Mater Christi College Awards Top Honours To Bloxx

“The reporting capabilities are an essential component of the appliance. We consult the activity logs and reports on a weekly basis to ensure that the students and staff are using the Internet appropriately and have the information on hand when dealing with students who abuse our Internet Usage Policy.”

Brett Bastian, E-Learning Manager at Mater Christi College

Background

Mater Christi College is a Catholic girls’ secondary school, located in the Dandenong Ranges, Belgrave in Victoria, Australia. The College respects the traditions and spirit of its founders, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan, and strives to be organisationally and educationally innovative to meet the challenge of a rapidly changing society.

The college strives for excellence, commits to innovation and ensures justice and care of each person by every person.

The College understands the benefits the Internet brings to the education of its students and equally understands the importance of managing Internet access to protect students whilst online.

The Challenge

The College was having problems with its Internet filter and finding it just wasn’t delivering the Web content filtering capabilities and protection the College required.

Brett Bastian, E-Learning Manger at Mater Christi College explains:

“We just didn’t have the Web content filtering capabilities that we needed here at the College to ensure a safe surfing environment for our students and staff. The user interface was a bit clunky, the management of the system time-intensive and usage reporting limited.”

The Solution

In the summer of 2009, Mater Christi College installed a Bloxx Web filtering appliance powered by Tru-View Technology to monitor, regulate and report on the Internet activity of its 150 staff and 1100 students.

“We decided to install the Bloxx Web filtering appliance as it provided all the functionality we required to deliver Web content protection, management and control at the College,” adds Bastian.

The Results

“We operate variable Internet access policies and can tailor access rights per user group. We can now track and monitor the Web regime of over 1,250 users based on their specific usage policy. This policy is regulated by staff, students’ year group or subjects and time of day, and is enforced to ensure appropriate use,” comments Bastian.

Bastian continues, “We can now easily categorise websites with Bloxx’s Tru-View Technology and permit access to blocked sites when they are requested by staff and students. We are delighted to offer a fast turn-around service for unblocking sites and our students and staff are delighted too.”

The College is impressed with the reporting functionality within the appliance. Bastian adds:

“The reporting capabilities are an essential component of the appliance. We consult the activity logs and reports on a weekly basis to ensure that the students and staff are using the Internet appropriately and have the information on hand when dealing with individuals who abuse our Internet Usage Policy.”

Although the Bloxx appliance is missing some features that the College used previously they have taken advantage of the many additional benefits specifically around the control, management and reporting of Internet activity.

“We are still familiarising ourselves with all the superior functionality that we have at our fingertips with Bloxx Web filtering and are seeing minor improvements in staff productivity. We believe this will increase further in the long term,” concludes Bastian.