/College of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Department of Computer Science

Account Types and Application Policy

1.0 Overview

The Computer Science department’s intentions for publishing an Account Types and Application Policy are not to impose restrictions that are contrary to SUNY Stony Brook CS department established culture of openness, trust and integrity. The Director of Labs is committed to protecting the SUNY Stony Brook CS department's faculty, students and staff from illegal or damaging actions by individuals, either knowingly or unknowingly. Internet/Intranet/Extranet-related systems, including but not limited to computer equipment, software, operating systems, storage media, network accounts providing electronic mail, WWW browsing, and FTP, are the property of SUNY Stony Brook CS department. These systems are to be used for the research and educational purposes of the department, and of our students in the course of normal operations. User accounts (a login and password combination) are the mechanism by which a person accesses the computing and communications services of the CS department.

2.0 Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to outline the types of accounts available for use on CS department systems and how to acquire access to the CS department systems. These rules are in place to protect the users and SUNY Stony Brook CS department. Inappropriate use exposes SUNY Stony Brook CS department to risks including virus attacks, compromise of network systems and services, and legal issues.

3.0 Scope

This policy applies to employees, contractors, consultants, students, and other workers at SUNY Stony Brook CS department, including all personnel affiliated with third parties. This policy applies to all equipment that is owned by, leased to, on loan to SUNY Stony Brook CS department or connected to any network controlled by or the responsibility of SUNY Stony Brook CS department and any accounts issued by the CS department or any lab therein. Labs falling under the DMZ Lab Security Policy may set their own internal accounts policies except where they conflict with existing CS department policy.

4.0 Policy

4.1 General Account Policies

These general policies apply to all CS department account types:

  1. CS department computer user accounts (Hereto referred to as user accounts. Persons with such an account are referred to as users) are an access privilege that is granted to a unique and identifiable person who must request and be granted access to the computer systems and CS department network. There is no overt or implied right to a CS department account.
  2. All CS department accounts are granted for an expressed CS department business related purpose. When the usage of the account changes from the original stated purpose, the user must notify the local administrative authority (Lab Manager, Lab Administrator, CS department Systems Staff) in case the account requires modification or termination.
  3. All CS department accounts have an expiration date. Accounts expire when the purpose for which the account was granted ends for whatever reason (e.g. student graduates or leaves the CS department, an employee’s relationship with the CS department ends, Access is revoked for violating CS department rules or policies, projects or courses complete or terminate). Accounts have an expiration date that may occur prior to the completion of the task(s) for which the account was created. When the account expires a person may request an extension of a finite period of time for the user account. Account extension requests are made to the local administrative authority (Lab Manager, Lab Administrator, CS department Systems Staff). Information concerning how to learn an account’s termination date is covered in FAQ’s on the CS department web site.
  4. All CS department accounts must adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy, Audit policy, Password Policy and all other department policies.
  5. All CS department accounts have resource restrictions (data storage quota, print quota, access to various systems). Users shall not attempt to circumvent resource restrictions.

4.2 General Procedure to Acquire an Account

These procedures apply to all CS department account types:

  1. No account will be issued without verification as to the requirement of the person for access to CS department systems. Verification must come from an authoritative source within the CS department: a professor of a course can verify a students need for an account for a course, a Lab Manager can verify the need for a person for an account in a lab, the administrative assistants or Directors of CS department programs can verify that a person has become a member of the CS department, a faculty member can verify the CS department business relationship need for access of a third party (e.g.: visiting researcher), the chairperson or Director of Labs can authorize access to CS department systems. In no case is a non-CS department authority sufficient to grant a person access to CS department systems. Positive verification in print, by phone or email is required. Lack of a nonnegative response is insufficient to grant a person access to CS department systems.
  2. Course instructors may request an account for each student enrolled in his or her course.
  3. Students and third parties should request access through the CS department member whom they will have a CS department-businessrelationship with.
  4. Employee accounts are authorized by the primary personnel director of the new CS department employee (typically the chairperson or a designated supervisor).

4.3 Account types and Attributes

4.3.1 Courtesy Accounts

  1. CS department faculty, chairperson and Director of Labs may request courtesy accounts.
  2. The person to be granted access must bring substantial benefit to the CS department through the access to CS department systems. The benefit may take the form of a research activity in conjunction with a CS department faculty or group, increased research funding opportunities, positive publicity for the CS department or university, support for department infrastructure or inter-Stony Brook departmental relations. Faculty may request courtesy accounts for their immediate family members. The family member must adhere to CS department policies and the faculty member is responsible for the activities of their family members using CS department access.
  3. Faculty or research group(s) requesting a courtesy account with access to CS department production systems and having their own (disk or disk space) storage available on those systems must “host” the storage of the courtesy account.

4.3.2 Course Accounts

  1. CS department faculty, instructor or lecturer may request a course account for students enrolled in the course he or she is teaching for the semester the course is being offered.
  2. Course accounts exist strictly to allow a student access to CS department systems to carry out activities associated with the course the account is created for and consistent with all other CS department policies.
  3. Persons with a CS department account may not be given a course account if they have sufficient access and resources presently to complete the coursework.
  4. The duration of a course account is two weeks after the end of the semester the account was created for ends.
  5. A course account’s existence may be extended if and only if: the course instructor has granted the student an incomplete for the course, the instructor makes the request for the course account to be extended, the course account is only used to complete the coursework. The course account will be extended for a finite period of time and terminated when the period expires.

4.3.3 Student Account

  1. Student accounts are given only to currently enrolled CS department students and terminate 30 days after the student graduates or immediately if a violation of department policies occurs, is suspected to have occurred or the student status changes for non-graduation reasons.
  2. Student accounts are strictly for the purpose of pursuit of education and associated research and must follow all CS department policies regarding system access and usage.
  3. Verification of the student status with the corresponding administrative assistant or program director must be made prior to assigning an account to a student.

4.3.4 Faculty Account

  1. Faculty accounts are restricted to current employees of the CS department who have the job title of faculty, instructor, lecturer or research faculty (including all Assistant, Associate, Full and Leading variants).
  2. Verification of faculty status will be made through the chairperson
  3. Faculty accounts expire 30 days after termination of employment in the CS department
  4. Faculty must adhere to all CS department policies regarding system access and usage.

4.3.5 Staff Account

  1. Staff accounts are restricted to current employees of the CS department who have the job title of secretary, administrative assistant, receptionist, support person or any variant (e.g.: technical support, system administrator, research secretary)
  2. Staff employed as part of a research grant or using research funds should have their disk storage located on resources of the research group when available.
  3. Verification of staff status may occur through the chairperson or the supervisor of the employee.
  4. Staff must adhere to all CS department policies regarding system access and usage.
  5. Staff accounts are removed upon the termination of employment in the CS department.

4.3.6 Course Instructor Account

  1. Course Instructor accounts are restricted to the current instructor for a given course.
  2. The current instructor must request the account creation.
  3. The account terminates two weeks after the end of the semester the course the account was created for
    ends.
  4. The course instructor must adhere to all CS department policies regarding system access and usage.

4.3.7 Project Account

  1. Project accounts are assigned to current users or groups of users to provide access, for the goals of the project, to greater resources than an individual account has access to (typically storage or access to restricted systems).
  2. The expiration of the project account must be agreed to at the time of project account creation. The expiration date may be extended if the project remains active beyond that date.
  3. Only a CS department faculty member may request a project account.
  4. The persons with access to the project account must be enumerated prior to acquiring the project account.
  5. Changes to the membership of the project account must be communicated to the local administrative authority (Lab Manager, Lab Administrator, CS department Systems Staff).
  6. When users leave a project group the password of the project account should be changed within one week.
  7. Users with access to a project account must adhere to all CS department policies regarding system access and usage.
  8. Violation of department policies or suspected violations will result in disabling of the project account until remedial actions can be taken in adherence with department policies.

4.3.8 Teaching Lab Account

  1. Teaching lab accounts are a generalized version of course accounts and follow the policies of course
    accounts.

5.0 Enforcement

Any user found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action

6.0 Definitions

Business

Business-Related — The “business” of the Computer Science department is education of Computer Science and Information Systems students and research in Computer Science or Information systems.

User — Any person authorized to use department facilities (faculty, staff, students, guests, researchers)