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