Education

With every year that passes the internet is becoming relied upon more and more by students and teachers alike. Schools and universities worldwide are faced with the increasing challenge of providing the necessary email and internet access for students and faculty, whilst simultaneously maintaining the security of users and the organisation as a whole.

The Internet provides a portal to a host of information sources, relevant case studies and a wealth of unique resources that significantly enhance the learning environment. It is thus, not unreasonable to say that without such access most educational institutions would cease to function in modern times. Additionally effective email access within educational institutions allows for efficient communications between departments, tutors and pupils and so forth.
However, the advantages of full internet access within educational organisations is greatly tainted by the opportunity for misuse, whether accidental or malicious this can nonetheless create legal liabilities, data leakage, reduce productivity and efficiencies, as well as additionally increasing the potential for unacceptable content to reach student and staff inboxes in the form of spam and viruses.

Institutions need the ability, offered by Maildistiller, to transparently monitor and manage web access and intelligently filter emails at internet level to further mitigate security risks. By safeguarding and supplying management in relation to internet access within educational institutions, Maildistiller enables the institution to comply with child protection and user protection laws, upholding the institutions reputation and commitment to their organisations security.

The effects of down-time and data loss

Malware and viruses lurk around sites which are known to be visited regularly by both students and faculty, such as news and travel websites. As a result, more often than not it is students and staff who are responsible for unknowingly leaking important information or accidentally installing malware. However, the unintentional nature of the offence does not make the consequences any less destructive.

Malware risks data loss, meaning important institution records and private information are destroyed. Viruses, on the other hand can lead to system crashes resulting in downtime, which can be extremely chaotic for educational institutions particularly given the number of users that can be affected by one accidental bad click.

Controlling Bandwidth and social media

Educational institutions are continually challenged by the issues that web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube can bring to the organisation.

Downloading films, videos, streaming music and instant chat all play havoc with bandwidth and as a result negatively impact the speed and performance of the entire network. Therefore everybody else’s internet access and productivity is negatively affected and slowed down unfairly, requiring the organisation to invest even more resources and costs into improving bandwidth.

The once simple solution of just blocking internet access or sites perceived as unproductive is no longer a viable option, with more and more resources being solely internet based. In many university’s lectures are streamed, assignments and notifications are all conducted via the internet and Youtube is referred to as often for its educational and informative videos as it is to those considered counter-productive. Thus many sites which have the potential to be unproductive for students simultaneously represent useful educational tools. Take for example the increasing business presence on Facebook offering detailed information and an interactive insight into huge corporations and leading brands that would not be available through any other medium.

Maildistiller offers educational institutions granular controls over internet usage based on; the particular application being used, the status of the user, the time of day, bandwidth and much more. Such controls afford organisations complete management over which specific applications to allow/block or restrict access to, and which policies will apply to faculty as opposed to students. Additionally to manage bandwidth issues, institutions are able to control how much bandwidth to allocate to particular sites and applications.

Public institutions and legal requirements!

The Children’s Internet Protection Act has made it mandatory that all public institutions must prevent minors from having access to or being susceptible to offensive content on the Internet. As a consequence it is imperative that education institutions implement an effective monitoring and filtering solution to prevent such access and thus avoid subsequent lawsuits by concerned parents or guardians which cause nothing but reputational damage and costly legal bills.

In conclusion Maildistiller offers a comprehensive solution that will successfully protect educational institutions and their users in their online activities with zero hassle. Once implemented, the Maildistiller solution will immediately enable educational organisations to effectively manage internet and email usage by students and staff alike, minimising misuse of resources and removing the potential for legal liability, providing a much safer and much more productive web experience. Additionally with the Maildistiller hosted archive solution, Education institutions are able to securely store important and confidential emails and attachments offsite where they cannot be interfered with and can be accessed at any time.