Weekly Brief for Schools
22nd September 2014
In this issue:
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Quote of the Week
Website of the Week
Technical and Operations
Communications
eSafety
National
Meeting Dates - September/October
Meeting Dates
See below
Quote of the Week
It's not what you look at that matters, it's
what you see.
Henry David Thoreau
Website of the Week
Natural Disasters
The BBC science site
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/natural
_disasters
have some great information and footage
of natural disasters.
British Pathe http://www.britishpathe.com/
also has film footage of avalanche, flood,
fire, volcano disasters going back in time just take care as some is quite upsetting.
You are invited
8th October - The Environment Centre,
Markham Vale - 10am
8th October - The Castle Hotel, Kirby Muxloe 1pm
14th October - The Bentley Hotel, Lincoln 10am
19th October - embc Autumn Conference,
iPRO Stadium Derby
Come and join us at one or more of the above
events - the first three meetings are small local
events with embc, whilst the conference is a
whole day meeting including embc suppliers, and
speakers Tim Rylands and Alastair White (British
Pathe). http://www.empsn.info/what-wedo/events/
And http://www.empsn.info/save-date-19thnovember/
Technical and Operations
OPENHIVEeMail
There have been a number of issues reported since the
start of term with Email services, particularly OWA access
to mailboxes. The OPENHIVE team are working through
an upgrade scheme moving users to the newer more
functional Exchange 2013 platform, during this work
Contact Us
www.empsn.info
01604 879 869
embc@embc.org.uk
issues are being addressed if and where they
occur. Progress on the upgrade activities and on issues
around services are being posted and actively progressed
through the support portal http://support.inthehive.net
Where you are experiencing issues please continue to
report these to the service desk who will work to address
them with you, if your issue is urgent please call them. If
you don’t inform the desk they don’t necessarily know
there is an issue.
Network Maintenance
Starting tonight we commence an autumn programme of
network maintenance, updating the software operating
within the emPSN exchanges. Work will commence from
2200 onwards each evening Monday to Thursday and will
continue into the night.
Firewall Maintenance
We are planning some optimisation works for the emPSN
Internet firewall to accommodate the current priorities and
needs customers have on the devices. We anticipate this
work taking place during the half term break, but dates are
still to be finalised. We will keep you posted.
Reverse DNS
As raised last week emPSN offers services for the reverse
resolution of IP addresses to Domain names for the IP
ranges assigned by RIPE to emPSN and its
members. This service is changing and all schools using
this service will be migrated to a new platform in the
coming weeks to provide improved resilience and
performance for PTR and Reverse DNS services.
Reverse DNS Services for all schools who host their own
email servers onsite will be moved to the new service on
the evening of the 6th October. Customer downtime is not
expected as a result of this change, but we ask that users
check SMTP logs during the evening or the following
morning to ensure correct operation.
Schools using managed email services from OpenHive,
RM or Mouchel will not be affected by this change as the
DNS and rDNS will be associated with those service
provider facilities.
KCOM Documents
KCOM have published a couple of documents on the
KCOM portal (https://portal.kcom.com) to assist users in
two beneficial areas. The first centres around Self Triage
and helping site administrators perform standard tests to
determine if there are issues with site connectivity, please
take a look and familiarise yourself with this. The second
centres around the use of the network QoS services and
outlines what QoS is and the markings you would need to
apply to your traffic in order to use it.
Change Forms KCOM
Also on the KCOM portal (https://portal.kcom.com) is the
newly added reverse DNS / PTR form, for users needing
services using reverse DNS – email for example, please
use this document if you would like to make
changes. Later on today / tomorrow a new form will be
added for standardising requests for edge site ACL
changes, to allow customer site A to communicate with
customer site B, without traversing the public internet.
Any changes requested for these services will need to be
completed on the standard forms as this facilitate the
process and governance required to make the changes.
Communications
embc Coffee Meetings
- come along and join us over a cup of coffee to discuss
your embc service, ask questions and share ideas. Help is
on hand if you need advice or just want to know how to get
more from your connection.
8th October
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Markham Vale Environment Centre 10am - 12pm
The Castle Hotel, Kirby Muxloe 1 - 3pm
14th October
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The Bentley Best Western Hotel, Lincoln 10am 12pm
To book email your name, school and meeting to
events@empsn.org.uk
embc Autumn Conference - Wednesday 19th
November
With a great line up of speakers and workshops our
Autumn conference is at Derby City FC/iPRO stadium
which has lots of parking, easy access from the motorway
and ring road and plenty of space for speakers,
networking and lunch.
We are putting together the list of workshops but these will
include keynote speaker Tim Rylands, Kcom, Capita,
eSafety Adviser Alan MacKenzie, Capital Bytes, Wave
9, Ark and Katharine Childs plus there will be
presentations by Tim Rylands and Alastair White of British
Pathe. Workshops will cover topics such as cross school
wifi, filtering and BYOD, resources to raise standards in
teaching and learning, coding and the new
computing curriculum, the latest in esafety and many
others.
Starting at 10am the day will be packed full of information
for anyone with an interest in the use of technology at
school and in the classroom. Whether you are a teacher or
a techie you will go home inspired.
Free to emPSN members (places will be opened to non emPSN
members after the 8th October at a cost of £50)
Book your place by emailing events@emPSN.org.uk
eSafety
With the increased use of bring your own device (BYOD)
what rules should a school deploy for safe use? A
handheld device and mobile phone AUP template is
available on the London Grid for Learning
http://www.lgfl.net/esafety/Pages/policies-acceptableuse.aspx - this can be tailored to suit your school but
certainly gives some guidance as to requirements a school
should include in its policy.
Internet Matters http://www.internetmatters.org/ continues
to work with industry and parents to provide advice and
guidance for keeping children safe online. Their website is
clear and easy to use and has age related content.
National
The NEN Technical Group met on the 9th September and
discussed esecurity and the production of some advice to
senior leaders on the importance of esecurity backed up
by some more detailed technical advice for network
managers and technicians on managing and maintaining
esecurity in schools. These papers will focus on network
security rather than esafety. Draft papers have been
produced so watch the NEN website for their production
shortly after the 2nd October. Already published is some
useful information on selecting a broadband connectivity
http://www.nen.gov.uk/selecting-broadband-connectivityfor-your-school/ - bring your own
device http://www.cesg.gov.uk/News/Pages/Bring-YourOwn-Device-BYOD.aspx and information on
Copyright http://www.copyrighthub.co.uk/ The NEN will
also respond to the DCMS Digital Communications
Infrastructure Strategy consultation in particular that
secondary schools in the short to medium term are
requiring gigabit connectivity which is expensive in the
absence of aggregation. There was also an update from
JANET who have a new certificate service.
The NEN Managers also met in September on the 11th to
discuss the BBC RES project, authentication, Janet and
JISC, the new NEN website, the conference and receive
updates from other groups.
Meeting Dates - September/October
22nd September - Board Meeting 9am Beaumanor Hall
8th October - Coffee Meeting, 10am -12 Environment
Centre, Markham Vale
8th October - Coffee Meeting, 1-3pm The Castle Hotel,
Kirby Muxloe
13th October - emPSN AGM and Board meeting, 9.30am
Beaumanor Hall
14th October - Coffee Meeting, 10am -12 The Bentley
Hotel, Lincoln
Local Authorities: