Student Emails... again.

[jmair]

We're considering the Pro's and Cons of adding students to our schools email.

Here are our concerns, please give feedback on how these are addressed?

 

1: Students use it more for talking to eachother and not the teachers.

2: Monitoring the student Emails.

3: Spam (Incoming)

 

I currently have a mapped drive for all teachers to an individual ftp folder on our web server. The web page for each teacher directs to that folder. This allows Teachers to share anything they want with the students now. If this is in place, is there any reason to give each student an Email?

[dgsmith]

When we got our exchange server at the very start of 2007, we put everyone on it immediately and that is how it has been since (more or less). Although, it hasn't been without problems.

 

Your concerns about students using it as a "messenger" service between lessons is the primary concern that we constantly have, and no matter what we do it cannot eradicate this (taking all students off email altogether defeats the object of having them on). There are plenty of benefits to allowing students email (particularly for communication to and from teaching staff), and we feel the benefits in our case outweigh the cons (afterall, any really, really bad student can just not have it from day 1 - you have the power to choose who can and cannot access it).

 

Monitoring is an issue we tried to get some control over from the start; we can login to a designated administrative account and access the email account of any student (of course this is only necessary from SMT instruction or when highly suspicious of misuse). Students are made aware that this is possible before being permitted to use the system (via an AUP acceptance), so they agree that their inbox could be subject to monitoring under certain conditions set out by the school.

 

Spam is an everyday occurance and you just have to live with it, whether you get it on a school account, gmail account or through your letterbox

 

I'd much rather prefer that students can only send to staff, receive from staff, and send to themselves (work from home), but as of yet we haven't figured out how to do that, if it's even possible on exchange2k3.

[adamf]

We having been considering the pros and cons of giving our pupils e-mail too. I think our major concern is along the lines of cyber-bulling, how to stop them giving out their e-mail addresses to people who might take advantage... and how to stop the abuse of the e-mail system in general....?

 

We looked at the idea of allowing the pupils to only send to staff, receive from staff, and send to themselves, which I can tell you is possible in exchange 2k3 (i'll dig out the guide i've got on how to do it), but we thought whats the point of e-mail if you can only send it internally??

 

In terms of monitoring, another school I worked at have recently set up an archiving mail box which collects all pupil mail (this is set out in their AUP) should it be required as evidence at a later stage.

 

Spam I don't think is a problem, we don't tend to get it and we have good e-mail content control with our ISP in any case.

[plock]

...we can login to a designated administrative account and access the email account of any student (of course this is only necessary from SMT instruction or when highly suspicious of misuse)...

 

I'd be interested in seeing how you've managed this? I've tried to setup similar methods.

 

We looked at the idea of allowing the pupils to only send to staff, receive from staff, and send to themselves, which I can tell you is possible in exchange 2k3 (i'll dig out the guide i've got on how to do it), but we thought whats the point of e-mail if you can only send it internally??

 

That guide wouldn't go a miss either!

Edited March 4, 2008 by plock

[jmair]

I'd be interested in seeing how you've managed this? I've tried to setup similar methods.

 

Plock, here's a quick Step by Step for ya. This is how I do it with Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2007. I'm sure there are other ways to do this. If this is what you are asking it may help.

 

 

How to add a users Mailbox to your own in outlook.

 

1: First, log into your Exchange Server and open up Active Directory Users and Computers.

2: Open up an account you would like to add to your Outlook.

Properties then under the tab Exchange Advanced Click Mailbox Rights. If you aren’t part of the Exchange Groups that have Full Mailbox Rights, add yourself to that group. Or just add yourself now and give full mailbox rights.

 

With Outlook 2007, this is how I add another account.

1: In Outlook, go to Options, Then the tab Mail Setup. Click E-mail Accounts.

Highlight your account and click Change. Then More Settings.

 

2:Under Advanced, click ADD and add the user of the Mailbox you would like to add.

Simple.

Edited March 5, 2008 by Geoff

[jmair]

Thanks for the reply guys. We're a pretty small district in an area that isn't very well developed. Many students don't have internet at home. But this doesn't meen it will always be this way. It's good to get examples from other districts.

 

Thanks for the feedback, it's what makes these forums priceless.

[adamf]

For those of you who want it here is the guide which I used to implement restrictions on pupils (or anyone for that matter) sending e-mails to external addresses or receiving e-mails from external addresses.

 

Exchange 2k3 Restrictions

 

I would recommend testing this prior to using it on your live networks as with anything like this!

[plock]

@jmair - why didn't I think of that? Cheers mate!

 

@adamf - guide looks good, I'll run through this in VMware I think. Cheers!

[dgsmith]

For those of you who want it here is the guide which I used to implement restrictions on pupils (or anyone for that matter) sending e-mails to external addresses or receiving e-mails from external addresses.

 

Exchange 2k3 Restrictions

 

Just checked that through, and it seems to be the same as disabling email via the CC3 RMMC (for those of us that run an RM network). Is it possible to restrict students emailing only other students or to outside addresses (still allowing emails to/from staff), rather than a blanket-ban?

[bgarston]

Hi Jmair,

 

All students have access to email at Chew Valley School via OWA from an Exchange 2003 Server (soon to be 2007). In the first instance we reserve the right to remove email/internet privileges IF specific students commit serious violations of the “rules”.

 

You need to make sure that you have a water tight AUP that every user is aware of and abides by – we explicitly get all our users to sign and return a slip which says they have read and understand our AUP before they allowed anywhere near there account details. This measure makes sure people can’t turn around in defence and say “I didn’t know that I was not allowed to do that”, etc, etc.

 

My colleague and I have made it practise to individually check student document areas and email accounts for inappropriate material if individuals cross the path of teaching staff and it’s been reported to us. All pupils are aware that we have the ability to do this and the potential threat of having Mum and Dad called in to the school for a “chat” with a member of the Senior Team makes students behave for the most part (touch-wood we only have one or two problems each year where it gets serious and parents are called).

 

The only downside is that Exchange/OWA is a bit too efficient and it is unfortunately used as an instant messaging tool by students. Fortunately we also have an RM SmartCache here on site so when I finally manage to get around to it I’ll enable classroom teachers to “switch” email and internet facilities on and off so this will hopefully cure this problem (in lesson times at least).

 

With regard to spam and general email filtering (over and above that provided by our ISP) we use Sophos PureMessage (See: http://www.sophos.com/products/enterprise/email/security-and-control/microsoft-exchange/) which IMHO is simply brilliant and highly recommended.

 

Finally, with regard to monitoring we also have a Securus box (see: http://www.securus-software.com/) on site which in simplistic terms takes a snapshot of the pupils screen if they are looking at/doing/writing something that they aught not to be.

 

I would point out we have not set-up Exchange, our RM SmartCache, the Securus box or PureMessage overnight and you will not need all of it initially (to buy the whole lot on one go would require considerable investment – If it were me, from experience I would just start off with Exchange and something like PureMessage). To do it properly it takes time and you will have to plug holes as and when they occur. Eventually you will get there and you will find something that works for you/your school.

 

Hope this helps?

 

 

Cheers Ben

[Edu-IT]

Students use it more for talking to eachother and not the teachers.

What makes me laugh is the fact that people email each other when they're sitting right next to each other!

[dgsmith]

What makes me laugh is the fact that people email each other when they're sitting right next to each other!

 

For me, that's more irritating than humourous!

[Edu-IT]

For me, that's more irritating than humourous!

No you're right it is annoying as well.

[SteveT]

Doesn't the use of VLEs etc make pupil email essential if they are to make full use of them?

 

The inappropriate use of email is a classroom control issue. Should we ban the use of pencils and paper because the little darlings sometimes send written notes to each other?

[seanmh]

At a school I worked at we had this http://www.inty.com/appliancegatewaysolutions Integrates with AD so when you set up user accounts it creates email accounts as well, also if you wish you can link this to Exchange. Found that this worked extremely well although can be quite costly.

[Geoff]

Doesn't the use of VLEs etc make pupil email essential if they are to make full use of them?

 

The inappropriate use of email is a classroom control issue. Should we ban the use of pencils and paper because the little darlings sometimes send written notes to each other?

 

Indeed, it's needed for moodle anyway. Also, the GCSE ICT syllabus we teach requires us to teach email usage along with the other office guff. So the kids need email accounts for that.

[SpuffMonkey]

I'd be interested in seeing how you've managed this? I've tried to setup similar methods.

 

 

As an alternative to logging in to student email accounts - you could consider turning on "Journalling" - so a copy of every email sent is copied to a journal account where you can look at them. We have this set up, with an automatic "delete after 30 days" rule - so that senior staff can monitor what has gone on over the last month. It takes a bit of disk space - but has the advantage that students cannot just delete emails that have been sent/received before someone sees them.

[dgsmith]

As an alternative to logging in to student email accounts - you could consider turning on "Journalling" - so a copy of every email sent is copied to a journal account where you can look at them. We have this set up, with an automatic "delete after 30 days" rule - so that senior staff can monitor what has gone on over the last month. It takes a bit of disk space - but has the advantage that students cannot just delete emails that have been sent/received before someone sees them.

 

This sounds like it could be useful. We have just done a web search and found a walkthrough for doing this (link), however it seems the properies in our mailbox store is disabled, hence we can't enter info.

Is this how you did it or is there an alternate way of enabling this?

[Biggles]

We run our email (staff and students) on Exchange. We allocate email accounts to students in yrs 6 to Yrs 12 (about 350 students and 50 staff).

 

All students are aware of school policy which allows IT staff to inspect individual student email boxes, but I would love to be able to do a couple of things:

1. Have a defined list of stop words and have the system block any emails that contain words from this list.
   
2. Have the system send a copy of the offending email to a designated email address.
   

 

This would enable me to track any cyberbullying and nip it in the bud and also track any students who insist on using inappropriate language.

 

I know that no system would be perfect, but it would be good to at least make some dent in it. Not that we have a huge problem in this area (though I don't know what I don't know at this stage).

 

Has anyone come across anything like this that would work nicely with Exchange?

Edited April 7, 2009 by Biggles
Tidy up spelling errors

[joe90bass]

We use Sophos Puremessage, which has a built in word list and I've added a few as well. Works well, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that using ** or other punctuation to replace letters will bypass it....

If you're running Exchange 2007 and have the anti-spam componnents installed you can do this using tranport rules. Exch mgmt console > Organization config > Hub Transport > AntiSpam

[webman]

We're considering the Pro's and Cons of adding students to our schools email.

Here are our concerns, please give feedback on how these are addressed?

 

1: Students use it more for talking to eachother and not the teachers.

2: Monitoring the student Emails.

3: Spam (Incoming)

 

1. Teachers have a (custom-made) program from which they can turn email access on and off in the current IT room - so access is controlled.

 

2. Implemented a "bad word" filter - so any messages containing inappropriate material are not delivered to the intended recipient, and dropped into a central mailbox for monitoring. It would be possible to have a copy of all messages sent by students to also be dropped into a specified account, but we don't need this. http://www.edugeek.net/wiki/index.php/Zimbra_content_filter

 

3. We have two spam filters on the inbound route - one at our ISP, and our own. One works not so good, the other is better.

[chalkwellstu]

For those of you who want it here is the guide which I used to implement restrictions on pupils (or anyone for that matter) sending e-mails to external addresses or receiving e-mails from external addresses.

 

Exchange 2k3 Restrictions

 

I would recommend testing this prior to using it on your live networks as with anything like this!

 

any chance of getting a copy of the echange 2k3 restrictions process? i am at this point now myself and would welcome some guidance. this link above doesn't work i assume because its an old post.

 

many thanks STU

[BlueDragon]

For those of you who may be interested you can look to monitor student activity via email or any other messaging content (MSN, Facebook etc) through a product called NetModerator (see Crisp® SchoolSafe? - Home).

 

In a nutshell it looks at the content of the message for inappropriate behaviours such as cyberbullying, grooming, profanity, self harm, drugs, race hate etc and prioritises this for a moderator so they can simply log in and see who are the biggest offenders or those students at most risk.

 

It also looks at short and long term relationship behaviours so it can pick up on a short bullying conversation as well as pick up on the subtle approaches of a groomer over a longer period of time.

 

For schools who are looking to open up the communication options within their network it may be of interest.