• School Of Medicine E-mail Policy
• Computer Skills
• Operating Systems
• Software Standards
• iROCKET Usage Policy
• Policy on the Availability of Lecture Audio Recordings
• Statement on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) & Smartphones

School of Medicine E-mail Policy

UCSF provides each student with a Mail@UCSF e-mail account upon matriculation in order to participate in the professional activities of education, research and patient care. Communications sent and received within the Mail@UCSF environment ensure timely communication on essential aspects of academic activities and provides a secure environment for sharing confidential information, such as research data and protected health information.

Mail@UCSF provides each member of our community with a professional identity for electronic communication that certifies connection to the University of California, San Francisco. This identifies a student as a member of our professional community to other UCSF faculty, staff and students, as well as to colleagues at other institutions.

In order to meet the professional and academic requirements of our degree programs, students must meet the following standards for proper use of their Mail@UCSF account.

• Check their Mail@UCSF e-mail account regularly.
• Maintain their Mail@UCSF account in working order by responding to notifications about storage limit, spam and virus issues.
• Contact Mail@UCSF customer support regarding any questions or problems.
• Maintain subscriptions to the appropriate class listserv(s).
• Use the UCSF Secure Messenger service when it is necessary to send confidential data outside of the Mail@UCSF system.
• Use e-mail in a manner consistent with the UCSF Medical Student Statement of Principles and the UC Communications Policy.

Compliance with this policy precludes students from automatically forwarding their Mail@UCSF account to an outside e-mail system or using an external email service not under the student's control, to check, store or send their UCSF email. Compliance with this policy further ensures that students will receive important, timely, and required communications regarding their education, research, and patient care activities at UCSF.

Updated: January 2008

Computer Skills

Students are required to have basic computer skills and be able to do the following from campus computing facilities or from home on a daily basis:

• access instructional Web sites,
• access information resources (library, patient data, affiliated hospitals, etc.),
• send and receive UCSF-based electronic mail (e-mail),
• use standard productivity tools (word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software,); and
• confidently complete basic computer skills without assistance.

Operating Systems

Windows/Intel platforms are strongly encouraged. However, computer-based instructional programs developed by the School of Medicine as part of the curriculum should be accessible by students regardless of the operating system or hardware platform. This includes materials developed and made available on the Web and those distributed on disk or CD or shared as electronic documents. Faculty who want to distribute "optional" software to the students on only one operating system can do so as long as students are not held accountable for its use.

Software Standards

Software standardization within each class is vital so that students, faculty, and staff can share documents. Therefore, whatever the Class "minimum" standard software is, documents/attachments must be shared in that compatible format within the class. Individuals who upgrade their software beyond the Class "minimum" need to provide documents in the "class compatible" format.

iROCKET Usage Policy

All iROCKET courses, and materials contained within, are intended solely for the individuals permitted access to the curriculum by the School of Medicine and may not be reproduced or disseminated without permission. Sharing of accounts, course files, web links, or other materials with anyone other than an enrolled or authorized individual is a violation of this policy. iROCKET materials may be protected by copyright; any further use of this material may be in violation of federal copyright law and University of California policies on the use of course materials. Further details can be found in the University of California Guidelines on the Use of Course Materials.

Policy on the Availability of Lecture Audio Recordings

Audio recordings of lectures in the School of Medicine curriculum are intended for review of course content and are not provided as a substitute for attending lecture. The production and availability of lecture audio recordings is at the discretion of the course leadership. Audio recordings of lectures will be made available to students through iROCKET within two (2) business days following the lecture. When appropriate, course directors or administrators will communicate delays in posting the audio recordings. Technical issues with recording equipment, microphones or public address systems that arise during the lecture may lead to a loss of the recording and are not grounds for delaying or repeating the lecture.

Material delivered during the course of the lecture is the intellectual property of the faculty member and permission to record the lecture is provided at the faculty member’s discretion. Some lectures may not be recorded due to faculty requests, sensitive or protected content or technical issues.

Medical student use of these recordings is consistent with the iROCKET Usage Policy and University of California Guidelines on the Use of Course Materials.

Statement on Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) & Smartphones

The School of Medicine does not currently require the use of a personal digital assistant (PDA) or smartphone for medical students. A PDA or smartphone is not required to meet the objectives of any part of the required medical student curriculum. As there are many factors and personal preferences which go into selecting a PDA or smartphone, the School of Medicine does not have any general recommendations on devices or software. If you have questions about PDAs or smartphones, you are encouraged to speak with your fellow classmates or to schedule an individual consultation with the ILC medical student help desk staff.