The University of Kansas Medical Center provides electronic mail (“email”) for use by faculty, staff, students, and select affiliates when engaging in activities related to instruction, research, clinical practice, public service, management, and administrative support. Email is an official communication mechanism for the University; University employees and students should regularly check email to assure they are receiving communications important to the University’s mission-related activities.
The purpose of this policy is to assure that email is responsibly used and managed and that privacy, confidentiality, security, and other concerns related to email are addressed.
The University’s GroupWise email system.
Everyone issued a KUMC GroupWise email account, including (but not limited to):
Archiving: moving GroupWise email from a GroupWise post office (online, active) to a storage location (offline, inactive, but easily accessed).
Broadcast email: sending email to groups of employees or students, whether through GroupWise Address Book Groups, GroupWise Personal Groups, or other means.
Chain email: Typical chain email includes names and postal addresses of several individuals whom you may or may not know. You are instructed to send money to the person at the top of the list, and then eliminate that name and add yours to the bottom. You are then instructed to mail copies of the email to a few more individuals who will hopefully repeat the entire process. The letter promises that your name will gradually move to the top of the list and you'll receive money.
Email: The University’s GroupWise email system; also, individual GroupWise communications
GroupWise client: the program grpwise.exe and its associated files; the GroupWise client is ordinarily installed on on-campus PCs that access the GroupWise system.
GroupWise WebAccess: the browser-based access to the GroupWise system available at http://webmail.kumc.edu
SPAM: Unsolicited "junk" e-mail sent to large numbers of people, typically to promote products or services
This policy applies to everyone at all campuses and sites of the University of Kansas Medical Center. There are no exemptions.
Email accounts
Each faculty and staff member, when beginning employment, and each student, when enrolling, is issued a KUMC email account with an address on the kumc.edu domain. This is the account used for University business and official University communications.
KUMC permits limited personal use of university email provided that such use does not interfere with KUMC operations, does not generate incremental identifiable costs to the Medical Center, and does not negatively impact job performance. However, as the volume of email for both professional and personal purposes continues to increase, KUMC encourages both employees and students to separate personal from professional email by acquiring a personal email account. There are a number of free sources of personal email accounts on the Internet; see the comprehensive directories at http://www.emailaddresses.com/ or http://www.fepg.net/ . If you have Internet access from home from a service provider other than KUMC, that service provider probably provides a personal email option as well.
You may not use KUMC email for commercial purposes, for personal financial gain, to support candidate or party fund raising, or to support outside organizations not otherwise authorized to use University facilities. If you wish to use KUMC email in support of external organizations (charities, for example), you need to secure approval of the Executive Vice Chancellor or the EVC's designate. The EVC will ordinarily approve such use only when it furthers KUMC's mission and goals.
KUMC email may be accessed either through the GroupWise client (the standard mechanism for on-campus access) or through a web browser (GroupWise WebAccess) at http://webmail.kumc.edu (the standard mechanism for off-campus access).
KUMC email accounts are the property of the State of Kansas. Employees who are leaving the University may not delete email without the approval of the Chair or Director. The University ordinarily disables email accounts of graduating students approximately 90 days after graduation; email accounts of students who withdraw during the academic year are disabled immediately. The University ordinarily disables employee email accounts upon termination from the University; emeritus faculty (only) who wish to retain their email accounts should have their departments contact the University's Security Administrator.
Privacy and confidentiality
The University supports a climate of trust and respect and does not ordinarily read, monitor, or screen electronic mail. University employees who read, disseminate or otherwise compromise the email of others without the express direction of the Executive Vice Chancellor or his designate are subject to disciplinary action, including dismissal.
Nevertheless, the University cannot assure the confidentiality or privacy of email. The University is a public institution and all University information, including all email communication, may be accessed through force of law. Authorized technicians access email systems to perform system maintenance. Schools or departments may need to access employee accounts to retrieve information important to conducting their business. The Executive Vice Chancellor or his designate may authorize access to employee or student email in a number of circumstances including, but not limited to:
For further information about access to electronic information at KU Medical Center, please see the policy on Access to Information Systems Files and Usage Records.
Responsible email practice
Please apply common sense and civility to your use of email. Responsible email practice includes:
Broadcast (bulk) email
Generally, only individuals specifically authorized may send email to groups of KUMC students or employees. Those individuals must follow the terms of the Campus-wide Communication Guidelines.
Under no circumstances may an individual use broadcast email for personal purposes (as, for example, to sell a personal item or promote a non-KUMC event).
KUMC email stored on campus servers or transmitted among campus addresses is encrypted and very secure. Email sent over the Internet (all email sent off-campus) is not encrypted and is substantially less secure (including all KUMC email forwarded off-campus to personal email accounts).
GroupWise/WebMail is protected by antivirus software at email gateways and servers. Certain types of file attachments which may compromise security are blocked from entering or leaving the campus (note: does not apply to standard file types such as .doc, .xls, .ppt, and .pdf). Attachments larger than 25 megabytes are also blocked.
See the Security Policy and the University's Security website for additional information.
Mailbox sizes, Deleting, Archiving
The Department of Information Resources implements a limit on the sizes of email “boxes” in GroupWise. If you believe you require an exemption from the limit, please contact the Director of Network Services.
Email should be kept active in the GroupWise system only as long as it is part of an active chain of communication. Inactive email to be retained for reference use should be archived; other email should be deleted. Information on archiving and deleting is at http://www2.kumc.edu/comptraining/gw/mailboxmgmt.html
SPAM management
The KUMC SPAM Firewall reduces the flow of mass-mailing and other junk email into the Medical Center. SPAM-management is enabled by default for all employees and students. For more information, including information on how to opt out of the SPAM-management system, go to http://www2.kumc.edu/help/spam.asp.
Accountability
The use of email for illegal or unethical purposes, for abusive and harassing activities or other violations of the rights of others, or for purposes inconsistent with University policy or regulation may result in termination of email access, disciplinary action, or dismissal.
For related information
For related information, including information about Broadcast, Critical Information, and Emergency alert email, see the University’s Campus-wide Communication Guidelines .
For more information about student use of email, see Student Email.
Contact Information
For information on this policy, please contact:
Jim Bingham
Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Resources
Chief Information Officer
University of Kansas Medical Center
2100 West 39th
Kansas City, Kansas 66160
(913) 588-7300
Revised October 25, 2005
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