Monitor Student Email on Google Apps

[Cormac]

Hello,

Have been using Google Apps for student email. I know there are few
here using Google Apps as well.

Are you monitoring student email for vulgar language, inappropriate
content that could be in breach of the school's AUP?

What is the best way to do this?

I have added Postini Services but all I see here is to add some
Message Filters.

Have you enabled Google Chat as well?

Thanks,

Cormac.

[Tom Kendall]

Hi Cormac,

At Loreto Navan, we've been using Google Apps student email for TY and all senior cycle students for approximately 3 years. Email addresses are provided to Junior Cycle students on the request of a specific teacher who may wish her students to have addresses for a specific learning application. The teacher works with the junior cycle students on appropriate use and they then keep the addresses on through senior cycle

As part of the TY / 5th Year computer orientation, it is explained that their respective school Google Apps email address / docs account is provided in the context of assisting them with school work. They are welcome to use it in other contexts, unless those contexts are in violation of the AUP. Student use of non school Google Apps email accounts is not permitted. At this point, I have not had a need to monitor the student emails.

I have not added Postini Services. If someone is putting the Postini Services to strategic use, I would welcome hearing about it.

Regards,

Tom

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[John Hegarty]

2nd level boarding school. All students get a school address and are allowed to use it for personal use. They are told that normal conditions apply and that any use should not bring either themselves or the school into disrepute. In the same way that we don't routinely monitor phone calls made on school phones we don't routinely monitor email and being teenagers I expect there is plenty of vulgar language etc. in the conversations that happen in both email and by phone.

We deal with issues as they arise but only a handful in the last 10 years (3 years with gmail) of the school providing school addresses. (Example of an issue - one first year student was sending an email to a charity group looking for information for a project, he left his computer for a few minutes and a "friend" sent an abusive email in his name - the charity complained to the school - the "friend" was hung, drawn and quartered)

Students may also use their own addresses (Hotmail, Yahoo, Eircom etc.) if they prefer but teachers and administration only send messages to their school accounts and we have no record of what personal accounts they have. Being a boarding school we need to allow/encourage communication with family and friends in ways that don't arise in a day school.

Yes we enabled Google Chat - again we do not monitor conversations and usage is light. They prefer MSN messenger as their friends are on it. We don't monitor MSN Messenger conversations either.

jh
 

On 1 March 2010 10:38, Cormac <cormac...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Vanessa]

Cormac,

We are a voluntary secondary school and have been using online student
communications for the last year.

There is much debate around the analogy of online policy, AUP, etc.
The essential approach of our school is that personal communications
are private and should be on your private account (gmail, hotmail,
whatever). This is none of the school's business (for staff or for
students). However we have a culture of supervision in our school, and
the overall approach is with younger classes to have a level of
supervision. The comparison is that in a class our teachers would
naturally keep the tone of verbal communications to our school ethos,
and if the school's online communications are used e.g. during that
class, the same tone should be observed. Another analogy raised was if
students were passing notes around class, should the teacher have the
right to moderate the content.

There is also a belief that the school legally has a higher duty of
care than just managing exceptions.

I can understand where the student intake is such that a high level of
autonomy can be applied homogenously less supervision and a different
culture would apply. While many of our students would be capable of
being independent, our school feels we need to be involved to keep the
mix right.

So we use a hosted communications system where we can filter on words,
and can close the communication for younger classes to only school
accounts. We can run message filtering to trace whether messages were
sent or not, and when exceptions are suspected with the student the
account can be entered into. This is all on the basis that the
resources are the schools to manage to facilitate the student.

Our approach is accepted and our students have commented that it is
useful to have one account for purely school related stuff rather than
being distracted with too many personal messages.

I can understand that it is a sometimes emotional subject but there is
a need for balance between personal freedoms and obligations to the
school community.

Vanessa.

[Cormac]

Thanks for the replies.

Looks like the only option for any sort of monitoring on Google Apps
is to use Postini services but this is basic enough.

All you can do is add in some filters.

@Vanessa What hosted communications system does your school use?

[Neal McQuaid]

don't know if this is of complete relevance to this but I'm currently
at a school in the UK using Outlook/Exchange for all emails in-school.
The pupils all have a mail account, but it's usually disabled in
classrooms if they don't need it - it'll be turned on if required by
the teacher or for a good reason. Most pupils know to use it only for
school-based work anyway - they all have their own personal email
accounts for other uses.

The emails are all monitored by the IT technicians - bad languange,
certain keywords, etc. are all automatically flagged. A great idea in
principle but is now becoming an issue as the technicians are now-over-
analyzing/monitoring emails and blocking on an extreme basis - Google
Docs has been banned because it has been designated to have a chat/
collaboration facility outside of the IT staff's control, taking an
amusing example. On a more serious example, there are worries that the
ability to view ALL emails of students is removing some privacy and
concerns around this. Make sure that you know exactly what the limits
of use are for the students - just internal emailing or personal use
also? - and that the people who will be able to monitor also know
exactly where the line in the sand is drawn as it can lead to
draconian oversight also.
Just my two cents. I'm all for some light monitoring (especially in
the first few years in the school at the youngest ages - if they even
require email at all) but trusting most pupils also. @JohnHegargty's
logic seems to make sense to me.

[Mags Amond]

age range of student Neal?

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Mags Amond
Regional Development Officer
Second Level Support Service
087 9373803
mags...@slss.ie
www.slss.ie