Separation from Employment

Overview of Technology Services Recommendations

This site provides recommendations and procedures for the separation of faculty and staff from employment at Virginia Commonwealth University. Separation of employment is either voluntary or involuntary. Transfers from one job to another within the university is not considered a separation from employment, however, an orderly transition with regards to account access and documents should be considered.

Departments must separate employees in a timely and expeditious manner to ensure (1) proper internal controls and (2) good business operations as part of VCU’s Enterprise Risk Management Program, VCU’s Code of Conduct and the state’s Agency Risk Management and Internal Control Standards (ARMICS). Use the VCU HR "Separating faculty and staff checklist" to document separation actions.

Types of Separation

Voluntary Separation

A voluntary separation is one that results when an employee leaves university employment of his/her own initiative normally through resignation or retirement.

• Resignation - Normally, employees shall be expected to provide at least two weeks’ advance written a notice to their supervisor when they intend to separate employment. Department heads and managers are expected to give a minimum of 30 days’ written notice. If the employee is moving from one university department to another, a different notice period may be negotiated to continue services with minimal disruption. Failure to give adequate notice may adversely affect eligibility for reemployment with the university. The key here is to move quickly to address the items listed in the technology checklist to ensure a smooth transition. Remember, employee access to IT systems will begin moving through the “removal” process shortly after separation. It may be difficult to shift documents and knowledge after separation.
• Retirement - The normal retirement date for employees depends on the Virginia Retirement System (VRS) plan in which they participate. Some employees may be given extended access to university systems such as email. This is done usually through the “Affiliates” process. Contact HR for details.
• Disability - This can be either a work-related or non-work-related disability. The key here is to determine the expected period (short-term, long-term, permanent). Unexpected disabilities may call for a change in voice mail and the email out of office message. Long-term absences may call for access to employee documents and other records. Contact the IT Support Center for assistance.
• Transfers - Employees who transfer from one University department to another are expected to provide the original department with access or ownership to documents and records as needed (see details in the Technology Checklist section below). As a general rule, Technology Services will not transfer document ownership nor individual account access when employees move from one department to another.

Involuntary Separation (Dismissal)

An involuntary separation is one initiated by the University and may result in a variety of reasons, including the abandonment of position, reduction in workforce or dismissal. For additional information on involuntary separation see Classified Employee Separation and Discipline.

In this situation, a department head may need access to the separated employee's account or documents. An official request describing the reason(s) in detail for the request shall be submitted electronically via email to the individual's dean, equivalent administrative position (e.g., associate vice president, vice provost, vice president, etc.). The dean or administrative officer may delegate approval to a senior administrator in his or her unit. If the dean or administrative officer approves the request, they shall submit the request electronically via email with the related information to the VCU Chief Information Officer (ciovcu@vcu.edu) for approval. Approved request will be forwarded to the appropriate areas in Technology Services who will then create a support request and coordinate the change with the requesting department. More details can be found below.

Technology Service’s Checklist and Recommendations

University Assets (Desktop, Laptop, and Mobile Devices)

The employee's department must collect and follow university procedures related to items issued to the employee that was purchased with university funds, including but not limited to computer and computer software, computer-related equipment, and communication devices.

Recommendations:
Prior to the employee leaving, backup or transfer locally stored documents and shared drive stored documents as needed. Delete files not needed.

Contact the TS Desktop Support or your local IT support group to process New-To-You Computer Setup (a Computer Transfer).

VCUCard

The employee's department is required to collect and promptly return the employee's VCUCard (identification card) to the VCUCard Office. Additionally, a Help Desk ticket must be submitted to remove any door access the employee has tied to their account.

Recommendations :
RamBucks Balance Refund Request
Employees can follow the instructions below to request a refund on the balance of your RamBucks account:

1. Email vcucard@vcu.edu from your official VCU email account
2. Subject line: "RamBucks Refund Request"
3. Include in body: Banner V#, Date of Birth, Address (Records and Registration or Human Resources must have this address on file)
4. Wait 4-6 weeks for processing time: please note, a $5.00 processing fee will be deducted from your balance if you have a current status with the university or health system

Email / Email Accounts

The VCU Google Workspace for Education account will be deactivated when the Banner record becomes inactive.  The Google Workspace account, including email and Drive documents, will be removed in accordance with the VCU records and retention policies. VCU staff and most faculty (Emeritus or retired faculty are the exceptions) do not get to keep their VCU Google Workspace accounts after separating from VCU. If an employee or faculty member has questions about keeping their account active, then please have them contact the Dean or HR representative to see if they qualify for an affiliate status.  For Emeritus or retired faculty, the responsible department does have to enter the record into the "VCU Affiliate Database" with an EMER  or RET job class.  If immediate system access should be suspended, a support request should be submitted to the Identity Management team.

Note too that if an employee, as the document owner, has shared documents with others, they will no longer have access to the documents after the separation from VCU. The document “Closing your Google Workspace account” will walk you through various processes and options on how to deal with email and documents stored in Google Drive.

Departmental transfer requests - Upon notification of employee departure, the department should work with the employee to transfer ownership of shared calendars and Google Drive documents to another employee or a generic departmental account. If this exchange of ownership is not or cannot be completed before employee departure, a request to transfer Google Drive data to a departmental generic account may be sent to the Director of Central Services, Technology Services, for review and approval. This request should originate from a dean or equivalent administrative position. Any other requests for data from a former employee’s account must also follow these request guidelines.

Former Employee Special requests - University email accounts belong to the Commonwealth of Virginia. Employees lose access immediately when employment ends.If emails owned by a former employee are required, a request including detailed keyword specific criteria must be submitted to determine if data is available in the university's Google Vault.   

Ownership of an entire Google Drive may be transferred to a departmental generic account upon approval.

Access to email accounts or data from email accounts due to special circumstances which could be requested due to death or other special circumstances should be made through the Office of University Counsel for faculty/staff accounts or the Division of Student Affairs for student accounts.

Recommendations:
Procedures can be found at Closing your Google Workspace account. These procedures will help an employee navigate their transition from VCU with regards to their VCU faculty/staff Google account. The procedures include a list of scenarios with the steps to accomplish data transfer.

Telecommunications

Complete a support request to cancel Telecommunications long-distance user code.

Recommendations:
Obtain and reset the employee’s Voicemail password or Contact VCU IT Support Center at 828-2227 Press Option 2. We will reset your password. You must then change your password to a unique setting.  You may want to consider "wireless services" as well. Wireless services could include cellular/tablets billed to the department but used by the employee as well as Allowances the employee receives through payroll. Section 4 of the original Allowance worksheet requires an "end date." Please refer to your HR contacts within your department.

Banner Account Access

Banner (from Ellucian) is a suite of administrative software applications for student information, human resources, financial aid, finance, and more. It includes system interfaces to and from other processing systems at VCU and elsewhere. Banner Forms is the administrative user interface; access removal must be specifically requested and approved.

Recommendation:
Contact each of the Banner Administrative Systems (Finance at finsecurity@vcu.edu, Human Resources at hrsecurity@vcu.edu and Student at stusecurity@vcu.edu) to cancel Banner system access, as applicable. Or complete a support request for each of the areas (Finance, Human Resources, and Student) to terminate Banner access. Please note that the student info account termination uses a common "Banner Student Info Account Request" while the Finance and HR groups have specific categories and forms for terminating access.

Canvas Courses or Training Courses (formerly known as Organizations)

Email lsrequest@vcu.edu to request that an instructor be added to another instructor’s Canvas course, Banner created or not.

Recommendations:
Only under special circumstances will a Canvas administrator add an instructor to a course owned by another instructor. If the original instructor/owner of the course is still employed at the University, the requester must contact that instructor directly and ask to be enrolled in their course.

If the original instructor/owner is no longer reachable (deceased, no longer employed with the University, or cannot be located or any other reason), then the Dean of the School (i.e. the dean of the School of Nursing) must request another person be added to a course with Teacher privileges. Please see the Intellectual Properties Policy in regards to content that resides in a course and ownership of that content. In this case the Dean, not Canvas Administrators, assumes the responsibility for enrollment of an instructor in a course.

If an employee is no longer at the University, their Department Head or Dean is responsible for emailing lsrequest@vcu.edu to have the former employee’s Canvas account disabled. If such request is not submitted, then the account will remain in the system and access will be based on the status of their VCU eID.

Canvas courses are archived and removed from the system according to University and state-wide retention procedures, at which time, any former employee accounts that remain on the Canvas system will no longer have access to their courses.

Web Sites and Applications (Web Sites, T4, IIS Applications)

As part of the separation process from VCU, employees with website access should complete a support request to have their access removed prior to their separation.

Recommendations:
Departments who have recently had an employee leave prior to having their access removed should submit a Service Desk ticket on behalf of the former employee. Website access includes content management through the university's CMS, web server account access, blogging profiles, wiki contributor access or other departmental application access.

eID and Active Directory Access

After one year of inactivity eID (aka eDirectory or eDIR Account) will be disabled. Active Directory(AD) user account will be disabled as soon as the status of eDirectory account is set to “Former” (Employees and Affiliate: Inactive status in Banner; Students: is set to inactive if a student has not registered for a course in last, current and next semester). Application authentication via AD: App2go, Safenet wireless, KACE. Application Authentication to eDIR: VPN, CAS, Shibboleth, LANDESK

Recommendation: Complete a support request or contact ITSC (828-2227) to have their access removed sooner when needed.

LON-CAPA Courses

Complete a support request to add an instructor to another instructor’s LON-CAPA course.

Recommendations:
Only under special circumstances will a LON-CAPA administrator add an instructor to someone else’s course. If the instructor who set up the course is still employed at Virginia Commonwealth University, the person that needs to be added should contact that instructor and ask to be enrolled in the course.

If an employee is no longer at the University, their Department Head or Dean is responsible for submitting a support request to have the former employee’s LON-CAPA account disabled. If such request is not submitted, then the LON-CAPA account will remain in the system and access will be based on the status of their VCU eID.

Echo360 Access and Lecture Capture Content

Complete a support request to add a presenter to another presenter’s course-section in ESS.

Recommendations:
Only under special circumstances will an Echo360 administrator add a presenter to someone else’s course-section. If the presenter who is assigned to the Echo course-section is still employed at the University, they must submit a support request to have the person added as a presenter in their course-section.

If an employee is no longer at the University, their Department Head or Dean is responsible for submitting a support request to have the former employee’s Echo360 account disabled or removed. The Dean, not Echo Administrators, assumes the responsibility for ownership of the Echo content.

Kaltura Access and Content

Complete a support request to add an editor to another person’s media in Kaltura.

Recommendations:
Only under special circumstances will a Kaltura administrator grant editor access to someone else’s media content. If the owner of the Kaltura content is still employed at the University, the person that needs access should contact the content owner and ask to be added.

If an employee is no longer at the University, their Department Head or Dean is responsible for submitting a support request to have the former employee’s Kaltura accounts disabled. The Dean, not Kaltura Administrators, assumes the responsibility for ownership of the Kaltura content. If such request is not submitted, then the Kaltura account will remain in the system and access will be based on the status of their VCU eID.

University Operated Social Media Accounts

Enterprise Marketing and Communications provides VCU social media guidelines. These guidelines require the assignment of at least two designated community administrators, one of whom should be a full-time faculty/staff member, for social media accounts. Renew the social media account approval form whenever administrative or account changes occur.

Recommendations:

If an assigned community administrator of a VCU account leaves the university or no longer wishes to be a community administrator, it is the responsibility of the academic or administrative department to designate another VCU employee to be an administrator on the account and remove the former employee’s administrative permissions to the site (a new VCU social media account approval form should be submitted to the replacement employee).