UWSP Electronic Mail Policies

Approved by Faculty Senate on February 5, 1997

The following policy is intended to maintain an ethical and amicable working environment and to meet the requirements governing the use of university resources. Violations of computing policies may result in loss of access to systems, appropriate administrative sanctions and/or legal action.

Personal or Commercial Use

Electronic communication is not to be used for personal purposes or gain; it is provided only as a medium of expression for academic programs and university operations. Incidental personal use is tolerated. However, you should use non-university resources for extensive or recurring communication not related to university purposes.

Realistic Limitations to Privacy in Electronic Communication

You have a right to expect the contents of what you write, create, store and send to be seen only by those to whom you intend or give permission. However, be aware that mail may, due to several circumstances listed below, become available to others who were not intended to have access.

Software or hardware failure

Systems management personnel may have access to data while:

performing routine operations or pursuing apparent streams or user problems.
protecting the integrity of the university's computing system and the rights and
protecting the rights of individuals working in

Systems personnel are required to report apparent improper or illegal activities that they discover. No guarantee of complete privacy is made or implied by this policy.

Open Records Access

State and Federal Regulations When dealing with access to sensitive information, you should be aware of state and federal regulations. Specifically, you must be concerned with the laws regulating open records access and subpoena of computer materials. In regard to open records access requests, email delivered to the university is considered to be an open record, much like a written or printed document, and can be requested. As is the case of all open records access, only items which are readily available need be supplied. Email messages retained in your mailbox (either on the server or on your workstation) would be regarded as readily available and would have to be supplied if requested. Backup copies of email messages are not readily available and would not be supplied if requested. Therefore, once an email message is deleted and purged from your mailbox and/or local workstation storage, it does not have to be supplied in response to an open records access request.

Clear and Accurate Self-Identification in Electronic Communications

Using a pseudonym or writing anonymous mail appears to disassociate you from responsibility for your actions and is almost always inappropriate. Concealing or misrepresenting your name or affiliation to mask irresponsible or offensive behavior is a serious abuse. Using identifiers of other individuals as your own constitutes fraud.

Harassment, Intimidation or Annoyance Mail

Use of mail to harass, intimidate or otherwise annoy another person, such as broadcasting unsolicited messages or sending unwanted mail, is expressly prohibited. This also applies to material originating from this campus but sent to other sites or persons on the Internet.

Mailing Lists

If you subscribe to an electronic mailing list, you are responsible for determining the purpose of the list before subscribing. You will be viewed as soliciting materials delivered by the list as long as the material is consistent with the list's purpose. If you send materials to a mailing list which are not consistent with the purpose of the mailing list, you will be viewed as having sent unsolicited materials.

Limitations on the Availability of Resources

All members of the university community should recognize that email use may be limited for reasons related to the capacity or security of the system, or as required for conducting university business. In accordance, the following policies apply:

Do not allow anyone else to use your account. You will be held responsible for any correspondence originating from your account.
Do not send a campuswide mailing or a mailing to extremely large groups of people without first checking with the email administrator. (postmaster@uwsp.edu)
Do not send chain letters. If you receive a chain letter from off campus, delete it. If it was sent to you from someone on campus, please forward the message to "postmaster@uwsp.edu" for administrative action.
Do not post messages to large numbers of news groups.
Do not post chain letters or money making schemes to any news group.

Other Limitations on the Availability of Resources

In addition to the general principles set forth in this policy, the use of information technology resources may be affected by a number of other legal and ethical principles. While it is not possible to list all potentially applicable laws and regulations, the following are likely to have implications for the use of university information technology resources:

Ethical standards of conduct for the appropriate use of an individual's university position and university resources are established for faculty and academic staff in Chapter UWS 8, Wisconsin Administrative Code, and for classified staff in Chapter Pers 24, Wisconsin Administrative Code.
Chapters UWS 14 and 17, Wisconsin Administrative Code, establish standards and disciplinary processes relating to academic and nonacademic misconduct by students, including prohibitions on disruption of university activities, damage to university facilities, harassment and similar matters.
Chapter UWS 18, Wisconsin Administrative Code governs conduct on university lands, and applies to all members of the university community.
Chapter UWS 21, Wisconsin Administrative Code regulates the use of university facilities. Section 943.70, Wisconsin Statutes defines and prohibits certain computer crimes.
Chapter 11, Wisconsin Statutes restricts the use of state facilities for political activities by state employees. The federal copyright law applies to materials published or circulated through computing resources. The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act restricts access to personally identifiable information from students' education records.

Students, faculty and staff are responsible for understanding and observing these and all other applicable policies, regulations and laws in connection with their use of university information technology resources.

The following reference is to an Internet site that is commonly recognized as a standard guide for "Netiquette" that you may want to consider.

The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette

All revisions to the UWSP Electronic Mail Policy will be reviewed by the Dean of Academic Support Services, the Web Advisory Committee (WAC), the Chancellor and the Faculty Senate.

Final authority for UWSP computing and network acceptable use policies lies with the UWSP Chancellor and the Faculty Senate. Until conflicts are resolved, questionable use should be considered as "not acceptable."

For editorial revisions, contact Jane Dumke, UWSP Postmaster (postmaster@uwsp.edu). For content revision, contact Web Advisory Committee. Last update: 2/5/97 -- Check frequently for revisions. Permission to duplicate or distribute this document is granted with the provision that the document remains intact, or if used in part, that the original document source be referenced. URL=http://www.uwsp.edu/it/exchange

Acknowledgments

Existing policy documents from a wide range of universities, colleges, and other institutions were reviewed before the creation of this document. We wish to acknowledge their efforts and input, direct or indirect, to the contents of this policy document.

Policy documents at the following sites were of particular help in the creation of this document:

University of Wisconsin - Green Bay URL=http://www.uwgb.edu University of Wisconsin - Madison URL=http://www.wisc.edu University System University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee URL=http://www.uwm.edu University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh URL=http://www.uwosh.edu University of Wisconsin - Parkside URL=http://www.uwp.edu Rice University URL=http://www.rice.edu

WiscNet Acceptable Use Policy URL=ftp://nic.wiscnet.net/wiscnet/documents/wn-use-policy

Information Technology personnel will not aggressively seek out violators of these policies; however, violations that are brought to IT's attention will be handled through existing disciplinary, grievance, and hearing procedures. Policy infractions may incur sanctions up to and including dismissal or expulsion.