It is the policy of the University to maintain access for its community to local, national and international sources of information and to provide an atmosphere that encourages access to knowledge and sharing of information.

It is the policy of the University that information resources will be used by members of its community with respect for the public trust through which they have been provided and in accordance with policy and regulations established from time to time by the University and its operating units.

In accordance with the above policies, the University works to create an intellectual environment in which students, staff, and faculty may feel free to create and to collaborate with colleagues both at the University of Utah and at other institutions, without fear that the products of their intellectual efforts will be violated, violated by misrepresentation, tampering, destruction and/or theft.

Access to the information resource infrastructure both within the University and beyond the campus, sharing of information, and security of the intellectual products of the community, all require that each and every user accept responsibility to protect the rights of the community. Any member of the University community who, without authorization, accesses, uses, destroys, alters, dismantles or disfigures the University information technologies, properties or facilities, including those owned by third parties, thereby threatens the atmosphere of increased access and sharing of information, threatens the security within which members of the community may create intellectual products and maintain records, and in light of the University's policy in this area, has engaged in unethical and unacceptable conduct. Access to the networks and to the information technology environment at the University of Utah is a privilege and must be treated as such by all users of these systems.

To ensure the existence of this information resource environment, members of the University community will take actions, in concert with State and Federal agencies and other interested parties, to identify and to set up technical and procedural mechanisms to make the information technology environment at the University of Utah and its internal and external networks resistant to disruption.

In the final analysis, the health and well-being of this resource is the responsibility of its users who must all guard against abuses which disrupt and/or threaten the long-term viability of the systems at the University of Utah and those beyond the University. The University requires that members of its community act in accordance with these responsibilities, this policy, relevant laws and contractual obligations, and the highest standard of ethics.  

REGULATIONS

Though not exhaustive, the following material defines the University's position regarding several general issues in this area:

The University characterizes as unethical and unacceptable, and just cause for taking disciplinary action up to and including non-reappointment, discharge, dismissal, and/or legal action, any activity through which an individual:

interferes with the intended use of the information resources,

seeks to gain or gains unauthorized access to information resources,

without authorization, destroys, alters, dismantles, disfigures, prevents rightful access to or otherwise interferes with the integrity of computer-based information and/or information resources,

without authorization invades the privacy of individuals or entities that are creators, authors, users, or subjects of the information resources.

****Information resources in this document are meant to include any information in electronic or audiovisual format or any hardware or software that make possible the storage and use of such information. As example, included in this definition are electronic mail, local databases, externally accessed databases, CD-ROM, motion picture film, recorded magnetic media, photographs, and digitized information****

Copyright © 1999. University of Michigan Regents