Purpose
To establish policies and procedures which govern the access and use of Labouré College of Healthcare-provided email services, and users who receive email accounts.
Policy
Labouré College of Healthcare provides email accounts to all employees and all students utilizing email hosting services provided by an external vendor, Microsoft’s Office365 product. These accounts are the only accounts used by College staff and faculty to communicate College educational and administrative information to students, employees and non-College individuals and organizations. The College retains final ownership of these accounts and their contents, but also endeavors to protect the individual privacy and freedom of expression for all users.
Labouré College of Healthcare email addresses are authoritative for College communications
Labouré College of Healthcare email accounts are the only accounts which College staff and faculty will use to communicate with students for business or academic activity. All official communication from the College will be sent to the College-provided account, and delivery to this account is considered sufficient to demonstrate adequate notification of student educational or financial obligations. The onus for checking and reading received email communications remains solely with the individual assigned the account.
Methods of accessing College e-mail accounts:
The primary access to Labouré College of Healthcare email is through a web-based portal. While other forms of access also are available, the web access will be considered the default method of access. Secondary access is available to employees and students, including the use of IMAP or POP3 email software clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, and there is access through mobile devices using the IOS or Android operating systems. The College Information Technology staff provide “best effort” levels of support for mobile devices and software clients but will provide more complete troubleshooting and customer support for the web-based portal.
Restrictions on using e-mail to share Confidential or Restricted data
Labouré College of Healthcare is committed to protecting all Personal Information and other sensitive data. The College has established a Written Information Security Program (IT 1.1) that identifies and classifies data by its level of sensitivity (refer to Section 3 of the Written Information Security Program for definitions). Email may not be used to share Confidential data in an unencrypted form, and users are strongly discouraged from sending Confidential data in encrypted form as well, and must be able to justify their decision. Restricted data should be sent in encrypted form only.
Personal Use
Using Labouré College of Healthcare-provided email accounts for personal emails is discouraged but permitted; users should remain aware that non-work-related email may be viewed in any investigation. Sending chain letters or inappropriate emails from a College email account is prohibited. Virus or other malware warnings should not be sent by any individual other than Labouré College of Healthcare Information Technology staff members, who will clearly identify themselves in any such warning.
Mass Mailings
As part of the College-provided email system, there is the ability to send email to pre-established groups of employees and students. All communication to these email groups should be sent by authorized individuals, including but not limited to, College IT staff, College Communications employees, and selected administrative employees. Each communication will be scrutinized for appropriate relevance to the intended recipients, and emphasis should be given to keeping all such communications as precise and concise as possible. Note: Mass email should be addressed primarily using the BCC: address line, to prevent cyclical “reply to all” emails from flooding end user accounts.
Prohibited Use
Labouré College of Healthcare-provided email accounts shall not be used for the creation or distribution of any disruptive, offensive or intimidating messages, including offensive comments about race, gender, disabilities, age, sexual orientation, pornography, religious beliefs and practice, political beliefs, or national origin. Employees who receive any emails with this content from any Labouré College of Healthcare employee or student should report the matter to the Human Resources Office immediately.
Timelines and eligibility for account creation:
All full- and part-time employees of Labouré College of Healthcare and all students registered for one or more credits will be issued an email account. Employee accounts are initiated by the Human Resources Office. Student email accounts will be established when a prospective student submits a deposit prior to matriculation.
Account expiry
Labouré College of Healthcare email accounts are provided to both students and employees but have different expectations of duration. Student accounts will be maintained while the student is active and for a short duration subsequent to separation from the College. Graduated students will retain their Labouré College of Healthcare email for 90 days following the commencement of their degree. Students withdrawn from the college will lose access to their email following the completion of withdrawal paperwork. Employee accounts are tied to the employee’s continued employment status with the College. Employees who leave the College will have their access to the email account disabled, and except for accounts involved in any legal procedure, disabled accounts will be deleted 90 days after the employee’s departure from the College. Exceptions to this deletion schedule will be coordinated with the College’s Human Resources Office.
Monitoring
Labouré College of Healthcare employees and students shall have no expectation of privacy in anything they store, send or receive on the College’s email system. Though, as a routine matter, Labouré College of Healthcare will not monitor messages, it retains right to do so without prior notice.
Investigatory processes
The only individuals authorized to initiate an investigation of a Labouré College of Healthcare email account are the College’s President and Chief Human Resources Officer. Either may request an investigation and will provide a written copy of the request to the other individual, as well as to the College’s Director of Information Technology, who will direct Information Technology staff to provide the appropriate access to accommodate the request. The existence of an investigation, and any findings, will be held in strictest confidence.
Investigations may be initiated for reasons such as:
· An investigation triggered by indications of misconduct or misuse;
· A need to protect health and safety;
· A need to prevent interference with the academic mission of the College;
· A need to locate substantive information required for college business which is unavailable by some other means.
The contents of email communications that have been properly obtained for College purposes may be disclosed without permission from the end user. The College will attempt to refrain from disclosing communications, which might create personal embarrassment, unless such disclosure is required to satisfy a legal obligation.
Retention
Users should have no expectations of being able to recover deleted or expired email.
The College will follow best and reasonable efforts for its backup and legal discovery practices.
Enforcement
Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.
Definitions
Term Definition
Email: The electronic transmission of information through a mail protocol such as SMTP or IMAP. Typical email clients include Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook.
Forwarded email: Email re-sent from an internal network to an outside point.
Chain email or letter: Email sent to successive people. Typically, the body of the note has direction to send out multiple copies of the note and promises good luck or money if the direction is followed.
Virus warning: Email containing warnings about virus or malware. The majority of these emails turn out to be a hoax and contain false information usually intent only on frightening or misleading users.