Obscenity Policy

[sqdge]

Does anyone here have a policy on people writing obscenities during school time. We have a filter on our system that takes a screenshot if a pupil (or member of staff!) writes some word that maybe they shouldn't be writing. It's been quite useful to see what the kids have been writing, and it has caught a number of kids trying to find certain things on google etc. However, no one seems to be sure whether it is worth acting upon.

Any ideas?

[Geoff]

Amusingly I misread the title of this thread as 'Obesity policy'.

Anyway, back to the point. Surely your standard 'school rules' covers this. Just because it involves a computer doesn't make it special.

Failing that, your generic AUP should have a clause in it that covers this. Probably under 'misuse of computer equipment and resources'.

[sqdge]

Originally Posted by Geoff

Amusingly I misread the title of this thread as 'Obesity policy'.

Anyway, back to the point. Surely your standard 'school rules' covers this. Just because it involves a computer doesn't make it special.

Failing that, your generic AUP should have a clause in it that covers this. Probably under 'misuse of computer equipment and resources'.

That's true. I guess I see it differently because it isn't verbal. I understand that one should crack down on people trying to find pornography etc. on Google, but when they are just writing rude words in Word it doesn't seem worth responding to.

[Ric_]

Originally Posted by sqdge

I guess I see it differently because it isn't verbal. I understand that one should crack down on people trying to find pornography etc. on Google, but when they are just writing rude words in Word it doesn't seem worth responding to.

Surely it is just as bad since these rude words will usually be used to describe someone or cause offence - both of which are quite malicious and are forms of bullying.

[jopijedd]

Our kids know that writing a naughty word into Word or Excel will get it logged. My predecessor used to drag every child into the office who did this, but personally unless it is being used in a derogatory way towards somebody else, i can't see the point. It tends to be mainly other kids doing it whilst their 'friends' aren't at the computer anyway.

[davyboi]

this reminds me of when i was at school and people used to write rude words and sentances in the middle of your work then save it so you would never know untill a teacher marked it hahaha it was funny at the time, i was glad of the old windows key + L lol not everyone had that common sense to lock there pc though

[jopijedd]

We've disabled PC locking for students, otherwise you'd go in to a computer room at the start of a lesson after Year 11 had been in there and find 27 locked PCs.

[bossman]

We have just given a test unit back to securus which also took a screen shot and added the ip address and the user.

It looked good from the onset but failed in the fact it gave out a lot of false positives and when i approached our PLO (pupil link office) they just said it would create more work for them.

Cost was also very expensive, quoted £6000 for three years.

[sqdge]

Originally Posted by bossman

It looked good from the onset but failed in the fact it gave out a lot of false positives and when i approached our PLO (pupil link office) they just said it would create more work for them.

Although I don't think I will be removing the system anytime soon (it is part of a whole software package which is amazing), on Friday the system logged 905 violations! In a school of only 440 pupils, there is clearly something not right there!

[jopijedd]

Securus is very much about setting it up to suit your circumstances. Setting up a custom list of blacklisted words or phrases which directly affect you the most is the best way to do this, give these high severity scores, then sort by phrase severity in the view list.

[Stese]

I agree with jopijedd,

If you think you are getting a lot of false positives, change the configuration to suit. It is customisable.

Donna in tech support is always very helpful when you need to do this kind of thing!