What is Acceptable Use of Technology?
An Acceptable Use of Technology Policy (AUP) is a document with guidelines that need to be followed and agreed to by anyone who uses a company's or school district’s technological device or internet. Every school district has an AUP that students and staff need to follow. AUPs exist to make sure users are not accessing inappropriate content, being exposed to cyber threats, or distracting themselves from their responsibilities at school or work.
Why are AUPs Important?
I wanted to extend my knowledge on AUPs and why they really matter, specifically in education. I read an article that discusses the importance of AUPs in schools and why they need them. Having an AUP in place is important but it is also important that the students understand what they are agreeing to. A lot of times students and parents sign things because they need to turn it in by a deadline, but do they know what they are signing off to? This kind of relates to the Terms of Service that people people agree to on social media. Do they know what they are agreeing to? Not really, they just agree to move on with the app.
The author of the article mentions a case study where a school district in Boston allowed their students to help create their AUP. The case study mentions that the district transformed from a failing district to one of the most recognized public school systems. Their previous AUP was not student-centered nor was it understandable to younger students. They solved this problem by condensing their AUP to 10 main points. They started each rule with "I am responsible for...". After creating their AUP with the high school students, they trained them to go into the elementary classrooms to deliver the new student-centered AUP. In my opinion, this was a really great way to get students more involved with their educational technological devices to better understand how to use them more appropriately.
Phishing?
Image source: The State of Security
Internet safety is one of the most important things to look out for when using the internet. It can be a very dangerous space for users who are not aware of the dangerous side of the internet. Phishing is sending fraudulent emails pretending to be someone else in order to access personal information, such as passwords and bank account information. Being able to teach students about phishing is very important before they start to use the internet. People think these types of emails may be real, however they are there to get you. There are six most common types of phishing: deceptive phishing, spear phishing, whaling, vishing, smishing, and pharming. While all these types of phishing are very common, we can protect ourselves from them.
Deceptive Phishing: This is the most common type of phishing and fraudsters use this type to impersonate a legitimate company to steal important information from you. Ways you can prevent this is by looking out for generic salutations, grammar mistakes, and spelling errors.
Spear Phishing: This phishing is mostly used on social media and uses personalized information. To stay away from this type of phishing is to have security awareness training, limit sharing personal information, and invest in automated solutions to analyze emails.
Whaling: This type of phishing targets executives, is used to authorize fraudulent financial transfers and obtain W-2 information on employees. To prevent this is through executive training and setting up multi-factor authentication for financial transactions.
Vishing: This type of phishing targets people through the phone and mimics known people to steal sensitive data. To prevent this is to avoid all calls from unknown numbers and not to give personal information through the phone.
Smishing: These fraudsters contact people through text messages to steal sensitive data and funds. To prevent this is to research unknown numbers and not to respond to any text message that is unknown.
Pharming: This type of phishing is more difficult to identify. It poisons the domain name system and changes the website to something they create and can control. To prevent this type of phishing is to only use HTTPS protected sites, use an anti-virus software, and keep security updated.
Having students and employees be aware of these types of phishing is something all districts should do training on. Earlier this year our technology specialist actually sent our a deceptive phishing email to all staff to see if anyone would respond to it....a lot of staff responded to that email! This shows that training on phishing needs to happen more often.
AUP and My District
Acceptable Uses:
After learning more about AUPs, I read my District's AUP (pg.33). Below are the acceptable uses of the District's AUP:
- All students and staff must use their technological device for educational purposes only
- Students and staff may use their device for incidental personal use during non-work/school hours as long as they follow the AUP
- Users are responsible for their device inside and outside of school/work hours
- Students may only use district devices outside of school with parental or guardian supervision
Unacceptable Uses:
- Using devices at times that will cause disruption to education
- Causing security breaches or disruption to technology system
- Accessing content that is not authorized by users
- Using another person's password, user profile, or technology
Responsibilities and Consequences:
- According to the District's AUP, employees supervising students are responsible for maintaining and monitoring websites students visit
- The District can hold limits to any student or staff who breaks a rule on the AUP
- Failing to follow the AUP may lead in consequences such as discipline, referral for civil and/or criminal prosecution, and any other consequence authorized by law
- All users of the District's electronic resources must sign and return an acknowledgement form that they reviewed, understand, and agree to abide by the AUP
- Anyone who does not return the form is not allowed to use the District's electronic resources
Great analogy about how signing off on an AUP without reading it is no different than just clicking "agree" to a TOS agreement. I also think you are spot on when you say students should be involved in the discussion about what is acceptable use or not with technology. Often, they will be harder with penalties than we are!
ReplyDeleteDiana,
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job sharing about what acceptable use policies are and why they are important in our schools. I too think that parents should understand what they read and sign. So often they get stacks of papers at the beginning of the school year and don't know what they are signing. Creating AUPs that have understandable language and look less overwhelming can improve the parents understanding of appropriate and inappropriate usage of technology with district devices.
Hi Diana,
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Your explanation of AUPs and reason of their importance was very detailed and excellent. I learned even more about AUPs after reading your post. I also read about Phishing for this weeks activities, your explanation of that was spot on as well. I was really intrigued that some people fall for Phishing scams that seem so detectable. When I browse through social media I often find posts that ask a bunch of questions and try to get personal information out of people. I see so many people fall for it and hand out their information. A lot of questions asked are the ones that are security questions for when you have to reset passwords on personal accounts. Thank you for sharing, I learned even more about Phishing from your post.