HEOA Compliance Plan

Purpose

In accordance with the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), signed into law on 14 August 2008 and went into effect on 1 July 2010, UAHuntsville's Office of Instructional Technology has defined procedures and plans needed to comply with the Instructional Technology portions of the HEOA.

Scope

This document applies to all users, Faculty, Staff, Students, and Visitors, of UAHuntsville's networks, wired and wireless.

Requirements

HEOA, in a large part, deals with the means of effectively combating the unauthorized file sharing of copyrighted materials on campus networks, specifying general requirements for all U.S. colleges and universities, to include in their written plans:

• An annual disclosure to students describing copyright law and campus policies related to violating copyright law.
• A plan to "effectively combat" copyright abuse on the campus network using "one or more technology-based deterrents".
• Promote "alternatives to illegal downloading".

Annual Disclosure

UAHuntsville's Dean of Students will send an email message to all students, during the fall of each year, to refresh their memories on copyright laws and campus policies, as part of the compliance office's annual reporting.

Link: Respect Copyrights

Technology Deterrents

UAHuntsville has implemented several technology-based deterrents to help combat illegal file sharing (distribution) of copyrighted materials.

1. The University operates and maintains bandwidth packet shapers which can limit the throughput of popular file sharing programs.
2. The University has a registered DMCA agent that receives and actively responds to all DMCA complaints.
3. The University is pursuing intrusion detection and prevention systems that are capable of detecting and blocking certain file sharing applications as well as other protecting the University's network from the worst malware seeking to take control of or stealing sensitive information from University owned computers.

Alternatives to Illegal Downloading

As part of the Annual Disclosure in the "Annual Disclosure" section, each student will be sent a link to the Educause list of legal and legitimate sites for content downloading - http://www.educause.edu/legalcontent,http://www.campusdownloading.com and U.S. Copyright Office.

For Questions regarding Copyright on the website or to report a DMCA violation

Please read our Copyright Disclaimer page found here: http://www.uah.edu/copyright