Software installation on home computers

Clarification on the policy of installing University-licensed software on home computers.

Recently the University's software licensing agreements with Microsoft covering the University's use of MS system software, Office products, and some other site-licensed software has changed.

Under the terms of the new agreement, certain staff may have the software installed on a home PC that they own or lease for work related purposes only. The agreement specifies that we (in this case TSU) must install the software on staff home computers here at the University (we can't give them disks).

This will place undue pressure on the staff of the TSU if they are required to judge whether a particular staff member qualifies for the program and whether the computer is owned or leased for work related purposes only. Also, with the amount of work they have now such requests would have no priority, and it may take quite some time before staff would be able to get around to doing installations. Given that the TSU has no control over the other installations on the home computer, it leaves staff open to being required to give general support to the user should something go wrong with the computer during or after the installation.

The TSU is therefore not accepting requests to install MS software on home computers. This does not affect University-owned computers that staff members may take off-campus (such as those bought from consultancy funds). These are clearly covered by the Agreement and TSU has no difficulty installing site-licensed products on them.