Email Policy

Policy Statement
The University of the Arts (the “University”) maintains an electronic mail (“e-mail”) system to assist its faculty, staff and students in their academic endeavors and administrative duties.  All messages and information sent, received or stored on the University’s e-mail system or computer system are owned by the University and must be for valid University purposes only.  The use of these systems for defamatory, obscene, sexually explicit, illegal, offensive, threatening or inappropriate communications is strictly prohibited.  No account holder should transmit anything in an e-mail message that he or she would not be comfortable with writing in a letter or memorandum.

Purpose
This policy is meant to provide guidelines on how the email system will be managed for efficiency and reliability. The guidelines inform the campus community as to procedures OTIS will follow in managing the receipt, availability, archiving, and preservation of email delivered to University account holders.

OTIS Procedures

New Account Creation

•    Accounts are generated with a predetermined set of information for each client. This information is contained in the Colleague HR or Student Records modules and transferred to the OTIS Directory Services application on a daily basis.

•    The following information MUST* be in Colleague HR or Student Records (managed through Human Resources and Registrar’s Office, respectively) prior to any accounts being created:

•    Name (First, Middle, Last, Prefix, Suffix)*

•    Colleague System ID #*

•    Position Record: Person Type (Student, Faculty, Staff, etc.); Title (position title for Faculty and Staff); Department; Status (FT or PT); Start Date*

•    Office Location (to be provided by Department supervisor to HR)

•    Office Telephone (to be provided by Telecommunications to HR)

•    SSN#*

•    Date of Birth*

•    Information is automatically exchanged from Colleague to Directory Services (Active Directory) and Google Apps on a daily basis; programming creates the new client account.

For additional information on account creation see: Identity Management Policy

Email Retention Procedures

•    Individual account holders are responsible for the maintenance of their assigned accounts. The Inbox, Sent Items folder, Deleted, Calendar, and Contact Items folders, as well as any personal folders created for categorizing saved mail; all consume storage space within individual accounts. Periodically reviewing the email account and purging saved or categorized messages no longer needed is always recommended. The following university procedures will also be utilized to effectively manage the email resources:

•    Google Apps email that has been deleted (placed in Trash) by an account owner will be purged from university servers when said email is 30 (thirty) days old. This is an automated procedure. Individual account holders must be certain it is their intention to delete email messages.

Account Maintenance

•    Accounts created and assigned to individuals based on their status with the university will be maintained as long as that status is valid.

For additional information on Account Maintenance see: Identity Management Policy

•    At the conclusion of the Fall and Spring Semesters, OTIS will generate or request a listing of individuals who have left the university and are no longer studying at the University. Account holders will be notified by email message to their UArts account (@uarts.edu) of the process for deleting accounts and will have 30 days to clean up their account and move wanted information and messages to their personal storage devices.

Mail Storage and Retention 

Each University e-mail account has an unlimited amount of server side storage according to Google Apps guidelines. 

As a reminder, data stored on the University's network of computers is the property of the University and is accessed by the University for the following purposes:

•    Routine backups

•    Troubleshooting hardware and software problems

•    Preventing unauthorized access and system misuse

•    Retrieving business related information

•    Investigating potential violation of University policy or local, state or federal law

•    Complying with legal requests for information

•    Rerouting or disposing of undeliverable mail

•    Conducting University business information

Users of e-mail services must be aware that even if the sender and recipient have discarded their copies of an e-mail record, there might be back-up copies of such e-mail records (but not necessarily the body of the message) that can be retrieved.

Recommended Mail Clients, Applications 
OTIS supports email, calendaring, and Contacts (address book) through Google Apps for Education services. Mail, Calendaring and Address Book information may be accessed in the following supported ways: Outlook desktop client (available to all Windows OS clients), Outlook for Mac, and Mail (a Mac OS clients application from Apple). nformation about set up and configuration of these options is available from the Help Desk.