DPA +User Areas

[Dos_Box]

This has just come to my attention:

 

http://www.tes.co.uk/section/staffroom/thread.aspx?story_id=2468077&path=/ict/&threadPage=1

 

Now to my mind, letting all staff run roughshod over user areas could lead to all kinds of trouble. So this is my question. Do pupils areas get covered by the DPA and if so how do you, or should you limit access in the face of such 'I am a teacher-ness and can do as I please'?

[strawberry]

Very interesting the attitude towards NM's in that thread, that we are there to serve the staff!. Very interesting view, Would be interesting to point out that we serve the staff on behalf of our SMT in the same way they serve the children on behalf of the SMT.

 

Anyhoo, we dont allow staff access to areas unless they have a very good reason or one that the information manager believes is sufficent. Its not a case of data privacy its a case of data preservation. Each person has sole responsibilty for their workspace.

[CyberNerd]

I think this sums it up.

4. A student folder is the ICT equivalent of an excercise book and therefore should be reachable by staff for checking work.

 

I keep it read-only mind can't be too careful with 'specialist' teachers.

[PEO]

sounds like teacher has his/her knickers in a twist.

 

teaching staff have access to kids work but only have read permissions.

we have work post box for each member of staff, which allows the kids to drop course work in when done.

ICT teaching staff have portable hard drives which my self or the network manager copy the kids work to for review. they only do this to take work home over holiday and weekends. (the data is password protected)

 

I think if data is lost, not protected ie encypted/password protectd or given to people with out the owners concent then you are breaking the DPA

[webman]

I thought the DPA only covers data about a person?

[joe90bass]

At the moment only myself (NM), the IT Tech and head of IT have access to pupil areas. Until recently I would not have trusted the staff, they were often allowing pupils to use PCs under their usernames! Fortunately with support from manglement and a few additions to our staff handbook (i.e. disciplinary procedures) it's now getting under control and I may in the future allow staff access to pupil areas.

 

I was tempted to post this on the TES site, but it may have started a flame war!

[Diello]

Reading those posts just make me *SO* angry! "so wrapped up in their own importance that they forget our primary concern is educating children" - Pot... calling... kettle... black. "to the students and curriculum should be the reponsibility of a senior member of the *teaching* staff." - wrapped up in their own importance me thinks.

 

The argument that their area is like an exercise book doesn't quite work - They only have access to an exercise book when the student GIVES it to them, if the Teacher had 24/7 access to the book, the students would never be working in it.

 

Having said that - our ICT teachers have read access to student user areas - not because they MUST have it - but because they've asked nicely, put forward a proper, reasoned request for it.

 

Prehaps if the Teacher's posting in that thread treated the NW like a human being - stopped thinking all NWs are little Hitlers, and treated him/her like a professional in their field, went and had a professional, reasoned, debated about the situation, they might get somewhere. I, for one, always stick my heals in the ground if someone states I *MUST* do something, when I know full well it's not true.

 

Yes - we all work in schools to advance the teaching & learning of students - prehaps if the Teachers concerned presented it as such, instead of screaming "I want, I want, I'm a Teacher, I'm important", then they might get somewhere. I don't see supporting the Teacher's as my primary job role at all, I see it as supporting the school in the T&L of students - and if the course of implementing that role, involves supporting teachers, then fair enough.

 

Sorry - gone a little OT there... Just getting more than a little fed up of the virtual war going on between Teaching & Associate Staff... we all need to stop b*tching at each other - and concentrate on delivering LEARNING.

[jcollings]

We don't let staff access it here - there is a homework folder etc. to share work and our VLE will change things a bit I think.

 

I was so outraged by some of the attitudes on the TES thread I posted a reply. What annoys me is this attitude we can't make professional judgements - comments "like some schools need to get a grip of network managers etc".

 

[joe90bass]

Well put! :cheers:

[PEO]

We don't let staff access it here - there is a homework folder etc. to share work and our VLE will change things a bit I think.

 

I was so outraged by some of the attitudes on the TES thread I posted a reply. What annoys me is this attitude we can't make professional judgements - comments "like some schools need to get a grip of network managers etc".

 

 

nice 1

[DMcCoy]

I've set it up so that selected members of staff have read access to the students folders. You should never give them write unless its to a drop box or something similar. It protects the student and the staff to withhold write permissions.

 

The ability to read students areas is a valid request. I do try to compromise between everything working and everything doing what people want, that said there are some ways of asking that are better than others!

[GrumbleDook]

The problem with DPA is when a student has information in their home area that is personal to them that they do not want others to see ... a diary, contact details of family, and so on.

 

It is such a grey area.

 

I also get seriously miffed when ICT Teachers want access to *everywhere*!!! Why? They don't teach Maths, or Media, or English ...

 

I also get hacked off with NMs that aren't willing to communicate why it is a problem or not willing to even discuss things and then just point fingers at moaning teachers.

 

As for the TES forums ... yes, they tend to be full of teachers so we see a teacher's point of view raised ... the same way there are many people that seriously enjoy teacher bashing on here ... it is not nice from either side.

[alan-d]

Look at it another way - would a teacher be allowed to rummage through a students school bag without just cause? The answer is definately not! (with the exception of head teachers with justification)

 

We are lucky here in that we work well with the vast majority of teaching staff here, they respect our decisions and we make an effort to provide them with what they want. It may not be exactly what they were expecting but the results are the same The remainder are the usual 'don't want to know' which most school have

[MkII]

Look at it another way - would a teacher be allowed to rummage through a students school bag without just cause? The answer is definately not! (with the exception of head teachers with justification)

 

A good counter analogy alan.

 

I agree with grumblepants entirely. Perhaps this question needs to be answered officially, once and for all by a respected independant 3rd party.

[maniac]

All our teachers have read only access to student areas. This was put into place because we couldn't think of a reason not to.

 

All students know this is the case, and it cuts down on the amount of suspect files we find, like secret stashes of porn or MP3s, as insted of the 4 of us looking, potentially there is now 200+ people with the potential to look. This works in our favour.

 

ICT teaching staff have read/write access. Not really sure why, but the director of ICT requested it through SLT. We made them aware of issues surrounding it, then made the change. We've had no issues thou, so it's stayed at the moment. SLT and the head teacher also have read/write access, again we made them aware of the issues, but at the end of the day, SLT request has to be actioned even if we don't like it.

 

Personally thou, I would like no one to have read/write access. Reason why? I'm not worried about the DPA or anything like that, I'm just worried that one day a students going to get onto a ICT teachers laptop when they're not looking, and cause havoc, or even a teacher 'accidently' deleting or moving stuff, or renaming folders etc. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm waiting. . . .

 

Mike.

[GrumbleDook]

Yes, this does all rely on the teacher being someone with clue.

 

I love the fact that the OP cannot work out whether I am a techie, a teacher or a pupil.

 

I have put alan-d's analogy on there for discussion. Let's hope it is just a decent discussion now rather than rants either way.

[Joedetic]

I know that I used to keep contact details for placement opportunities, copies of letters I had to send to people and a database of contacts in my network home directory, so there is a possibility for a DPA issue if say a placements/career advisor were to open those files to see what industrial placements I'd applied to etc to open the wrong file and get my boyfriend's mobile number and address etc.

 

I think that the OP on TES would be better served with having some kind of centralised work drop off, which, in my opinion would be more efficient than them going round all the student's in their class' home folders scouting out the work. Also you could put it to them that they're paid not to be sat searching around on the network but to be processing this work that they're after in the first place. So, as it was suggested on TES, maybe a VLE or even e-mailing in the work would be more appropriate as it's going to save them time and increase efficiency.

[localzuk]

Look at it another way - would a teacher be allowed to rummage through a students school bag without just cause? The answer is definately not! (with the exception of head teachers with justification)

 

We are lucky here in that we work well with the vast majority of teaching staff here, they respect our decisions and we make an effort to provide them with what they want. It may not be exactly what they were expecting but the results are the same The remainder are the usual 'don't want to know' which most school have

 

That is a poor analogy - a students home area on a network is not their personal property. It is outlined in their AUP that the network is for use for educational purposes only. This means that anything that is there which is personal *shouldn't be there* and there is no breach by any member of staff by finding such files - it is a breach od the AUP by the child.

 

Our teachers have complete access to the pupil area's, as there is no reason not to allow it as far as I can see.

[laserblazer]

I love the fact that the OP cannot work out whether I am a techie, a teacher or a pupil.

 

.

 

Are you going to tell us?

[alan-d]

Look at it another way - would a teacher be allowed to rummage through a students school bag without just cause? The answer is definately not! (with the exception of head teachers with justification)

 

That is a poor analogy - a students home area on a network is not their personal property. It is outlined in their AUP that the network is for use for educational purposes only.

 

The point I was trying to make - albeit badly - was that teaching staff should not require access to everything in a users area, only those areas which are relevant to them. We are all aware that the students work area is for educational purposes only and it is up to both us and teachers to ensure that users are educated to respect those rules.

 

Could you imagine the uproar amongst teachers if it was said that SMT had access to all staff areas (sorry I couldn't resist that one )

[GrumbleDook]

There are a number of arguements for and against ....

 

The areas in questions are ...

 

Does a student have any rights to privacy on a school network?

What are the legal issues of searching through homeareas of students and staff?

What are the moral implications?

What are the operational implications (do the unions agree that it is good use of a teacher's time to search through files?)

What are the security issues?

What are the educational benefits?

 

I have asked a teaching union rep to comment and will post the reply here and on the TES forum later.

[maniac]

In answer to Dos_box's origenal question.

 

As far as I can work out the DPA doesn't apply to the user areas themselves, it only applies to data that the school itself is actively collecting and storing on the individual(s), e.g the data in SIMS, CMIS etc is definitely covered by the act, and any documents the school generates containing sensetive information are covered by the act.

 

However documents stored by the actual users, as far as I can work out, are not covered by the DPA itself. The reason being that this information is not actually being actively collected and stored by the school for any means, and the school is not in complete control of what is stored. Any agreement on the privacy of this data would be between the school and its users, and not goverened by the DPA.

 

Please feel free to correct me on this, but as far as I can work out, this is correct.

 

For those who like reading, a complete copy of the act is here. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/Acts/acts1998/ukpga_19980029_en_1

 

Mike.

[localzuk]

Could you imagine the uproar amongst teachers if it was said that SMT had access to all staff areas (sorry I couldn't resist that one )

 

Well, several people in our SMT *do* have access to all staff areas...

[joe90bass]

Could you imagine the uproar amongst teachers if it was said that SMT had access to all staff areas (sorry I couldn't resist that one )

 

Well, several people in our SMT *do* have access to all staff areas...

Jeepers, they'd all walk out if that happened here!

[alan-d]

Could you imagine the uproar amongst teachers if it was said that SMT had access to all staff areas (sorry I couldn't resist that one )

 

Well, several people in our SMT *do* have access to all staff areas...

 

That is obviously a local decision and assuming that all users involved are happy with that then that is fine. However, should a member of staff, or a student for that matter decide that such access is likely to cause damage or distress to that individual then that individual can apply to have that access removed, or curtailed.