original recipient. Therefore emails must always be written and sent as if the entire world is going to see them.
• Use of email may be subject to monitoring for security and/or network management reasons.
• Do not send passwords with usernames or confidential and otherwise sensitive information in electronic mail messages. Use the message to point to a secure web page where the information can be released only to the authenticated recipient. Electronic mail is, by nature, insecure.
• Do not open attachments in messages from senders you do not know.
• Do not expect that the sender in a message or a reply is actually the authentic sender of the message. Electronic mail addresses easily can be co-opted.
• Do not respond to messages that request information you normally would keep confidential, that create an urgent sense of loss, and that request an urgent reply.
• The University cannot protect individuals against the existence or receipt of text or images that may be offensive to them. As such, those who make use of electronic communications are warned that they may come across or be recipients of material they find offensive.
• Those who make information about themselves available on the Internet (through email or some other means) should be forewarned that the University cannot protect them from invasions of privacy and other possible dangers that could result from the individual's distribution of personal information.
• While the University provides resources in its buildings and on its campuses, this should not be interpreted as the University sanctioning the materials developed or propagated by the individuals using those resources.
• The inappropriate access to and use of information and communications systems can in many cases result in criminal prosecution and civil litigation.
• Anyone who deploys their SXU email account to their personal device (PC or mobile), gives the University the right/ability to wipe that information when and where relevant for data security, theft, and/or termination reasons.

Should you have any questions or comments about these expectations and policies, please contact Information Technology at itFREESXU.