Purpose:
Use of e-mail at Dyersburg State Community College (DSCC) should be consistent with the goals, purposes, and mission of the institution. Correspondence of a DSCC employee may be subject to public inspection under section 6 of Tennessee Senate bill 1539. Since computers owned by DSCC are a public supported resource, anyone using the resource does not have a legal right to privacy.
Scope:
This policy covers appropriate use of any email sent from a DSCC email address and applies to all DSCC employees and students.
Policy:
Prohibited Uses
• The DSCC email system shall not be used for any personal communications.
• The DSCC email system shall not to be used for the creation or distribution of any disruptive, threatening, harassing, or offensive messages, including but not limited to offensive comments about race, gender, hair color, disabilities, age, sexual orientation, pornography, religious beliefs and practice, political beliefs, or national origin. Questions about the definitions of harassing, threatening, and inappropriate should be directed to the Vice President for Technology or the Dean of Student Services. Any form of harassment via email, telephone or paging, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages is prohibited.
• DSCC employee signatures should contain only necessary contact information. Items not essential to a particular email (e.g. quotes, graphics) are not allowed/permitted. These nonessential items use valuable storage/data space.
• The DSCC email system must not be used for commercial purposes or personal profit, such as the advertisement of personal property for sale.
• Mail messages impersonating or representing someone else’s account or removing the sender’s account identification is unacceptable.
• Graphic files should be used sparingly only as needed for business or educational purposes.
• The content and distribution of any mail message composed and sent by DSCC faculty, staff or students must not violate any existing DSCC and TBR policies.
• Virus or other malware warnings to the entire institution shall be approved by Vice President for Technology before sending.
• Sending unsolicited email messages, including the sending of “junk mail” or other advertising material to individuals who did not specifically request such material (email spam).
• Creating or forwarding “chain letters”, “Ponzi” or other “pyramid” schemes of any type.
Employees who receive any emails with questionable or objectionable content from any DSCC employee should report the matter to their supervisor or the Vice President for Technology immediately. Students who receive any emails with this content should report the matter to the Dean of Student Services.
Notification of Personal Events
• Any death notice of a DSCC employee or the death of an immediate family member of a DSCC employee should be sent to the Administrative Assistant to the President. This position will send a formal notice to the campus.
• Information about any significant illness or major surgery of a DSCC employee should be sent to the Administrative Assistant to the President. This position will send a formal notice to the campus. Information about a non-significant illness of an employee should be sent only to individuals that would have an interest.
• Information about births, weddings, and showers for employee’s families should be sent only to the Administrative Assistant to the President. This position will send a formal notice to the campus as deemed necessary.
Monitoring
DSCC employees and students shall have no expectation of privacy in anything they store, send or receive on the institution’s email system. DSCC may monitor messages without prior notice. DSCC is not obligated to monitor all email messages, but will only monitor on an as needed basis.
Compliance:
All DSCC employees and students are expected to adhere to this policy. Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment or suspension. Any student found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including suspension.
Definitions:
Email The electronic transmission of information through a mail protocol such as SMTP or IMAP.
Typical email clients include Eudora and Microsoft Outlook.
Forwarded email Email resent from an internal network to an outside point.
Chain email or letter Email sent to successive people. Typically the body of the note has direction to send out multiple copies of the note and promises good luck or money if the direction is followed.
Sensitive information Information is considered sensitive if it can be damaging to DSCC or its customers’ reputation or market standing.
Virus warning Email containing warnings about virus or malware. The overwhelming majority of these emails turn out to be a hoax and contain bogus information usually intent only on frightening or misleading users.
Unauthorized Disclosure The intentional or unintentional revealing of restricted information to people, both internally or externally, who do not have a need to know that information.
Revision History:
Policy revised 4/20/11 and approved by Admin Council on 04/29/2011.
Policy revised 7/27/12; approved by Administrative Council 07/27/2012.