A rapidly growing trend in K-12 Education involves leveraging the use of personally-owned mobile devices such as laptops, iPads, tablets, and smartphones to enhance student learning and meet one-to-one computing mandates within tightened budgets.
Today’s learning environment is well-connected and has high availability and on-demand needs. Web access is pervasive – anywhere there is a signal, students can be found accessing data from their phones and tablets. These mobile devices embody the blending of technologies (applications, tools, readers, etc.) that very easily lend themselves to education and enhanced learning.
This shift in learning is not only inevitable – it has arrived. The more information students can access, the more they can learn. Students are increasingly more “self-directed” and collaborative through their secure use of educational tools and digital content. Critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration – all are skills required for students to be competitive, and all are skills enhanced by “Anytime, Anywhere” learning.
The use of personally-owned mobile devices trend is gaining momentum nationwide with much support from parents and students. Project Tomorrow, a national education nonprofit group, reports that 60-70 percent of parents of K-12 students would be willing to buy a mobile device to support learning. And 56 percent of high school students say that it would make it easier to learn if they were allowed to use their own mobile device at school.
Smartphones, iPads, and tablets – the mobile devices being used by students today function wirelessly. Hard-wired connections are great for library and lab environments, but as more students bring their mobile devices onto campus the need for wireless access will continue to increase. Vist our BYOD page to learn more about how you can make a BYOD environment safe for your District.
With all these mobile devices connecting at different schools and administrative locations, your District will need to know exactly who is on the network and what kind of device they are using. Are the people accessing the network authorized to do so? Are they accessing only areas of the network that you want them to? What kind of programs are they running? Do they have current virus and spyware protection? Is there something on the mobile device that could take down your network?
Managing from a central location is the best use of manpower and consistent control of access to applications and student and administrative portals. Being able to manage and control access to your district network is the most important aspect of implementing a policy on personally-owned devices and protecting students while enhancing their learning capabilities at the same time.
All this access presents the hazard of introducing malware to the network or contact with unwanted visitors.
SafeConnect helps ensure that only authorized guests can access your network. The solution also automates the District’s endpoint security compliance policies by continuously identifying, assessing, enforcing, and remediating computing devices before and after they gain access to the network.
The solution provides the District much needed visibility into user identities and device types, whether they are managed or unmanaged (i.e., personally-owned).
Students, faculty and guests are self-guided through enrollment, and if necessary, remediation instructions to conform to district security policies. They receive individualized notifications regarding the necessity for compliance (e.g. out of date AV protection) and are guided through the process with instructions on how the appropriate software or up-do-date virus definition can be downloaded.
SafeConnect was originally designed for use on college campuses – and since the beginning, the product has been upgraded and enhanced with direct feedback from its users. School District networks resemble those of higher education more every day. We can help you provide the right balance of access and security that’s right for you.
SafeConnect checks a user’s system prior to granting network access as well as on a continuous basis in real time. This provides two significant benefits; users who become non-compliant are isolated immediately. This is inherently more secure because users are not allowed to remain on the network for extended periods. In addition, the user experience is superior because only those users out-of-compliance with security policies are impacted.
SafeConnect is implemented as a true “out-of-line” network device. The SafeConnect Policy Enforcer Appliance sits out-of-line with the core network and fails open—presenting no single point of failure, performance bottle-necks or maintenance-related or scheduled network outages. In the event of a failure all existing and new users to the network are unaffected and have uninterrupted access to network resources.
SafeConnect was designed to enable safe network access to authorized users regardless of the connection. It is common for users to introduce small multi-port hubs on the network as a way to increase connections. These hubs provide convenience but at the same time allow malicious users to operate undetected. SafeConnect solves the potential security issue associated with hubs while maintaining the benefit of increased access. The SafeConnect system can detect the presence of a Network Access Translation (NAT) device and require it to be placed in bridge mode. This allows the system to identify, authenticate and assess the security of the devices connected to a hub.
School campuses may need to quickly notify students and faculty in the event of an emergency situation. SafeConnect can broadcast an on-demand message to everyone whose computer is authorized to access the campus network.
SafeConnect is network switch hardware and software vendor independent and integrates into the existing network architecture. No switch manipulation. No rip-and-replace. No changes or continuous manipulation of Layer2 network switch devices, wireless access points, or VPN concentrators are required.
SafeConnect utilizes directory services infrastructure (i.e. LDAP, MS Active Directory, RADIUS) to authenticate end user devices. The system can also apply identity- or role-based policies and enforcement rules based on how a user is defined within the directory system (student, employee, guest, vendor, etc.) Users who cannot be authenticated can be quarantined or blocked from accessing the network. SafeConnect also features a Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication capability that could allow existing AD managed users to maintain their existing login process user experience.
SafeConnect’s Enterprise Policy Manager offers a centralized policy management interface that will enable an authorized policy administrator the ability to build and edit policies that can be deployed immediately. SafeConnect’s Enterprise Policy Manager has been designed to be intuitive and easy to use. The Policy Manager can be accessed from multiple locations and allows you to assign application and read/write level administrative privileges to policy administrators and help desk personnel.
SafeConnect is Layer2 network device independent and agnostic, which allows the system to manage public or privately addressed sub-networks and VLANs whether their topology is wired, wireless, or VPN.
The SafeConnect system is designed for remote customer setup and implementation. By leveraging our managed services capability, we can routinely install a system in less than an hour. The solution can be deployed in a phased-in approach (by IP address/range, subnet, VLAN) across wired, wireless, and VPN infrastructures as required for a non-disruptive transition.
The SafeConnect system is supported by the industry’s most comprehensive implementation and support services agreement. Impulse Point will provides continuous (24/7) proactive monitoring and support that includes hardware and software problem determination and resolution support, as well as upgrade protection to future software functional releases. Daily policy configuration remote backups are included which enables Impulse Point to restore and deliver a replacement system within 24 hours.
Impulse Point does not assign an “end of life” to our product or appliance. When additional functionality is integrated into the software, or if the appliance needs an upgrade we will simply forward the updated software or appliance at no charge as long as you remain under maintenance. We will never ask you to purchase the appliance again.
The SafeConnect offers a real-time Web-based dashboard interface that will enable an authorized policy administrator or help desk personnel the ability to view quarantine devices for the entire enterprise or by user group. Your policy administrator (or help desk personnel) can also locate a quarantined device based on IP address, MAC address, or user name. SafeConnect has been designed to be intuitive and easy to use. The Policy Manager can be accessed from multiple locations and allows you to assign application and read/write level administrative privileges to policy administrators and help desk personnel based on their authentication credentials.
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