Moodle (and VLEs in general) and illicit/salacious uploaded content

[pete]

We run Moodle as our VLE, with a mod that allows student to upload work to a storage space so they can access it wherever.

 

It's come to our attention that students have uploaded (relatively innocuous) party photos to their shared areas and then downloaded them in school. Uploaded content is scanned for malware and executable file types, but not regex content filtered or "pink filtered".

 

I've already mentally amended the AUP to cover this, but I'm currently not sure how to handle and negate the possibility of students downloading what could be essentially child porn* to their user areas on school servers.

 

SMT and I are wondering how other schools are dealing with this.

[edit]

* Amended original post to make it clearer - they're not uploading porn, but I don't want them dumping the contents of their camera phones/party photos into Moodle, as SMT and I worry what may turn up.

Edited January 20, 2009 by pete

[CyberNerd]

I think that when it comes to photos there are not many options

a)upload to a 'holding area' and employ someone fulltime to police it.

b) ban the technology, and ban the benefits in the process.

c) do regular searches of the home areas to find any pictures that are suspect and then treat it as you would any other photographs or drawings that might have been brought into school 20yrs ago.

[pete]

A holding area might be an option, provided we remember to check it and release stuff - I know there are times we'll forget due to other stuff, plus the kids can just embed in a .doc.

 

I don't want to ban it, and iirc it would be just as easy to send the picture through county email filtering - we're not providing anything they couldn't access in another way.

 

I know (from having to do it before) how long it takes to scan the user areas, even with something like Picasa. Wonder if picasa is scriptable.

[gaz350]

I guess it all depends on how brave/understandable your SLT are. They have to sign off on anything.

 

Like you have already realised there is no point banning as there are 100s of other ways students could do this sort of thing. What schools have to ensure is that they have good polocies in place, make sure students understand what is acceptable and when something bad does appear treat it with the correct amount of punishment.

[Geoff]

If you believe the images are child porn, you have no choice but to report the incident to the police.

[pete]

If you believe the images are child porn, you have no choice but to report the incident to the police.

 

Yeah, I know this. In this instance it's a bunch of them grinning like loons at the camera, the question I raised was "how are/should we be policing this and what are other schools doing". The consensus seems to be "teach the kids to act sensibly, enforce it with an aup, take appropriate action where necessary".