Student / staff monitoring - what do you use ?

[jamin100]

After not being happy with the performance of policy Central we have decided to get rid and look for alternatives

 

So what are the alternatives?

 

We need to be able to monitor internet use

Monitor keywords and would like screenshots of violations

 

Being able to track laptops when they are not connected to the network would also be advantageous

 

So what do you use ?

[synaesthesia]

Impero. Enough said really!

[jamin100]

Yeh I've used impero in the past but I wasn't overly impressed with the monitoring side of things

First off I had to specify all the words I wanted to track which meant manually inputting lists of swear words etc .. Has this changed or is it still the case ?

 

Everything else in impero was impressive though

[6Foot2]

Another one for Impero. Very useful!

[Dos_Box]

Moving to Network and Classroom Management forum.

[Norphy]

Sounds like you need Securus to me. I trialled it years ago in another school, they ended up buying it after I left.

[kevin_lane]

We were one of the beta testers been using there product ever since we have over 1300 kids brilliant to monitor plus you can setup groups try it

[speckytecky]

Yes another + for Impero but where do you draw the line when it comes to 'staff' monitoring?

[synaesthesia]

Sorry, waited until I got in this morning to check something before replying! You can import lists of words into Impero for monitoring purposes, so no need to do it manually.

We don't monitor staff - they are logged as with everyone else on Impero but unless there's a need for it (we're asked to by their line managers or people further up the food chain) Impero's primary use is remote support for them. They're grown ups just like most of us and of course should be treated as such until proven otherwise! Ironically it's usually the students that want to act more grown up and be let "off the leash" a bit that need more monitoring than most Again though on the monitoring side for pupils, Impero is there for us to aide classroom management, not for us as IT staff to be keeping watch unless there's a need to.

Edited March 7, 2014 by synaesthesia

[robjduk]

I would recommend Securus for phrase / keyword monitoring however as they wont supply me a rack mounted server I have nothing but bad things to say about them.

[xenonive]

I use both Impero for day to day monitoring/logging and Securus for phrase/keyword monitoring and we explain the monitoring to staff in our E-safety policy.

@robjduk Did you know you can install to VM now ? so might be worth looking at with version 8 coming out.

[robjduk]

Yes I know you can put it on a VM and we got 8 installed last week (very good by the way) but I seem to have a love hate relationship with secures support. In the past 4 years of having Securus I find we have to make a support call every 6 months or so because it slows down, their support logs in, does something and it works again. I know deep down if I virtualise it then they will blame my hardware on the issue.

They offer me the iso from time to time but I decline on above reason. Im a bit ocd when it comes to my server room and just hate a little box on the shelf. If only they would give me a rack mounted thing then I would sing their praises all day long. Until then... boo secures.

[Abaddon]

+1 for Securus (and I have a nice rack mounted one..) - used it for donkeys years, very few issues.

[pete]

For those of you using Securus to monitor staff, how do you handle screenshots of people with access to sensitive/confidential data (access to personnel files, financial info, medical data, password database for network kit, child protection officer?).

 

Can you define rules on who can review certain records? For example if Bob is the primary CPO and Alice is the backup CPO, a screenshot trigger on Bob's machine would be reviewed only by Alice initially in case it's caught something like a writeup of an incident involving a pupil that shouldn't be shared outside of the CPOs?

 

Same deal with medical/financial/password data?

[Edu-IT]

There's no option to create rules, from what I can see.

[ricki]

We trialed securus and I think it will do what you want.

 

Richard