Information Technology Services – Associate Vice President for Information Technology
Last Revised: 08/21/13
Title: Blog and WIKI Use Policy
Applicable: Furman University Students, Staff, and Faculty
Contacts: IT Service Center ext. 3277
Background: With the introduction of the new campus blog and wiki services, it has become necessary to create a policy that details who is entitled to use these services as well as rules and guidelines that authors should follow when uploading content.
Policy: Furman University’s Information Technology Services department provides blog and wiki services in support of scholarly, curricular, and extra-curricular communications conducted by members of the university community. This blog service is made available to any current faculty or staff member of Furman University with an active Furman University network account. Student organizations may request a Furman blog or wiki through their faculty advisor.
Guidelines:
- Current Furman University faculty and staff members, with an active network account may place a request with the IT Service Center for the creation of a blog to be used for scholarly, curricular, or extra-curricular communications.
- Use of the blog and wiki services and the content of all electronic pages are subject to all applicable Furman University policies and local, state and federal laws. These policies include but are not limited to:
- All material posted on these services must be in compliance with copyright laws. Authors have the responsibility of acquiring all necessary permissions to post copyrighted material.
- The selling of online advertising space to non-university entities on any web page hosted or sponsored by Furman University is strictly forbidden.
- Announcements may not include content, material, or links that, upon viewing, could create an intimidating, hostile, or offensive learning and/or working environment.
- Announcements may not be used to promote activities that are illegal, support commercial activities not associated with the university, or to provide personal financial gain.
- A web page may be considered in violation of content policies if it contains links to pages that violate the policy.
- All members of the university community are encouraged to communicate differing perspectives. Community members are also, however, entitled to work and live in an environment free of harassment. Therefore any activity that violates the university’s harassment policy (094.1) is prohibited. Defamatory remarks and obscenity are also prohibited. The use of overt profanity is strongly discouraged.
- The following statement must appear on all pages created through the university’s blog service, unless the pages were explicitly approved for official university business: “The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author(s). The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Furman University. The copyright and all related rights to original work posted via the blog service are owned by and are the sole responsibility of its author(s).”
- Information Technology Services may establish limits regarding the use of the blog and wiki services and may modify these limits at any time. This includes but is not limited to the total size of the blog or wiki content, the size of images, videos, software or other material posted. Information Technology Services reserves the right to require users of these services to utilize university approved templates for all hosted pages.
- Information Technology Services intends to archive the content of all blogs and wikis for non-commercial, historical purposes. By using the blog or wiki service, authors grant Furman University non-exclusive rights to archive their content in any format.
- Information Technology Services offers the blog and wiki services at the author’s own risk. These services are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. The university does not guarantee that it will provide ancillary software that authors may wish to use in their blogs or wikis.
- Information Technology Services reserves the right to remove, at any time, at its sole discretion, any content posted on the blog or wiki services that it deems in violation of university policy or local, state or federal law.
- Information Technology Services reserves the right to change, at any time, at its sole discretion, the provisions of the blog and wiki services.
- Protect your privacy and the privacy of other individuals; be aware that what you write will be viewable by the public for extended periods of time.