BBC reported earlier that Tollbar Business and Enterprise College (located at Station Road, New Waltham, Grimsby, UK) suspended 74 students from downloading a game from the internet (the name of the game was not revealed).

The actual downloading of the game was done in public computer units, available for everyone’s use. There are around 1000 computers provided by the school for educational purposes. The principal of the college, David Hampson, decided that the students should be suspended for breaching the IT Policy.

A lot of students feel understandably shocked, if not outraged, to the extremes that this whole issue reached. First off, the principal, if not anyone from their staff, should have at least named the game downloaded by the students. Most campus IT policies state that only downloading ILLEGAL content can warrant such heavy punishments, such as suspension (which all the students received, no word yet when it will be lifted).

Taken from the UC Berkeley website (http://www.berkeley.edu), this IT policy states “Campus computer use and network access is a privilege, and requires that individual users act responsibly. Users must respect the rights of other users, respect the integrity of the systems, data, and related physical resources, and observe all relevant laws, regulations, and contractual obligations”. We searched for laws and regulations from campus websites stating specifically that games are not allowed, but we failed to find such. Mostly copyrighted materials are not allowed.

Although, some IT Policies specifically states that if the integrity and performance of the network is compromised by the student’s internet activity, the school has the right to act against the student. Games, as we all know, take up lots of space and bandwidth. There are actually hardware developments for the needs of gamers alone, as the traditional hardware (normally for office and academic uses) cannot satisfy and keep up with the modern gamer’s needs.

(Oh yeah, we tried looking for the IT Policy of Tollbar in their website, but we failed to find it online.)

All the frustration from the university or campus based gamers would be considerably eased if the issue is further detailed.

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