Computer Policy at Institution in Texas - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jul 12, 2004

Computer Policy at Institution in Texas

Date: Jul 12, 2004

At least they are VERY up-front about it! You cannot deny that you know the rules when you log on, right?

Sometimes just knowing the rules, however you might feel about them, makes things much easier to manage. (you can manage to live by them, or try to change them, or leave them, whatever... but at least you know what they are when they are very plainly communicated.)

Date: Jul 13, 2004

I've got to agree with Bogus Boy on this one!! Whether or not you like the rules, if you know what they are, you can make an informed consumer decision. If the rules are stated plainly, whose fault is it if YOU break them?

Date: Jul 13, 2004

Use of this system constitutes your consent to security monitoring and testing and administrative review.

While the policy does state that the user has no "reasonable expectation of privacy" when using the system, the above-quoted statement is nebulous. It is exactly the sort of thing that USM had problems with.

In particular, "administrative review" could mean "administrative review of security" or "administrative review of whatever the administration wants to review."

Under this policy, SFT's email monitoring would have been completely legit.

This is not a particularly innovative or forward-thinking policy. The only thing that differentiates it from the USM policy is that it is presented every time the user logs onto the university system.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: Eagle in Cairo, Egypt
"I've got to agree with Bogus Boy on this one!! Whether or not you like the rules, if you know what they are, you can make an informed consumer decision. If the rules are stated plainly, whose fault is it if YOU break them? "

I'd also note that this is more than a "consumer decision" issue. At USM, I no longer have the right as a faculty member not to use my computer as it has become the only acceptable vehicle for communication and transmission of much of the information I obtain and create.

The ubiquity of the computer in our daily routine makes it nearly impossible to segregate the personal from business work. The fact of life in the contemporary world is that the spaces in which we conduct our professional lives and in which we conduct our personal lives have now merged -- so in fact has time. How many of us work weekends or late nights? How many of us take work home? How many of us send work from our computer at work to our computer at home? Or transfer to a laptop. You get the idea.

The fact is that the "rules" of the road in most institutions regarding computing are out of touch with how the contemporary work force operates. Modern workers are no longer members of an assembly line but are themselves both conveyers and creators of information. Much of the work they do is independent and not very closely supervised: more and more work is self-supervised. To create too many rules and too tightly supervise the contemporary worker leads to inefficiency and paralysis when what is wanted is efficiency and speed. Such a system accepts a certain loss (even a certain "cuorruption") of centralized control because in exchange for a certain degree of professional autonomy the worker is, in fact, encouraged to be creative, innovative and self-actualizing. In other words, a certain degree of inefficiency at the local level is actually the basis for a greater efficiency within the system -- because the system is not about producing objects, but knowlege.

Until those who make the "rules" cast aside the metaphor of the industrial "machine" and its operations as the archetype of labor, the rest of us are going to continue to suffer the outmoded and invasive mechanics of control placed on workers. It is old thinking that sees knowlege as centralized and hierarchical -- the reality of our age is that knowlege is distributed throughout a system and tends to coalesce around more compact nodes of expertise. Ultimately (for those who care about these things) this is a much less centralized system -- the experts are highly interdepedent on one another and far less dependent on a centralized authority to operate. Those who are used to the old model have a hard time letting go . . .

Date: Jul 13, 2004

Your professional life and personal life can be separated and should in regards to email. Think of your university email account like university letterhead. Using your @usm.edu address is the same as using letterhead and an official envelope. You would not write a friendly letter on letterhead, why would you use your university account? That is why services like hotmail and yahoo are so popular. You should have a business email address and a personal email address just like you have a business and personal mailing address.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: asdf
"Your professional life and personal life can be separated and should in regards to email. Think of your university email account like university letterhead. Using your @usm.edu address is the same as using letterhead and an official envelope. You would not write a friendly letter on letterhead, why would you use your university account? That is why services like hotmail and yahoo are so popular. You should have a business email address and a personal email address just like you have a business and personal mailing address. "

An excellent point -- particularly in email correspondence which can be easily identified beforehand as "personal" vs. professional.

I think this breaks down however, in the way relationships can tend to move back and forth from professional to personal not only within a given period of time, but even within a given communication.

The larger issue is a social/political one that is still in question: should the instrument of email communication be treated like the phone? My employer does not have the right to tap my phone. Should he/she have the right to monitor email without some form of legal arrangement? Obviously, in present circumstances, the wise person will operate discretely -- the larger question is why are we accepting this so passively?

More importantly, what does the effect of potential monitoring have on open communication within and without the university? I think the fact that we are concious enough of the possibilities to utilize the strategies that you suggest provide some of the answer: there is an inevitable chilling effect on communication at some level.

And remember, this chilling effect is not because we are taking steps to maintain privacy and secrecy as a result of war or trying to keep information from an enemy. Instead, we are trying to conceal the content of communications from the administrators of an institution which is, theoretically, dedicated to fostering a non-coercive atmosphere in order to enhance intellectual creativity.

My problem isn't that there aren't appropriate reasons why email might be monitored -- it is that the intellectual community of the university is rolling over and displaying its belly without even arguing in its own defense. And there is a lot of very important territory here to defend. We should be concerned to at least have some say in establishing the limits and methoids of monitoring, rather than having a technocracy do it for us.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

The above posts to this particular thread are stellar. Solid points were made, and this is an argument that needs to gain more steam since it is quite meaningful to all concerned academic lives.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: asdf
"Your professional life and personal life can be separated and should in regards to email. Think of your university email account like university letterhead. Using your @usm.edu address is the same as using letterhead and an official envelope. You would not write a friendly letter on letterhead, why would you use your university account? That is why services like hotmail and yahoo are so popular. You should have a business email address and a personal email address just like you have a business and personal mailing address. "

Sage advice. I have always submitted every email to the following test: could this email be placed on a billboard at the busiest intersection in town.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: USM Faculty Person
" Sage advice. I have always submitted every email to the following test: could this email be placed on a billboard at the busiest intersection in town."

I know of no university which could work effectively using your litmus test for email transmissions. There is some important and legitimate university business which is not for the eyes and the ears of the world.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

quote:

Originally posted by: asdf
"Your professional life and personal life can be separated and should in regards to email. Think of your university email account like university letterhead. Using your @usm.edu address is the same as using letterhead and an official envelope. You would not write a friendly letter on letterhead, why would you use your university account? That is why services like hotmail and yahoo are so popular. You should have a business email address and a personal email address just like you have a business and personal mailing address. "

Yes, but in reality, your professional colleagues are also your friends. I might write to one about a professional matter, then add something personal. Perhaps I should wait until I go home and use my commercial account to ask about their health or the new baby or how their job search is going--but I probably won't. Stephen Judd is right on this one. Heck, my work IS my life--that is why I'm a professional! I don't leave my job at 5 and I don't leave my life between 8 and 5. I think it is realistic to expect that our e-mail should be off limits to administrators except in special situations.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: foot soldier
"I think it is realistic to expect that our e-mail should be off limits to administrators except in special situations."

I believe Robert Campbell suggest a "e-mail" policy be adopted along the lines of:

"Email sent and received on university computers is presumed private. Neither email surveillance nor copying of hard drives nor seizure of computers will take place, except when the university is cooperating with a law enforcement agency in investigating a violation of the law. And in those cases, a public announcement as to who was subject to email surveillance, over what period of time, will be made as soon as charges are brought against the individual, or the decision is made not to bring any. Actions taken in violation of the new policy by any university employee, including the president, will constitute grounds for termination."

The full text of the article is on page 2 of this message board. Why should we not ask our faculty senate to adopt such a policy? This would solve alot of our problems.

Date: Jul 13, 2004

Forgive me, I failed to mentioned that the "link" to the full article is on page 2 message board. Sorry, it's past my bed time.

Date: Jul 14, 2004

quote:
Originally posted by: ewe
"I know of no university which could work effectively using your litmus test for email transmissions. There is some important and legitimate university business which is not for the eyes and the ears of the world. "

If things should be kept private, email is not the way to go. I work in academics and I am at a university that no one would ever accuse of limiting academic freedom, but we routinely run into situations where we say this subject does not need to be discussed by email anymore.

A recent example is that we had a case where a faculty member was being censured (and possibly fired) for not following ethical guidelines in research. The first thing the lawyers did was subpoena every email from the faculty members that was on the ethics review committee. You just have to suspect that. If someone on the committee wrote an email about that jerk that could not follow a simple protocol, well, that might have been all the evidence that his lawyer would need show a bias on the committee (I am not a lawyer so I don’t know what would make a case, I am just trying to make a point). I remember reading a story when Bush first took office that he could no longer write email to his daughters because they could become public information. I don't know if this is right or wrong, but courts have routinely upheld employer's and ISP's rights to read your email.

I'm not saying that you should not add a tag at the end of an email asking about the spouse and kids nor that you should not be able to check your hotmail account at work, but once the conversation turns private, you should switch which email account you use. My colleagues and I have used this method and we feel it is in our best interest.