About
Instant Messaging (IM) is a useful real-time communication tool. At Concordia University Portland the use of IM is permitted for both internal communication and communication with external stakeholders. The following guidelines and limitations should be observed:
Limitations
- All IM accounts used for university communication should be established using your Concordia University E-mail address.
- You must make your credentials for university IM accounts available to your supervisor.
- You may not take your IM accounts established for university business with you when you leave the employment of Concordia University.
- University IM accounts should not be used for personal communications beyond that included in the university AUP.
- The university does not presently support any specific IM protocol. It is up to individual users and departments to determine which IM protocols best fit their needs.
- All legal and regulatory rules must be observed in the use of IM.
- IM is not a confidential transport and should not be used for communicating confidential information.
- All IM history or log files should be handled consistent with your department’s policy on data retention or as required by law.
Guidelines
- For internal communications, the ITS team presently uses Teams.
- The ITS Team recommends the use of the free multi-protocol IM clients Trillian or Teams.
- ITS uses a standard naming convention for accounts (username + cupdx such as “jdoecupdx”) for more easily identifying other users and avoiding potentially questionable usernames.
- ITS requires all staff to be signed in to IM while on-duty to promote effective communication between different physical offices and telecommuting team members.
*These guidelines are used by ITS and are suggestions for other departments but not requirements.
Reviewed by B.Metzler 8/1/2013
Approved by M.Wahlers 10/31/2012