Internet Filtering and Staff Access

[LeonieCol]

Does anyone have any advice on the type of Internet Access level that school staff should be given?

Ever since I have worked at my current school there has always been a system in place that prevents access to certain sites. The filter level is obviously much stronger for students.

The rule is that if a member of staff wants a particular website unblocked, they as me to do it and I do it, making a record of who requested it, when and why.

A member of staff has now requested that all staff be given UNLIMITED ACCESS to the Internet, bypassing the filter. I think this is a very bad idea as I know what staff here are like – they will take the p*** or forget to log off, leaving the computers (and unlimited Internet!) open for all those darlings students to play with. This particular member of staff probably does not actually want all staff to have access, he just wants it for himself but obviously can’t say that!

He wants to call a meeting with the management to discuss this. He has a very strong argumentative side to him so I am worried that I will not be able to get my point across. Does anyone have any tip or am I being completely silly here – should staff be able to be trusted for unlimited access?

[Jona]

I'm sure we discussed this the other day and duty of care to employees seemed to come up.

After some hunting I think this is the thread:
Network Access - who gets what?

Hope that is some help.

Cheers
Jona

[GrumbleDook]

If in doubt consult your LA AUP and your RBC AUP.

There was a recent thread about this and there were some interesting pointers from Becta too.

[Sylv3r]

Our staff and students get the same access to the internet. We use the example that if a teacher tests a website works before a lesson they are guaranteed it will work for students.

I am considering getting a seperate ADSL in for our staff work area to allow staff access to youtube and the like.

I will put some sort of filtering in place though just to make sure that staff don't wander where they shouldn't! No students have access to this room.

[fooby]

Our supplier - SWGfL requires that all staff sign in to get access. this is logged, the sites they visit are logged.

If it does go that staff get unfiltered access - require secondary logon (for protection of course not to annoy )

then log all website visits and make sure they know that this is for "child protection" reasons - point out that as a sysadmin you can see anything they can (personal emails?)

or just have it put in writing that you strongly disagree and should this be put in place, you (and all IT admins) will have absolutely no responsibility for it - should a student be exposed to dodgy stuff.

worst case, the staff will start mucking about on flash games / ebay / ebaums world. then maybe it could be your duty to report these logs to SMT

hth

[LeonieCol]

Currently all websites that are accessed are logged through our filtering system anyway. This will not change even if staff do have unlimited access to the Internet. I will still be able to see exactly what is being accessed. However it will obviously be a lot harder to keep track of because I am not going to just sit there looking at logs all day!!

I just really believe that this person only wants it for his own benefit, and is using the excuse that all staff should have free reign, but I think the risks are too high.

It would be interesting to hear from more people who give staff access to all website to see what their positive and negative points are.

[Domino]

I'd also look at the bandwidth aspect.

too many staff on myspace, facebook and youtube will have a negative effect on teaching and learning internet availability.

Everyone should be filtered. but yes, staff should have access to more (youtube being a fine example)