Computing and Information Technologies 

Planning and Goals Committee

Agenda:

1. Approve February 10 minutes.

2. ITS Update 

3. Choice of an NDSU IT Security Officer Search Committee member

4. Cluster Use Policy (see below)

5. Desktop Standards Taskforce Report

6. P2P Draft Statement (see below)

7. Additional Business.

Cluster Use Policy

For Discussion Only

Draft Submitted 2-19-03

   Cluster use is permitted for students, faculty, staff and sponsored groups and must be related to the operations or mission of the university.

      Any NDSU department may, subject to availability, reserve a cluster and request temporary authentication for themselves or a group they sponsor. Sponsored groups are considered guests of the university and are subject to the same policies as students, faculty and staff.

      Departments making reservations will: 1) determine who can reserve a cluster on their behalf, 2) be responsible for their guests, and 3) provide on-site supervision during their reserved time.

DRAFT       DRAFT      DRAFT      DRAFT     DRAFT      DRAFT      DRAFT

  FOR DISCUSSION ONLY

 Peer-to-Peer Policy Statement

February 21, 2003

 Internet connectivity is a critical capability for the NDSU campus.  It supports our three-part academic, research, and outreach mission.  The amount of bandwidth (how much traffic our Internet connection can bear) is limited and the cost is proportional to our peak usage.    Because of the critical nature of the Internet connectivity, the North Dakota University System Acceptable Use Policy (which NDSU supports) prohibits the use of applications which negatively impact Internet connectivity.

A new type of software application, referred to as "peer-to-peer" file sharing, has become very popular. There are many different versions in use today. A few of the more popular include "Kazaa," "iMesh," "Gnutella," “Napster”, “eDonkey”, "WinMX" and "AudioGalaxy."   This list is not comprehensive. 

These applications consume large amounts of Internet bandwidth which negatively affects other uses.  Since they do not support the academic, research or outreach mission of the university, they are now officially prohibited. This means the software may not be installed on university-owned computers including those in the computer labs ("clusters").  In addition, users of personally-owned computers may not use these applications while connected to the NDSU network.  Violation of this policy will result in disciplinary action, according to University policies and procedures.

If you are unsure of whether an application you are using is included in this category, or if you have research or academic needs for this type of application, please contact the NDSU Help Desk for clarification (help.desk@ndsu.nodak.edu or call 1-8685).