Effective immediately, the Faculty of Nursing requests that students in the undergraduate programs use only their University of Manitoba email account (UMnetID) to communicate with course leaders, CEFs, and other members of the Faculty of Nursing. In addition, you are requested not to forward emails from your University of Manitoba email account to other email providers. In other words, when communicating with members of the Faculty, you are requested to send and receive email using your University of Manitoba email account. There are several reasons for this request.

1. Assignments from clinical and theory courses may contain confidential health information. Recently, the University of Manitoba FIPPA Review Committee (FRC) approved the emailing of assignments amongst nursing students, course leaders and clinical education under the following conditions only:
    a) there is no personal health information contained in the emails;
    b) all students will use the University of Manitoba email system (UMnetID); and
    c) all students who will be emailing assignments will have completed their PHIA Training.
2. Discussion of a student’s academic progress within a specific course or with respect to the student’s entire program is also a confidential matter and should only be conducted within the University of Manitoba email system.
3. The University of Manitoba email system is the only system over which the university has control and the only one for which we can verify that 1) the student has signed a user agreement with the university that they will abide by the policies that govern that system (including not sharing their password with others), and 2) the student has to log in with a unique identifier. Other email accounts may or may not have these attributes.

You are reminded that all students entering the Faculty of Nursing in the second year of the four year program attend a mandatory session on PHIA. Students in the BPRN program are assumed to have been oriented to PHIA regulations at their place of work. It is the individual student’s responsibility to comply with PHIA regulations and with the requirements set out in this memo. Students who fail to comply with these requirements will have this brought to their attention by the CEF or Course Leader. Continued failure to comply with the requirements will be dealt with by the appropriate Program Coordinator (Dr. Sandy Cosgrove Kluka or Ms. Sandy Gessler) or the Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Programs (Dr. Marion McKay). Penalties for lack of compliance with these requirements can include, but may not be restricted to receiving a failing grade in the course.

All course leaders and CEFs have also been requested to claim and use their University of Manitoba email accounts.

A University of Manitoba UserID can be claimed at: http://umanitoba.ca/computing/ist/students/

Information regarding University of Manitoba email accounts including who to contact for technical assistance can be found at: http://www.umanitoba.ca/computing/ist/email/index.html

Thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, you can discuss these with your course leader or contact me at: Marion_McKay@umanitoba.ca.

September 15, 2008