St. Stephen's strives to provide the students in its boarding community the necessary tools for both academic and personal success. In this day and age, the use of computers is for some students an integral component of their success at St. Stephen's. To help ensure that the use of Technology within the boarding program falls within the school's standards of appropriateness, the following guidelines are provided to clarify what types of activity are allowed. Remember, this list is a general guide; it does not spell out every possible misuse of technology on the St. Stephen's campus. St. Stephen's reserves the right to change this guide in order to better communicate the school's standard of Appropriate Use.

Internet Content: As a general rule of thumb, a student should not use a computer to view content that would be offensive to the student's advisor. More specifically, content related to gambling and pornography is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, the use of resources to bypass the school's content filters (e.g. Surfwatch) is prohibited as well. An example of such a site is orangefolder.com. The use of the school's network to participate in illegal activities is strictly prohibited.

Network Identity: When a student's computer is set up for network access within the boarding community, settings are changed on the computer to give it a unique identity. Changing these setting to assume the identity of another computer on the network is prohibited.

Network Access: Only students who have subscribed with the Technology Office are allowed to have their computers on the St. Stephen's network. Students are never allowed to use the phone lines within the common rooms to connect their computers to other ISP's like AOL or MSN. Additionally, students are not permitted to order installation of telecommunication service to their rooms from outside companies.

Computer Sharing: Students can only use another student's computer with appropriate permission. Unauthorized use of another student's computer may be considered as an incident of theft/vandalism within the Deans' Offices. When using another boarder's computer, a student is still bound by all the rules that apply to the owner of the computer. Likewise, when a student allows another student to use his/her computer, the lender is expected to ensure that the computer is used appropriately.

Unauthorized Access: Logging into another student's computer over the network is prohibited unless one has received permission to do so. Never should a student attempt to alter the contents of another student's computer.

Network Performance: If a student's use of the network causes a negative impact upon the computing experience of the community, the school reserves the right to terminate the network connection of the computer causing the problem. Example cases that apply are: massive downloads, defective network cards, viruses, and defective/hostile software.

During the boarding study hall periods at night, computers should only be used for academic purposes.

Infractions of these technology guidelines can range from a computer simply being removed from the network to a student not being allowed to have his/her computer on campus. More serious offenses could result in general disciplinary proceedings in front of the Deans or the Disciplinary Committee. When questions of appropriateness rise in relation to computer use at St. Stephen's, students should not hesitate in contacting faculty members for clarification.

 report comments/corrections about this page to: techsupport@sstx.org