ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some nuts-and-bolts legal problems in planning for the use of computers on college and university campuses. It presents the growing body of law designed to regulate information managers—this is usually called computer privacy. The decision to computerize a basic campus process has an important legal component. This component involves making judgments about the risk of liability for loss of hardware or software or for loss or mismanagement of personal information. Thus contract planning is particularly important to any computer project because most of the rights and obligations of the parties can be limited or expanded by agreement. High tecnnology is complex and subtle, containing many hidden risks. Any manager interested in rationally planning for computer contracting should focus on the fact that a large computer project makes the university act as its own general contractor on a highly technical project.
