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Student social media guidelines unveiled
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by Cindy Abole
Public Relations
At college campuses across the country, online social networks have
become a way for students to stay connected with people and boost
friendships. Unfortunately, the information that students, staff and
campus departments post can be seen by others.
Darlene Shaw, Ph.D., associate provost for Education and Student
Life, helped initiate these new guidelines to help colleges and
students use social networking tools more effectively.
The guidelines were prepared under the guidance of university
leadership and a campuswide committee to address issues and
provide a quick reference to students, according to Chris Pelic,
M.D., associate dean of students, College of Medicine, and committee
chairman.
The top priority was to make students aware of these types of
tools—Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. They also made available
relevant guidelines and resources to help students.
Transparency
Be transparent about your identity and relationship to MUSC.
- Identify yourself
as an MUSC student only when appropriate; provide a disclaimer that
helps distinguish your views from those of MUSC; while there might be
reasons to register using your MUSC e-mail address, consider changing
to your personal e-mail address to avoid the misperception that your
views represent the views of MUSC.
Judgment
- You can be sued
for libel or slander.
- Membership in some
groups may reflect negatively on you.
- Be conscious of
potentially inappropriate images being posted of you.
- Be thoughtful of
the content of your wall posts and status updates.
Professionalism
Adhere to professional standards of conduct, including compliance with
all applicable MUSC and medical center policies.
- Off-campus and
off-duty, you still represent MUSC and your profession.
- Patients,
families, faculty, future employers, and the media routinely “troll”
sites.
- Maintain
professional boundaries with patients and their families.
- Do not post
anything about a patient (de-identified or not).
- Obtain written
consent before posting copyrighted material.
- Social networking
should not interfere with your professional duties or academic
obligations.
Personal privacy, safety
- Read the site’s
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
- Restrict access to
your personal information and remember to update your privacy settings
periodically.
- Consider maximum
privacy settings at least initially and beware sites often change their
policies without notifying you.
- Scams and identity
theft exist so do not post detailed personal information.
- Report any threat
of violence.
Computer security
Be aware of computer security risks. Social networking sites are
frequently targeted by cyber criminals.
- Do not use any
university or medical center computer that handles sensitive data or
supports critical functions to access social networking Web sites or
personal e-mail accounts without permission.
- Never use your
MUSC password on personal e-mail accounts or social networking sites.
When in doubt,
contact the University Compliance Office at http://academicdepartments.musc.edu/uco.
The MUSC Student Guidelines to Electronic Communications and Social
Networking is located at http://academicdepartments.musc.edu/webcopyright/studentguidelines.html.
Friday, Aug. 27, 2010
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