The purpose of this statement is to provide acceptable use policies for the use of TIES Internet facilities and services.

TIES is a joint powers cooperative owned by its member Minnesota school districts. It brings together technology and education to create comprehensive, cutting-edge solutions for school administrators, educators and students. In pursuit of this, TIES has established a wide-area high speed network service that provides access to its applications for its members and connection to other international, national, regional, and state network resources for all its members, customers and subscribers.

General policy

It is the policy of TIES to provide its customers access to the broadest possible range of organizations connected to the Internet. This is accomplished through connectivity to one or more state, regional, or national backbone networks. Any traffic that exits TIES networks and traverses the numerous other networks to which TIES is directly or indirectly connected must conform to the acceptable use policies governing those networks.

It is the responsibility of all organizations and individual users to:
• Use the TIES networks and its connected networks in a manner that respects the proper functioning of those networks and their supporting systems and the normal use of those facilities by others,
• Maintain use that is consistent with common ethical practice and accepted community standards,
• Respect the privacy of other users, and not intentionally seek information on, obtain copies of, or modify any files, data or passwords belonging to other users without permission,
• Respect the legal protection provided by copyright, trademark and license to programs, data, and documents,
• Minimize the use of non-authenticated or anonymous access accounts and the transmission or distribution of data, messages or articles from those accounts.

Unacceptable use

It is unacceptable to:

1. Use TIES network services and facilities for any purpose which violates any applicable laws or regulations.

2. Transmit any communications where the meaning of the message or the act of its transmission or distribution would likely cause significant offense or threat to the recipient or recipients.

3. Use TIES services and facilities to interfere with or disrupt other network users, services or equipment or compromise network security. Such interference or disruption includes but is not limited to:
• Transmissions of any type or quantity that causes interference of service
• Propagation of computer worms or viruses
• Wide-scale distribution of unsolicited advertising or transmission of unsolicited messages to inappropriate forums, mailing lists or e-mail addresses
• Use of the network to make unauthorized entry to or probing of other computational, information or communications devices or resources.

Enforcement and violations

All TIES customer organizations assume responsibility for providing reasonable publicity for the TIES acceptable use policy at their sites. TIES customers also assume responsibility for communicating this policy to appropriate administrative authorities at all sites connected to theirs via connections that are not directly supported by TIES and over which transit is provided to TIES networks. Ultimate responsibility for TIES policy conformance of traffic is with the individual end-user who originates that traffic.

The Executive Management of TIES or their designee will review alleged violations of the TIES acceptable use policy on a case-by-case basis. TIES reserves to itself the right of interpretation of these policies as applied to any individual circumstance or situation. Violations of the policy, which are not promptly remedied by the relevant organization or end-user, may result in disciplinary action by TIES up to and including termination of services and forfeiture of all fees paid.

Modifications

TIES reserves the right to modify this policy at any time.

Information

Questions related to the TIES acceptable use policy should be addressed to:

Director of Technical Services
TIES
1667 Snelling Ave. N.
St. Paul, MN 55108

651-999-6250
e-mail: help@ties2.net

Last modified: 2007-09-04