Bloxx Web Filtering Helps Dene Proactively Enforce its Internet Access Policy

“Bloxx is a huge technological advancement compared to our old system and well worth the money we have invested in it. It provides the students at the school with the opportunity to surf the Internet safely and productively as they further their education.”

Tazambal Ali, Dene Community School of Technology

Background

Based in County Durham, Dene Community School of Technology specialises and excels in Maths, Science, Information Technology and Design Technology. It is a successful, popular and improving school, widely recognised as a centre of excellence and a truly inclusive community school. The school is now the most improved school in County Durham and topped its regional league table in 2007-2008. The School aims to provide the skills, knowledge and understanding needed for its pupils to take their places in a rapidly evolving technological society.

The Challenge

Dene School of Technology previously used a highly restricted solution for filtering web access which was configured to use a whitelist of only 500 approved websites that students could access while at school.

This method of filtering severely restricted learning and because a search engine was not included on this whitelist, the students were unable to use the Internet as a learning resource which made it almost impossible to do any comprehensive research on a particular subject matter.

This restriction led the School to review different solutions and it had a number of key goals it wanted from its new web filter.

“With regards to students the overall goal of implementing the new solution was to allow students greater access to the Internet whilst still ensuring they accessed the Internet safely and in a controlled manner,” comments Tazambal Ali, Network Manager for the School.

“We were also hoping that giving students access to the Internet as a learning resource would boost the standard of learning and teaching, which ultimately would lead to better grades for the students.”

“Regarding staff users, the overall goal was to control the access available to staff and to make sure that use of the Internet for personal reasons was only carried out during designated times.”

The Solution

After reviewing a number of web filtering solutions on the market, Dene School of Technology believed all its expectations and goals could be met with the Bloxx web content filtering appliance and choose it to monitor its 840 users.

Bloxx uses a multi-layered approach to web filtering to enforce Internet policies; if a user requests a web page that isn’t in its optimised URL database, the page is instantly passed to Bloxx’s patented Tru-View Technology. Tru-View Technology then analyzes, categorises and blocks or allows access to the web page, depending on the user’s access policy.

The Results

Installing Bloxx completely changed the way Dene School of Technology managed Internet access; it allowed them to formulate and enforce much more comprehensive Internet policies that were more closely aligned to the students’, staff and the school’s learning and working needs.

“Allowing the students greater access to the Internet whilst being confident that they are being monitored and protected from inappropriate content is probably the most important benefit we have experienced as a result of installing Bloxx” said Ali.

The School decided to take a proactive approach to managing its Internet policies; it has individual groups setup for each student year group and a group for all staff. The sensitivity of each of the 50 Bloxx filtering categories is tailored by user group.

The Bloxx appliance is configured to send email alerts when Internet content is blocked; these emails are checked between three and five times a day and reports are generated and checked on a daily basis.

“At the end of each school day a report is automatically generated and from this we can see how many times a particular user has attempted to access blocked Internet content. This information is then posted daily on the school’s intranet for all staff and students to see,” comments Ali.

“If a student’s name appears on the published list a considerable number of times, the student’s access to the Internet is limited to a whitelist for a week.”

“If a student attempts to access inappropriate content, such as an adult website, they are banned for a week. After this ban is complete, the student is given limited Internet access for a further week before being granted full access.”

“Information regarding banned users is also published on the school’s Intranet along with the reasons for the ban. The school also sends a copy of the user’s Internet access report home to parents highlighting the attempted access to inappropriate content.”

“We believe that this proactive approach to implementing our Internet policy shows students that all attempted breaches of the policies are recorded and acted upon. It also demonstrates to parents that we are serious about not only protecting the students in school, but ensuring they remain productive in the learning environment. Since publishing the information on the school intranet site, the number of repeat offenders has been reduced considerably.”

Staff Internet is now better managed and monitored and Ali believes that staff productivity has improved as staff can no longer access non-educational websites during core teaching hours.

The school is very pleased with the results it has achieved from the Bloxx web filtering appliance.

“There are so many useful features on the Bloxx appliance. Tru-View Technology is outstanding at categorising and filtering web content when users request it and I really like being able to enforce SafeSearch automatically on search engines. The reporting is very powerful and easy to use and the ability to create a Sin Bin of users based on these reports is crtical for managing our Internet policies.”

“Bloxx is a huge technological advancement compared to our old system and well worth the money we have invested in it. It provides the students at the school with the opportunity to surf the Internet safely and productively as they further their education,” Ali concludes.

Head Teacher’s Point of View

The Head Techer of Dene Community School of Technology, Joan Low, is delighted that the School has installed a more advanced web filtering solution to actively manage its student and staff Internet use.

“Due to the restrictive nature of our previous filtering solution, members of staff were allowing students to use their personal accounts to access the Internet,” comments Low on the situation before they installed Bloxx.

“We also found that many members of staff were using the school network to download non-curriculum content through file sharing programs as well as spending an increasing amount of time on non-teaching related sites.”

Now that Dene has installed Bloxx, the benefits are clear.

“Students are far happier using the Internet now and the School is confident that all student Internet access is monitored and filtered allowing the students to further their education safely.”

“By using the working and non-working times we have been able to better manage access to the Internet for both staff and students. Previously, online gaming sites were completely blocked; now, thanks to Bloxx, students have access to gaming sites during break, lunch and after school,” concludes Low.