Computer Use Policy

General Policies

Persons who receive accounts or who receive temporary access to the local area network at Hadley Junior High School are expected to conform to the following general policies.

It is each user's responsibility to be aware of these restrictions and limitations. If there is any doubt regarding the legitimacy or authorization of any action on a workstation or network resource, please check with your teacher in advance. Users are expected to maintain high ethical standards, and to be courteous to other system users at all times.

Educational Use

The computers in the school are intended for educational purposes only. Users should not play games on the computers, or use the systems in association with any inappropriate text, graphic, or other media type. Electronic communication systems should not be used for trivial purposes, and offensive, obscene, or harassing messages are strictly prohibited.

Procedure

All students are issued an Epals.com account. There is no email use other than EPALS is permitted. Your username is firstnameinitialoflastname@wqsb.qc.ca. First password is "students".

This account is not private and is monitored.

Respect For Privacy

Users should not look at, read, modify or remove files, mail, or network traffic owned by any other user without explicit permission from the owner. Having access to a file does not constitute permission. Realistically, the network cannot be considered secure, and therefore any sensitive or extremely important files should not be kept on our systems.

Personal Responsibility

Accounts are assigned to an individual user who is expected to maintain system security by upholding basic guidelines. Account access should not be shared with anyone. Passwords should remain secret, and should be constructed in order to minimize the potential of someone guessing or 'cracking' the user's password (a combination in excess of six of numbers and letters, alphanumeric). Users are responsible for system activities performed under her/his password.

Cooperative Assistance

Hired professionals, staff and students operate the network system at Hadley for the mutual benefit of all concerned. Users are expected to report any security problems or system malfunctions to the lab instructors and/or to the office. In consideration of virus, worm, or other such corrupting software the use of a diskette to download or upload information is forbidden.

Courteous and Ethical Behavior

Users are expected to be courteous and ethical in all actions. Users should never deliberately attempt to disrupt system performance, or interfere with the work of any other user or administrator. Students should be considerate when using scarce system resources, such as Internet access, scanners, printers, milling machines, and digital cameras. Users should try to minimize disk usage on network drives and should not save files on workstation hard drives unless given permission. As well, users should try to be very conservative when printing documents from computers. Users should be polite when using electronic communication systems (ex. email), and should clearly identify themselves by name and/or login name.

Legal Responsibilities

Users are expected to follow all Western Quebec School Board regulations as well as pertinent local, provincial, and federal laws. The school has placed special emphasis on the illegality of software piracy, and thus strict copyright guidelines must be followed at all times.

Copyright Guidelines

The general copyright policy used at Hadley is in strict accordance with provincial and federal laws. It specifically includes, but is not limited to the following:

  • The only software products to be used on systems in any of the labs are those for which we own a valid license. Therefore, do not install any software on computers in the lab without prior approval.
  • Copying software products from our computer systems is considered theft and is a very serious offense. Do not use computers in the lab for making backup copies of any commercial software products unless specifically asked to do so by the lab instructor or system administrator.
  • Plagiarism, contrary to copyright laws, is the improper use, or failure to attribute, another person's writing or ideas (intellectual property). It can be as subtle as the inadvertent neglect to include quotes or references when citing another source or as blatantly unethical as knowingly copying an entire paper verbatim and claiming it as your own work.

The improper use of computers is generally referred to as computer abuse. The school may restrict or terminate any user's access, without prior notice, if such an action is deemed necessary to maintain computing availability and security for other users of the system. Other disciplinary action may also be imposed

Computer abuse includes, but is not limited to:

Software abuse (ex. hacking):

  • Using, or attempting to use, Hadley's computer systems or those accessible by network, without proper authorization, which includes, but not limited to, supplying misleading information or false credentials.
  • Tampering with, obstructing, or attempting to alter the operation of any computer system accessible through Hadley's network connections.
  • Attempting to modify, distribute, or copy data of software without proper authorization.

Hardware abuse:

  • Attempting to physically open, damage or otherwise alter hardware such as mice, keyboards, computers, scanners, or cameras.

Summary:

Students cannot:

  • visit inappropriate sites such as pornography, hate sites, pro-drug or alcohol sites;
  • communicate with email, messaging software during class time. This distracts not only you but also others from their education. In addition, it uses bandwidth of the network slowing everyone down;
  • play games, download or/and steal music or videos/movies, use chat-lines - all use up bandwidth of the network slowing everyone down;
  • downloading applications or files uses up hard drive space and is a virus risk;
  • use diskettes because they are a virus risk;
  • plagiarize (to use someone else's work and claim it as your own);
  • try to access other students' / teachers' files;
  • change system settings; and
  • let others know or use your password/account. Your "friend" may change your password and disable your account.

Possible Consequences:

  1. account suspended; and/or
  2. parents/guardians contacted; and/or
  3. letter is sent home; and/or
  4. in the case of plagiarism, a mark of 'zero' given; and/or
  5. if there is damage to school property, the student will be billed the dollar amount of the damages; and/or
  6. suspension from school