Inhouse email system?

[starscream]

Good Morning All!

 

Does anyone know of any inhouse email system that could be used for email lessons in a primary school that allows people to email each other but does not go out onto the internet. It would also be useful to be able to fully monitor emails sent and pick up on any inappropriate messages etc.

 

I know it is asking a lot but I am sure I have seen something like this before. Ideally I would like something free or open source but understand if we need to pay.

 

I feel a system like this is essential for teaching email in primary schools. The internet is just too nasty for real email.

 

Teachers don't like software such as email detectives and would prefr the kids to be able to send real emails, to a certain extent.

 

Thanks in advance!

[webman]

Zimbra?

[Guest]

If you want a simple primary solution then 2Simple Email might be useful

 

http://www.2simple.com/2email/

 

Can be purchased with ELCs to.

 

Also does your primary have a cachepilot? This could also be used for student email.

[Geoff]

1) Your LEA/RBC might offer an email service that can do this.

2) There's plenty of Open Source solutions, for example Zimbra, that will give you a functional mail system internally. If you don't want to pass mail to external sites then just configure a bogus MX.

3) The same technique will work for Exchange if you want to go that route.

[starscream]

Some good suggestions there fellas, I will look into them. Do any of them offer auditing of the emails and possible flag and inappropriate content? My main concern here is bullying via email.

[webman]

starscream: CyberNerd posted a HOWTO for content filtering on Zimbra.

[starscream]

thats for the heads up, I'll check it out!

[Geoff]

Zimbra has built in Spam and Virus scanning but that's not likely to catch what you want (I suppose you could cook up some spam assassin rules to catch them though). I'm afraid you'll just have to look at mailboxes manually or grep the mailstore for keywords.

 

Exchange is even more cumbersome. You have to connect to each mailbox with Outlook. However there might be some third party mail filtering plugins for Exchange that'll catch these sorts of things. However that's likely to cost you a lot of money.

[Lee_K_81]

Exchange is even more cumbersome. You have to connect to each mailbox with Outlook. However there might be some third party mail filtering plugins for Exchange that'll catch these sorts of things. However that's likely to cost you a lot of money.

 

Exchange has the facility to "archive all messages sent or recieved by mailboxes on this store" to a given mailbox. e.g. set up a user account called ex_archive and tick the box in the general tab on mailbox store properties, enter the new user. All emails will now be copied into that user. You would still have to manually check emails but you would now only have to connect to one mailbox.

 

*NB I am not suggesting that you do this for your general use email. There would obviously be a number of privacy issues, and you should only do so after a converstation with the HT/SLT and most likely on the understanding that the email is only ever viewed under specific circumstances e.g. where a complaint is made.

[contink]

If you want a simple primary solution then 2Simple Email might be useful

 

http://www.2simple.com/2email/

 

Can be purchased with ELCs to.

 

Also does your primary have a cachepilot? This could also be used for student email.

This does work pretty well but only in a primary situation.

 

There's a few technical issues I've been finding out about recently with the emailbox configurator and they revolve around the fact that 2Email uses the registry to store the mailboxes in..

 

Works fine for administrators but regular staff (assuming they're not admins.. like really! ) need to have access so you need to make sure they have permissions to modify the registry for the particular key... Oh and it gets more interesting because the registry key is chosen at random.

 

I've got to solve this problem for my schools so expect a wiki update soon.

[Guest]

@contink

 

Thats strange. I have it installed on a network and it runs fine under restricted user accounts. Hmmmm...

[contink]

@contink

 

Thats strange. I have it installed on a network and it runs fine under restricted user accounts. Hmmmm...

Yeah... that's the thing... different versions work differently and I'm still trying to figure out why..

[mrcrazy04]

I use the free version of MailEnable here. Seems to do the job OK - it supports plugins for monitoring, but I don't know of any.

It stores the emails in text files with a folder for each mailbox, and can do AD authentication.

Only problem I had was finding where I needed to go to change certain options, as they're scattered about, and not always where you'd expect.

[lols]

We use http://www.superclubplus.com for email and other uses. It is expensive but worth while and the kids love the site not only for email but for all the other aspects of it!

[chrbb]

Epals - free web based. If you use it to email other schools all emails have to be checked and verified before they are sent and received.

[joe90bass]

@chrbb - have you actually used epals, if so how do you find it? I've just had an e-mail from head of IT who wants to use it in school. Not sure why as we've budgeted for exchange for all pupils from next year!

[chrbb]

Not anymore we have email through our lea and broadband supplier now, exchange in one school and owa in the other. The pupils haven't used it yet but it can set as a wlled garden.

We set up epals and used it with to demonstrate email with year 4 by using it to send emails to other yeargroups in school. You can only send epals email to other epals account holders I think.

[joe90bass]

Thanks for that, I'll look into it more tomorrow. On the face of it as a penpals tool it seems good, as an e-mail tool (which I think she wants), not so.........