Amendments to IT Use Policies

The following IT Use policies, under which all use of the IT resources at Monash is granted, have been updated.

• Policy for the Acceptable Use of Information Technology Facilities by Students
• Information Technology Use Policy - Staff & Other Authorised Users

The amendments to both policies cover:

• Peer to peer file sharing and copyright infringement
• Spam Act 2003
• Personal use and university liability
• Use of personally owned equipment on the Monash network

The Information Technology Use Policy - Staff & Other Authorised Users also contains amendments relating to:

• Access to IT facilities and email forwarding to staff once they leave Monash.

It is recommended that you read and familiarise yourself with the full amended policies which can be found at http://www.its.monash.edu.au/policies/ .

The background on each amendment is:

Peer to Peer file sharing:

Peer to Peer (P2P) filesharing programs (eg, Kazaa, Gnutella, Morpheus, E-Donkey) are a major source of potential (and previous) copyright infringing activity amongst Monash staff and students using the Monash network.

As part of an ongoing watching brief in this area, ITS has undertaken a period of faculty consultation and recommended explicitly banning the use of P2P software in Policy and monitoring for its use. The faculties unanimously agreed with this.

Spam Act 2003

The Spam Act 2003 is a new and relevant act which has been added to the 'Relevant Laws' section of the policies.

Personal use and university liability

New text added stating that the university accepts no liability when staff/students use university facilities for personal IT purposes.

Use of personally owned equipment on the Monash network

It is explicitly stated that privately owned equipment is covered in the Privacy and Surveillance sections of the policies to ensure that Monash can investigate alleged breaches of Policy or relevant laws on laptops etc. owned by students and staff, should the need arise.

Access to IT facilities and email forwarding to staff once they leave Monash

Currently staff (or Honoraries) have their access to IT facilities removed on their end contract date in SAP. They can request a grace period for 30 days (approved by Head of School) which is extremely useful for staff who are moving between contracts etc.

Some ex-staff have requested, and been granted, semi-permanent forwarding of their old Monash email onto their new external email accounts. This causes the senders of email to those addresses to believe that the person is or may be still associated with the University. The amendment provides for an initial 30 day grace period, and then 6 months upon appropriate approvals (i.e. Dean/Divisional Director).

If you have any questions relating to the policy, please contact your local ITS Service Desk or Submit a Request electronically.