New Student Services' Social Media and Text Guidelines

Purpose

Establish guidelines, goals and objectives for the management and use of New Student Services’ (NSS) social media channels. NSS is a department within the Division of Student Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin (Texas).

Scope

Compliance with these guidelines are applicable for NSS staff members, student ambassadors and social media users interacting with NSS social media channels.

These guidelines align with The University of Texas at Austin Student Code of Conduct, Title IX and Website Accessibility Policy.

Monitoring

NSS’ social media platforms are regularly monitored by NSS page administrators during normal business hours, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. While administrators are responsible for moderating content, we cannot immediately review or respond to every comment. NSS is not responsible for any posts or content that is not our own and cannot guarantee the accuracy of those posts. Opinions expressed in non-university posts are not necessarily those of the university and its employees. 

UTOrientation and UTAustinNSS

The objectives of the UTOrientation social media channels are to provide information, promotion of events and updates pertaining to orientation, extended orientation, on-campus resources and other department-wide events for incoming students. UTAustinNSS social media channels focus on promoting year-round New Student Services programming and resources. UTOrientation and UTAustinNSS social media accounts are public pages.

Official Facebook Class Pages

The objective of official Texas class pages are to provide resources to assist undergraduate students with transition to university life and expectations, create a sense of community among fellow students and provide information about on-campus resources.

Most of the content in the official class pages are user-generated by group members with limited involvement from social media administrators. Administrators will moderate pages and provide important updates or resources when necessary. Official class Facebook groups are closed to the public, and only undergraduate students belonging to the class will be admitted by a page administrator.

The social media channels maintained by New Student Services (NSS) are intended to provide communication to students and facilitate conversation among students beyond traditional communication methods. These pages are considered official channels of The University of Texas at Austin (Texas), as such members’ posts should reflect the values expected of all Texas’ students and employees as defined by the university’s Nondiscrimination Policy and Standards of Conduct.

We encourage you to use social media to have meaningful dialogue with fellow Longhorns. However, when necessary, page administrators reserve the right to remove user-generated content or comments if they violate university policy or do not further the purpose of the group:

• Abusive, malicious, discriminatory material or racial slurs
• Personal attacks to an individual or threats of violence
• Illegal activities, promotion of drinking or drugs
• Advertisements of any form, including Buying/Selling (repetitive posts or spam)
• Pornographic material
• Copyrighted material
• Personally identifiable/sensitive personal information (class schedules, EIDs, student residence information)
• Links to outside pages not accessible to page administrators
• Off-topic discussions not related to the university in some way; this is at the discretion of the page administrators

Members who post any of the above content and/or violate the law or university policy may be removed or blocked by a page administrator at any time. Page administrators may also need to report posts to appropriate authorities if there are areas of concern.

For safety reasons, posts containing personal information such as email addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, class schedules or identification numbers will be removed. The Information Security Office provides privacy tips for ways to protect your personal information on social media.

Again, we are committed to maintaining a healthy dialogue and creating a welcoming and safe community for all Longhorns on all social media platforms. Please direct any questions or concerns to New Student Services at nss@austin.utexas.edu.

We’re thrilled to have you as part of our Longhorn family here on the Forty Acres!

Hook ‘em!

-New Student Services

New Student Services uses SMS text messages to provide orientation and program updates, as well as other important information. Standard text messaging and data rates may apply. Students may opt-out at any time by responding to the text message. Please note that opting out will remove you from all future communication from New Student Service.

Consistent with FERPA and other applicable privacy law, the University does not release personal student information, other than public directory information, to other parties unless the University receives explicit written consent, is required to do so by law, or for other legitimate ends of the University.