Information Technology Services (ITS) supports the mission of Bethany Lutheran College by seeking to provide the students, faculty, administration, and the larger campus community with the knowledge, skills, and technological resources to learn, teach, work, and excel in an increasingly technological campus and world.

In order to continue to accomplish this mission a set of policies has been developed to make users aware of the possibilities technology offers, the expectations ITS has of the users, and the limits of the technology.

Policy:

Educational computing resources provided, maintained, and supported by ITS are for use by the students, faculty, and staff of Bethany Lutheran College in the instructional, academic, research, educational, administrative, and professional activities.

Users are individually accountable for their own behavior with BLC computer resources:

• Using BLC computer resources does not exempt the user from any other laws or obligations.
• Actions which intentionally try to circumvent the accountability of a user, maliciously interfere with other user's use of resources, or involve fraudulent activities are prohibited.
• It is expected that all parties to this policy will act in a spirit of cooperation, and in a mature, responsible, respectful, efficient, ethical and legal manner.
• Violations are subject to formal disciplinary action and loss of computer access privileges through the College.

Terms & Conditions:

All of the computer and telecommunication services provided and supported by the ITS, and any of their individual components, are privileges. In order to be granted and maintain these privileges users must use them responsibly in accordance with:

• the mission of Bethany Lutheran College
• the policies laid out herein
• any local, state, and federal regulations that may apply

The college encourages and teaches ethical Christian behavior as it applies to the Internet. We reserve the right to limit certain content from the network that is in direct contradiction to God's teachings. We may also limit certain activities on our network that degrade network or system performance. Examples of these activities include using peer-to-peer (or other wide area network) file sharing, downloading large video or audio files, persistent media connections, or the use of live image cameras.

Inapropriate Use

Engaging in activities that violate any one of these may result in disciplinary action. Such activities include, but are not limited to:

• Any use of the network that causes congestion or otherwise interferes with the work of others.
• Setting up personal computers as servers, including the use of peer-to-peer file sharing applications (such as Kazaa), or running services such as ftp, http, or media servers.
• Tampering or reconfiguring settings on computers, printers, scanners, network switches or any other equipment.
• Loading programs on college-owned or other student’s computers without permission.
• Viewing or distribution of pornographic images or literature.
• Making use of the campus technology resources for commercial purposes or financial gain.
• Using college or personal computers for sending abusive, threatening, or harassing messages.
• Sending chainletters or similar messages to individuals or lists.
• Viewing or distribution of content saturated with offensive language or depicting gross violence.
• Informing anyone of the password to your personal, non-transferable account.

Never tell anyone your password!

• If you do so, you are in violation of this code.
• If someone else uses your account, they are in violation of this code.
• If access by another person to files protected by your account password is needed, consult with the Information Technology (IT) staff for approaches that do not compromise password security.