[Offtopic] Private notebooks on school networks

[Jim Maunder]

At 09:48 AM 21/06/2007, you wrote:
>Hi All,
>Just wondering if anyone has allowed privately owned notebooks onto 
>their school networks?...

Our situation is similar but different. We already have about 500 
student lappies, mostly from the one source. Quite a few students get 
their lappies from 'outside' and I have to set them up for our network etc.

The difference is that we are already set up to cope with student 
laptops, the similarity is getting the 'outside' one to fit into our 
infrastructure. What I do with these is:

1. Install the Novell Client (you might not have to do this)
2. Make sure it has a good A/V proggie. If in doubt install the 
school A/V (eTrust). I also replace Nortons with ours, but that's just me.
3. Install Firefox and Eudora (Firefox is set up with our proxy, IE 
is left for home use)
4. Install other school software (Graphmatica etc etc)
5. If it does not have MS Office install that too, without Outlook.
6. Make sure it's wireless works.
7. Send an email to the Finance Mgr asking him to charge the student 
$100 'outside laptop' service fee, and whatever licence fees are appropriate.

The problem I see in allowing 'outside' laptops into your network is 
that they are likely to bring trojans etc with them. Some boy 
students might bring hacking tools with them. You might want to 
restrict network access to students if you feel vulnerable.

In my time at Chelt we had a student with special needs who had a 
laptop, but it had no network access.

regards
Jim



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Jim Maunder
Ruyton Girls School
Melbourne, Australia