Conference 7.286::digital

    Sending results via interoffice mail is "private use" of DEC's mail 
    facilities, and against corporate policy.
    
    q
    
    
    

    I agree...Michel, you're breaking the rules.  Also, I believe this
    should be cleared with corporate public relations before you go any
    further.

    
    
    
    Wait .1 and .2, it is also DEC's corporate policy to encourage
    employees to pursue further education. Pardon my ignorance but what is
    the difference between .0's pursuits and someone using DEC's Lotus for
    an accounting course, Fortran or Cobol for a programming course, or
    Dec's word processing for term papers. All of this is use of company
    property for "private" activities.

    I don't believe it is breaking the rules.  It is for an educational
    use, and Digital supports using the computer resources for courses, and
    supports the Matching Gift Program for education purposes. 
    Questionaires for university courses and projects have been sent out
    over the net before, and I have never seen a question raised.

    So my personal opinion is that the basenote request is well within the
    rules.

    I guess the mail rooms will be the judge of that.
    
    q
    

    Re: .-1

    The mail rooms have demonstrated on some occasions that they are not
    capable of distinguishing private from business mail.  There is another
    topic in here where that is discussed, and I believe it has a note from
    the head mail manager on what the mailrooms are not supposed to do.
    
    So perhaps you are right: the mail rooms may be the judge. 
    Unfortunately.

    
    The problem with .0 would seem to be that as currently worded, it comes
    across as possibly a graduate-student project that is using, and
    encouraging the use of, corporate resource for non-work-related
    activities. ("Hi! I'm working on a university project to study
    education levels as related to job satisfaction. If you'll fill ou this
    form and send it back by interoffice mail...")
    
    (Compare to: "Hi! I'm with the Corporate xxxx group, and we're working
    on a project to study education levels within the company as related to
    job satisfaction. If you'll fill out this form and send it back by
    interoffice mail...")

    Corporate resources for some non-work-related university courses are
    approved.  Nobody objected last term when I used the computer resources
    for the data-base course I took.  I do not work with databases as part
    of my regular job.
    
    There are two possible issues here:
    
    1.  Does Digital want the information requested to go outside Digital?
    
    2.  Is the course the basenote author is taking part of an approved
    Digital educational program, either related somehow to author's job or
    as part of the author's degree program?
    
    If both answers are YES, then there is no problem.  If either answer is
    NO, then there might be a problem.

I hid the base note and sent mail to the author - I believe that it
was an inappropriate use of corporate resources and also of this notes 
conference (DIGITAL is not intended as a bulletin board or a means of
distributing surveys.)

If it had been a corporate-sponsored survey, the response may have been
different, but it appears this is a personal project of a student who happens
to be working at DEC and who thought of using DEC's corporate network to
solicit responses for her project.

				Steve

    Author of base note....please send me some mail...and I'll
    tell you about my experiences of surveying within Digital 
    for a bachelors degree project.
    
    I completed the project, but saw some interesting management-level
    scrambling over policy....
    
    Cheers,
    
    Gil