Breadcrumb navigation

IT Procedure

Links

• Blackboard
• Student Email
• GroupWise Web Access
• NetStorage
• Staff Intranet
• Book a Computer
• Change your password

Main Content

IT Procedure

1. Standards of Acceptable Use

1.1. Appropriate Use of the services and facilities provided by the College.

1.1.1. The main purpose for the provision by the College of IT facilities for email is for use in connection with the teaching, learning, research and approved business activities by the College.

1.1.2. IT facilities provided by the College for email should not be used for:

• Personal use, other than as specified in paragraph 1.2
• The transmission of unsolicited commercial or advertising material, chain letters, press releases, or other junk mail of any kind, to other users, user organisations, or organisations connected to other networks, other than where that material is embedded within, or is otherwise part of a service to which the member of the user organisation has chosen to subscribe
• The unauthorised transmission to a third party of confidential material concerning the activities of City of Bristol College
• The transmission of material such that this infringes the copyright of another person, including intellectual property rights
• The unauthorised provision of access to College services and facilities by third parties
• Activities that unreasonably waste staff effort or networked resources or activities that unreasonably serve to deny service to other users e.g. inappropriate use of all user email
• Activities that corrupt or destroy other users’ data
• activities that disrupt the work of other users
• The creation or transmission of any offensive, obscene or indecent images, data, or other material, or any data capable of being resolved into obscene or indecent images or material to a third party for whatever reason
• The creation or transmission of material which is designed or likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety
• The creation or transmission of material that is abusive or threatening to others, or serves to harass or bully others
• The creation or transmission of material that either discriminate or encourages discrimination on racial or ethnic grounds, or on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, political or religious beliefs
• The creation or transmission of defamatory material
• The creation or transmission of material that includes false claims of a deceptive nature
• So-called ‘flaming’ i.e. the use of impolite terms or language, including offensive or condescending terms
• Activities that violate the privacy of other users
• Criticising individuals, including copy distribution to other individuals
• The creation or transmission of anonymous messages i.e. without clear identification of the sender
• The creation or transmission of material which bring the College into disrepute
• Unauthorised access to other email accounts.

Personal Use

1.2.1. The main purpose for the provision by the College of IT facilities for email is for use in connection with teaching, learning and approved business activities of the College. The College permits the use of its IT facilities for email by staff, students and other authorised users for personal use, subject to the following limitations:

• Access only in own time i.e. before work, lunch break, after work
• A level of use that is reasonable and not detrimental to the main purpose for which the facilities are provided
• Priority must be given to use of resources for the main purpose for which they are provided
• Personal use must not be of a commercial or profit-making nature, or for any other form of personal financial gain
• Personal use must not be connected with any use or application that conflicts with an employer’s obligations to City of Bristol College as their employer
• Personal use must not be connected to any purpose or application that conflicts with the College’s rules, regulations, policies and procedures
• Personal use must comply with the College’s policies and regulations, in particular the Email policy.

1.3. Preventing the Spread of Malicious Software (Viruses)

1.3.1. Users of College IT facilities must take all reasonable steps to prevent the receipt and transmission by email of malicious software e.g. computer viruses.

In particular, users:

• Must not transmit by email any file attachments which they know to be infected with a virus
• Must ensure that an effective anti-virus system is operating on any computer and/or laptop which they use to access College IT facilities
• Must not open email file attachments received from unsolicited or un-trusted sources.

2. Monitoring Procedure

2.1. Internet and email facilities are the property of the College. All internet web-use and emails are logged by the network systems and monitored.

2.2. The College will maintain appropriate monitoring arrangements in relation to all internet, email and related services and facilities that it provides and the College will apply these monitoring arrangements to all users.

2.3. Every attempt to access a web-site is logged and activities monitored. The log records the name of the login user, the time and date and the address of the web site. The amount of time spent by a member of staff on the internet is logged and the precise time of the day when access is open. The log records the type of site, e.g. chat, gambling, entertainment, business etc and the sites visited. Line managers will be informed periodically if personal internet use, in work time, is abused or is excessive in work time and this may lead to disciplinary action.

2.4. Certain types of web site, such as those containing pornographic material, may not be accessed from college. A web access filtering system in place that denies access to such sites. All attempts to access these banned sites are logged together with the login ID of the user, the time and date and the address of the web site. This log is monitored in order to ensure that all users are complying with the JANET acceptable use policy. Repeated misuse identified by the filtering system will be reported to a senior manager.

2.5. These arrangements may include checking the contents of, and in some instances recording, email messages for the purpose of:

• Establishing the existence of facts relevant to the business
• Ascertaining or demonstrating standards which ought to be achieved by those using the facilities
• Preventing or detecting crime
• Investigating or detecting unauthorised use of email facilities
• Ensuring effective operation of email facilities
• Determining if communications are relevant to the business – e.g. where an employee is off sick or on holiday.

2.6. The College may, at its discretion, apply automatic message monitoring, filtering and rejection systems as appropriate, and deny transmission of messages with content that is unacceptable in the terms of this Policy.

2.7. These monitoring arrangements will operate on a continual and continuing basis, with the express aim of monitoring compliance with the provisions of the College’s Email Policy and IT Regulations and for the purposes outlined above as permitted by The Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000.

3. Procedure in the event of a breach of the Standards of Acceptable Use

3.1. In circumstances where it is assessed that there has been a breach of the standards of acceptable use, as described in paragraph 1 of the Procedure section, the College will, as a first action, act promptly to prevent continuance or repetition of the breach, for example to withdraw any unacceptable materials.

3.2. This action will be taken in accordance with the normal managerial arrangements and will typically involve liaison between the appropriate member(s) of the College management team and the College ICLT Unit.

3.3. Indications of non-compliance with the provisions of the email and IT facilities policy will be investigated in accordance with the provisions of the College’s Disciplinary procedures as applicable to staff and students.

4. Procedure for access to Ex-employee email accounts

4.1. In some circumstances it will be necessary to access the email account of a former member of staff , e.g. to gain access to work related information that the user has stored on their email account and not copied to their manager/team/colleagues prior to leaving.

4.2. In all termination letters a member of staff will be asked to clear their email accounts of personal emails so that only business emails remain on the account. Information is archived for six months following the end of employment and then removed from the system, if an individual is aware that business information they hold on their account will be required by the College at some future date it should be stored on disc.

4.3. If a member of staff is absent from work for any reason (sickness leave, annual leave) where their permission cannot be obtained the College will arrange for a member of the ICT Help Desk accompanied by a member of the HR team to access the relevant email account and open the relevant file. Any file that has a personal file name attached to it will not be opened.

5. Legal Consequences of Misuse of Email facilities

5.1. In a growing number of cases involving the civil or criminal law, email messages (deleted or otherwise) are produced as evidence in a permanent written form.

5.2. There area number of areas of law which apply to use of email and which could involve liability of users or the College.

These include the following:

• Intellectual property: Anyone who uses email to send or receive any materials that infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party may be liable to that third party if such use is not authorised by them
• Obscenity: a criminal offence is committed if a person publishes any material which is pornographic, excessively violent or which comes under the provisions of the Obscene Publications Act 1959. Similarly the Protection of Children Act 1978 makes it an offence to publish or distribute obscene material of a child
• Defamation: as a form of publication, the Internet is within the scope of legislation relating to libel where a statement or opinion is published which adversely affects the reputation of a person, group of people or an organisation. Legal responsibility for the transmission of any defamatory, obscene or rude remarks which discredit an identifiable individual or organisation will rest mainly with the sender of the email and may lead to substantial financial penalties being imposed
• Data Protection: processing information (including photographs) which contains personal data about individuals, requires the express written consent of those individuals. Any use of personal data beyond that registered with the Data Protection Commissioner will be illegal
• Discrimination: any material disseminated which is discriminatory or encourages discrimination may be unlawful under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976 or the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 where it involves discrimination on the grounds of sex, race or disability.

The above is only designed to be a brief outline of some of the legal consequences of misuse of email facilities.

5.3. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 made it a criminal offence for anyone to modify computer held data or software without authority or to attempt to do so. There are three specific offences.

• Unauthorised access to computer programmes or data (this could be access from outside the network or authorised users who deliberately exceed their authority
• Unauthorised access with criminal intent (intention of using the information or date gained for a further offence)
• Unauthorised modification of computer material (programmes and data). This covers deliberate introduction of a virus into a system.

• IT Policy
• IT Guidelines
• IT Procedure