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AUPs on the Scene
Issues Addressed by AUPs
Collections of K-12 Acceptable Use Policies
Individual School's Acceptable Use Policies
Advice from Experts
Logistical AUP Procedures
Whose Acceptable Use Policy Is This?
Does Your AUP Work Against Itself?
Tech Lords at Work
Let the Punishment Fit the Crime
Protecting Children's Rights
Is an AUP the Best Approach?
The Future of AUPs
Afterward - Eight Years Hence
Protecting Children's Rights circa 2003
Amidst all of this hubbub about controlling access to Internet resources, the American Library Association (ALA) has a long standing and well reasoned opinion that minors should have free access to libraries in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom and free inquiry. Because the Internet is in effect a huge library, many people have suggested the ALA position applies also to minors using the Internet. Most schools are finding a common ground that both deals with the fears instilled in the public by news of isolated abuses, and also deals with the need to avoid censorship while introducing and teaching important technological and ethical concepts. Many of these schools are investigating and writing AUPs.
School AUPs are usually prepared in the form of contracts between the Internet users and their school. At a minimum, they must be written, publicly available statements of official school policy, even if they are not in the form of an agreement. The idea is that it's better to know the rules before one embarks on the road.
Many schools are adopting AUPs, as recommended in Internet RFC 1578 (also known as FYI on Questions and Answers to Commonly Asked "Primary and Secondary School Internet User" Questions). The AUPs currently available on the Internet provide a means to discover how AUPs are working in schools today and to ask if the AUP format is the best way to address these complicated issues.
Most AUPs deal with multiple issues, frequently attempting to meet all possible concerns. Here are some of the diverse areas covered in Acceptable Use Policies.
AUPs run the gamut from dealing primarily with educating students and their parents to dealing almost exclusively with controlling access to resources. Most K-12 AUPs cover many of these issues. Here are some links to AUPs for you to investigate.
[Sadly, as of August 2003, I no longer found any acceptable collections of AUPs. The next link is therefore provided for historical purposes only.] Visit previous versions of this essay.
Also, by doing a few Veronica, Lycos, Webcrawler, and Google searches for words like "acceptable," "internet," "policy," and "protect," in combination with "child" and/or "school," I found several K-12 AUPs. Here are some of them:
format document Bill Hanson and Sally Laughon also shared their insights in a speech outline called "Student Drivers on the Internet" which was once at gopher://k12.oit.umass.edu/00%2Finternet%2Fpolicy%2Fethics%2Einternet% 2Econf%09%2BText%2Fplain%20En%5FUS
Various writers on this topic agree that in a pluralistic society there are, and should be, a very wide range of belief systems. This leads to a need for tolerance of a vast array of opinions and experiences. So AUPs, then, must serve as a way to moderate and guide us in situations where divergent beliefs come into conflict.
Another preparative step used by many schools is an orientation session for students, parents, teachers, community members and/or others. This orientation and training happens before students are issued an account "login" name and password, or at the same time. The purpose of the session is to discuss concerns and issues addressed in the AUP, and to give preliminary and basic instructions for use of the account.
Each AUP should serve its users' needs. Small middle schools and junior highs getting their first and only modem in the library or media center, for instance, have very different policy needs than large high schools that already have universal student access.
Many AUPs go to special efforts to say that student computer network use while not at school is not the school's responsibility. While it is rarely explicit, I believe this means that schools expect parents to supervise all non-school computer use - whether at home or elsewhere. Avid parental involvement and supervision of student computer use is also recommended by Larry Majid's pamphlet, Child Safety on the Information Highway. Majid says that computers should not become "electronic baby-sitters."
People will not believe in your AUP unless it is, at least, well written, logical and internally consistent. For example, I found several writing errors in the sample AUPs available on the Internet. Official signature forms, to be taken seriously, should be clear, spelled correctly, and use correct grammar. It is much harder to respect and take seriously a form that shows inattention to communication details.
I also have seen some AUPs that were not consistent within themselves. On one page it might say "Anyone found trying to go to an objectionable site will have their privileges lifted." And two pages later the same AUP might say "Every attempt will be made to warn students and teachers of violations before removing access." Users should have the right to know the possible consequences of misbehavior without unnecessary waffling within the AUP itself: Do I get one warning, or not?
Using the same example, when an AUP says "Anyone found trying to go to an objectionable site will have their privileges lifted," is illogical. Experienced Internet users know that you often do not know the nature of a link before you open it. How can you? Anyone who has used URouLette knows that you simply don't know where you're going to land, and many Web pages have similar links that are intriguing but not well explained. To hold a single mouse-click against a user as an AUP violation is somewhat extreme. This policy, on the other hand, would be quite understandable if it said, "Repeated visits to objectionable sites will elicit a warning. Further attempts will result in a loss of privileges."
Another illogical AUP states that students "should not intentionally obtain copies of ... files ... or data that belong to someone else." On the face of it, this AUP forbids collaborative student projects and sharing of student creative products! They mean, I'm sure, that students should not obtain one another's files without permission, but that is, unfortunately, not what the form actually says.
The most disturbing inaccuracy I found in several AUPs is a confusion of ethical behavior with civility. Typically, AUPs set a high standard of civility by stating a rule that users must be polite in their dealings on the Internet. Then, pages later in the signature block at the end, the student/user is asked to confirm that all violations of these rules are "unethical." The word in the signature block should be "unacceptable" rather than "unethical," because standards of politeness vary greatly and because civility is not the same as being ethical. An unethical act can be performed with extreme politeness and civility, but the act does not become ethical through the addition of civility.
Sometimes in AUPs, systems administrators or systems operators are given the majority of decision making power concerning Internet use. In conjunction with their power, the wording of the AUP may include technical terms or vague generalities that make it difficult to determine what boundaries the policy defines. This type of AUP makes it possible for authorities to revoke Internet priveledges with little or no warning or explanation, leaving users confused and reluctant to explore the Internet.
A bewildering phrase I repeatedly found in the available AUPs is "From time to time, (named school) system administrators will make determinations on whether specific uses of the network are consistent with the acceptable use policies." What does this mean? If it means "We reserve the right to change these rules as we learn new information?" why not just say so?
If the ground rules are open to change, shouldn't it also say that any proposed changes will be announced before they are implemented so that users can always know the rules they are expected to follow?
And, sadly, some folks, whom I refer to as Tech Lords, take to ruling over the use of the Internet. Listen to this Tech Lord proclaim:
"Based on the acceptable use guidelines outlined in this document, the system administrators will deem what is inappropriate use and their decision is final."
In addition to these types of proclamations, some policies actually stress that there is no appeal process available.
Are Tech Lords using your AUP to unnecessarily accrue power and reserve authority to themselves? Are they using vague language in your AUP to unnecessarily keep users at a distance? One way to tell is to ask them what they mean by a confusing statement in the AUP. If the system administrator becomes defensive or changes the subject, this is not a good sign. If, on the other hand, they explain in simpler terms, try to get those simpler terms used in the AUP! A useful AUP will be understandable rather than intimidating to its users.
Interestingly, I found some advice that deals openly with certain child abuse concerns by carefully emphasizing to the student that many troublesome events are not the victim's (child's) fault. Larry Majid's insightful pamphlet, Child Safety on the Information Highway, was written in association with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Howard Rheingold's directions to his own child carefully reinforce several additional important elements for children using computer communication.
[The Afterward below includes many additional links to good information about children's rights.]
What about duplicity and perversity? Many AUPs warn students not to accept e-mail messages without some skepticism as to their source and to their content. Messages can be forged, and people do deceive.
Just like in real life in our home communities, there are also outrageous, profane, appalling, detestable and repugnant expressions and displays on the Internet. People can sometimes be obnoxious, insulting, rude, or exploitative on the Net. Children should have some idea of how to respond to these circumstances if they occur.
"The Internet is exactly like real life, in regards to the availability of information... A student could, for instance, learn how to make a bomb from someone online -- but he could gain the same knowledge from a chemistry book, so does that mean we have to ban books and stop teaching science, too?"
"Of course not. It's just human nature to fear and protect against something we don't understand. It's too bad that there are still so many who distrust the Internet, rather than being open to comprehending the advantages."
Jamieson McKenzie makes a similar argument when he says (in the June 1995 edition of his Web newsletter From Now On), in the article Protecting Our Children From the Internet (and the World), that the Internet has the same risks found everyday on your cable TV, printed in your local newspaper, or delivered to your postal mail box. I would add libraries and telephones to the list of comparable risks. The Internet is every bit as risky as your public telephone or library.
McKenzie also makes an excellent point when he reminds us that the best goal is for children to attain self-control.
"As children mature, we begin to rely less and less upon physical barriers, trying to teach them to respect boundary lines and values without being tied down, locked in or physically blocked from entry. We expect our children to begin exercising judgment and restraint."
"This expectation only makes sense as the young person begins moving toward adult life. Self control is an essential element in the development of an independent, well-balanced adult member of society. We hope and expect that our children will begin to adopt certain values as their own, 'internalizing' a distaste for cruelty, for greed, for wanton destruction, for dishonesty and for other things we have identified as negatives. At the same time, we hope they will come to cherish certain traditions, behaviors and attitudes which we hold dear."
Howard Rheingold, author of the influential book The Virtual Community, presents similar ideas in his article Why Censoring Cyberspace is Futile. Here is a brief quote from the article:
"Yes, we have to think of ways of protecting our children and our society from the easy availablity of every kind of abhorrent information imaginable. But the 'censor the Net' approach is not just morally misguided. It's becoming technically impossible. As Net pioneer John Gilmore is often quoted: "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
"The Net's technological foundation was built to withstand nuclear attack. The RAND Corporation designed the network to be a throughly decentralized command- and-control communications system, one that would be less vulnerable to intercontinental missles than a system commanded by a centralized headquarters."
"This decentralization of control means that the delivery system for salacious materials is the same worldwide one that delivers economic opportunity, educational resources, civic forums, and health advice. If a hacker in Helsinki or Los Angeles connects to the Internet and provides access to his digital pornography files, anybody anywhere else in the world, with the right kind of Internet connection, can download those steamy bits and bytes."
"This technological shock to our moral codes means that in the future, we are going to have to teach our children well. The locus of control is going to have to be in their heads and hearts, not in the laws or machines that make information so imperviously available. Before we let our kids loose on the Internet, they better have a solid moral grounding and some common sense."
Good words of advice: We need to take a look at why and how we write and implement AUPs to ensure the successful use of the Internet for learning.
The original scope and purpose of this essay, as defined by GNN, did not include the issues covered below. These are currently (August 2003) useful links for schools now dealing with Internet education and AUP issues.
format document format document format document
AUPs on the Scene
Issues Addressed by AUPs
Collections of K-12 Acceptable Use Policies
Individual School's Acceptable Use Policies
Advice from Experts
Logistical AUP Procedures
Whose Acceptable Use Policy Is This?
Does Your AUP Work Against Itself?
Tech Lords at Work
Let the Punishment Fit the Crime
Protecting Children's Rights
Is an AUP the Best Approach?
The Future of AUPs
Afterward - Eight Years Hence
Protecting Children's Rights circa 2003
Copyright © 1995-2006 Dave Kinnaman, all rights reserved worldwide.
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