IT and Other Resources Usage Policy

IT and Other Resources Usage Policy

This IT and Other Resources Usage Policy governs the use of the College or related resources by the stakeholders including but not limited to students, employees, service providers and/or contractors (referred as user(s)).

The purpose of this policy is to provide users with guidance on acceptable and unacceptable use of the College’s resources including but not limited to physical, print, and electronic resources including Information Technology (IT) resources, either owned or provided by the College. These resources are available for learning, advancement of education, teaching, and administration services.
All who access and use College resources are expected to abide by this policy, all applicable policies, legal and contractual requirements, and the highest standard of ethical principles and practices when using the resources.
This policy applies to all stakeholders including but not limited to students, employees, service providers, contractors, consultants, volunteers, or other stakeholders including college management that uses any of the College’s physical, printed, or electronic resources regardless of the physical location or device used.
The Chief Operating Officer (COO) in cooperation with the SEA (or any person designated by the COO) will enforce compliance with this policy through multiple means including but not limited to monitoring, reporting, observation, audit and action (if needed).
All users of the College resources must use resources to carry out the functions for which they were assigned/authorized, specifically in the manners:
a) Access to resources shall only be provided to active students, employees, contractors, consultants, temporary, part-time, or other service providers. Visitors may be provided access to limited resources such as Wi-Fi when registered with the Front Desk.
b) Use of resources must be aligned with the appropriate academic, support, research (if any), or administrative intentions for which they are provided.
c) Users must always authenticate using the College provided account(s) which is assigned specifically to them to access resources and should not use any other user account(s) other than their own when accessing resources unless an exception has been granted by the College.
d) User(s) must return all resources at the end of the study, employment, contract or when their role is changed.
e) Any Password or ID related to or provided by the College to any user including student, employee, contractor, or service provider, should not be changed, or amended without knowledge and permission from the College except for a College email with Users’ own name. In case of any issue, user should contact the SEA of the College for help. Any changed or amended ID or Password must be communicated to the SEA immediately for the College record except for password of personal name email with the College extension.
f) All materials and information related to teaching to working with the College is property of Royal Bridge College
Occasional personal use of IT or other resources is permitted in accordance with the following:
a) Must not use resources in a way that interferes with employment duties.
b) Must not create any monetary cost to the College.
c) Must keep browsing limited to trusted, reputable websites.
d) Must not threaten the security or availability of IT or other resources.
Although the College permits occasional personal use of its IT and other resouces, the College reserves the right to restrict occasional incidental personal use of IT and other resources at any time and as the College sees fit and is not responsible for personal data stored on the College resources.
All users of College IT and other resources are strictly prohibited from:
a) Using IT and other resources for any political, religious, or commercial activity, or, for conducting any personal business in which they would receive personal or financial gain unless they have received permission from the college.
b) Using IT and other resources in a way that interferes with employment duties or creates any monetary cost to the College.
c) Exporting software from the College for resale or distribution.
d) Exporting any intellectual property of the College or related parties including business partners without the appropriate consent or contractual agreements.
e) Accessing or creating discriminatory, defamatory, bullying, harassing, offensive, pornographic or obscene content.
f) Performing Information Technology System Administration from a personally owned device unless specifically allowed by the College.
g) Deliberately circumventing or attempting to circumvent data protection and system access controls.
Users of It and other resources must not knowingly place the security of information or systems at risk. At all times, Users must:
a) Set a strong password that could be with mix of letters, numbers, and special characters, if it is not already been provided by the College and one is required to set up by themselves.
b) Always ensure information security regarding collecting, classifying, labelling, securing, storing, using, copying, transferring, and disposing of information.
c) Keep Id and passwords and/or pin codes secure and never share them with any individual other than SEA as mentioned under sec.5(e).
d) Take precaution prior to opening any attachment or clicking on links within electronic messages.
e) Store all work on the College computer disk/servers or authorized cloud services (e.g., Dropbox) to ensure that information is properly stored and accessible to the College, and sensitive, confidential, and personal information is protected.
f) Never use personal email accounts to conduct College business.
g) Only upload amount and type of information to cloud services (e.g., Dropbox) which are approved by the College.
h) Ensure that personally owned devices that may come in contact with the College IT resources are protected with antivirus software, a personal firewall, and regularly install security updates and patches to operating systems, applications, and web browsers.
i) No individual shall knowingly breach, compromise, endanger or threaten the College’s IT and other resources, attempt to do so, or allow others to do so. This includes probing, scanning, assessing, penetrating, or affecting the availability of College IT and other resources.
j) Users must report any misuse of IT and other resources to the COO. Failure to report misuse may result in the assumption that the users who witnessed the misuse was party to the act.
Royal Bridge College reserves the right and responsibility to protect the College and stakeholders from security threats and inappropriate use of IT infrastructure and other resources by taking appropriate actions, including but not limited to:
a) Quarantining device and resetting account password immediately and without awareness or consent of the user.
b) Monitoring computers, mobile devices, systems, networks, services, accounts, web activity, and users activity.
c) Denying a user, the right to access IT and other resources at any time the College deems necessary.
Use of the College’s IT and other resources is subject to, and must comply with, all applicable laws and College policies and procedures, including this policy. Non-compliance with applicable laws and regulations may result in a suitable action by the College. The College reserves the right to restrict or deny access to its IT and other resources, to monitor use of those resources and to take actions it deems necessary or appropriate to protect College IT and other resources. By using the College’s IT and other resources, users are confirming agreement with this policy.
In addition to the above, users of IT and other resources must also comply with:
a) Applicable agreements, terms and conditions of study, employment or service providing as contractor and code of conduct.
b) Copyright laws including, but not limited to, the sharing of pirated software, audio, and video or other material.
c) Licensing agreements; and any other agreements between the College and an external service provider.
Noncompliance with this policy may result in any one or combination of the following sanctions:
a) Verbal warnings.
b) Written warnings.
c) Restricted access to, or complete withdrawal of access to IT and other resources.
d) Suspension from work.
e) Termination.
f) Recovery of costs due to damages or fees; and/or
g) Criminal or civil action.
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