Social Networking

Section 5.H.1 – College-Sponsored Social Networking

Vance-Granville Community College (VGCC), its departments and individuals in their capacities as VGCC employees are encouraged to use social networking to enhance instruction; inform constituencies about College activities and developments; build online communities of interested constituents; and provide a way for constituents to keep informed about VGCC and share thoughts, ideas, and experiences through discussions, postings, photos, and videos. Constituencies may include but are not limited to current and prospective students, alumni, employees, potential donors and members of the community.

Online communities like Facebook and Twitter may help Vance-Granville Community College connect with its constituencies in many positive ways. At the same time, there is appropriate protocol while participating in online communities. Administrators for official Vance-Granville Community College social media sites should be aware of the following:

• You are posting content onto the Internet and you cannot ensure who does and does not have access to your information.
• Information you post online may continue to stay on the Internet even after you erase or delete that information from pages.
• Before participating in any online community, understand that anything posted online is available to anyone in the world. Any text or photo placed online is completely out of your control the moment it is placed online – even if you limit access to your site.
• By agreeing to the terms of use, online communities have your permission to republish your content worldwide and share information with advertisers, third parties, and law enforcement, among others.
• Do not post information, photos, or other items online that could reflect negatively on you, your family, Vance-Granville Community College, or agencies affiliated with the College.
• Be discreet, respectful, gracious and as accurate/factual as you can be in any comments or content you post online. Take particular care of spelling, punctuation and grammar — it does reflect on you professionally, as well as on the College.
• Do not post any personal information, photographs or confidential information about the College or students, faculty, or staff associated with the College on a VGCC-sponsored social media site. Do not link to personal Facebook pages or any
  other social media networks.
• Only official VGCC-sponsored media sites may be used in conducting official business of the College.

(approved July 16, 2018)

Section 5.H.2 – Responsibilities and Usage by Students, Faculty and Staff

The Marketing Department is responsible for posting materials to the College’s main social media sites. Individual clubs, instructors, program heads, student organizations, etc. may also maintain approved social networking pages for their specific needs and areas. These specific sites must be approved by the respective dean or director and the vice president of that division prior to posting any material. If the pages are used for instructional purposes, the content, quality and quantity of materials should be approved by the dean prior posting.

Individual clubs, instructors, program heads, student organizations, etc. also may post content on social networking sites for their specific needs and areas in alignment with the guidelines indicated for college-sponsored social networking policy. The department dean or director is responsible for reviewing and approving all posted material.

Social Networking Disclaimers

Official VGCC social networking sites must include the following disclaimers:

Site administrator content

The comments and postings on this site are those of the site administrators and do not necessarily reflect Vance-Granville Community College opinions, strategies or policies.

User-generated Content and Disclaimer

Vance-Granville Community College accepts no responsibility or liability for any data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, images, video, messages, or any other materials or content generated by users and publicly posted on this page.

Inappropriate Content

Anyone who believes that a site includes inappropriate content should report it to the Vance-Granville Community College Vice-President of Institutional Research and Technology, [email protected].

Disclaimer for content on linked sites

Vance-Granville Community College accepts no liability or responsibility whatsoever
for the contents of any target site linked from this page.

Terms of Use

By posting content, you represent, warrant and agree that no content submitted, posted, transmitted, or shared by you will infringe upon the rights of any third party, including but not limited to copyright, trademark, and privacy; or contain defamatory, discriminatory or otherwise unlawful material. Vance-Granville Community College reserves the right to alter, delete or remove, without notice, the content at its discretion.

Copyright

The content is subject to copyright laws. Unless you own the rights to the content, you may not reproduce, adapt or communicate the content, or use the content for commercial purposes, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Section 5.H.3 – Personal Social Networking

All employees of Vance-Granville Community College shall be of character, habits, philosophy, and competence that their influence upon students, each other, and upon various publics of the College is wholesome and constructive. All situations that violate College policy may be subject to appropriate disciplinary actions.

• Ensure that your social networking activity does not interfere with your work. Check with your supervisor if you have questions.
• Let your activities and pictures show that you are a professional.
• When you participate in social networking, you need to be careful about the information you provide and to distinguish personal from professional comments.
• When participating in social networking, be aware that College policies prevail, in particular, those pertaining to student information.
• Use your personal email address (not your vgcc.edu address) as your primary means of identification on your personal sites.

(approved July 16, 2018)