Policies & Security

Bard College encourages creativity and free expression

While all members of the community are expected to follow the copyright laws and College web page guidelines, the comments and viewpoints expressed on the personal pages represent those of the page authors and not Bard College. Questions and comments should be addressed to the owners of the individual pages, who assume responsibility and liability for the content of their documents.

Network Issues, Technical Assistance, and Logins:

Appropriate Use of Technology Guidelines

Bard provides electronic information systems for the campus community in order to support the educational mission of the College. These systems serve important needs for our faculty, staff, and students. Electronic mail messages, like telephone and paper mail communications, are private and privileged exchanges deserving protection and security. Bard views with most serious concern any fraudulent action or any violation of security related to electronic communications and is prepared to take appropriate corrective and punitive actions in response to such behavior.

The rights, freedoms, and responsibilities inherent in the use of electronic information systems are rooted in the declarations of both the Bard College Statement on Academic Freedom and the Bard College Email Lists and Usage Policy. Therefore, the College expects that the community of people who use electronic information resources will do nothing in that action which infringes upon the rights of others on this campus or elsewhere and will not apply campus information systems in any fraudulent ways.

Thus, all users agree to the following:

College computer facilities will not be used for activities that are in violation of campus, local, state, or federal rules and laws. This includes:

Copyright infringement
Cheating
Theft
Vandalism
Software piracy (the unauthorized duplication or use of copyrighted software)
Media piracy (the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyrighted text, still image, video, and audio files e.g. MP3)
Sending messages that encourage or promote violation of the above or other college, local, state or federal regulations

Use of College computer facilities for commercial purposes or personalprofit is forbidden with the exception of the publication of scholarly works which may incidentally provide revenues to the author(s).

Users will respect an individual’s right to privacy and freedom of expression and will not read, copy, or print material written by others that is not intended for public inspection. Inappropriate use includes:

Sending messages in such a way that makes them appear as though they originated from a different person or that deliberately misrepresent yourself or your authority
Sending messages that are severely abusive or threaten an individual’s safety or for sexual, ethnic, religious, or other minority harassment
Sending or forwarding chain letters
Deliberately flooding a user’s mailbox with automatically generated mail
Sending mail that is deliberately designed to interfere with proper mail delivery or access
Attempting to gain access to another person’s files regardless of the intent or result
Broadcasting messages to large numbers without regard to the relevance of the material
Sending messages or engaging in other conduct intended to suppress or disrupt debate
Sending messages that are designed to interfere with normal system operation

Users will refrain from any activity that threatens the integrity of the computer system at Bard. This includes, but is not limited to:

Modification of system services and utilities;
Permitting others to access College resources from outside of Bard;
Installing any hardware or software that threatens the integrity of the overall campus network, “hacking” or other sabotage;
Activities that interfere with public access to computer resources.
See more specific examples of such activities.
- Every user is personally responsible for the integrity of the account assigned to that individual. Usernames are not transferable to other users or publicly distributable without prior authorization from Bard IT. Violations of these rules will be reported to the appropriate campus judicial body. Any punitive actions will be determined by that body and could include disconnection from the campus network.
- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits torrenting of copyrighted material on the campus network. When we receive complaints we are required to shut down campus network access. Users must visit the Help Desk to speak with a staff member in order to have access restored. First time offenders are issued a warning and required to sign an acknowledgement that is kept on file. Subsequent offenses are adjudicated by the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs, and could result in a $50 fine.

The use of non-campus network devices such as personal routers is strongly discouraged because they: 1) prevent users from achieving authenticated access to network resources, such as online library resources, that rely on campus network IP addresses; and 2) confuse connectivity diagnostics & delay restoring your internet connection. For these reasons, when we become aware of an unauthorized device of this kind, we will be forced to disable it.