Personal Laptop Use Policy at EUI

The EUI promotes the use of personal laptops by progressively increasing the number of public spaces where private equipment can be connected to the EUI network and by adapting the infrastructure to permit access to a number of services such as disk space, printing, mail, etc. 

It is the responsibility of each laptop owner to use these services appropriately and in compliance with all EUI and European regulations. Therefore we urge you to take the following things into account:

• The EUI network is a shared resource. Thus, using excessive bandwidth for extended periods of time and inhibiting the use of the network by others may result in termination of network services.
• Digital reproduction and distribution of copyrighted materials is against international law. Anyone found distributing (sharing) such material, including copyrighted music, digitized video from copyrighted motion pictures, copyrighted software, etc. will have their access to network services terminated.
• Attempts made by individuals to circumvent or defeat any mechanism put in place by the ICT Service to manage the network will result in immediate termination of their access to network services.
• The EUI network services and wiring may not be modified or extended beyond the area of their intended use of one computer per network socket.
• The EUI network may not be used for any commercial purposes or used to provide Internet or EUI network access to anyone outside the EUI community for any purpose.
• Faking or otherwise misrepresenting one's identity via e-mail or any other form of communication is a violation of law. This includes forging IP addresses or ethernet adapter addresses to conceal your computer's identity.
• Any unauthorized attempt to access another computer (on- or off-campus) is prohibited. Attempts to access other computers will result in the immediate deactivation of the suspected network connection until the matter has been resolved.

Full details on the above can be found in the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

The EUI assumes NO responsibility for costs associated with loss or damage to personal devices and associated equipment. In this context some degree of support (essentially diagnostic) can be provided.

All requests for help involving personal laptop computers and portable devices (like smartphones, etc.) shall be addressed to the Portable Device Support.

Before contacting Portable Device Support, we urge you to take the following things into account:

• Most problems can be easily solved with the help of manuals, help databases, or information available on the Internet.
• The ICT Service, via its Portable Device Support, can only provide support for personal devices owned by staff and researchers at the EUI. Therefore, we cannot provide assistance with laptops borrowed from other workplaces or from friends.
• The timescale for instruction/assistance must be agreed between you and the support staff.
• Before the support staff begins handling a user's personal laptop or other equipment, users should understand that service requested from the EUI computing staff for their personal computing equipment is ALWAYS based, with respect to the variety of hardware, operating systems, preferred configurations and combinations of software installed, on a "best effort" basis. Therefore, the EUI or the person performing the service cannot be held liable for any kind of damage, loss of use or data.
• Assistance with non-English versions of software is decided on a case-by-case basis.
• Users who own laptops configured by other institutions should contact that institution's helpdesk for any assistance, especially if they have a special network configuration already set up. This may include getting permission for network, anti-virus or firewall settings to be changed.
• The ICT Service provides instructions on its Web pages for connecting to EUI LAN and WiFi. These instructions are generally compatible with any properly configured Windows, Mac or Linux OS. It is therefore recommended that users carry out the initial network configuration by themselves on the basis of those guidelines.
• Only if you do not succeed in establishing a connection you may ask the ICT Service for help. However, this practice is discouraged because the inability to connect using the parameters given would already tend to denote the presence of a peculiar configuration which, if altered, might result in undesired consequences elsewhere.
• If the support staff make changes to your laptop settings to connect you to the EUI network, it is your responsibility (or your institution's responsibility) to reset them when returning to that institution.
• The ICT Service does not perform any physical maintenance nor rep[airs on laptops. In case of a hardware malfunction or any other warranty-related problem we recommend contacting your laptop manufacturer or retailer. Note that when having your laptop serviced by any computer shop, it is a good idea to bring along with you whatever drivers and/or operating system disks originally came with the machine.
• The ICT Service can only offer assistance with problems which are somehow related to work or research at the EUI. Assistance is limited to hardware diagnostics and operating system functionality within Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS and GNU/Linux (Ubuntu) platforms only.
• Installation of the research software packages available to EUI members under site licence is the user's responsibility. Any support for these packages is provided by the Research Software Tutors.
• Ensuring the security of one's own laptop by means of anti-virus, firewall, operating system updates, etc., is the sole responsibility of the laptop owner. Please check Virus Protection Policy, User's Rights and Duties for further details.
• Please back up your important files (documents, personal folders, stored e-mails, address books, libraries, etc.) beforehand. The ICT Service does NOT assume responsibility for any possible damage caused to the computer, or files lost during the maintenance process. The support staff can instruct and advise users on how to back up data but are not allowed to do this for the user.
• Please have a proper power supply and ensure you have administrator privileges on your laptop if bringing it to the support staff.