Process - Software Licensing & Compliance

Skip to a section: Who ensures compliance? | Why is compliance important? | What you need to do

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Faculty, Staff, Departments

Overview

The Department of Materials Management and ITCS work collaboratively with departments regarding software compliance. Managing software licensing agreements for large institutions like ECU is a very difficult and complex task requiring negotiations and renewals throughout the year. When software licensing involves various types of agreements, the ability to stay compliant becomes increasingly difficult.

The worst time to find out if an organization is compliant is when a software vendor performs an audit. Contact the Department of Materials Management with questions or concerns about software compliance.

Who ensures ECU is software compliant?

If you use an ECU-issued computer, it is your responsibility to inventory installed programs and to maintain proof of purchase for software licenses.

Departments should also track the number of installations per software license while documenting which systems have licensed software installed.

For example, if your department purchases five licenses for a software, only five systems should have that software installed. Any more than that and the university is not compliant.

Why is compliance important?

Software is big business. The types of software packages ECU buys are often negotiated with vendors to get the best pricing.

If we are out of compliance, software companies can charge us large penalties, unbudgeted "true-up" expenses for what the vendor deems the right level of licensing, as well as the embarrassment, and – even worse – possible cancellation of our licensing altogether.

Can you imagine this campus trying to operate both academically and administratively without core products such as Microsoft, SPSS and Adobe?​​​​

What you need to do

First, complete an inventory of the software on your ECU-managed system (macOS and Windows).

Next, as departments upgrade their Windows 10 computers to Windows 11 (summer 2025), current department-specific softwares will be added to the Company Portal.* Proof of purchase for software licenses is maintained by the department. ITCS and Materials Management may contact departments to request software purchase information and the systems on which these programs are installed.