Updated August 31, 2023
Welcome to EDUCAUSE Connect
Welcome! EDUCAUSE Connect is the place to connect and collaborate with higher education technology professionals. To ensure a positive experience for all, please take a moment to review the following guidelines and community etiquette. If you have questions, please contact us.
General Overview
The opinions expressed in forum discussions (and direct messaging) are those of individual subscribers and are not necessarily those of their institutions or companies. EDUCAUSE as an association neither expresses an opinion about nor endorses products or services and is not responsible for the opinions expressed on any of the discussion lists it supports.
EDUCAUSE seeks to create safe and welcoming environments for all individuals to network, learn, and share. As a community we do not tolerate discrimination, abuse, or harassment of any kind by anyone. Prohibited behaviors include, but are not limited to, harassment or intimidation based on race, religion, language, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, appearance, or other group status; sexual harassment, including unwelcome sexual attention, stalking (physical or virtual), or unsolicited contact; and disorderly or disruptive actions.
EDUCAUSE is committed to the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility (DEIBA) and urges all posts and interactions on EDUCAUSE Connect to be sensitive to DEIBA dynamics. Likewise, we ask that when sharing resources, please provide streaming media captions/transcripts and descriptive image ALT text for users with visual impairments and consider IT accessibility best practices.
EDUCAUSE’s Privacy Notice describes how we use and protect your personal data. The platform, Higher Logic Communities, has its own privacy policy. Connect users are subject to both privacy policies.
Community Etiquette
The etiquette guidelines below are best practices and expectations for using the entirety of the Connect platform including Community Group discussions, mentoring, and volunteering modules.
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Be kind.
Be kind in your discussions and interactions. While offering different opinions is encouraged, any attack on a person will be removed.
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Be professional.
Queries and dialogue should focus on Community Group topics and be conducted in a courteous, professional tone. This also applies to communication between mentors and mentees as well as volunteers.
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Be clear and concise.
State concisely and clearly the topic of your message in the subject line of your Community Group posts. This allows people to respond more appropriately to your posting and makes it easier for people to search the Community Group archives by subject.
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Be transparent.
Transparency is an important element of this platform. Therefore all postings should be signed with the subscriber's name, institutional/organizational/corporate affiliation, and email address.
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Be cautious when discussing products or services.
Product endorsements are acceptable if made in the context of a request for information or sharing of an experience. The information posted on open discussion forums and in libraries could be available for others to view, and comments are subject to libel, slander, and antitrust laws.
Unacceptable Use
The following Unacceptable Use items are enforced as terms of platform use:
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Any unsolicited commercial communications, including but not limited to:
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Promotional announcements and advertising
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Product-related press releases
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Marketing or sales of products or services
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Promotion of opportunities that are intended to collect email addresses for commercial use, including but not limited to webinar registration, access to gated content, or mass email marketing
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Direct collection of email addresses for commercial use
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Product endorsements
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Any misuse of administrative privileges or data, or violations to data privacy, including but not limited to:
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Profile scraping of any kind,
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Misuse of private data. All reporting functions and access to subscriber data by CG Leaders must be used solely for the purpose of engagement and overall Community Group health and not shared or repurposed.
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Posting unsuitable content. Events and homepage content should be appropriate and pertain to the subject of the CG.
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Posting any information or other material protected by copyright without the permission of the copyright owner. By posting material, the posting party warrants and represents that he or she owns the copyright with respect to such material or has received permission from the copyright owner.
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Cross-posting on more than two Community Groups. Select your groups carefully and avoid “spamming” with multiple postings about the same content.
Reporting Suspected Violations or Concerns
EDUCAUSE reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to take any action deemed necessary and appropriate in response to violations of these guidelines, including but not limited to removing and/or moderating the offending post or discussion, issuing written warnings, termination of the EDUCAUSE Connect Profile, revocation of an organization’s EDUCAUSE membership in accordance with the EDUCAUSE member bylaws, revocation of an individual’s volunteer status, and prohibiting attendance at virtual or face-to-face events.
Complaints are not to be posted to EDUCAUSE Connect and should be filed confidentially. All resolutions will be handled by EDUCAUSE in its sole discretion.
If you believe one or more of these guidelines has been violated, please do the following:
All information will be kept confidential, and EDUCAUSE staff will moderate posts and communicate to offenders as needed.
Additional Guidelines
Job Postings
We encourage those who are looking for broad reach and visibility to post and browse the EDUCAUSE Career Center; list participants who have specific postings of relevance are allowed to post individual positions of interest to the community.
Surveys
Informal professional opinion or use surveys are acceptable but should be brief and should encourage offline responses. In keeping with the educational spirit of the platform and communities, you are encouraged to indicate how the responses will be used and share a synopsis of any information you gather.
News Media
Media professionals are welcome to subscribe to Community Groups to stay informed of the latest campus issues. Interaction on the list should be in the spirit of the educational nature of the groups, with these media-specific guidelines:
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Media representatives are welcome to pose questions and participate in discussions intended for the Community Groups' subscriber community. They may NOT, however, ask questions or invite separate follow-ups to the full list expressly for the purpose of soliciting contributors to pending articles or other editorial content. Out of respect for the purpose of Community Groups, we ask that media or corporate representatives do not solicit input to develop content or quotes for their own publications via the CGs. NOTE: This guideline does not preclude media or corporate representatives from following up directly with individual subscribers who post to a list.
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All postings to a discussion forum by a media representative should clearly identify the representative's media status and affiliation, i.e., not just through a signature block.
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No posting to a discussion forum may be quoted without the explicit consent of the poster. Such consent should be requested privately and may be established with an email to that effect from the author. If a posting is quoted without the author's express consent, the person in violation will be asked to refrain from repeating that mistake in the future. Any subsequent failure to follow these provisions will result in the termination of the individual’s access for a period of time to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
When group content is quoted or referred to in an article, or when a story is based in whole or in part on group discussions, media representatives are requested to note that the source was an EDUCAUSE Community Group.