When a staff member leaves the department, there are a number of computer-related matters to be cleaned up. This procedure is intended as a guide to be followed by the departing staff member and his or her supervisor. (For the purposes of this document, student workers are also staff.)
Limits: This procedure is designed for staff members supported by the EECS Administrative Computing Group (ACG). If you work in a different group or department, this information may or may not apply to you.
Related Policies
ACG policy is to close computer accounts, both Unix and Windows, at the time that a staff member leaves. If a replacement is already in place, non-personal files can be copied to the home directory of the replacement. Otherwise, they can be copied to a central shared directory. In either case, supervisors should ask departing staff members to review their files and remove anything that is not needed and then work with ACG to get needed files moved out of the user's home directory before they leave. It is much easier to copy needed files before someone leaves; it might not even be possible after they're gone.
EECS employees and supervisors should know the IDSG account policies (especially the paragraph about user privacy) and backup/recovery policy. We use IDSG services for e-mail, calendaring, home directories, and login accounts, so we operate within the constraints of their policies. Specifically, if a supervisor wants access to a staff member's files after they leave, the supervisor needs to have a signed, paper consent from the staff member.
While a staff member is employed at the University, e-mail messages and mailboxes are protected by the University Electronic Communications Policy and can not be turned over to anyone, including a supervisor, without the explicit consent (which we require in writing) of the owner. Recent clarifications, however, indicate that this protection no longer applies after someone has left University employment.
Employees need to be aware that any files, including mail, on University-owned computers can and may be disposed of on the authorization of their former supervisor after they leave their position. Because of this, we strongly urge departing employees to review all files and mailboxes before leaving and remove any non-work-related material.
Mail forwarding is usually turned off at the same time as accounts, although it is possible to maintain forwarding on the departmental mail bouncer (cs/eecs.berkeley.edu) to another address at the user's request.
Any mail forwarding must be requested by the staff member, not the supervisor, before the staff member leaves. Likewise, any vacation message must be set up by the staff member before leaving; ACG can not set up vacation messages on staff accounts.
Mail delivery will stop and mail access will be turned off on the EECS imap server when the departmental account is closed. In order to have a vacation message, the account will need to be kept open and the monthly computer infrastructure fee (CIF) paid.
CalAgenda
If the departing staff had CalAgenda designate rights for room reservations, notify ACG so that their old privileges can be removed.
Files
Departing staff should remove any personal files on departmental accounts or computers. If you need help copying files to a diskette/cd/zip disk or to a non-departmental server, please contact ACG (acg@eecs) before leaving.
If there is time, departing staff should try to organize work-related computer files. This will make it easier for the replacement and supervisor to find things after the staff member has left.
If you have any questions about how to handle computer accounts and files when someone leaves a job, please feel free to contact ACG. It makes it easier for everyone if things are sorted out before people leave.
janp@eecs
Friday, 08-May-2009 16:10:39 PDT