· Email Policy

Purpose

To make electronic mail a useful tool in our working environment by holding it as closely as possible to the better principles of the U.S. Postal Service including privacy, universal service, and protection from fraud or harassment. Unfortunately, because of the nature of email we can give no guarantees because many factors are outside our control as described below.

Policy

Acceptable Use

The College of Forestry operates under the OSU Acceptable Use Policy which permits the use of email for most purposes. The major restrictions are:

No harassment or sending of material offensive to the recipient.

No messages sent under a false name. Nonconstructive anonymous messages are considered harassment and identity theft is a crime.

No use for personal gain except as provided with a written contract under Board of Higher Education rules. Solicitation and chain letters are specifically outlawed.

No broadcasting. The difference between useful information and spam (aka. harassment) is often in the eye of the recipient. We strongly encourage the use of news groups or public folders under Exchange as an alternative to using the e-mail lists. A number of Forestry public folders ("For Sale/Wanted" items, Jobs, etc.) already exist in Exchange and we will assist in establishing others as needed. Messages thought sufficiently important to be sent to a general Forestry (or Campus) email list should first be cleared by your Department Head or the Dean's office.

Violation of the acceptable use policies may result in the deactivation of your account or revocation of your privilege to use Forestry Computing Facilities.

Mail Administration

Privacy - While the College of Forestry considers email correspondence private, you need to be aware that state law may require disclosure of email (and other individual computer files) which are deemed public records under the state public records statute. In addition email is duplicated many times at the source, in transit, and at the destination; potentially leaving copies in many locations (even our Exchange system preserves deleted file for an extra 14 days after you delete them from trash). To help maintain privacy of local messages, we only keep Exchange post office backups long enough to assure disaster recovery (a couple of weeks).

Universal Service - While it is our intent to provide continuous, unrestricted service; we cannot guarantee it because we cannot prevent equipment failures and much of the email delivery process is not under our control.

Storage - We try to provide sufficient email storage for people to do their work. We do have limits to stop email loops and to encourage responsible use of our resources. Currently, in Exchange a warning message appears when personal storage exceeds 250Mb, the ability to send is deactivated when storage exceeds 350Mb. Those who need additional storage can purchase 500MB blocks, $60 each - billed once per year.

Backups - Backup are maintained for disaster recovery only. We cannot restore individual messages or mailboxes.