SWGfL_Official

Following our previous post, please find further information. There aren't any restrictions regarding the number of devices. You can deploy the extension on a minimum of 20 devices and do not need to install Test Filtering+ on every compatible device; however, if you wish to install the extension on more than 20, packages are available for up to 50, 100, and over 1,000 devices. Regarding how Test Filtering + works alongside TestFiltering, the extension doesn't affect how the free tool works - the TestFiltering tool will continue to work as normal, as stated in our FAQs (Please see below) ''Without our service, the only way to know if your filtering is working would be to try and access webpages you would expect should be filtered (this is NOT advisable). Our service can do this on your behalf through test pages that have been inserted on to the various block lists that are used to block illegal and inappropriate content, automatically and invisibly. When run from your device, TestFiltering attempts to access these test webpages. If TestFiltering is not able to access the test webpages from your device, it assumes they are blocked and hence filtering is likely to be active. If, however, it is able to access these test webpages, it concludes that your filtering is not active and displays a warning or failure. Please note the testing process happens in the background and is not visible to the user.'' With this in mind, Test Filtering+ is not considered as an additional reporting tool, but brings automation to the TestFiltering process. If you wish to continue to use TestFiltering without the extension you can continue to do so, however, TestFiltering+ builds on the tool to provide bulk automated and regular testing of your Internet connection to ensure that your filter is always working effectively, provide an audit trail of this, and to notify you if it fails. The option is here to provide essential consistency and supports staff with time management. We hope this has clarified some of the points above, however, our FAQ page is here to help with further questions. Please visit https://testfiltering.com/faq/

Thank you for your questions. Our team would be happy to clarify any information - please do email [email protected]. Test Filtering + is an extension to testfiltering.com and is a simple utility that is easily installed on the devices you want to check automatically. It regularly runs the testfiltering test and notifies you if your filtering is not working as expected. For more information and to see why we have launched the extension, please visit our website. https://swgfl.org.uk/services/test-filtering-plus/

We are pleased to launch Test Filtering+, an enhancement to the Test Filtering tool, which strengthens the approach towards filtering and safeguarding. The tool is here to strengthen vigilance around device filtering for schools and safeguarding professionals, implementing a consistent and user-friendly process. Test Filtering+ can be accessed through packages - find out more from the following pages. https://swgfl.org.uk/services/test-filtering-plus/ https://testfiltering.com/plus/ TestFiltering+ brings automation to continually check your devices, providing you alerts and reports. By subscribing to the annual service, you’ll be able to easily monitor all your devices across your whole network, and be informed when there are any issues. If you have any questions, please email [email protected]

SWGfL's service INCLUDES a centralised industry standard firewall to protect all network services (e.g. Cisco, Juniper), and schools can customise firewall rules without the overhead of running a local firewall device. We also provide as standard, intrusion detection and prevention systems which provide unprecedented level of protection against malicious attacks such as DDoS.

Our apologies for this error. Just to reassure you we do not store any of our passwords in plain text. They are correctly hashed and salted before being stored in our database. As you rightly pointed out though, the login creditials were being sent out upon registration, a feature which should have been removed during a security audit and upgrade conducted last year. This has now been corrected. We take the security of our products extremely seriously, and strive to offer you the best service we can and will continue to monitor and improve our product security and features across our entire suite of applications.

Hi This might also be of help SWGfL Magazine - News, Advice, and Tips for Educators Julia

Hi techie08 You haven't mentioned which school you're from...you may well receive a connection provided by your LA, rather than SWGfL directly, as many schools in the region still do. I can't comment on what has or hasn't been said in relation to a data leak and I certainly don't know anything about an Ofcom licence fee, but I'd be very happy to talk to you about the SWGfL services. If you'd like to call the SWGfL Office on t.0845 6013203 and ask to speak to me (Julia) we can run through things. There is lots of helpful guidance for schools on the NEN website NEN - The Education Network - NEN particularly here NEN Information Sheets Archives - NEN and here NEN Guidance Notes Archives - NEN Thanks Julia

The SWGfL contract is there to benefit schools. @Steve21 is right, we do not integrate cessation charges into our standard pricing, which means we can reduce the cost of the service to customers. We’re different to a private sector ISP because we’re a charitable body governed by public law. We’ve procured our service in accordance with relevant regulations. This means schools get protections that they wouldn’t normally get in contracts from standard suppliers, including limiting liability and data protection. The way we do things is quite common in large public sector ICT arrangements, where services are priced for customers to stay rather than leave. Hope this helps. Julia

Hi all, The initial stage of the upgrade to RM Safetynet is now live. This includes a redesigned interface, giving you a much cleaner and simpler workspace. All of your existing settings will still be there; it will just be easier and more straightforward for you to be able to perform actions and view your information. The other enhancements to RM SafetyNet include: New high performance hardware in our redesigned data centres A new version of the ‘Squid’ platform, providing an improved and robust platform Updated help and information section And you'll also find the new design optimised for touch screen devices, giving you a seamless experience. Next, User Base Filtering will be available as an option. RM SafetyNet will sync with your Microsoft Windows schools Active Directory to allow the creation of filtering rules for specific users and groups in your establishment. Adding user based filtering couldn’t be simpler. We'll let everyone know as soon as the User Based Filtering option is available. There will be no price increase for the new version. The user based filtering feature is an option and there will be an additional charge for this. However, as a member of SWGfL schools will be able to use RM SafetyNet with user based filtering for a period of Twelve months without any additional charges. If you decide to keep it, the price of RM SafetyNet will increase to £250.00 per year for a primary school and £450.00 per year for a secondary school from 01/09/16 I hope this helps, Julia

Hello, I hope that I can help to explain a little about what SWGfL does to try and ensure that the risk of exposure to inappropriate material is minimised and image searches in general. All SWGfL connections benefit from essential safety and security services, the core filter includes filter policies that do not allow access to any illegal content or content that is marked by the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) as being illegal. Any attempt to access this material on a SWGfL connection is not only blocked but also logged; our team then works, uniquely, with the regional police forces and the school to handle any such incident. Each school has complete control over the content that can be accessed (with the exception of course of the illegal material explained above). Access can be managed locally through the filtering dashboard and can be used to block particular searches. (If you are not sure how to do this then the service desk t 0845 307 7870 can help). This is much quicker and affects a change immediately. Sadly, it is a difficult thing with which to keep pace as there is the potential for new images to proliferate daily. No filtering system is infallible. Google Images is an unmoderated image library, although does have an integrated filtering, more commonly known as ‘Safe Search’. Google Safe Search is set to on as default to all SWGfL connections; schools have to opt out if they wish to view search results that do not filter out ‘explicit results’. We work closely with Google to feedback on the effectiveness of safe search and whilst generally results are good, one or two ‘inappropriate results’ have been returned and we block these as they’re found as well as report them directly to google - some are just new and Google simply don’t know about them so if you come across them you can tell us about them and we can block them. If you send the URL to [email protected] we’ll add them to the list. Just like Google, Bing is an unmoderated search engine, which was blocked by SWGfL (along with Yahoo Images) a couple of years ago following an issue with inappropriate thumbnail images being returned. Schools of course are free to unfilter Bing and Yahoo and Safe search settings can be disabled. If schools come across any inappropriate content they can tell us about them (send the URL to [email protected]) and we can block them centrally for all schools. Pages are assessed and either allowed or blocked by a feature within the content filter called Active Adapt page-scanning technology. This provides real-time protection, assessing the actual content within a webpage and evaluating the ‘risk level’ associated with displaying the results. As I’m sure you are aware online content is changing constantly, and this technology allows us to assess the content contained within a page (rather than simply a URL, search term or individual word or phrase). Words and terms are scored, both positively and negatively; the content within a page is assessed and scored accordingly. So for example, if a page returns content with a high score for inappropriate content the page will be filtered, however if the page content has a low score for inappropriate content the page will be displayed. We don't filter the word ‘sex’ per say but search results will be blocked when the page content is scored as inappropriate. The service is certainly not an iron curtain to keep everything out, it provides schools with the tools to tailor the solution to meet their needs. The filtering dashboard allows schools to choose from a range of filter lists such as ‘Drugs and Substance Abuse List’ or ‘Pornography and Illegal or Age-Restricted Activity List’, to identify individual urls or search terms to block or enable as well as scheduling to meet changing requirements throughout the day or week. Online content changes continually and schools can flag content to the SWGfL that they feel should be blocked or enabled directly via the dashboard or by email to [email protected]. All SWGfL e-safety strategies are framed by research for example, Ofsted’s ‘Safe use of new technologies’ report (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/safe-use-of-new-technologies) recommends that children’s settings that lock down access, do not provide the right environment to learn how to make good judgements around risk. We advocate the use of moderated image libraries such as the SWGfL Media Gallery which can be accessed via Swiggle.org.uk - Home a free safer search engine aimed at key stage 2 students. It is worth considering that despite the varying layers of technical intervention, there is an effective route through education and monitoring to influence the behaviour of pupils and hence decrease their vulnerability. Just as with any other aspect of behaviour management in school, having clear messages about conducting these searches on school machines; revisiting sanctions and accountability, reporting issues when they arise and having parents support you in that process is often more culturally effective than technical intervention. We’ve developed a whole range of online safety tools, one of which is our multi-award winning 360 degree safe tool for schools that supports and underpins our filtering. We recommend that schools foster a holistic approach to online safety that develops the right culture beyond the school and that goes beyond filtering. We have produced a free digital literacy resource for schools complete with long/medium term plans and detailed lesson plans that run from FS to KS 5. You can find full details here Digital Literacy - Online Safety Services Specific lessons that deal with the inappropriate searching / dealing with indecent images can be found at: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/staying-safe-online-2-3 http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/using-keywords-2-3 http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/rings-responsibility-4-5 http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/ups-and-downs-digital-life-6-8 These vary in complexity and age appropriate. We've also produced a new publication to explore how we can strike the balance between ensuring children and young people are empowered to use online resources and still meet our safeguarding obligations. Picture Perfect is available here - Picture Perfect - Managing Image Search Engines | SWGfL and explores Understanding search technology, Smarter filtering and control, Providing the right environment, Sharpening up search skills, OMG! What do we do now? Education and the bigger picture If you think we can be of any further help or assistance please don’t hesitate to get in touch, we can offer a broad range of staff development sessions around online safety, unique tools many of which are free and can work directly with pupils in the classroom, please contact [email protected] or call 0845 601 3203 for more information. Thanks Julia Adamson, SWGfL Education Manager

Hi There aren't any issues today RM Education Status if you are having difficulties please do call the Technical Service Desk on 0845 307 7870 Thanks Julia

Thanks for letting me know, have a great rest of day,and best wishes for a lovely Christmas Julia

Hi the incident with TalkTalk has been resolved, are you still experiencing issues now?

The incident is now resolved RM Education Status - Slow internet speed

Latest service status updates available here RM Education Status

We experienced a brief outage on our Staff Proxy service this afternoon for approximately 10 minutes. This was due to a firewall failover. The service is now working as usual. We apologise for the inconvenience that this has caused. If you are still experiencing an issue please contact the service desk on t.0845 307 7870 Best wishes Julia

Some users may have seen brief dip in internet performance this morning, this was due to a malicious attack (DDoS). Engineers are tracing the source in order to mitigate further issues. For incident information direct to your mobile, please sign up for text alerts and we’ll send you text messages with essential system notifications http://esi.swgfl.org.uk/GroupComms/ We apologise for any inconvenience this may of caused. Thanks Julia

Hi, I've had a chat with our engineers and have the following update: The proxies are configured not to cache anything, but this is a moot point given that access is via HTTPS. With HTTPS the proxies act like a firewall with NAT in that the client workstation's IP address is hidden behind the IP address of the proxy, but the proxy doesn't otherwise touch the data. The same applies with transparent filtering. Are you using a local caching device? But even then it's unlikely that it busts HTTPS and caches the data. HTTPS is implicitly non-cacheable. It may be worth investigating a possible application issue. I hope this is helpful, Thanks Julia

Please accept our sincere apologies for the disruption that issues over the past few of days have caused for the staff and students at your school, we take any interruption to our services extremely seriously. There has been an issue with access to Google services following unexpected changes that Google made towards the end of last week. We are continuing to work with the Google Network Surveillance team to resolve this permanently. In the interim we have deployed a workaround to restore web access to Google Services. Access to Google.com and Google.co.uk has been restored. Users are reporting issues with accessing some Google services such as fonts, YouTube and APIs. Google.com and google.co.uk are unaffected. ETA for fix is 12pm Further updates will be provided via text and online at ESI South West Grid for Learning Trust and on the SWGfL website SWGfL - Schools Internet Service If you have not subscribed to text alerts please do so , just follow the link: South West Grid for Learning Trust and click on the LIVE INCIDENT INFORMATION button. Should you require further technical help, please contact the Technical Service Desk on t. 0845 307 7870 Thanks Julia

Hi, All SWGfL ADSL and FttC services are designed to provide schools with highest performance possible (factsheet) and they have no operational contention. Have you contacted the service desk to talk about your performance, and check that there aren't any technical issues? It may well be that we need to think about an alternative solution as your bandwidth requirements have grown, please do get in contact with us to talk about the options, including: Bonded FttC EoSFBB (Ethernet over Superfast Broadband) Dedicated Fibre The Schools Internet Service team can be contacted via email [email protected] or telephone 0845 601 3203 M-F 8.30am - 6pm Thanks Julia

To discuss your solution and the options available through SWGfL please do contact the Schools Internet Service Team [email protected] or t. 0845 601 3203 Thanks Julia Adamson Education Manager

Hi, You can choose from a range of filter and firewall options from SWGfL including Smoothwall and Lightspeed, please drop us a line [email protected] or call us on 0845 601 3203 to run through your functionality and budget requirements and we'll do our very best to help you. Thanks Julia Adamson Education Manager

Hi Could you make contact with us via [email protected] to provide more details please? Thanks Julia

Please email us for feedback here: [email protected] or find out more information here: South West Grid for Learning Trust - Services

We're sorry that by looking at ESI you've been disappointed in the new Schools Internet Service. ESI is in its initial phases, it’s actually a beta release with basic functionality. Over the next 6 months we'll be adding additional products offering more choice, flexibility and more efficient ways of working. For example, we will also bring change control online so everything is in one place rather than the slightly laborious paper based system you are currently used to - making all Internet Services easier to manage. We would very much appreciate your feedback on how the tool can better service your needs, and indeed the SWGfL new Schools Internet Services as a whole. We're still in the process of finalising the pricing structure with local authorities (as you know this is a complicated process as each LA distributes the costs differently among schools), however in a 2010 study of five schools with a range of connectivity services from the South West Grid for Learning, their costs were compared with those of a major competitor. The case studies include rural and urban primary and secondary schools, with hub-distance ranging from 224m to 12.75km. The cost for the South West Grid for Learning services is, on average, 21% lower. More information is coming your way on this at the start of October; please keep an eye on your post from us. For more latest on the new services, please visit our website. Best wishes South West Grid For Learning Team