Policy for the Responsible Use of Technology

Westtown School provides students, faculty, and staff with access to school-owned computer networks that include a range of software, research databases, Internet access and email. Our computer network has been established with a limited educational purpose to support the completion of academic and professional work and to facilitate communication both within and beyond the Westtown community. Westtown School determines the services that will be available to support the educational program while preserving the stability of our network and offers no guarantee of access to the full complement of services.

Students, faculty, and staff have the responsibility to meet the standards stated below as well as the otherwise assumed standards for any member of the Westtown community. Users also have the responsibility to follow any additional guidelines that apply to their particular division of the school or to a specific technology or application. These standards apply to both school and personally owned computers.

Users are granted access to use the school computer networks and available resources and have the responsibility

• To respect the limitations and boundaries set by the school. Users are not to attempt to go beyond their personal and shared files, install or download software, or tamper with hardware, software, or data on any internal or external computer. Users will respect the space limitations of the system, avoiding storing large files on the network and regularly deleting personal files and email that are no longer needed.
• To use these networks in respectful, safe, and appropriate ways. Activities such as sending offensive messages, engaging in commercial ventures, or communicating information of a personal nature is strictly forbidden.
• To understand that the Westtown computer system and the Internet are public forums. Users should not expect complete privacy in the contents of their files on the school systems. Routine maintenance and monitoring of the systems may lead to finding violations of this policy, the school handbooks, or the law.

Users have opportunities to use the Internet for research and communication and have the responsibility

• To evaluate critically the information they find on the Internet.
• To respect the work of others by giving full attribution and documentation for information they use in academic, professional, or creative work.
• To respect copyright laws by refraining from either receiving or distributing copyrighted materials or software.
• To seek only appropriate connections, avoiding any sources or materials that the school community would consider inappropriate, such as material of a violent, sexual, illegal or degrading nature. If such a connection is made inadvertently, the user has the responsibility to break the connection and to report it immediately to the faculty member present or to the Technology Office.

Approved: June 25, 2004