Milton Town SD Deploys SmartFilter Internet Filtering
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Milton Town School District in Vermont has deployed SmartFilter, Bess Edition from Secure Computing to block students from accessing sites the district deems inappropriate. SmartFilter is a URL-filtering solution that's also designed to protect the district's network from potentially dangerous downloads.
"Secure Computing's SmartFilter does a superb job of filtering out the pages that are deemed 'undesirable' by our policy-makers, without using a 'sledgehammer' approach," said Fred Wadlington, Milton Town School District IT systems administrator, in a prepared statement. "Now, the only administration I have to do is creating or deleting new user accounts. The updates are provided automatically by Secure Computing, and I very seldom have anyone complain to me that they weren't able to access a site they needed."
SmartFilter includes the ability to adjust filtering levels based on user type, such as student or administrator, and based on the age of the user. The "Bess Edition" in use at MTSD was designed specifically for schools, which allows certain content to be accessible under specific conditions, even if it would normally be blocked. (As an example, the company said sites that include the word "nudity" would normally be inappropriate for students, though some such sites might be allowed in the context of health education.) Secure Computing also said that SmartFilter, Bess Edition is CIPA-compliant.
Milton Town School District serves about 1,900 students in one elementary school and one middle/high school and employs about 300 faculty and staff. Its network includes about 800 computers.
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About the author: David Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's online education technology publications, including THE Journal and Campus Technology. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.