Minnesota Supercomputer Institute

Ethical Guidelines and Workplace Policies

The facilities and resources of the Supercomputing Institute are provided to support the research and scholarship of our principal investigators and their coworkers and students. The productive functioning of the systems and processes involved depends in part upon the cooperation of all users and participants. Any activities involving the computers, networks, printing devices, library, or other support facilities which disrupts their intended use or any activities that interfere with fair peer review or other administrative decisions is harmful to the Institute and to the community of researchers and scholars. Intentional participation in such disruptive activities or negligence which leads to such disruption is unethical and will be considered grounds for disciplinary and legal actions and for deauthorizing future access to the facilities and resources by the person or persons involved.

Such unethical behavior includes but is not limited to:

  1. disruption of networks;
  2. unauthorized usage or alteration of computers, computer systems, the computer network, software, programs, or data;
  3. unauthorized alteration or damage to computer or software documentation;
  4. causing resources to be wasted, including time of personnel, computer cycles, storage capacity, communications bandwidth, manuals, books, library materials, supplies, duplication, and printing resources, whether directly wasted by the user or wasted by responsible system people for detection, control, and eradication of infections;
  5. illegal copying of software, music and such, or running servers for the purpose of illegal distribution of software, music and such;
  6. compromised integrity of security systems, computer-based information, or the privacy of individuals;
  7. any attempt to sabotage the work of another person or any action which deprives another person of access to research opportunities or facilities that should have been available to that person;
  8. attempts to circumvent accounting systems;
  9. threats of disruptive behavior against persons, procedures, or facilities;
  10. posting obscene or other inappropriate material on the Internet.
  11. fabrication, falsification, misrepresentation, misappropriation, or plagiarism of research results or research proposals;
  12. conduct that corrupts the scientific record;
  13. failure to report conflict of interest;
  14. biased peer review or interference with a fair peer review by others.

Maintaining security is every user's responsibility. Users should keep passwords confidential.

All Supercomputing Institute researchers are encouraged to adopt cooperative attitudes towards research and scholarship in their own work and to encourage these attitudes in their coworkers.

The Supercomputing Institute strives, as do other departments within the University, to create and maintain a harassment-free workplace that is respectful to all persons coming into contact with the Institute. In so doing, the Institute prohibits offensive and aggressive behavior and will not tolerate such behavior in our workplace. Offensive behavior is defined by the Supercomputing Institute as action or conduct that has the purpose or effect of interfering with any person's work or their academic or professional performance, and includes verbal and physical behavior. Offensive verbal behavior includes, but is not limited to, abusive language and verbal aggression, including defiance; discriminatory remarks; derogatory and disparaging comments; bullying; combativeness; put-downs; threats; and swearing and profane speech. Offensive physical behavior is defined by the Institute to include, but is not limited to, physically intimidating body language; interfering with the free movement of another person; hostility, overt or otherwise; and unwelcome physical conduct of a sexual nature or otherwise.

Linking of PIs' personal web sites to MSI PI pages

A PI may have their personal web site linked to the page that MSI has for them and their research group, but content of the personal site must not violate the policy found at http://www.fpd.finop.umn.edu/groups/ppd/documents/policy/publishing_on_www.cfm and must include the following statement:

The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota.