Most states have a prohibition against state employees using state resources (including internet resources at the state universities) for political purposes; on balance this is a good thing. The two problems here are (a) this should not apply to students in their dorms, since by virtue of paying rent their internet is not a state resource, but a private resource that just happens to be provided by the state, and (b) filters are a cure for web misuse like lobotomies are a cure for mental illness: they donât work, and have massive unintended consequences.
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If you read the article, it appears to apply to students to some extent, but what extent is not made clear in the policy.
Which college was that?
And what about users who are both students and staff? We have quite a few of those at the university I work for.
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Ran into that when an instructor email kept being blocked by spam filters because it was for a sex ed related course and the titles of the assignments used words commonly used in spam.
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As someone who works at a university and accesses many of these services regularly while at work, this is one of the dumbest policies Iâve heard of. I know a lot of private businesses have policies like this, but a university?
I know that I and others who work in IT-related areas at my university regularly go to social media sites like Twitter, etc. for assistance with tech, etc. issues.
Locking your employees out of wide swaths of the Internet on the false assumption that if you canât tie what theyâre doing this second to a specific professional responsibility that the activity should be blocked is insanity. Shame on NIU. Glad I donât work there.
So apparently this is a classic web overreaction. None of these sites will be blocked, at some sites there might be a warning sign that pops up that you have to click through, and in addition to the warning you will be reminded of the terms of service, which include the no-political-use restrictions that most states impose on their employees (and that doesnât mean that you canât surf to political sites). I think people saw this restriction language, had never seen it before or thought about what it really means, and freaked out.
What I find amusing is that the trigger was a pop-up warning about surfing to the Westboro Baptist Church, which the student then posted about on Reddit. So, Reddit is obviously OK, Westboro Baptist gets you a malicious site warning. Sounds reasonable to me.
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People may want to head straight over to the actual Acceptable Use Policy. I have to disagree with @Geoff_Arnold on this one. If you read the policy, the university is actually applying this entire code to their students as well as staff. It applies to anyone using the service. From the close of the first paragraph:
Pursuant to the NIU Electronic Mail policy, the email system may be utilized for personal messages subject to the limitations set forth in these and other applicable policies and to the extent that personal usage does not interfere with assigned responsibilities. By using NIU services, all individuals, including, but not limited to, employees, students, customers, volunteers, and third parties, unconditionally accept the terms of this policy.
The school could interpret âassigned responsibilitiesâ to be classwork. So, it is possible that if you arenât excelling in classes, they could decide to take action using this policy. Pulled from paragraph two:
The University may access university-owned or networked computers for maintenance and upgrades and to monitor or troubleshoot networks for related security, network audits, investigations, and/or legal requirements. Computers or systems may also be accessed through established procedures for reasonably suspected abuse of this policy and/or other University acceptable use policies. If illicit activity of any kind is suspected as a result of routine monitoring, an internal or external investigation may result.
The social media restrictions are part of a bulleted list of restricted activities. Many are outright illegal. However, some arenât. Here are two:
⢠Accessing material that, in NIUâs evaluation, is obscene, defamatory, or constitutes a threat, including pornographic material.
⢠Use of personal social media sites, following specific direction to cease or not utilize university equipment or time to an extent or during time periods that would interfere with professional responsibilities, including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Foursquare, etc., unless associated with professional responsibilities.
The opening sentence following that list is this:
These principles and guidelines are extended to networks and information technology resources outside the university accessed through NIUnet via the Internet.
So you can live off-campus, and still be covered by that ruling. The university isnât being honest about the way this policy is written, and who it covers.
Ah, memories of trying to do research for an essay about Chinese nationalism in the run up to the Boxer Rebellion and having half the pages that I wanted to see blocked for âinciting racismâ. Thanks, websense, Iâm sure the 19th century European imperialists being attacked by Chinese peasants feel a lot better now that youâve stepped in.
If itâs anything like the implementation at my college, it will take about half an hour before everyone realises that you can circumvent it with a VPN. In our case, the free VPN that the university providedâŚ
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It may happen that the techs intentionally sabotage the management decisions. Sometimes the foot soldiers donât agree with their superiors. Sometimes, albeit rarely, âincompetent mistakesâ are intentional.
Gateshead College, north-east England. Did an access course for a degree there.
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Normally, Iâd be inclined to agree with you but the web filter was massively scaled back when the head of IT left the job a couple of years later.
Given that the university VPN was entirely outside of her control and she also said we couldnât put in WiFi because it caused âproblems with students who have Electro Magnetic Sensitivityâ, asserted that the blanket ban on torrents was because there are no legitimate uses for torrents, and who had no idea what the phrase âpublic domainâ meant, Iâm going with the theory that she was asked to put in a web filter by college management and was too lazy/incompetent to set up anything other than an out-of-the-box âblock everythingâ install of the software, that she had never considered that we might try the VPN, and that the new IT admin had less of a God-complex going on with the network.
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[quote=âcatgrin, post:28, topic:39664â]
So you can live off-campus, and still be covered by that ruling.[/quote]
Only when accessing these resources âthrough NIUnetâ (whatever that is).
You could have answered that with one google search. Itâs a high-speed fiber-optic network. The entire contract applies when accessing the internet through NIUnet, because thatâs the university-suppplied internet access, and NIUnet is bigger than you think. Hereâs a link to NIUnet.
âThe network connects schools, libraries, hospitals and municipalities in a 10-county areaâ
Notice that the contract also applies to customers, volunteers, and third parties. So it applies to all those people in that â10-county areaâ who have nothing to do with the university, but who do use the NIUnet service. The contract is not written to only apply to university employees.
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The statement from someone at NIU that it only applies to students if theyâre also employees strikes me as very concerning. As stated, if youâre an employee youâre not allowed to use state facilities for personal use. Does that mean that your 10 hour a week job in dining services comes with a heaping side of âno longer allowed to use dorm wifi?â
If the school doesnât clarify that pretty quickly Iâd love to see a local sh*t-stirrer do some protesting outside whatever campus job fair is used for hiring student workers at the beginning of the school year. I can see the sign now: âSchool policy! Student employee? NO Facebook, Twitter, etc. in your dorm!â
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[quote=âcatgrin, post:34, topic:39664â]
You could have answered that with one google search.[/quote]
Of course, but I wasnât that interested. It sounds like NIU is coordinating an Internet 2 network for the various research facilities in that part of Illinois (there are many) as well as providing some high-speed emergency access for civil defense. It isnât like anyone in DeKalb who has internet access in their house is forbidden to use their home network for political campaigning or planning Westboro Baptist pickets.
As a faculty member in a state university, I have no problem with being told I canât use my office computer to do political polling or share movies. These are restrictions that have been in our terms of use for many years. As my .edu email account is subject to FOIA requests, it would be stupid on my part to use it for coordinating Rand Paul fundraisers or downloading Twilight.
I do share everyoneâs concerns with attempts to block some services automatically, but it doesnât sound like NIU are actually doing that, despite the stories. I also have concerns (as mentioned above) about restrictions extending to dorm internet. I donât know know how strong shared governance is at NIU, but my experience as faculty in several such universities is that the major issues people are anticipating arenât going to happen, and any that do will be quickly fixed.
You shouldnât be doing research for a history paper on the web anyway, shame on you. 
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Itâs not research, itâs âpreliminary investigationâ 
I think someone ought to out this fool. Who is the âNew Director of Technologyâ and what are his qualifications?
Maybe an ex gym teacher with an A+ Cert
