Information services security and usefulness in schools

¶ … Education

Information services, often shortened to IS or MIS, has become more and more of an integral part of daily life in the United States since the major emergence of the internet in the 1990's. This has been true across the board including in the consumer, business and government paradigms. When it comes to government, there are few sectors that are held in as high a level of prominence as education. Information services can be and are wielded in any number of ways by educational authorities. There are also private schools that do much the same thing on their own behalf. The proper depth and breadth of information services as well as the securing and safekeeping the same are all extremely important and this all needs to be handled by competent and ethical professionals. While information services can be a big and unwieldy mess when mishandled or under-handled, they are necessary in a technology-driven culture and economy and they can be used in adept and novel ways.

Analysis

This report shall be divided into two major dimensions, that being usefulness and security. When it comes to usefulness, there are a number of basic things that all school systems and administration bodies should use information systems for. These include things like student information, names of parents or guardians (including their contact information), emergency contacts in case there is a medical or other problem, medical issues that a student may have such as asthma, diabetes and so forth as well as school records like attendance, grades, disciplinary issues (if any) and so on. However, information services can also be used to track things like who accesses secure areas, video surveillance (both live and recorded) and the monitoring of internet use and activity on both student and teacher/administrator computers. Indeed, if there is anything untoward happening on school systems, it needs to be detected as soon as possible and addressed fully with the same expediency. Some teachers/students may take issues with this oversight but they can be fully warned and informed about what is watched and they can use non-school systems if they wish to not be monitored (Indiana, 2016).

The other main dimension that has to be taken seriously is the security of the system. Indeed, there are going to be things like Social Security numbers, address information, private medical information and so forth. All of this information is "need to know" and access must be controlled at all times and in multiple ways. The employees in the school should be regulated based on what they need access to and what is none of their concern. For example, a janitor may be required to use a computer to clock in or out but that same janitor should have no access whatsoever to payroll or medical information about any person that works at or attends the school. Further, the person or people in charge of the ongoing administration and general security of the system must be well-trained and must follow protocol to the letter. This is important for both medical and ethical reasons. Beyond that, the system must not be insecure when it comes to outside access. Virtual private networks and other remote access avenues are well and good but the setups for the same need to be complete and well-managed (Microsoft, 2016).