MichaelM

Hi Zag & Angry, Those are exactly the responses I was looking for, really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Grumble, I was aware of everything you have said but the way you have consolidated the information is something I think even our SMT may understand. My final outstanding question (if anyone can help) is we have a single domain, does anyone know how I can send the student mail to Live@edu and the staff mail through our other service?

I couldn't agree more but that is the issue I am faced with! That said I have used things aimed at education which have fallen well short of our expectations in the past so something being education focused doesn't in itself make it the right option.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this - We are looking at splitting our students onto live@edu whilst filtering and archiving staff mail on a separate service. In order to do this I need to build a case for live@edu as SMT are not convinced. Can anyone help - mainly looking for assurances of the live@edu service and how suitable it is for student email? The other question I have (and excuse me if I am being dumb) but we only have 1 domain, how will I send student mail to live@edu whilst still filtering the rest of our mail through the other service? Thanks in advance MM

That was it Securus, thought it was Securas but searched that on google and it was not what I was looking for! Abaddon does securus work for clients outside the network or only on network?

Are you looking for monitoring only or are you looking to be able to filter web traffic as well as log it. A lot of web filtering solutions offer granular reporting and logging facilities whilst also blocking a lot of the bad stuff. The other feature of a web filter is it will stop the use of anonymous proxies, which are used to hide, therefore maintaining complete visibility. If web filtering is what you are after I know Smoothwall and Bloxx are both focused on education and therefore competitively priced. I also think Sophos and Websense offer very affordable solutions to education. There are also free solutions out there depending on how much time you have on your hands such as Dansguardian. If you are looking for logging only I am sure there is a solution out there but for the life of me can't remember what it is called.

I use SugarSync File Manager, you get 5GB free to start and if you recommend it etc. you get more free space (everyone I worked with recommended it to each other and most of us have about 10GB). Its free and I have been using it for 6 months without issue. You get a folder you can put on any desktop that links straight into it but also with web access.

I found two just searching 'educational email AUP' into Google, the top hit was a schools full blown AUP as were a number of the others.

I was just trying to do some research and find out how the phone systems in education (primary, secondary, HE, FE, doesn't matter) is controlled? Are you responsible for your own connection, phone system, provider etc. or are you set up on a grid by the LEA/Council? How much control do you have over your own configuration? Are there any common problems with phone systems within education or is there any service that it would be particularly useful for your current phone system to be able to do? Any feedback would be great. Michael