BECTa ISP Accreditation

On December 18th 2006, Synetrix successfully obtained BECTa ISP accreditation for the URL filtering service on the Broadband Sandwell network.

The accreditation process had been ongoing since September, and has proved difficult to obtain, but Synetrix, working with Netsweeper, the company who provide the filtering software, were finally able to "iron out" the remaining issues late last term.

BECTa ISP accreditation is a requirement placed on educational broadband suppliers to ensure that e-safety guidelines are met. For more information please follow this link.

We will offer the accredited service alongside the current (unaccredited) service so that schools may choose to opt for the accredited service when they are ready.

The accredited and unaccredited services are very similar:

• both services use the same filtering technology, provided by Netsweeper
• both services block certain websites and web based resources based on categories and lists, and therefore offer protection to users from inappropriate content

• It will be possible for a school to choose whether to use the accredited filter or the unaccredited one, see below.

Your school has not yet had the BECTa accredited service applied; please read on to determine whether you wish to move to the BECTa accredited service or to remain with the current (unaccredited) service instead.

The BECTa accredited service is based upon the service currently offered to schools, but tightens up the availability of certain types of Internet resources. You may be aware that website blocking is based on categorization of websites, by then allowing or disallowing certain categories. Categories such as violence and pornography will always be blocked to protect our users, both adult and children.

The BECTa accreditation required us to block some extra categories that are felt to present a risk. Categories that have been added to the accredited service include:

• "No Text": where a website consists only of images or files to download
• "Host is an IP": where the URL starts with an IP address, e.g. http://60.158.246.32/
• "Uncategorized site": where a new website has appeared that does not appear in the categorizations.

A view had previously been taken that these categories presented a low risk to users, but they will be blocked on the BECTa accredited service. In our experience, the "No Text" category also affects websites like sims.net, "Host is an IP" affects access to back end servers on webmail systems such as hotmail. While it is possible to identify exceptions and add them to the "global allow lists", this can only be undertaken once the problem has been identified, i.e. someone has to experience a problem first.

Schools that move to the BECTa service may therefore expect to suffer initial "teething problems" in its use until the websites that you need to use are correctly categorized.

Please follow this link for advice about blocking and unblocking websites.

If you are a Sandwell school that wishes to use the BECTa accredited service, please ask your Head Teacher to request this by one of the following methods:

• email: helpdesk@broadbandsandwell.org.uk
• mail:   Helpdesk, Broadband Sandwell, Sandwell TDC, Popes Lane, Oldbury, B69 4PJ
• fax:     0121 511 1022.

Please ensure that the request is made by the Head Teacher and preferrably is on school headed notepaper.