ACTION

Bryan Slater

Director of Education

Distribution

To all Headteachers

The attached document is provided for your information:

INFORMATION	Title	Access to Internet based information on ESINET relating to your school
	Summary of contents	Information about a change to the way information relating to your school can be accessed via ESINET www.esinet.norfolk.gov.uk
	Associated documents	None
	Date	12 April 2002
	Effective from	12 April 2002
	LEA Contact	Alan Smith	(	01603 224455
	E-mail address	alan.smith.edu@norfolk.gov.uk
	Norfolk Self Review reference	7. How well is the school led and managed? 8. How well does the school use its resources?
	Document reference	MI 85/02

This Management Information sheet may be found on ESINET at the following address:

http://www.esinet.norfolk.gov.uk/cadmin/misheet/default.asp

Access to Internet based information relating to your school

You will be aware that, for some time now, you have been able to access some of the data held on ESINET:Schools (only available to school based computers) via ESINET:Public. ESINET:Public is available on any computer that can access the Internet. The area this data is held in is called School Management Resources. To restrict access to this site to legitimate users only, all schools have a unique password.

Recently you were invited to give your governors access to this restricted area by giving them the school’s password. This was specifically so that governors could have access to e-IPSS. It has been pointed out that in doing this governors will also have the potential to access other data to which they are not entitled under the Data Protection Act. I apologise to anyone that has been compromised or embarrassed by this oversight.

In a recent visit by Ofsted it was pointed out that education is now the most data rich of all public and private services! Given that this is the case, it should be no surprise that the Internet is of increasing importance in making data available to appropriate audiences in a format most appropriate to them. We also know that there is increasing pressure from governors (and others) to make data available to them electronically. So the use of sites like the School Management Resources site on the Internet is of increasing importance. For this reason we feel it is timely to split the School Management Resources site into two separate areas, each accessible through a separate password. One area will be for school staff with management responsibilities, the other for governors. The managers’ area will have everything that is also available in the governors’ area, but the governor’s area will only carry appropriate, selected items.

To make this approach work we ask that headteachers control the necessary passwords. This means headteachers will control who has a password and what the passwords are. Only headteachers, or those to whom you have given the manager’s password e.g. school clerks, will be able to change a password. This is important as, for example, headteachers will want to change the governors’ password as a governor leaves.

The passwords can be changed as and when you like from within the School Management Resources site by clicking on the change password buttons. The change passwords buttons are only available on the Managers’ area of the site. The governors’ area cannot be accessed until a password has been allocated.

I hope that this approach overcomes the problems identified, whilst enhancing the potential of the Internet as a means of sharing information to appropriate audiences.

Alan Smith

Education Officer