It is difficult to get both and many schools us the AUP as a way of
indicating that they are doing what it necessary to "protect" the student
and the system.
The education issue is the most important and least implemented part.
Students don't understand how their actions impact on others and see nothing
wrong with many of the things that are taboo. I can go down the line a list
a dozen things that students in the general population do as a matter of
course because they don't "think" there is anything wrong with it.
Every AUP prohibits the sharing of passwords. To illustrate my point, I
wonder how many people reading this right now wonder what's wrong with
sharing a password with a friend? Here's a little bit of a lesson that I
give to every class.
I start by emptying my pockets one at a time and telling the class. Here
are the keys to my car. Here is my money. Here are my credit cards. I
will give you any or all of these before I give you my password.
Of course they all assume that I am totally insane. (Never mind the wise
cracks.) I go on to explain that without internet access sharing a password
places your school work in the hands of a friend and opens the possibility
to others gaining access to the work. With internet access, sharing a
password places your life in your friend's hands and opens you up to others
gaining that same access.
Of course they still have no idea of what I mean so I just give them one
example. Let's assume that I don't like you and I get a hold of your
password. If I log on as you and send a threatening email letter to the
President of the United States as you, how long do you think it will be
before the secret service is knocking on your door?
Now that's just a little of two periods worth of lessons that I conduct on
AUPs as part of an internet elective that I teach.
As far as your hacker problem is concerned here is the way that we approach
that. We tell students that much of the security we install is designed to
keep people from making mistakes and that the locks are to keep honest
people from wondering into areas where they can cause harm. We tell them
that it's not to kep hackers out. That's where the strict enforcement of
the AUP comes in. Anyone found hacking into the system is dealt with
severely. For example, one student found hacking into another student's
account had his account cancelled and was removed from two programming
classes in which he was enrolled. In my internet class a similar incident
occurred and the and the same action was taken.
Access to the computers is not viewed as a right. If a student in a shop
class was in the habit of chasing others around with a hand saw, the saw
would be removed from that student's posession. If a student seeks to do
harm to the system or others through the use of the computer, that tool is
also removed from their posession.
As far as dropping the students from the class is concerned they were given
the option of remaining in the class without computer access. That meant
that their parents would have to provide them with the computers and the
works would have to be completed outside of class time.
Well, I could probably go on for another dozen of so screens, but I'll step
down off of my soap box.
If you want to visit our AUP the URL is below. I also have a link to the
National Test Bed's collection of AUP's.
http://dune.srhs.k12.nj.us (Home Page)
http://dune.srhs.k12.nj.us/WWW/AUP.HTML (AUP Page)
Take care,
Art Wolinsky
awolinsk@cris.com
awolinsky@crest.srhs.k12.nj.us