Acceptable Use of Computing and Information Technology Resources Policy
Acceptable Use of Computing and Information Technology Resources Policy
View Full PolicyExceptions
To request an exception, please complete the IT Policy Exception Form.
Exception requests will be processed within 10 business days of receipt of the request. If an exception is created, the exception will be audited on an annual basis. The owner of the system or a listed designee must respond to the annual audit and verify that the exception is still required.
Changes to the exception may only be requested by the system owner or a documented designee appointed by the owner.
Frequently Asked Questions
If your password is in clear sight or can be readily found by someone else, you are in violation of the clause in the Acceptable Use of Computing and Information Technology Resources Policy that says “Each person may use only those computing and information technology resources for which he or she has authorization” and the statement “The access to and integrity of computing and information technology resources must be protected.” Even if it not your intention to share the password, leaving the password where it can be seen by an another person is providing unauthorized access to a computing resource.
No. OIT staff will never ask for your password. It is a violation of university policy for an OIT staff member to ask you to disclose your password. If logging in under your username and password is required to make a change or troubleshoot a problem an OIT staff member will avert their eyes as you log in then assist you.
Impersonating an IT staff person is a common ploy used by identity thieves to gain access to password-protected information. If an OIT staff member or someone claiming to work for OIT asks for your password, please decline to provide the information and contact the IT Help Desk to report the incident.
The normal processes:
For students - It is a violation of the UNLV Student Conduct Code to engage in actions that are contrary to university policy. Violations of provisions in the Acceptable Use Policy would be considered a Student Conduct Code violation and would be handled in accordance with the procedures outlined in the Student Conduct Code and overseen by the Office of Student Conduct.
For academic and administrative faculty - It is a violation of the Standards of Conduct contained in Title 2, Chapter 6, Section 2.2 of the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) Code to engage in actions that are contrary to university policy. Violations of provisions in the Acceptable Use Policy would be considered a violation of the Standards of Conduct and would be handled in accordance with the procedures outlined in Chapter 6 of the NSHE Code and overseen by the Office of General Counsel. More details about those procedures are available at: https://nshe.nevada.edu
For classified staff - It is a violation of the Prohibitions contained in the UNLV/ NSHE Prohibitions and Penalties: A Guide for Classified Staff document to engage in actions that are contrary to university policy. Violations of provisions in the Acceptable Use Policy would be considered prohibited activity and would be handled in accordance with procedures outlined in the Prohibitions and Penalties document and overseen by the Office of Human Resources. For more details about those procedures visit the Employee Relations page.
In the event that information was deleted by mistake every effort should be made to retrieve the deleted information from available backup systems. In the event that information contained on a university system assigned to you was found to be corrupt an effort would be made to determine how the corruption occurred. If you were directly responsible for the corruption, you would be in violation of the policy. If the corruption was the result of malicious activity by someone not authorized to access the system (e.g., malware, computer virus), the system will be cleaned and protections put in place to prevent further incidents.
If information that should not be deleted continues to be deleted or files continue to be corrupted, you will be provided instructions on how to prevent future occurrences. If the issues continue, your supervisor will be notified and asked to assist with prevention efforts.
No. You are not permitted to share either your UNLV identification card to assist another individual in gaining physical access the computer lab nor your ACE account login information to gain access to lab resources. UNLV computer labs are solely intended to support the academic computer needs of UNLV students. Use of UNLV computer labs is restricted to UNLV students with a valid UNLV identification card and ACE accounts are only to be used by the person to whom they are issued. Each student signing up for an ACE account accepted a formal agreement stating that they will not share their account with anyone else.
No. Only you are authorized to use your account with UNLV computing resources. Additionally, sharing your login information violates the university’s Password Policy, which states that passwords must not be shared.
No. The use of network packet analyzers to intercept, monitor or retrieve any university network communications without authorization is not permitted. (Policy Sec 2.g)
No. Software should not be copied or transferred from a university computer. Please check the OIT Website for the list of free and discounted software and for instructions on how to obtain them. (Policy Sec 4.c)
By using a resource, you are accepting the terms and conditions of using that resource, including any applicable policies. This instance not only potentially violates the Acceptable Use Policy, but it also the university Digital Media and Copyright Compliance Policy and federal law. Students, employees or other network users are responsible for knowing their legal rights for sharing files, including music, videos, pictures, books, etc., as both potential creators and/or distributors of such works.
Sharing passwords is a violation of the policy. Via the OIT Service Account and Active Directory installed on many computers, OIT technicians are able to work on a computer in the user’s absence. If the user has disabled those accounts or the computer does not have the accounts, the user must be present for the computer to be repaired. Once the user is available and is able to log into the machine, OIT technicians will be able to work on the computer.
Sensitive, personal information (e.g., education, financial transactions, medical history, information that can be used to distinguish or trace the individual’s identity) should be stored on and accessed only from a secure server. When not on campus, users should use the Virtual Private Network (VPN) to log in.
If the resource is specific to a class the best person to ask first is the instructor for the class. If they are unable to assist you, contact the IT Help Desk and submit a help request. The IT Help Desk will assign a specialist to your case and that individual will work with you directly to figure out what needs to be done to complete your request.
First, UNLV staff will not inspect your email without a written request and authorization from the University President, the vice president or cabinet-level official (e.g., Athletic Director) in your reporting structure, the Director of Human Resources, General Counsel, or, in the case of students, the Director of the Office of Student Conduct. Authorization may be based on a criminal subpoena, civil litigation discovery, allegation of professional misconduct, or even a Freedom of Information Act request.
It is important to understand that you have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” with respect to your University email. In the UNLV mail (unlv.edu) domain, UNLV will subscribe to Google Vault in order to support the above requests.
Google Vault will store all incoming and outgoing mail even if immediately deleted and will provide a search engine to facilitate the discovery of relevant messages. Google Vault will not be purchased for Rebelmail. While the current contents of your Rebelmail account can be accessed by the University under the conditions listed above, accessing mail that has been deleted will require that Google honor a subpoena.
As long you comply with OIT's Software Licensing Policy and abide by the software manufacturer's End User License Agreement (EULA), you are allowed to install freeware and/or shareware licensed software on UNLV owned computers.
As a customer of Google’s “Apps for Education”, UNLV has entered into agreements with Google regarding the way they protect our data. These agreements ensure compliance with federal regulations such as FERPA and HIPAA when the data is used in conjunction with what Google defines as the “core apps”.
For HIPAA protected data, the core apps that allow storage of Protected Health Information (PHI) are: Gmail, Google Drive (including Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms), Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Apps Vault.
For FERPA protected data, the core apps that are compliant are: Gmail, Google Drive (including Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms), Google Calendar, Google Sites, Google Classroom, Google Contacts, Google Groups, Google Talk/Hangouts and Google Vault.
Users should be aware that although they may have access to other Google services outside these core apps (e.g. YouTube, Google+, Picassa, etc.), these “non-core” apps are not approved for the storage or transmission of data protected by state or federal regulations. Also, federal Export Control Act prohibits the storage of some kinds of information, including some research findings, outside the borders of the United States. Google cannot guarantee where any file will be stored. Therefore, this type of data should not be stored in any Google App.
A number of federal statutes govern the transmission and storage of data, including HIPAA, for healthcare data, FERPA for academic records, and the GLB act for financial data associated with student loans. Unless your department/unit has entered into a formal agreement covering protected data with any of these cloud storage providers, there is no guarantee that they will treat compliance protected data in a way that satisfies state or federal regulations. In addition, the federal Export Control Act prohibits the storage of some kinds of information, including some research findings, outside the borders of the United States. The majority of these services will not guarantee where any file will be stored. Data protected by any of the above legislation should not be stored in “cloud services” such as Dropbox. OIT will work with you to provide file storage solutions that meet compliance requirements. If you have a need for this type of storage contact the IT Help Desk.
Administrative type accounts (these may be called Administrator, root, sys, etc.) that are used to maintain a service may be shared between the people who are responsible for maintaining that service. These types of accounts should ONLY be used to maintain the service as required and never when an individual account (privileged or non-privileged) can be used instead.
OIT recommends using an enterprise password vault to share these types of accounts and provides this service for groups who need to share administrative accounts. This service allows system owners to audit who has viewed the passwords and control who has access to them. Accounts and passwords should not be shared through email or instant messaging apps.
If your password is in clear sight or can be readily found by someone else, you are in violation of the clause in the Acceptable Use of Computing and Information Technology Resources Policy that says “Each person may use only those computing and information technology resources for which he or she has authorization” and the statement “The access to and integrity of computing and information technology resources must be protected.” Even if it not your intention to share the password, leaving the password where it can be seen by an another person is providing unauthorized access to a computing resource.
No. OIT staff will never ask for your password. It is a violation of university policy for an OIT staff member to ask you to disclose your password. If logging in under your username and password is required to make a change or troubleshoot a problem an OIT staff member will avert their eyes as you log in then assist you.
Impersonating an IT staff person is a common ploy used by identity thieves to gain access to password-protected information. If an OIT staff member or someone claiming to work for OIT asks for your password, please decline to provide the information and contact the IT Help Desk to report the incident.
The normal processes:
For students - It is a violation of the UNLV Student Conduct Code to engage in actions that are contrary to university policy. Violations of provisions in the Acceptable Use Policy would be considered a Student Conduct Code violation and would be handled in accordance with the procedures outlined in the Student Conduct Code and overseen by the Office of Student Conduct.
For academic and administrative faculty - It is a violation of the Standards of Conduct contained in Title 2, Chapter 6, Section 2.2 of the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) Code to engage in actions that are contrary to university policy. Violations of provisions in the Acceptable Use Policy would be considered a violation of the Standards of Conduct and would be handled in accordance with the procedures outlined in Chapter 6 of the NSHE Code and overseen by the Office of General Counsel. More details about those procedures are available at: https://nshe.nevada.edu
For classified staff - It is a violation of the Prohibitions contained in the UNLV/ NSHE Prohibitions and Penalties: A Guide for Classified Staff document to engage in actions that are contrary to university policy. Violations of provisions in the Acceptable Use Policy would be considered prohibited activity and would be handled in accordance with procedures outlined in the Prohibitions and Penalties document and overseen by the Office of Human Resources. For more details about those procedures visit the Employee Relations page.
In the event that information was deleted by mistake every effort should be made to retrieve the deleted information from available backup systems. In the event that information contained on a university system assigned to you was found to be corrupt an effort would be made to determine how the corruption occurred. If you were directly responsible for the corruption, you would be in violation of the policy. If the corruption was the result of malicious activity by someone not authorized to access the system (e.g., malware, computer virus), the system will be cleaned and protections put in place to prevent further incidents.
If information that should not be deleted continues to be deleted or files continue to be corrupted, you will be provided instructions on how to prevent future occurrences. If the issues continue, your supervisor will be notified and asked to assist with prevention efforts.
No. You are not permitted to share either your UNLV identification card to assist another individual in gaining physical access the computer lab nor your ACE account login information to gain access to lab resources. UNLV computer labs are solely intended to support the academic computer needs of UNLV students. Use of UNLV computer labs is restricted to UNLV students with a valid UNLV identification card and ACE accounts are only to be used by the person to whom they are issued. Each student signing up for an ACE account accepted a formal agreement stating that they will not share their account with anyone else.
No. Only you are authorized to use your account with UNLV computing resources. Additionally, sharing your login information violates the university’s Password Policy, which states that passwords must not be shared.
No. The use of network packet analyzers to intercept, monitor or retrieve any university network communications without authorization is not permitted. (Policy Sec 2.g)
No. Software should not be copied or transferred from a university computer. Please check the OIT Website for the list of free and discounted software and for instructions on how to obtain them. (Policy Sec 4.c)
By using a resource, you are accepting the terms and conditions of using that resource, including any applicable policies. This instance not only potentially violates the Acceptable Use Policy, but it also the university Digital Media and Copyright Compliance Policy and federal law. Students, employees or other network users are responsible for knowing their legal rights for sharing files, including music, videos, pictures, books, etc., as both potential creators and/or distributors of such works.
Sharing passwords is a violation of the policy. Via the OIT Service Account and Active Directory installed on many computers, OIT technicians are able to work on a computer in the user’s absence. If the user has disabled those accounts or the computer does not have the accounts, the user must be present for the computer to be repaired. Once the user is available and is able to log into the machine, OIT technicians will be able to work on the computer.
Sensitive, personal information (e.g., education, financial transactions, medical history, information that can be used to distinguish or trace the individual’s identity) should be stored on and accessed only from a secure server. When not on campus, users should use the Virtual Private Network (VPN) to log in.
If the resource is specific to a class the best person to ask first is the instructor for the class. If they are unable to assist you, contact the IT Help Desk and submit a help request. The IT Help Desk will assign a specialist to your case and that individual will work with you directly to figure out what needs to be done to complete your request.
First, UNLV staff will not inspect your email without a written request and authorization from the University President, the vice president or cabinet-level official (e.g., Athletic Director) in your reporting structure, the Director of Human Resources, General Counsel, or, in the case of students, the Director of the Office of Student Conduct. Authorization may be based on a criminal subpoena, civil litigation discovery, allegation of professional misconduct, or even a Freedom of Information Act request.
It is important to understand that you have no “reasonable expectation of privacy” with respect to your University email. In the UNLV mail (unlv.edu) domain, UNLV will subscribe to Google Vault in order to support the above requests.
Google Vault will store all incoming and outgoing mail even if immediately deleted and will provide a search engine to facilitate the discovery of relevant messages. Google Vault will not be purchased for Rebelmail. While the current contents of your Rebelmail account can be accessed by the University under the conditions listed above, accessing mail that has been deleted will require that Google honor a subpoena.
As long you comply with OIT's Software Licensing Policy and abide by the software manufacturer's End User License Agreement (EULA), you are allowed to install freeware and/or shareware licensed software on UNLV owned computers.
As a customer of Google’s “Apps for Education”, UNLV has entered into agreements with Google regarding the way they protect our data. These agreements ensure compliance with federal regulations such as FERPA and HIPAA when the data is used in conjunction with what Google defines as the “core apps”.
For HIPAA protected data, the core apps that allow storage of Protected Health Information (PHI) are: Gmail, Google Drive (including Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms), Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Apps Vault.
For FERPA protected data, the core apps that are compliant are: Gmail, Google Drive (including Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms), Google Calendar, Google Sites, Google Classroom, Google Contacts, Google Groups, Google Talk/Hangouts and Google Vault.
Users should be aware that although they may have access to other Google services outside these core apps (e.g. YouTube, Google+, Picassa, etc.), these “non-core” apps are not approved for the storage or transmission of data protected by state or federal regulations. Also, federal Export Control Act prohibits the storage of some kinds of information, including some research findings, outside the borders of the United States. Google cannot guarantee where any file will be stored. Therefore, this type of data should not be stored in any Google App.
A number of federal statutes govern the transmission and storage of data, including HIPAA, for healthcare data, FERPA for academic records, and the GLB act for financial data associated with student loans. Unless your department/unit has entered into a formal agreement covering protected data with any of these cloud storage providers, there is no guarantee that they will treat compliance protected data in a way that satisfies state or federal regulations. In addition, the federal Export Control Act prohibits the storage of some kinds of information, including some research findings, outside the borders of the United States. The majority of these services will not guarantee where any file will be stored. Data protected by any of the above legislation should not be stored in “cloud services” such as Dropbox. OIT will work with you to provide file storage solutions that meet compliance requirements. If you have a need for this type of storage contact the IT Help Desk.
Administrative type accounts (these may be called Administrator, root, sys, etc.) that are used to maintain a service may be shared between the people who are responsible for maintaining that service. These types of accounts should ONLY be used to maintain the service as required and never when an individual account (privileged or non-privileged) can be used instead.
OIT recommends using an enterprise password vault to share these types of accounts and provides this service for groups who need to share administrative accounts. This service allows system owners to audit who has viewed the passwords and control who has access to them. Accounts and passwords should not be shared through email or instant messaging apps.