Computing & Information Services
Computing Policy Committee Meeting Minutes
November 17, 2006
1:00-2:00 pm, ETC 309
Committee members in attendance: David Schiff, Paul Hovda, Luc Monnin, Akihiko Miyoshi, Sonia Sabnis, Marianne Colgrove, Victoria Hanawalt, Karen King, Jon Rivenburg, Ed McFarlane, Christine Mack, Alex Botero-Lowry, Marty Ringle, Molly Thurston Parker.
David Schiff called the meeting to order at 1:05 p.m.
1. Continued discussion of the Computer User Agreement (UA) and other policies
At the October CPC meeting, the committee agreed that Karen King would draft a User Agreement for college staff. Karen worked with Gary Norbraten and Ethan Benatan of CIS to create the draft, which evolved into a faculty/staff user agreement. Marty Ringle asked the committee to decide, before we introduce a new draft, if the college should have one agreement for everyone, agreements for faculty and staff or faculty and students, or separate agreements for each of the three constituencies (and others such as alumni and guests).
Ed McFarlane asked what issues might necessitate having difference UAs for faculty and staff. Marty suggested that the penalties for non-compliance among the different constituencies differed and the ways in which resources also differed (for example students don't ordinarily have access to confidential data). Marianne Colgrove pointed out that student workers might have access to confidential data. Alex Botero-Lowry suggested that while the clauses prohibiting non-academic use of technology resources reasonably apply to faculty and staff employees, they are problematic for students, especially those who live on campus.
Vickie Hanawalt expressed support for having one UA that covers everyone in the Reed community. Marty agreed that Reed's traditional user agreement has served us well and that a single policy is the easiest to administer. He pointed out, however, that the legal climate has changed and there is more pressure to insure that individuals and the institution are protected by more rigorous policy statements. He wasn't sure that a "one size fits all" document could still achieve this goal.
Aki Miyoshi asked if the Computing User Agreement should cover data confidentiality, or if there are other agreements that serve that purpose. Marianne Colgrove noted that CIS staff sign a separate document detailing how to treat confidential and sensitive data. David Schiff said that if the primary issue is how to treat penalties, that is solved easily by the document’s wording. Alex noted that the wording regarding violation treatments is already different for students and faculty. Karen King expressed her support for reducing the detail in the UA confidentiality section and referencing separate policies on confidentiality and other matters instead.
David agreed that the rigidity of the clause excluding non-academic uses of computing resources may be too strong. He asked how else we might word that in the agreement. Marty noted that the "no commercial usage" restrictions were driven by our not-for-profit status and the terms of our licensing agreements, but that the wording had been formulated many years ago, and was probably in need of updating.
Jon Rivenburg pointed out that buying items isn’t a violation of the policy, but selling items is. Paul Hovda noted that segregating computing resources between residential (recreational) and academic might be helpful. There was general agreement on this point.
Marty summarized the discussion by noting a consensus among committee members to have one user agreement, based on generic language pertaining to all community members, with embedded references to other policies –– such as confidentiality, computer theft, violation penalties, etc. Detailed distinctions between constituencies could be spelled out in those subsidiary policies.
Action item: Marty will work with CIS to update the existing user agreement so that it will flexibly cover all constituencies and will appropriately reference other policies. CIS will also update the "violations" policy if needed. Karen will work with CIS staff to draft a "confidential materials" policy that can be referenced by the user agreement. The revised documents will be circulated to the CPC and discussed at the next meeting.
Alex asked if the user agreement should also address intellectual property issues. Marty described some of the complexities of intellectual property ownership at Reed, noting that the topic is far broader than technology, and suggested that it be raised at a future meeting.
Action item: Marty will discuss Reed's intellectual property guidelines with Ed McFarlane and schedule further discussion of the topic for a subsequent meeting.
2. Additional measures to constrain spam
Marty reminded the committee of the spam auto-expiration policy which the committee approved at the previous meeting. In addition, CIS staff is proposing 2 further spam measures:
1. Messages that receive a sufficiently high spam rating (20 or higher) would be deleted without being routed to an individual’s spam folder (thereby eliminating about half of the messages that currently reach spam folders). The committee unanimously endorsed this policy.
2. Messages from servers that are "greylisted" i.e., suspected of spam activities, will be bounced back to their source. If the messages are legitimate, the originating server will re-send them, and they will be delivered to the addressee at Reed. This may cause a delivery delay of 15 minutes or more if the message is legitimate. If it is not legitimate it will most likely disappear, thereby reducing approximately another 6 percent of spam reaching Reed. The committee unanimously endorsed this policy.
3. Raising awareness of computing policies
Due to time constraints, this item was moved to the next meeting agenda.
David Schiff adjourned the meeting at 2:08 p.m.