ICT Update

4th April 2007

Service Desk Update

Thank you for your patience regarding the delays experienced with user accounts this year. We believe that we presently have the system under control with ITSD having taken on the role of managing ePass requests, thereby greatly reducing the load at the service desk. Accounts are also being created and modified within 8 hours of the request.

Bandwidth in Schools

Most students and staff are benefiting from the improved bandwidth that has been provided to urban schools, however users in schools in regional and remote areas have not seen the same level of improvements. This is impacting on users in slow response times when accessing services outside the school.

The level of bandwidth provided to individual schools is primarily based on their location. Schools in metropolitan Darwin, Katherine, Tenant Creek and Alice Springs are connected to optical fibre or high speed copper networks and have connections ranging from 2 Mbs – 100 Mbs depending in the size of the school.

Schools outside these areas are connected with land based digital services if they exist or satellite which is used in 50 schools. Connections for these services range from 256 – 512 kbs. This is the maximum capacity available in these areas at this time. We are looking at a number of measures to improve network performance at these sites but there are no simple or cheap solutions.

Communications Problems in the Arnhem Region

We would like to increase the bandwidth to schools between Oenpelli and Nhulunbuy and those on Groote Eylandt, however the Telstra links into this region are fully committed and there is no additional bandwidth available. This problem is compounded by poor service reliability which is causing an average of one major outage per week. Our concerns with the capacity and reliability of these services are shared by other NT Government and private users, however there appears to be no short term solution to the problems.

Services in Remote Schools

The wet season is always a tough time to maintain computers and networks in remote schools and we have experienced a number of extended disruptions due to communications, power and equipment failure. These outages are disrupting a whole range of activities in remote schools and we are considering a number of strategies to reduce the response times to ICT failures in remote schools. A major issue is the cost and time to fly specialists to schools to fix problems and we are keen to explore opportunities to share costs on existing DEET charters to reduce costs.

SAMS 6.86.12 Upgrade

The annual Upgrade of SAMS to version 6.86.12 will take place during Weeks 1-4 of Term 2 (April 16 – May 11 2007). The new version will consolidate the maintenance releases over the last year and introduce a range of new features. The SAMS team has been in contact with school SAMS operators and are scheduling individual school upgrades. The process is done automatically however school servers will need to be shut down at 4.00 pm in preparation for an overnight upgrade.

As in previous SAMS upgrades:

• The SAMS Team and Editure will be involved in the upgrade to be done overnight.
• The SAMS operator will need to do some Before and After Upgrade Procedures that needs to be done in "single user mode".
• As part of the upgrade, File and Print services on the ntschools server, including SAMS, will not be available from 4pm on Upgrade Date, so everyone will have to be logged out of ntschools before 4pm.
• File and Print services will be available again on the following day. As SAMS will be in single user lock, from 4pm , SAMS will not be available again till After Upgrade Procedures have been done.

Further communication will be sent out to individual schools closer to their Upgrade Date. If schools required more information on this, please contact the SAMS team on 8999 3531.

Backup or Cry

One of the most important activities for computer users is the exercise of backing up data. During the recent upgrade of computer hardware it was amazing the number of people who had not backed up their files. In a couple of instances, teachers lost all their programs of work which had been stored on the desktop. In the school environment, files and folders less than a gigabyte in size, can be saved on the P: drive. Personal USB thumb drives, external USB drives, CDs and DVDs can also be used to backup files.

Critical data should be stored on the server or backed up to CD/DVD and stored in a safe place. Computers can fail at any time regardless of their age. Without regular backups, a lot of hard work can be lost.

The Desktop is also a poor place to save important documents because it slows down computers and no copies of files are kept. It is better to create folders on the C: or P: drive and create desktop short cuts to them on the desktop.

Remember: “It’s not a matter of IF the computer fails; it’s a matter of WHEN the computer fails!”

Internet Usage Monitoring

A new system has been installed on schools servers that will allow senior staff to review Internet usage in the school down to the user level. This monitoring will provide reports on aggregate usage over time, sites visited and individual user access records. We are keen for schools to use the new service to moderate demand and preserve bandwidth for learning and administration services.

Internet Filtering

As most would be aware internet filtering and blocking services are provided to prevent access to inappropriate material. This is an ongoing challenge because the blocking systems rely on constant updates of blocked sites from the services provider. Recently we have become aware of a number of anomalies in the filtering services due to the rapid pace of change on the Internet. A number of new rules have been applied to address the issues please let us know if you are aware of undesirable web sites being accessed and we will tune the filtering service to block these.

Additional Categories Blocked
The following additional categories are now blocked:

• game/cartoon violence
• information security
• phishing
• spam email urls

See url: http://www.securecomputing.com/index.cfm?skey=86 for a description of all categories.

Usage of Anonymous Proxy's
Used to bypass local filtering policies and access any Web Page we have implemented rules to block any site with "prox" in the domain name.

Your assistance is sought to keep ITSD informed of any Anonymous Proxy sites that you suspect students are using.

Blocking URL's with Specific string values
The Content Filters are already configured to block certain crude words; however we need to be extremely cautious in adding additional words. For instance, blocking all domains which contain the character string "sex", will potentially block legitimate sites. eg essex, sussex, etc

However, there is some merit in blocking domains which contain the string "xxx", and "xxxx", which have been implemented.

YouTube Videos
On-line videos are causing significant usage on DEET's internet service and Content Filters are running at > 90% CPU utilisation during school hours. www.youtube.com was blocked last year, however other sites are now providing youtube videos. These additional sites will also be blocked.

utubevideoclip.com
topyoutudevideos
utube-videos.us

Other initiatives
The ICT Update, (5th March), detailed the reintroduction of the Red List, which provides ICTC's with the ability to block domains locally.

Reporting tools:

• Editure have been requested to provide ICTc's with tools to produce reports on your school’s internet usage. We will advise when this facility is available.
• Reporting of the central content filters has been implemented and the reports will be made available on our web site soon.

Sites that are inappropriate can be blocked immediately across the system by contacting IT Services (onlineservices.deet@nt.gov.au).

Alternatively if you find a blocked site which is of educational value and you would like it unblocked you need to fill in the “Addition to the Whitelist Request Form”.

Whilst content filtering is in place, the requirement for due diligence whilst supervising students in their use of the Internet is not reduced in any way. Teachers in all schools are asked to reinforce appropriate use with students each year and reinforce the agreements outlined in the ‘Acceptable Use Policy’ signed by students and parents.