Policies & Guidelines

The School of Nursing Information Technology Support staff (SoN IT) provides technical assistance and support for the School of Nursing computing environment for faculty, staff, and students. This includes assistance with classroom and auditorium equipment and the School's offsite locations.

 

All computers, peripherals, software, or devices requiring support by SoN IT or connection to the School of Nursing network infrastructure must be setup, configured, managed, and connected to the School of Nursing network by SoN IT.

 

Personally purchased computers and devices including speakers, scanners, and PDAs are not supported. If faculty are performing official University business at home or in the School of Nursing on a personal computer, we recommend that their department purchase or provide a computer for use. SoN IT will fully support any computer or device bought by the School and approved for use in the Nursing computing environment. On a temporary basis, faculty may check out a computer from the School for home use (see Equipment Reservations for details). 

 

School of Nursing workstations are configured to download security, virus, and OS updates and patches on a daily basis. In order to facilitate keeping workstations as up to date as possible it is recommended that Nursing faculty and staff:

 

See the Security Policies article for computer removal policies.

The purpose of this policy is to define The University of Michigan School of Nursing's criterion and rationale for assigning the various levels of administrative access on School workstations and servers. This policy was created in recognition that certain circumstances require that administrative rights be delegated to faculty and staff to perform their duties at the School of Nursing, but also recognizes the principle that the administrator of a workstation must be responsible for its maintenance, upkeep, and troubleshooting.

Access rights are to be assigned to faculty and staff based on the standard of giving access needed to perform work tasks. For most faculty and staff, standard user rights are adequate to allow use of applications and tools needed to complete work tasks in a timely fashion. Standard user rights prevent many viruses, trojan software and malware applications from being installed on workstations and provides the most stable system.

 

Some faculty and staff use applications that require that they be given administrative rights to their workstations. While giving faculty and staff administrator rights allows them to install software and make system changes as necessary, it also opens a large infection vector for viruses, trojans, and malware. Allowing individuals to install software also makes troubleshooting and diagnosing system problems very difficult because there is no way of tracking what changes have been made to the system.

 

This policy is based on the principle that the individuals who have administrator level access to a workstation are the de facto administrators for that workstation. As administrators, users with administrative rights have greater control and flexibility, but also greater responsibility for their workstations. Administrators are responsible for its maintenance and upkeep. SoN IT shall be wholly responsible for workstations which it administers, faculty and staff shall be wholly responsible for workstations which they choose to administer.

There are two levels of access available for faculty and staff: Standard User and Administrator.

 

By default all workstations are installed with standard user rights. This level of access allows most faculty and staff to use standard applications, print, and access the internet. It does not allow installation of software or changes to system files and settings. This is the most secure and stable level of access and is fully supported by SoN IT. Workstations with this level of access are managed and administered by SoN IT. All OS patches, security updates, virus updates, and software installations, and hardware troubleshooting are the responsibility of and are performed by SoN IT.
 

Upon request and approval, faculty and staff may be given administrative rights to a workstation. This level of access gives faculty or staff members complete access to the workstation. Faculty and staff can install hardware or software, manage local user accounts, and alter any system settings. This is the least secure and least stable level of access if the workstation is not fastidiously maintained. This level is not supported by SoN IT. Faculty and staff who require administrative level access will be required to administer their workstation and sign a compliance agreement indicating that they will adhere to all pertinent Federal, State, and University of Michigan computing policies and laws.