knoope_LT3_Activity 1: Blogging about Acceptable Use Policy

In my discussion with my District Instructional Technology Specialist, I found that the current AUP has been in force since before 1999, but the major authors responsible for the document’s inception no longer work for the district. As such, the AUP is now revised/reviewed as a “result of new technologies (social media, mobile devices), new electronic/technology options we offer students/staff (Google Apps), and changes we make to infrastructure” (Finch, 2014). The current AUP has not been revised since 2012.

While reviewing the student AUP, I found some areas that, while included, are lacking in content. For example, the acceptable/positive uses are limited. I attribute this potential oversight to the idea that we are not a 1:1 school, so students’ use of technology and online permissions are limited to classroom and library use. I was surprised by how much of the district AUP is geared at the negatives such as unacceptable uses, violations, and sanctions, but they are subtly placed in among more general headings, e.g. ‘Student use is a privilege’ (WSD3, 2012). Additionally, I was surprised at how difficult it has been to locate this document on the district website. I anticipated finding it quickly and easily, but it is actually buried on a Board Policy page, and a visitor/user must pay particular attention to the document titles.   

One other concern for me was the authorial make-up for the revisions. No students or parents (who are not district personnel also) were involved in the recent reviews/revisions. District employees and lawyers, with the approval of the school board, effected the majority of the revisions for this current version. While the public was invited to offer input and/or concerns at the board meetings, my IT Specialist noted no parents or students challenged or contributed to this document.

The student policy does contain the Preamble, Definition, and Policy sections, but they are terse and clumsily written. As a whole, the document is not laid out as clearly as outlined in the NEA example. In fact, one of the sections (presumably a policy portion) reads quite poorly because of the sentence length.  Though not mired in legalese, the sentence length is very long and stumbles upon itself over and again making the sentence less effective and powerful.

Our district does have a student policy and a staff policy, but again, finding the staff policy was a search in the Board of Education. Having these documents buried in this area concerns me because it smacks of opacity when I expected transparency.  If I were a parent, I would like to find this very important document prominently displayed and available at all schools rather than having to dig on the District page. Here is more specific information I found by content area.

Preamble:  This section differs on the staff and student versions. While the student Preamble introduces the purpose, its focus highlights 21^st Century Learning environments and district access.

Definition:  There are shades of the definition of and for this document all over the document.

Policy Statement: One of the recommendations in the article “Getting Started on the Internet” (Cromwell, 1998) suggests the inclusion of a statement of student completion of a “computer responsibility” class. Our policy has no such statement which would be beneficial given that our students either do not know how to or do not care to exercise responsible computing skills.

Acceptable Use section: This information is interspersed throughout the document – mostly in the Introduction/Preamble section. It would help to have this be a clearly defined section so that students, especially, and parents understand what is defined as acceptable use.

Unacceptable Use section: My district AUP does not define any specific web sites that merit restriction, but it does outline thirteen unauthorized uses. Among these are violent, obscene, and “copyrighted material protected by trade secret” (WSD3, 2012).  

Violations/Sanctions section: There is not a specific section in my district AUP, but the nuances that permeate the document regarding violations are everywhere. Under the “Student use is a privilege,” the loss of privileges is specifically mentioned; in other sections, students are reminded to notify a staff member of violations or potential violations.

A few things I appreciated in this document were the recommendations for Netiquette and cyber bullying.  Although this information could have been buried in another section, having them as stand-alone sections makes them have a greater impact on the intended audience.

References

Cromwell, J. (1998). Getting started on the Internet: Developing an acceptable use policy (AUP). Retrieved from EducationWorld: http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr093.shtml

Finch, L. (2014, January 21). Instructional Technology Specialist. (E. Knoop, Interviewer)

WSD3. (2012, October). Student use of the internet and electronic communications. Widefield, CO, USA: WSD3.