Here Phishy, Phisy

 

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We’ve been trained to be suspicious, but when your boss’s e-mail is hacked it’s easy to question what is real and what is “phishy”. I found this topic interesting as my district recently implemented an an automatic phishing reporting button to our district e-mail. Before this was added to our accounts we had to do a training and pass a quiz on phishing scams. A few years ago my district also added a note in our inboxes to all out of district e-mails we receive.  This note labels out of district e-mails as external e-mails.  When this was first initiated it made us second guess every e-mail we received.  After a few years, this is not something I take much notice of anymore.  I think it was a good idea for my district to add the e-mail training and phishing button in addition to our external e-mail notification.  This idea is supported by the article Phishing Scams:  Don’t Take the Bait.  The article states A failure of basic email safety impacts everyone—teachers, students, families and the community. Keeping communication flowing is a shared responsibility. As IT works to limit the threats that make it into our inboxes, teachers need to be engaged in authentic cyber-security learning experiences so they know exactly what to do when facing a suspicious email.  

Acceptable Use Policies

Thinking about phishing leads to discussions about the responsibility put on both staff and students when using district devices.  According to Kajeet, an acceptable use policy (AUP) is an agreement between the student and the district designed to keep students safe online.  This is especially important as students now take their chromebooks home daily and are not just using them under school supervision.  

I decided to take a closer look at my district's acceptable use policy.  I was able to find this on our district website under school safety and reporting.  What I first noticed when looking at the policy was how it reminded me a lot of the terms and services I looked through last week.  It is formatted like a detailed contract with headings and detailed examples in the sub headings.  When diving into the content of the AUP, I looked for the key concepts outlined in Kajeet’s article.  I will go into more detail on each of those categories below.

• Introduction

My district’s AUP does begin with an introduction.  The introduction states who is held accountable for AUP (Board Members, District employees, students and others using District computers/ internet), the necessity of the policy and internet use, as well as notice that privileges can and will be revoked if policy is not followed.

• Definitions

The district defines certain terms throughout the AUP as needed for clearer understanding.  Some of these include LAN- local area network, within an individual site and WAN which is wide area network or between sites.

• Policy Statement

Kajeet defines this as explaining which computer services are covered by the AUP and if there are conditions for using the services.  The policy statement is given in my district’s first sentences of the AUP.

The District includes the use of the Internet in the District's instructional program to promote educational excellence by facilitating resource sharing, innovation, communication and assessment. All use of the District's connection to the Internet, Intranet, local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) must be in support of education and/or research, and further the Board's stated goals. 

• Acceptable Uses

Acceptable use in the AUP is defined as using e-mail, internet, and telephone for educational purposes only and must follow the district goals and guidelines.

• Unacceptable Uses

There are fourteen specific examples of what is considered unacceptable in terms of internet/ device use.

• Violations and Sanctions

The AUP states that students or staff that violate the policies can lose the privileges of using district internet and devices or face other consequences up to explosion or termination depending on the severity of the offense.

In Conclusion

Overall for the protection of the district and those using the electronic resources provided (especially the internet) I think having such an AUP is important.  I did prefer going through other AUP’s such as the one from Manawa that was laid out as more of a contract and felt more user friendly.  I do feel that while the AUP isn’t super user friendly, we do outline all of the most important points during our digital citizenship lessons at the beginning of the year, before students are given their devices.