TO ALL STAFF AND STUDENTS OF DONEGAL VEC

The primary objective of the County Donegal Vocational Education Committee's computer and network resources is to enhance and support its educational, training and other services. These resources include hardware, software, user accounts, and local area network facilities as well as services accessed via the internet. County Donegal VEC encourages its staff and students to use these resources in a manner which will facilitate their work, education and training.

Computer and network resources are powerful enabling technologies for accessing, and delivering information and knowledge. As such, they are strategic technologies for the current and future needs of County Donegal VEC because these technologies give individuals the ability to access and copy information from remote sources, users must respect the rights of others, respect the integrity of the systems and related physical resources, and observe all relevant laws, rules, regulations and contractual obligations. These will include all existing County Donegal VEC regulations and policies.

This policy applies to all County Donegal VEC staff, students and to others who are authorised to use its computer and network resources whether individually controlled or shared, standalone or networked. The policy also applies to all computer and network facilities controlled or contracted by the County Donegal VEC these include PCs, workstations, servers, communication equipment as well as associated peripherals and software regardless of whether used for administration, teaching, training, research or other purposes.

I would like to take this opportunity of wishing all staff and students in the County Donegal VEC every success in their work, education and training.

Sean O Longain

Chief Executive Officer

General rules

County Donegal VEC’s computer and network resources shall not be used to disseminate, view or store commercial or personal advertisements, solicitations, promotions, destructive code such as viruses, self-replicating programs etc., pornographic text or images, or any other unauthorised materials.

Users shall not use the County Donegal VEC’s internet connection to download unauthorised software, "plug-ins", games or other entertainment software (including screen savers) or save inappropriate or offensive material.

Software provided by County Donegal VEC may only be used as part of the user's role as a member of the County Donegal VEC staff or for educational and training purposes as a student of County Donegal VEC.

The user agrees to abide by all copyright and licensing agreements for software entered into by County Donegal VEC with other parties. Users shall not copy or use material created by others without acknowledgement, or, where appropriate obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Users must not jeopardise, in any way, the integrity, performance or reliability of the County Donegal VEC’s computer and network resources. No attempts must be made to circumvent data protection schemes, "hack" into systems or interfere with the intended operation of the computer and network resources. Users are warned that gaining unauthorised access to data (including programs) and/or interfering with data belonging to others are offences under the criminal law.

The user undertakes to comply with the provisions of data protection legislation.

It is not permitted to use computer and network resources for inappropriate purposes which include but are not limited to the following activities:

 Knowingly performing any act which will interfere with the normal operation of computers, peripherals or networks.

 Knowingly destroying the integrity of computer-based information.

 Deliberately wasting computer resources.

 Compromising the privacy of others.

 Granting another individual unauthorised access to your computer account or attempting to access another individual's computer files.

 Using the computer and network facilities for unauthorised profit or commercial purposes.

 Accessing, downloading, saving, creating or transmitting any abusive, obscene, threatening, defamatory, offensive or harassing images or material.

 Causing offence to another individual or discriminating on the grounds of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religious or political belief, age, disability, race, colour or membership of the traveller community.

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E-mail

E-mail is provided for educational, research and administrative use only. It is not to be availed of for commercial purposes, personal financial gain or significant personal use. Users should be aware that email is neither secure nor guaranteed to be private.

Users must not send messages, including attachments, which are abusive, obscene, threatening, defamatory, offensive or harassing. It is the responsibility of users who receive such messages to delete them immediately

Users must not partake in or promote the sending or distribution of chain e-mail messages or send unnecessary files which would adversely affect computer and network resources.

County Donegal VEC accepts no liability for lost or deleted email.

Users must not send anonymous e-mail.

Users must not open e-mail attachments from unsolicited or unknown sources.

Existing norms of behaviour apply to computer based information just as they would apply to more traditional media.

World Wide Websites - WWW

Students' work should only appear in an educational context on web pages with a notice prohibiting the copying of such work without the expressed written permission of County Donegal VEC. Copyrighted material must not appear on any web page without the permission of and an acknowledgement of the copyright holder.

No personal information such as home address, telephone numbers, contact details, or other personal information about a student, the student's family or members of staff should appear with such work.

Only large college/centre group photographs should be used on the website. No individual student photographs or images which might assist in identifying an individual should appear. No photographs of staff should appear on a website without the informed prior approval of that staff member.

Students are not permitted to register or sign "visitors' books" on websites without prior permission.

If a web page is inviting contact from other internet users, a generic e-mail address must be used e.g. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

All websites should display the following disclaimer:

 "the information contained in these web pages is, to the best of our knowledge, true and accurate at the time of publication and is solely for information purposes only. County Donegal VEC accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising as a result of use or reliance on this information."

Policy enforcement

Users should report any suspected abuse of computer and network resources, or any unpleasant material or e-mail that may come to their attention as well as any suspected damage or problems with files.

Users when requested, are expected to co-operate with system administrators and/or other authorised staff in any investigation of system abuse.

County Donegal VEC reserves the right to examine any files-held on its computer systems.

Any user found in breach of this policy shall be liable for legal and County Donegal VEC disciplinary procedures.

This document is subject to regular review and will be updated when revisions are necessary.