Page 103 - Lakeland Catholic Technology Plan

8. System Lock downs and Administration
References to ‘locking down systems’ implies that the computers are setup in such a way that students are unable to make modifications to the operation of the computer which can adversely affect it’s use for another student. For example, students shouldn’t have the ability to delete applications, such as Microsoft Word from the hard drives, nor should they have the opportunity to change the
screen saver, passwords, etc.
Why do we lock down workstations? One of the most time-consuming aspects of technical support, or maintenance of any computer, is ensuring all the applications work properly, and work together. Very frequently applications don’t work together too well. There are many instances where a well-functioning computer becomes completely non-functional when a new piece of software is installed. The best case scenario would be having computers that are not changed throughout the school year, and thus a technician does not have to do any work on them. While some may say this is an unobtainable goal, we would suggest otherwise. There are many ways to lock down systems that are inexpensive and easy.
In the District, all of the older machines, in many of the schools have no lock down of any sort in place. In fact, in most of the Labs it is relatively easy to install new software, remove any software, and make any changes as desired. This creates many headaches for the teachers who are trying to teach in the Lab, as many ma- chines are going down. And, this is unrelated to hardware issues. While many of the new machines, going into schools running the Novell 5 operating system are receiving the ZENWorks package, none of the old machines are receiving this treatment. ZENWorks is a well-designed package which, when installed properly, will prevent any tampering of the system by anyone, staff or students. This results in a workstation that needs minimal annual support.
Technical support is one of the greatest costs in any school system, as compared to the actual purchase of the computers, and any time that money can be saved in tech support, it must be done. (500 computers should be easily handled by 1 tech- nician if the proper setup is done.)
For those machines that are not running the ZENWorks yet, or the Macs, there are a number of options available as follows:
•For Wintel machines, there is commercial software, like FoolProof, or Fortress available which can lockdown the systems quite well, but there is also a very cheap, and relatively easy way as well. Utilizing Profiles and Policies on an NT server, you can very, very effectively lock students out of any possible mischief. In fact it can be locked down so hard that they can’t install applications, they can’t download any games or programs off the Internet, they can’t make any changes
to the system. But they can run all the applications, or whichever applications they are permitted to run, they can print, essentially they can do everything they need to do on the workstations.
•The Macintosh machines also have a number of options available. These include FoolProof for the Mac, which is one of the most effective programs, NetBooting, (which is discussed later), At Ease for Workgroups, and even a number of share- ware packages. In fact, there is a shareware program called Assimilator which will completely reload the computer every morning, or as scheduled over the network. This means that students can do quite a bit the day before, but as soon as the computer is restarted, all the changes are removed.
Recommendation:
1. Software and systems must be implemented to lockdown the workstations on both platforms. This will have the net-result of cost savings in technical support, and fewer computers being down at a time, thus allowing more access by stu- dents to technology.
2. Windows machines should be done using Profiles and Policies, especially con- sidering that there is an NT server in each school, and it can be done incorporat- ing the Novell Services.
3. Macintosh machines should be locked down with NetBooting, if it’s an iMac Lab, or FoolProof, MacManager, or similar products on all legacy equipment.
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