University and Blackboard-specific policies are relevant to Blackboard users because they speak to:
No user or administrator of the Blackboard system should use it in any way that a reasonable person would interpret as:
The administrators of Blackboard (OTE and Computing Services) will make every effort to:
There will be no unauthorized reuse, copying, or modification (i.e., removal from the system) of materials posted by either faculty or students on Blackboard unless those materials are part of a policy violation (e.g., intellectual property violation or violation of general Carnegie Mellon policies).
Note: If violation of policy has occurred, then notification will occur before materials are removed.
Although routine backups of Blackboard will be made, we cannot absolutely guarantee that any of the information placed on Blackboard will not be lost. For this reason, faculty and students are responsible for retaining their own copies of all pieces of information placed on the Blackboard system if loss of that information would prove damaging.
We emphasize to faculty that the grade book feature of Blackboard is intended for publication of grades for students and not as a secure, reliable repository of grade records.
Warning: Faculty are responsible for their own course back-ups. Also, keep a backup of the gradebook after every grading change.
Only faculty of record for a course can request that access be given to their course materials to anyone other than a student officially enrolled in the class (or provide access privileges through the administrative tools for their Blackboard course). The faculty making these requests or providing access privileges should be aware that they are thereby limiting our ability to prevent unauthorized access to materials and loss of critical materials from the system.
Warning:Be advised to limit "instructor" or "TA" access as much as possible to those individuals who are completely competent in using the system.
Acceptable use of Blackboard is governed by the general policies for acceptable use of computing facilities and other university-wide policies at Carnegie Mellon.
The administrators of Blackboard (Eberly Center and Computing Services) make every effort to minimize the amount of personal information about students and faculty that resides on the system. Only a user's name, Andrew ID, and an internal CMU ID (not the user's social security number) is all that is required.
The system is run under SSL encryption to protect all information passing to and from the system.
Faculty and students using the system should be careful to do nothing that might compromise the privacy of users. Faculty should familiarize themselves with the degree of class and public access that various choices in the Control Panel will permit. Specifically, please recognize that granting guest access will allow non-enrolled students access to many of the course materials.
All information posted should conform to Carnegie Mellon's Student Privacy Policy: http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/StPrivacy.html
Students' Rights to Privacy Guidelines published by Enrollment Services: http://www.cmu.edu/hub/ferpa.html
This means that care needs to be taken so that no student information is posted in a way that other members of the class can access it. (A simple mistake might be something like putting up an Excel spreadsheet with student names, ID numbers, and grades.)
Warning: Safeguard private student information.
Faculty and student authors of materials do not give up any rights to their ownership of those materials by posting them in Blackboard.
Users of Blackboard must adhere to U.S. copyright laws in posting materials for which they do not own the copyright.
This policy includes fair use guidelines: http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/Copyright.html
http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/StudentActivities/info/policies/copyrights.html
The "fair use" standards of the U.S. copyright laws allow the use of copyrighted material for certain educational purposes. The Blackboard system helps enforce fair use practices by limiting access to materials that you post to members of a particular class.
Fair use guidelines require more than limiting access to a class. The way in which you use material is important. It is important that you adhere to the fair use guidelines in using any copyrighted material.
Warning: Do not open access to guest users if you have chosen to use copyrighted materials for educational purposes in your class.
This policy includes fair use guidelines: http://www.cmu.edu/policies/documents/IntellProp.html