Volunteer State Community College Computer Use Policy

The computer resources of Volunteer State Community College are available to students, faculty, staff, and approved guests for authorized use in a responsible, ethical, and equitable manner. It is important that all users of computing resources conduct their computing activities in this manner since they have access to many valuable and sensitive resources and their computing practices can adversely affect the work of other users. Access to these resources is a privilege granted to users.

It is the responsibility of the Director of Information Technology to maintain a stable and secure operational environment for all users. As a result, users are expected to be responsive to the suggestions and interpretation of the code by the Director and/or designee. In addition, users must be aware that an individual’s use of college information systems may be monitored.

The following constitutes a code of computing practice to be followed by all computer system users. This includes all computing facilities owned, leased or controlled by the College.

  1. Use of the computer facilities is authorized for purposes that conform to the goals and objectives of the institution.
  2. Users of computing resources are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that does not constitute a danger to any person's health or safety, interfere with, or harass individuals or institutional activities.
  3. Users must not misuse, damage, or misappropriate in any manner computing equipment, property, and other facilities and resources.
  4. Users are responsible for the use of their computer resources; and as such, they must take precautions against others obtaining access to their computer resources. This includes managing and controlling the use of individual passwords, operational activities, and resource utilization.
  5. Users must utilize only those resources that have been authorized for their use and only for the purpose for which the authorization was granted. Unless otherwise noted here, personal, for-profit or commercial use of college computing resources without written authorization from the appropriate authority is not permitted. In all circumstances, the fact that a resource is unprotected does not imply permission for an unauthorized person to use it.
  6. Users must not attempt to modify system facilities or subvert the restrictions associated with a computer resource. Users must follow the established procedures for accessing the computing systems.
  7. Users shall utilize software only in accordance with the applicable license agreement. The College licenses the use of most of its computer software from a variety of outside companies. The College does not own this software or its related documentation and, unless authorized by the license, does not have the right to reproduce it.
  8. Users are to minimize the impact of their work on the work of other users. Attempts must not be made to encroach on others' use of the facilities or deprive them of resources. This would include but is not limited to use of disk space as well as use of the College’s bandwidth.
  9. Users and non-users must not encourage, collaborate or tolerate the misuse of computer resources or the violations of this code by any other person. It is College policy that anyone with knowledge of violations or suspected violations of computer security measures or controls report this information to the appropriate College authority. Reports of violations are to be emailed to abuse@volstate.edu.
  10. Only email messages conveying information concerning official college business are to be broadcast to all or most users of the College’s email system(s).
  11. Appropriate postings to College provided electronic discussion and/or announcement boards are encouraged. These postings may include but are not limited to items for sale, photos of family members, community events, and discussion on topics of interest to the campus community. Items may remain on such boards for a period of not longer than thirty (30) days. It is the responsibility of the individual posting items to the board to remove them.
  12. The Human Resources department is to be solely responsible for sending email notices regarding deaths, retirements and other human resource-related matters to the campus. Any individual or department wishing to make a general announcement about such events must work through the Human Resources department.
  13. It is the responsibility of each direct supervisor to monitor the use by their direct reports of the College’s computer resources (including announcement boards, discussion boards and College’s email system(s)) for compliance with college, TBR, State, and Federal regulations. Supervisors are authorized to take appropriate action as noted below to prevent further misuse of these systems by their employees. Should misuse continue, it is the responsibility of the appropriate Vice President to take further action against both the employee and the supervisor.
  14. The illegal use, downloading, copying, or distribution of materials (i.e. proprietary music, video, software, or database information) via Volunteer State Community College information technology resources is prohibited.

The above code is intended to work to the benefit of all computer users by encouraging responsible conduct and use of computer resources. Disciplinary action for violating this code shall be governed by the applicable provisions of the student, faculty and staff handbooks, other policies and procedures of Volunteer State Community College, its governing body, the Tennessee Board of Regents, the laws of the State of Tennessee and the United States of America.

The following disciplinary sanctions outline some, but are not limited to, actions that may be taken either singularly or in combination, by the Institution against violators of this code.

Students shall note that some of the sanctions listed above might require violators to be administratively withdrawn from courses.