Archive:Hit List/SU Law

Student copyright

 * Does the university claim an exclusive right to students' works?

Campus network

 * Are certain services or devices (e.g. p2p, gaming, network bridging, wireless access points) banned or limited from being attached to the network? What are the penalties?
 * Is there filtering limiting what sites or services students can access from the network? (e.g. Johns Hopkins blocks any access to the IP address of some major BitTorrent trackers.)
 * Are students permitted to run anonymizing services such as Tor?
 * How readily does the college release information about users of its network?
 * If the college provides legal services for students, do they extend these services to students who are sued for copyright infringement on the campus network?
 * Takedown policies on hosted Web sites?

Open access scholarship

 * Does the college maintain an institutional repository?
 * If there is not a university-wide repository, are there any departmental repositories?
 * Does the university have hiring, promotion, and tenure policies that support open access?
 * Does the university contribute to open access projects (e.g. financial support, hosting)?

Journal literature

 * Does the college have an institutional self-archiving mandate for faculty journal publications? Voluntary policy (e.g. "strongly encouraged")?
 * If the college has an institutional research fund(s), is there a self-archiving mandate for publications resulting from funded research? Voluntary policy (e.g. "strongly encouraged")?
 * Does the university have a fund for faculty who wish to publish in open access journals that charge processing fees?

Theses and dissertations

 * Does the college accept or require electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs)? Does the college mandate open access to ETDs? Voluntary policy (e.g. "strongly encouraged")?

Declarations

 * Is the university a signatory to the Budapest Open Access Initiative?
 * Is the university a signatory to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge?

Class software

 * Are students required to use non-free software for their classes?
 * If the school uses a course management system, is it FOSS?

Lab software

 * Are campus labs running FOSS?
 * No free OSes; no free applications running on non-free OSes
 * No free OSes; some free applications running on non-free OSes (e.g. Firefox on Windows)
 * Some free OSes available (i.e. on specific machines or via dual-boot)
 * Free OSes available exclusively

Open file formats

 * Are official documents of the college provided in open file formats (e.g. prospectus, departmental memos, meeting minutes)?
 * Are class documents distributed in open file formats (e.g. syllabus)?

Web standards

 * Are official college Web sites standards-compliant (valid HTML, CSS)?
 * Do official college Web sites use non-free design elements (e.g. Flash)?

Library digitization projects

 * Is the university digitizing its public domain holdings, if they're not previously available online?
 * If so, will the digital versions be openly accessible in a free file format? Will the university or its digitization partners claim copyright on the digital versions?
 * Is the university digitizing past dissertations (pre-electronic) where the author agrees? (e.g. )

OpenCourseWare

 * Does the university make its course materials available?

Patent policy

 * Does the college's technology transfer office file patent applications for software patents?
 * Does the college's technology transfer office file patent applications for business method patents?
 * UAEM / biomedical patent licensing

Trademark

 * Does the college claim trademark rights on its college colors? (e.g. )

Student privacy

 * What information does the college collect about students? How is that information used?

Free speech

 * Free speech zones?

Copyright "education"

 * RIAA et al. misinformation programs?

Freedom of information

 * Can you get the college's public records?

Random FOSS questions

 * Is the university's Web server run on FOSS?
 * Does the university use FOSS for other applications (administrative, research...)?
 * Is software developed at the university FOSS?
 * Does the university contribute to FOSS projects (e.g. code, financial, mirroring)?

Other

 * Notable free culture-related faculty or academic programs?
 * Other comments?