Conditions for Use of University Computing and Communication Facilities

Policy and Procedures

1. In these conditions unless the contrary intention appears:

"Academic Staff"
means a member of the teaching staff of the University.

"Account"
means a user name or other identifier which, with or without a password, allows a user to access the facilities.

"Authorised"
means having been given approval to use an Account by the Director, Information Technology and Resources (hereafter ITR), or nominee (hereafter Director), a School Representative, a member of Academic Staff, a head of a section of the University, an official of an Outside User or by the Authorised User of an Account other than a University student.

"Authorised User" means:

a. any University student who has been allocated an Account or who has been authorised by a member of Academic Staff to use a specific Account allocated to a group of students or to the member of staff
or

b. any member of staff who has been allocated an Account or who has been authorised to use an Account allocated to another person or to a group of people or to a section of the University
or

c. any student of another educational institution authorised by that institution to use an Account allocated to the institution
or

d. any individual who is an Outside User or who has deposited with the University a sum of money to cover the cost of the initial estimated utilisation of computing and communications facilities and who has been allocated an External Account
or

e. any employee of an Outside User authorised to use an Account allocated to the Outside User
or

f. any other person authorised by the Director

and who has not had their authorisation revoked under these conditions or by the person who granted the authorisation.

"Category" means a group of persons belonging to a particular class, e.g. University students, all members of the University, Outside Users, etc.

"Computing and Communications Resources" means any measurable quantity supplied by the facilities including, but not restricted to, central processor time, disk space, data, voice and video transfers, memory, connect time and stationery.

"School Representative" means a person appointed as such by a school or a section of the University or an Outside User whose role is to control use of Computing and Communications Resources allocated to their school or section or to the Outside User.

"Disk Area" means storage space on a disk allocated to an Account.

"Facilities" means the University's Central Computing and Communication Facilities which comprise processing equipment and peripheral units managed by ITR together with any workstations connected to the University network and any other computing and communications equipment deemed by the Director from time to time to be Computing and Communications Facilities governed by these conditions.

"Central Computing Bulletins" means information supplied by ITR either by email, automatically output on a workstation or on the web-based University bulletin boards.

"Outside User" means a person or organisation normally external to the University who has entered into a contract with the University to use the facilities.

"Supported Software" means information published from time to time by ITR containing details of software available to users together with any usage restrictions and/or qualifications.

"Relevant Member of Academic Staff" means a member of the Academic Staff who is wholly or partly responsible for a course or subject in connection with which a student is using the facilities or for which the student is enrolled.

"Section of the University" means any definable unit within the University including, but not limited to the Chancellory, Faculties and Schools, Divisions and Offices, Research Centres or Joint Ventures.

"Staff" means any person employed by the University.

"System Disk Area" means any Disk Area which is used to store software, files or other information which is made available to users generally or to particular categories of user.

"University" means James Cook University.

2. Only Authorised Users may make use of the facilities.

3. Authorised Users may access the facilities only by using an Account which they have been authorised to use.

4. No Account may be used by any person other than the Authorised User of the Account except on the authorisation of such Authorised User.

5. No University student may authorise or permit any other person, whether a University student or not, to use their Account for any purpose. The relevant School Representative or any Relevant Member of Academic Staff may use a University student's Account for any required purpose.

6. No person may access or attempt to access software, files or other information stored under another person's Account or on another person's workstation unless authorised by these conditions or by the other person to do so.

7. No student may use any method or technique, to prevent the relevant School Representative or any Relevant Member of Academic Staff from accessing any software, files or other information stored on the student's workstation or disk area or in any other machine-readable form.

8. Only users belonging to the appropriate categories may use or attempt to use any items of software to which restricted and/or qualified usage, as described in "Licensing Agreements and Offers" or by ITR either by email, published newsletters, announcements and documentation provided on Central Computing Bulletins or the official University website.

9. No person may use an Account to undertake work for which a charge or a greater charge should be levied. Specifically:

a. Accounts allocated to students may be used only for purposes related to normal teaching or research activities and only for work related to the school which has allocated the Account or for which that school has given specific approval.

b. Accounts allocated to academic staff may be used only for purposes related to normal teaching or research activities. No such Account may be used for research for which funds to meet the cost of using the facilities have been provided nor for any consulting work nor for any purpose as a result of which the staff member receives a fee additional to their University salary.

c. Accounts allocated for University purposes other than normal teaching or research may be used only for the specific activity of the section of the University to which the Account has been allocated.

d. Accounts allocated to other educational institutions may be used only for the normal teaching, research or internal administrative activities of the institution.

e. Accounts allocated to an Australian or Queensland Government department may be used only for the work of that department or another Australian or Queensland Government department where such latter department has been so authorised by the relevant former department.

10. No person shall make a copy or attempt to make a copy of any software, files or other information held on a system disk area or workstation other than any information provided specifically for the purpose of providing assistance to users or any information for which copying is permitted by means of a statement to that effect as described in "Licensing Agreements and Offers" or by ITR either by email, published newsletters, announcements and documentation provided on Central Computing Bulletins or the official University website.

11. No person shall remove a copy of any software, files or other information from the University without the approval of the owner of the software, files or other information.

12. No person shall do anything intended to evade the effect of controls on use of the facilities or act in any way designed to be unfair to other users. In this context controls shall include, but not be limited to, any mechanisms designed to limit use of any workstations or any Computing and Communications Resource.

13. No person shall assist any person who is not an Authorised User to gain access to the facilities or to access any workstation or other device connected to the facilities.

14. No person shall deliberately damage or aid or assist in damaging any of the facilities.

15. No person may remove from its location any University Facilities or any provided computer stationery other than that which has been used by that person in connection with authorised use of facilities.

16. The Director may prohibit any practice considered to be detrimental to the interests of the University, of users generally or of a specific user or users. The prohibition will be published by ITR either by email, published newsletters, announcements and documentation provided on Central Computing Bulletins or the official University website and by such other means as are appropriate or required by the circumstances.

17. Use of University computing and communications facilities for game playing, for the retrieval and storage of copyright material without the permission of the owner of copyright or for personal gain is prohibited.

18. Penalties for use of the facilities other than in accordance with the above conditions may be imposed as follows:

a. the Director may suspend the user's right of access to the facilities for a period not exceeding four weeks and may additionally refer any matter to the Vice-Chancellor to be dealt with under (b) below;

b. the Vice-Chancellor may suspend the user's right of access to the facilities for such period as the Vice-Chancellor considers appropriate and action may also be taken in respect of University students under the Student Conduct Policy or in respect of all persons by prosecution in the appropriate court;

c. where the breach has resulted in the facilities being used for a charge which is less than the charge which would normally have been levied for such use the Director may certify in writing as to the amount of the difference and on service on the user of a copy of the certificate, certified in writing by the Registrar as being a correct copy, that amount shall become a debt payable by the user to the University.

19. Nothing in these conditions shall prevent the Council of the University from withholding use of the facilities from any person for any period, for any reason or without stating a reason.

Approval Details

Modification History