Blackboard Acceptable Use Policy

Blackboard is part of the computing services offered by the University and its use is governed by various Rules, Regulations, Guidelines and Codes of Practice. In registering to use the facilities offered by Information Services (IS) you have agreed to abide by one or more of the sets of Regulations which are backed by disciplinary action if they are ignored.

Regulations

The following Regulations have particular relevance to Blackboard. Further guidance on abiding by the Regulations is found in the Notes section below.

Copyright

"3.14 Persons using Information Services reprographic and computing facilities must observe copyright law, other relevant civil and criminal legislation in force, and the terms of suppliers' licenses." (IS Regulations - see Note 1 below)

Offensive or Harassing Material

"3.15 Information Services users must not produce or display information or computer output of a type or in a way that could give offence to other reasonably minded people. This applies both to textual and graphical material." (IS Regulations - see Note 2 below)

Monitoring Use

"2.6 Information Services staff do not normally inspect the contents of emails or data files belonging to users in any way except in cases such as the following:

  1. Where a virus or large-scale emailing is threatening the functioning of the email system or is likely to delete or corrupt user data, in which case email headers and other patterns of data may be examined to identify and delete the material involved.
  2. Where there is a firm suspicion that Information Services facilities have been misused under the terms of these Regulations
  3. In co-operating with the police where it has been established that such co-operation is in the direct furtherance of a criminal investigation.

In signing these Regulations you are agreeing to the right of inspection by Information Services staff under these specific circumstances." (IS Regulations - see Note 3 below)

Notes

1. Copyright

Please see the information about digitisation and Blackboard. Advice and information is also available from the University's Information Policies web site or by contacting the Copyright and Data Protection Officer, Jonathan Davies (mpd@aber.ac.uk ).

2. Offensive or Harassing Material

Blackboard allows access to a number of tools that enable text-based and media-based communication. Tools include but are not limited to discussion boards, chat facilities, Wikis, podcasts and blogs. When using these tools the following should be born in mind:

  • Your postings should not be offensive, inflammatory, racist/sexist or abusive in any other way.
  • Remember that textual interaction takes place without normal visual/verbal clues which help to interpret meaning.
  • Your posts will be visible to all those registered to a module. This may include other members of staff (including secretarial and administrative staff), as well as students from other seminar/tutorial groups.
  • Your posts will be visible for the whole of the academic year. If your posts are part of an assessment they will be archived and retained for future reference (should this be needed).
  • Your posts should be concerned with the topic of the discussion and their tone should be in keeping with this. Excessive use of obscenities of any kind is strongly discouraged.
  • The laws of Copyright and Data Protection apply. You should not copy other people's posts / information without their express permission. Information of a personal nature about other people should not be divulged in a posting.
  • If your posting counts towards an assessment, you should take the same precautions against plagiarism as you would in any other piece of written work. You should always acknowledge others' work.

If you are offended by a posting, please consider the following before replying:

  • Will your post contribute positively to an academic discussion?
  • How would you respond if you were in a face-to-face situation (e.g. a seminar)
  • Would this issue be best dealt with by contacting your tutor rather than the individual concerned?

In the case of offensive posts, you may wish to contact your tutor privately rather than escalate the situation in an online and public environment.

If you feel you need to take your complaint further, please see Information Services' complaints procedure for Web material.

3. Monitoring

Student and staff accesses to Blackboard can be viewed by the Blackboard System Administrators. For normal reporting purposes, all data collected cannot be linked to individuals. Only in the cases listed above (under Regulations) would System Administrators retrieve data which can be linked to individuals.

Course instructors can and may use the tracking facilities in Blackboard to look at student access to course materials in individual modules. It is recommended that staff inform students that their usage is being monitored (for example by using the Blackboard announcement feature). If tracking is used for assessment purposes, staff are advised that copies should be taken before the yearly rollover process .

Students should be aware that all scanned documents (for example journal articles in PDF format) available in Blackboard may be subject to tracking as a result of licence feedback requirements.