Cobb County School District Finds Balance Between Educational Web Access, CIPA and Cost with 8e6’s R3000 Internet Filter

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Profile
Nationally recognized as a leading educational district, Cobb County School District (CCSD), located in Kennesaw, Georgia, is the second largest school system in Georgia and among the 30 largest in the United States. The student population of more than 102,000 grows by about 2,500 each year. Students consistently score above the national average on norm-referenced tests, and Cobb’s 110 schools have earned 16 National Blue Ribbon-No Child Left Behind School awards and 33 Georgia Schools of Excellence awards. In addition, individual schools, staff members and students receive numerous local, state and national awards each year.

Challenge
Committed to educational development as well as student and staff security, CCSD proactively sought an Internet filtering solution prior to the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) of 2000. At the same time, CCSD wanted to ensure the filtering product would fit within its budgetary requirements, would be flexible, and the vendor would provide excellent support and attention. David Mercurio, Network Services Manager, explains, “The District, like all entities, is very focused on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and has to consider price as a major factor in all things. The 8e6 R3000 Internet Filter is not only fully featured, but it is one of the most cost effective products on the market.”

Solution
Having already used the R2000 Internet Filter with great success, when it was time to renew CCSD decided upgrade to the R3000 line of Internet Filters. Says Mercurio, “The R3000 product has many new enhancements and expanded categories to allow for a much more robust filtering solution. After the previous success with the R2000 for the initial three years, it was a ‘no brainer’ that renewing and upgrading to the new, beefed-up version of the R3000 was the way the district needed to go.”

Ideal for schools and universities, the 8e6 R3000 Internet Filter manages student and staff access to the Internet, eliminating time wasted on unauthorized Web sites, Instant Messaging and Peer-to-Peer. Most importantly, the R3000 blocks access to school-deemed inappropriate Web sites such as porn, hate and school cheating. Key features on the R3000 include:

• Real-Time Probe: Administrators may monitor a student’s Internet usage in real-time to determine if that student is using the Internet appropriately.
• “X-Strikes” Blocking: Blocks a student’s Internet access after he/she attempts to access “unacceptable” sites a specified number of times.
• Google SafeSearch: Blocks access to inappropriate content within the Google search engine, including images.
• Customer Feedback Module (CFM): Sends the most frequently visited non-categorized URLS from participating customers back to 8e6 Technologies on a daily basis. These URLs are reviewed and added to the 8e6 Database categories.
• SNMP: Administrators may use Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to monitor R3000s in their networks, including traffic sent/received, CPU load, amount of free disk space, time since last reboot, and memory use.

Going hand-in-hand with the R3000 is the Enterprise Reporter, a stand-alone dedicated reporting appliance. Says Mercurio, “The Enterprise Reporter has been extremely useful for teachers who need to know what sites their students visit during school hours. This helps them ensure students are getting the most of their online education, rather than wasting time surfing the Internet for inappropriate material.” A few ER features include:

• Report Scheduling and Distribution
• Reports by User Name or IP Address
• Powerful Cross-Referenced and Customized Reporting
• Multiple Output Options
• Powerful, High-Density 1U Rackmount Design
  

In addition, CCSD has been very happy with 8e6’s level of support. “The 8e6 staff is a major contributor to retaining the product due to the personal attention and relationship the District has with them,” Mercurio says. “They are quick to meet all our needs and are willing to do whatever it takes to assist the District in meeting their goals and objectives.”

Result
By utilizing the 8e6 Enterprise Reporter, educators and students at CCSD can focus on using the Internet for school-related purposes without having to worry about the inappropriate content that exists on the Web. In addition, although CCSD’s primary concern was CIPA compliance, the R3000 Internet Filter also has the added benefits of increasing bandwidth and improving network performance. Mercurio says, “Cobb County has found the content filtering and reporting of the 8e6 product exactly what it needs to protect the enterprise network and the users from inappropriate content. This has also aided in keeping Cobb County School Districts meeting the necessary CIPA requirements.”

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