• Everyone at the college has access to information servers for electronic mail (e-mail) and other Internet services.
   
• The college's World Wide Web site contains information to help you register for classes, apply for financial aid, keep up with college events, and much more.
   
• Microcomputers are available for general use at several locations on campus. These microcomputer sites provide access to the Internet and essential software for coursework. Some locations have student consultants on duty to help you with your computing questions. Many at the college have access to a voice mail system, which makes it easy and convenient to keep in touch with colleagues and professors.

Although you may have downloaded and/or deleted your e-mail messages, many email delivery systems work in such a way that messages may be preserved for a time as computer files on centrally-administered disks and at system back-up locations, so your capacity to control if and where copies exist is not absolute. The array of storage locations is another factor making the confidentiality of your e-mail conditional. And most produce messages in plain text; they are like postcards in that others might view the messages in transit or those left in plain view.

Sometimes messages are so badly misaddressed that they cannot be delivered and will end up in the hands of computing staff for redirection. People often make mistakes in addressing their mail that puts private messages in the mailbox of someone other than the intended recipient. If you are the recipient of such a message, common courtesy dictates that you either return the message to the sender with a brief note explaining its misdirection or that you delete the message.

College procedures allow Computing Services' system administrators to view and modify any files, including e-mail messages, in the course of diagnosing or resolving system problems and maintaining information integrity. Computing Services' system administrators, as part of their jobs, are expected to treat any such information on the systems as confidential. However, if an administrator comes across information that indicates illegal activity, he or she is required to report the discovery to appropriate authorities. For example, electronic mail messages that carry threats to persons or their immediate families may be prosecuted and punished as felonies under Virginia law. If a Computing Services' system administrator inadvertently encounters an e-mail message containing a threat, it will be turned over to law enforcement officials.

College policies prohibit certain other kinds of e-mail messages. For example, e-mail, college computers, or the college network cannot be used by individuals for commercial purposes or for personal gain. Such policies pertain to e-mail just as they do to any other college resource and are enforced when brought to the attention of appropriate college officials. Large-scale mailings impose loads on the college's electronic mail services. They should be used judiciously and often require approval from Computing Services. You will be wise to coordinate any large-scale mailing with the college's e-mail postmaster (postmaster@pvcc.edu).

E-mail accounts are vulnerable to malicious use when others know the owner's computing ID and password; carefully protect your electronic identity from use by anyone other than you. Your e-mail account is also subject to misuse when you leave open a computing session that you have begun in a college computing lab or when you fail to logout from the college Web Mail service before you close your browser. It is prudent to reboot the computer you use in any lab setting when you finish your work there or even if you leave the workstation, planning to return to it soon.

Other important tips related to e-mail:

• Remember, the e-mail messages you send become the possession of the receiver. They can easily be redistributed by recipients, and rules of disclosure by their systems apply to mail they received from you. When in doubt, double-check the addresses of your intended recipients.

• Do think before you send e-mail -- once sent, it is almost impossible to keep e-mail messages from reaching their destinations.

• Realize that college policy and secure passwords provide good but not complete assurance of the privacy of your e-mail messages. When the confidentiality of a message is of the utmost importance, only a person-to-person conversation may be sufficiently secure.

• Delete messages that should not be preserved.

• Never send or forward chain mail, whether it promises fame and fortune, or even supposed donations for a sick child. In virtually every known case, the claims made by such messages are untrue. A message that has been forwarded ten or more times is by definition in our policy a chain letter. This policy violation is a waste of computing resources and a nuisance and often offends recipients.

• Don't pass on unconfirmed rumors -- especially about viruses -- because they often only cause needless panic. You can check at http://www.helpvirus.com for a list of well-known virus hoaxes, or check at http://www.urbanlegends.com for a list of other well-known hoaxes that may not involve computers but about which you may receive information via e-mail.

• Don't open or execute attachments about which you have any question, even if they appear to be coming from a friend. Attachments have become an increasingly popular way of automatically distributing viruses, and your friend may not even know that his or her e-mail account is being used for that purpose.

• College policy prohibits use of college resources, computing or otherwise, for commercial purposes.

• Realize that if you die while you are a member of the PVCC community, your stored e-mail is a part of your personal effects and records that will be given to your executor (the person -- usually a family member -- designated to deal with your property at your death) if he or she requests it.

Responsibility

All users of college computing systems must comply with the requirements of responsible computing in the college environment, as outlined here. Individual users assume full legal responsibility for the content of their home pages, and they must abide by all applicable local, state, and federal laws, including laws of copyright. Copyright law pertains to many types of materials, including cartoons, pictures, graphics, text, song lyrics, and sounds (including most MP3 and other files shared via so-called peer-to-peer procedures). The college is not responsible for the content of Web pages other than those defined as its "official" Web pages (the official Web pages of college departments, divisions, and other units). As a neutral provider of computing services and access to the Internet, PVCC does not review in advance or monitor the content of any materials transmitted, received, published or stored on or otherwise available through its systems. If PVCC receives complaints regarding the content of such materials, it will refer the complaint to the appropriate disciplinary system within the college, and it will cooperate with any resulting investigation in accord with the policies, procedures, and principles described or cited in this handbook. Assumptions about audiences who will see information you publish.

You will be wise to remember the very public nature of information you disseminate on the Internet through the World Wide Web. Information in a home page is published and available to everyone who can get to the Web. You must not assume that your information is restricted to only a close circle of friends, or even the PVCC community.

You are not allowed to use your Web page to gather information on visitors.

Fundraising and Advertising

Most software available for use on computers at the college is protected by federal copyright laws. Educational institutions are not exempt from the laws covering copyrights. In addition, software is normally protected by a license agreement between the purchaser and the software seller. The software provided through the college for use by faculty, staff, and students may be used only on computing equipment as specified in the various software licenses. Licenses sometimes specify that you may use the software only while you are a member of the PVCC community.

It is the policy of the college to respect the copyright protections given to software owners by federal law. It is against college policy for faculty, staff, or students to copy or reproduce any licensed software on college computing equipment, except as expressly permitted by the software license. Of course, faculty, staff, and students may not use unauthorized copies of software on college-owned computers.

READ and understand applicable policies, notably VCCS Ethics Guidelines.

KNOW what it means to take responsibility for your safety and security in the Internet environment and for deciding what is right and wrong in circumstances where often rules have not yet been written. You must take responsibility for educating yourself about the medium that you're using and for helping shape its use by good personal behavior. BE AWARE of the hundreds of others who rely on the college's computers to do their work. Consider how your on-line behavior will affect them.

UNDERSTAND that college policies that address academic dishonesty, including theft, plagiarism, disruptive conduct and misuse of materials and property, must guide your computing activities, just as they guide your activities in the classroom, computing labs, library or elsewhere on campus.

DON'T let other students, relatives or any other person gain access to the college's computing resources through your account. Understand that you will be held accountable for any abuse of computing resources by persons you allow to use your PVCC computing ID and password.

DON'T use computer accounts, computing IDs, and passwords that belong to someone else. To do so violates policy.

BE ACCOUNTABLE for your actions. Hiding your identity to avoid responsibility for your behavior on the network or using someone else's network identity are -- at a minimum -- violations of policy, and they may be serious violations of law.

DON'T play games that waste shared computing resources and have no academic purpose. You are not authorized to use your computer account or access to play such games.

KNOW that local, state, and federal laws and regulations pertain to computing activities wherever appropriate -- laws dealing with fraud, forgery, harassment, extortion, gambling, threats, copyright, obscene content, among others. Violators may be prosecuted.

BE WARY of those who will (sometimes unknowingly) provide on-line information that is untrue or fraudulent. If you are not certain, ask.

KNOW that messages you post to newsgroups or Web pages that you create in an attempt to be humorous may not be received in that spirit. Remember that archives of newsgroups and Web pages remain accessible for years -- don't be surprised if an interviewer asks about something you posted to a newsgroup while a student when you're trying to get that job you really want in a few years.

UNDERSTAND what you are authorized to do. Know what the college's purpose is in making these computing resources available to you.

• Your computer account is provided so you can send and receive e-mail, read and post notices to newsgroups and access library and other information resources.
• In some cases, professors will authorize further account access so students can do class assignments.
• Microcomputer labs are available so you can do word processing, make spreadsheets, and access other PVCC computer resources and the Internet. The software in the labs is for use there; you cannot copy it and use it elsewhere.

• steal other people's computing IDs and passwords;
• disrupt computer systems and networks;
• flood electronic mail systems with unwanted messages (spam);
• send forged electronic messages from Santa Claus, God, the College president, or, maybe, YOU;
• post messages that vilify and threaten other people;
• post inappropriate messages to mailing lists;
• spread viruses;
• subscribe others to mailing lists, or unsubscribe them, without their permission;
• or invade the privacy of others.

Cracking Passwords

Your password may be guessed or "cracked" if you choose a common word, or a friend's or a pet's name, or your nickname, or the name of your favorite team or the name of a celebrity. Choose a password that combines letters, numbers, and special characters (for example, $, *, !).

Whether you use your PVCC computing ID and password or not, it is your responsibility to keep them secure. Do not let anyone talk you into "sharing." Don't keep your password and computing ID together. If you can remember your password without writing it down, that is best. Don't tell your friends -- or anyone, even someone assisting you with problem solving -- what your password is. Change your password regularly. Crashing and Disrupting the System

Malicious computer users make the system stop working or perform poorly. It's like speeding, shop-lifting, spray-painting cars or slashing tires. These users find out, from a variety of sources -- sometimes each other -- about things they can do to disrupt the systems. In almost every instance, such behavior violates the law, and, in every instance, it violates college policy. Consequences are severe.

Forging E-mail

Forging electronic messages is usually against the law in its own right, and, in connection with the sending of unsolicited bulk e-mail, may violate other state or federal laws.

"Spamming"

Spam is essentially the same message e-mailed over and over and broadcast to recipients who did not request it. Just because a message is annoying, off-topic or stupid doesn't make it spam; the defining characteristic of spam is the volume with which it is sent. Most common forms of spam violate Virginia law. In many cases, simply deleting the unwanted message is the best action you can take.

Controlling Access to Your Computing Files

The college's computing environment is designed to be an open environment. Many faculty and students want, or need, others to view and use their computer information -- their files. An instructor may want students to find a class assignment on the network. A student may want to share some information with friends. Computer systems are designed to let this happen. But many students and faculty do not want others seeing their messages, course work or research. On computers, you can control who can see your files by protection settings. Use these settings as you would locks to keep your files private. However, malicious users realize that many people don't know how to use the settings. If you need help in using the settings, introductory computing documents are available from the PVCC Computing Help Desk. The Help Desk is located in room 832 and can be reached at 434.961.5261 or on UVa's ITCWeb (http://www.itc.virginia.edu/security/vulnerabilities.html).

  Failure to:

• use a strong password
• limit access to your equipment
• keep files from unknown sources off your equipment
• back up your files
• use up-to-date antivirus software
• keep your operating system up-to-date
• keep application software updated
• turn off or delete unneeded software features

The college is a community of scholars in which the ideals of freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of the individual are sustained. It is committed to preserving the exercise of any right guaranteed to individuals by the Constitution. However, the exercise and preservation of these freedoms and rights require a respect for the rights of all in the community to enjoy them to the same extent. It is clear that in a community of learning, willful disruption of the educational process, destruction of property, and interference with the orderly process of the college or with the rights of other members of the college cannot be tolerated. Students enrolling in the college assume an obligation to conduct themselves in a manner compatible with the college's function as an educational institution. To fulfill its functions of imparting and gaining knowledge, the college retains the power to maintain order within the college and to exclude those who are disruptive of the educational process.

Faculty and staff disciplinary actions are based on the handbooks for faculty, classified staff, and part-time faculty.

How Computing Services Handles Student Computer Policy Violations

Step 1:

When Computing Services is notified (usually through abuse@pvcc.vccs.edu) that a student appears to be abusing computing resources, all of his or her computing privileges may be suspended immediately when such an action is warranted to protect the computing resources and to assure reliable service to the rest of the community.

Step 2:

Often, Computing Services staff will notify the student through phone contact, electronic or U.S. mail of the apparent violation. Frequently, the matter is resolved at that step by explanation from the student and, in the case of minor issues, assurance from the student that the behavior will not continue. If computing access has been suspended, it is usually restored at successful conclusion of this step.

Step 3: