Guiding Principles
The use of the Guildford College blogging service is subject to official policy on Acceptable Use of the Internet. Computing facilities are provided by the College for the purpose of teaching and learning, research or administrative services. Please note in particular the following sections of the policy:
2.1 All employees, students, and associates of the College have a responsibility to be ethical and efficient in their official or private use (where permitted) of equipment and services provided on the College network in accordance with the Use of Computing Facilities Policy.
2.2 Every employee has a responsibility to be productive in the performance of their duties and use of resources. Staff may need to make use of communication devices for personal purposes within reasonable limits. This should be analogous with personal use of the telephone.
3.1 Any identified use of equipment or internet services thought to be inconsistent with College policies will be investigated by ICT staff and reported to the Director of ICT and the Vice Principal Information and Funding. Inappropriate use will be subject to the relevant College disciplinary procedures.
4.3 Inappropriate use includes, but is not limited to, any use of College equipment or services for intentionally transmitting, communicating, accessing or downloading pornographic or sexually explicit material, images, text or other offensive material, e.g. homophobic or racially sensitive.
4.4 It is not acceptable to intentionally create, send, access or download information that could damage the College’s reputation, be misleading or deceptive, result in victimisation or harassment, lead to criminal penalty or civil liability, or be reasonably found to be offensive, obscene, threatening, abusive or defamatory.
4.5 It is inappropriate to transmit, communicate, access or download any material which will discriminate against, harass or vilify colleagues or fellow students or any member of the public on the grounds of:
- Gender or transgender
- Pregnancy
- Age
- Race (including colour); nationality; descent or ethnic background
- Homosexuality
- Religion or belief (or none)
- Marital Status
- Disability
- HIV/AIDS
You will be individually liable if you aid or abet others who discriminate against, harass or vilify colleagues, fellow students or any member of the public (harassment will be treated in accordance with existing Grievance and Anti-bullying and Harassment policies and will result in disciplinary action).
4.6 You will not intentionally create, transmit, distribute, download or store any offensive information, data, or material that violates UK regulations or laws. The College reserves the right to audit and remove any illegal material from its computer resources without notice. The results of any auditing may be used in any investigation of misconduct.
4.7 The use of e-mail and instant messaging within the College is subject to the College’s Electronic Communications and Student E-mail Policy.
4.8 Copyright law applies to materials accessed via the Internet or posted on the Internet unless there is an express statement to the contrary. Every employee and student has a responsibility to respect the rights of copyright owners and authors in works they access on the Internet, to the extent and for purposes expressed Copyright legislation.
Blogging specific conditions of use
- Blogs on behalf of departments or the college should be considered official communications and written in the style appropriate to such communication. Individual and personal blogs are generally considered more ‘informal’ and do not necessarily represent the views of the College or its departments. The policy on the acceptable use of the Internet remains in force for all types of blogs at Guildford College.
- While a filtering system exists to filter profane and offensive commentary, as well as Spam and unsolicited comments, responsibility for the moderation of comments remains with the blog owner(s)
- The owner of blogs can decide whether to allow comments, and whether they require approval before posting.
- A “report this blog” link exists to report any offensive/inappropriate content. Blog owners should respond to emails linked to this reporting mechanism as quickly as possible.