The below email policy and standard have been updated, approved by Cabinet, and issued:
IT.PO.180 – Email
Purpose
Email is the official form of written, electronic communication for Georgia Highlands College employees and should be used accordingly. The purpose of this policy is to define appropriate use of email.
Scope
This policy applies to any message sent from a Georgia Highlands College email address and applies to employees, vendors, and any other third parties operating on behalf of Georgia Highlands College. This policy also extends to all other written, electronic communication systems in use by the institution for the purpose of direct (one-to-one) or mass (one-to-many) communications.
Policy
The Georgia Open Records Act (O.C.G.A. § 50-18-72) requires public records be available for inspection to members of the public. Records such as electronic or printed documents, email messages, system logs, and metadata created by employees serving in an official capacity are considered public records regardless of where they reside. Additional state and federal laws may entitle members of the public to access to these records. Employees should exercise caution when sending or forwarding email from a Georgia Highlands College email system to an external recipient or his/her personal email account. Institution email should not be manually or automatically forwarded to an external recipient without explicit approval by an employee’s manager and IT.
Access to email is governed by the IT Password Protection Policy and Standard. Employees, vendors, third parties operating on behalf of the institution, and retirees have a responsibility to use email in an efficient, effective, ethical, and lawful manner. Email correspondences should always follow common guidelines for professional communications etiquette. Users may not imply or explicitly state that they represent a division, department, or the institution at large unless specifically authorized. In addition, the following email activities are prohibited:
- Using email to commit libel, fraud, harassment, or any other criminal activity.
- Transmitting defamatory, obscene, or threatening messages.
- Advertising the sale or purchase of products and services.
- Expressing political or religious views or using email to participate in a political campaign.
- Transmitting or storing copyrighted material without authorization from the appropriate copyright holder.
- Transmitting or storing Social Security numbers, credit card or bank account numbers, medical information, or personally identifiable information (PII).
- Sending campus or institution-wide distribution messages without specific, documented approval.
Employees may utilize email for incidental personal purposes provided this use does not:
- Violate institution policies.
- Interfere with normal operations of systems or information technology resources.
- Impose a cost to the institution.
- Interfere with an employee’s obligations and assigned job duties.
- Create or propagate unsolicited bulk email (spam) and chain letters.
Privacy
Georgia Highlands College recognizes the importance of freedom of speech, privacy, and academic freedom. Information Technology (IT) personnel will not routinely inspect or monitor email without a user’s permission unless one of the following conditions occur: (1) it is required for compliance with state and/or federal law; (2) there is reasonable assumption that a violation of a college policy or state and/or federal law has occurred; (3) there are time-critical operational circumstances; or (4) when IT employees perform duties in the normal course of systems administration, such as troubleshooting mail flow or delivery as defined in the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986 (U.S. Code § 2511):
“It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of a provider of wire or electronic communication service, whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire or electronic communication, to intercept, disclose, or use that communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service, except that a provider of wire communication service to the public shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.”
A limited number of IT personnel are granted administrative access to institution email systems. These employees must act ethically and responsibly in handling information while performing maintenance, upgrades, and repairs. Disclosure of email messages should occur only if a possible policy violation or criminal act is discovered and in accordance with a formal information request from the Vice President of Human Resources or per the Incident Response Plan.
Enforcement
Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment. Vendors, third parties operating on behalf of the institution, and retirees found to have violated this policy may have email privileges suspended or permanently revoked.
IT.ST.180 – Email
Employees, vendors, and any other third parties operating on behalf of Georgia Highlands College should follow these standards when using email:
- Ensure that messages are addressed to the appropriate recipient(s).
- Compose each message with a clear, concise subject line that matches the message body.
- Avoid using slang, jargon, and texting abbreviations and make a reasonable effort to ensure messages do not contain spelling or grammatical errors.
- Follow professional written communication etiquette and avoid extraneous items such as decorative backgrounds, pictures, music, animations, and videos.
- Never subscribe to electronic mailing lists that are not directly related to their assigned job duties.
- Use automatic replies that do not disclose sensitive, confidential, or personal information while away.
- Abide by USG records retention policies and procedures for written, electronic communications.
Information Security & Network Services is responsible for ensuring that unsolicited email (spam) protections are implemented for all production email systems. Spam messages may contain malicious software (such as viruses, spyware, and ransomware), may be a phishing scam, or may include web beacons to identify active email accounts. In the event that a spam message is not automatically filtered out, it should be immediately deleted. Users should never attempt to download or open an unsolicited email attachment and should report any suspected phishing messages to IT.
Email Signatures
GHC email signatures should use a black 10 or 11-point Calibri, Cambria, Arial or Helvetica font. Email signature should not include any images, logos, graphics (with the exception of the GHC logos in the templates below), personal contact information (such as personal phone numbers or email addresses), quotes or sayings, or any religious or political expressions. All employees, vendors, and any other third parties operating on behalf of Georgia Highlands College must use a standard email signature. The standard signature template contains, in the following order:
- [The employee’s name]
- [The employee’s title]
- Georgia Highlands College (except when the GHC text logo is used)
- [The employee’s office phone number]
- [Any other applicable contact number] (optional)
- [The employee’s GHC email address] (optional)
- www.highlands.edu (optional)
- (an approved GHC logo – see below) (optional)
- (sent from mobile device) (optional)
Approved logos are available for download from https://intranet.highlands.edu.
Email Signature Template Examples
(see full text version of this document below)
Enforcement
Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment.