Policy on Purchase, Inventory, and Control of Software

Approved by E&ES Faculty, October 17, 2000

This policy applies to software purchased by the Earth and Environmental Science Department (111 main account) for use by students and/or faculty. It does not apply to software purchased by individuals; management of that software is the individual's own responsibility.

The Department will appoint a Software Committee and a Software Manager. Susan Delap¹ will initially serve as Software Manager.

Purchasing Policy:

1. All software purchases will be for specific machines.
2. All software purchases will be coordinated through the Software Manager.
3. Requests for new software titles will be submitted to the Software Manager who will research price options, solicit opinions from other faculty and/or students, compile results, and submit findings to the appropriate program coordinator (if software is for teaching purposes) or the Software Committee (if software is for general department use). The program coordinator or Software Committee will make a recommendation to the Department Chair regarding the purchase.
4. The Software Manager will coordinate Department purchases with other campus software licenses, and with individuals (Department faculty or students) to meet minimum purchase requirements for volume licensing of software.

1. Software will be installed on computers only by the Software Manager or his/her designee.
2. Necessary backup copies will be made and controlled by the Software Manager.
3. Software will not be lent out.
4. The Software Manager will retain all software and documentation in a secure location. Expendable copies of documentation will be made available to users for checkout.
5. The Software Manager will maintain an inventory of purchased and public domain software and where it is installed.
6. Software installed on machines for which it is not registered will be deleted.

¹August 12, 2002 - The Staff Engineer was assigned the role of Software Manager.