August 21, 2008
TECHNOS QUARTERLY Spring 1994 Vol. 3 No. 1
Sidebar for The Internetworked School: A Policy for the Future
“The CoVis Network Use Policy” is sent home with students at the beginning of the school year and must be read and signed by both parents and students. In this way, parents are informed of the activities their children will be engaged in as participants in the Internet community as well as the innovative nature of the activities in the CoVis classroom. To ensure that students have an opportunity to think through the issues and guidelines described in the policy, time in each classroom is devoted to a follow-up discussion, led cooperatively by a CoVis teacher and a Northwestern graduate student. This excerpt has been edited for publication in TECHNOS.*
RIGHTS
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Privacy in their electronic communications. Users must recognize the fundamental differences between public (e.g., news) and private (e.g., e-mail) forms of communication and shape their content accordingly.
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Equal access to as many network services as the user's technology allows.
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Safety from harassment or unwanted or unsolicited contact. Any user who receives unwelcome communications should bring them to the attention of a teacher. Users must be aware that there are many services available on the Internet that could be considered offensive, and individuals must take responsibility for their own actions in navigating the network.
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Intellectual freedom. The CoVis Network must be a free and open forum for expression. Statements are implicitly understood to be representative of the author's individual point of view and not that of the CoVis Network, its administrators, or the participating high schools.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Failure to fulfill these responsibilities may result in the loss of network
privileges.
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Using appropriate language. Profanity or obscenity will not be tolerated on the CoVis Network.
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Avoiding offensive or inflammatory speech. Community members must respect the rights of others both in the local community and in the Internet at large. Personal attacks are an unacceptable use of the network.
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Adhering to the rules of copyright. CoVis community members must respect all copyright issues regarding software, information, and attributions of authorship.
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Refraining from re-posting personal communications without the original author's prior consent. To do this is a violation of the author's privacy. However, all messages posted in a public forum such as newsgroups or listservs may be copied in subsequent communications, provided proper attribution is given.
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Using the network only for legal activities. Illegal activities include, but are not limited to, tampering with computer hardware or software, unauthorized entry into computers, or knowledgeable vandalism or destruction of computer files.
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Avoiding the knowing or inadvertent spread of computer viruses. Deliberate attempts to degrade or disrupt system performance by spreading computer viruses is considered criminal activity under state and federal law.
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Accepting full responsibility for account usage. Under no conditions should a user give his or her password to another.
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Using one's real name. Impersonation is not permitted; pseudonyms are not allowed.
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Taking responsibility for one's messages. Anonymity is not allowed on the CoVis Network. Individuals must take responsibility for their actions and words on an educational network.
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Displaying exemplary behavior on virtual field trips. CoVis community members must conduct themselves as representatives of both their respective schools and the CoVis community as a whole when using the network.
* The entire text is available from the authors. Write to: Barry Fishman, Room 234, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208. Or use e-mail: bfishman@ils.nwu.edu for Barry Fishman; pea@nwu.edu for Roy Pea.
For Further Reading:
Roy Pea, “Distributed Multimedia Learning Environments: The Collaborative Visualization Project,” Communications of the ACM (May 1993).
Denis Newman, Susan Bernstein, and Paul A. Reese, “Local Infrastructures for School Networking: Current Models and Prospects,” Bolt Beranek and Newman Tech Report No. 7726 (1992).
Richard Ruopp, Shahaf Gal, Brian Drayton, and Meghan Pfister, LabNet: Toward a Community of Practice (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1993).
Return to The Internetworked School: A Policy for the Future TECHNOS Quarterly article.