The Top Reasons Schools Monitor Students and Staff:

Strengthen Web Filters and Firewalls

While schools are required to provide filters to block inappropriate web sites, filters can sometimes be too restrictive or fail to block some inappropriate sites. Students also know how to circumvent filtering technology using proxy servers and other tricks. Spector 360 lets you track where students go on the Internet and how they got there.

Increase Time On Task and Learning

Significantly reduce the amount of time students goof off while in class or computer labs. Spector 360 can reduce game-playing and inappropriate web surfing by at least 75%. Imagine the increased achievement that just another 10 minutes of learning time per student per class would bring.

Identify/Investigate At-Risk Behavior

Any student or staff suspected of engaging in inappropriate, illegal, or unapproved conduct can be quickly investigated with Spector 360.

Enforce your Acceptable Use Policy

Students often believe that rules can be bent if no one is watching. Spector 360 is continually watching so student abuse is minimized. Lower the incidence of students trying to circumvent your firewall and filters, reduce the number of bad words typed and determine if students are being bullied online.

Monitor One to One Laptops

End student and staff abuse of laptops when they are away from campus. Spector 360 will continue to monitor student Internet and PC usage as well as block restricted web sites, even when computers are removed from the school network.

Obtain a High-Level View of How Your Students Are Using School PCs and the Internet

With Spector 360, you can quickly observe how one or more students are using school resources with easy to read intuitive charts. Analyze the usage patterns and trends of individuals, classes, media center PCs, departments, schools or your entire district. If anything seems to be amiss, you can drill-down to reveal the nitty-gritty details.

Uncover the Details

High-level reports and charts help you quickly identify those students who are most likely engaging in activities that are harmful. Suspect behavior can be examined in detail by drilling-down to view the PC and Internet activity of any individual student.

Several powerful and easy-to-use tools are provided in Spector 360 to allow you to sift through recorded data and locate a specific event or pattern. You can even replay the screen snapshots associated with specific events using Spector 360’s Screen Snapshot Viewer and its easy-to-use VCR-like controls. Generate professional, customized management reports of your findings with just a few clicks of a mouse.

Spector 360 Architecture

Client RecordersThe Client Recorder is installed onto each computer being monitored and can execute in “stealth mode” so students are unaware they are being monitored.

DashboardThe Dashboard is the focal point for all Student monitoring and is used to manage Spector 360 installations, retrieve recordings, review student activity and produce or schedule reports. Several copies of the Dashboard may be deployed throughout your organization.

Control CenterAll of the Client Recorders are configured and managed by the Control Center, which is used to push out the installation to the clients located on the network.

Server ComponentsSpector 360 includes software-based server components that can reside on one server-class machine or be distributed across multiple machines. The Server Components handle collection/archiving of recordings, web filtering and software service updates.

The Spector 360 Dashboard

The Dashboard is the focal point of Spector 360 and provides you with multiple ways to quickly review student PC and Internet activity. The Dashboard contains the following tools:

Quick View View charts and data tables showing exactly how PCs and the Internet are being used by your entire district, a school, a specific department, or an individual. Get answers to questions such as:

Who is trying to visit blocked web sites the most?

What web sites do students spend the most time visiting?

What do students search for the most while online?

Who is chatting and instant messaging during class time?

and more….

Data Explorer View all recorded data by specific activity: Chat, Email, Web Sites Visited, and more… Powerful sorting features make it easy to focus on specific users, groups, computers and dates.

User Explorer Concentrate your investigation on a single student. Dig deeper by analyzing the student’s PC and Internet activity using a streamlined interface that organizes this information under convenient tabs. Each tab represents a specific activity such as Email, Chat, Keystrokes Typed, and more…

Reports View professional, high-quality management reports on how students are using their PCs and the Internet. Print, email, or schedule automatic report delivery with a click of your mouse.

Search Quickly find the information that is most important to you by searching for a particular word or phrase.

Management Manage access privileges, web site filtering, report scheduling, backup, archiving and other security features. Remotely install or uninstall, configure and manage recording of network PCs.

Web Filtering

Spector 360 allows you to proactively control how your students use the web by integrating Internet Filtering with world-class monitoring. Block access to specific web sites or to categories deemed inappropriate for your students. Restrict access by individual, class, school or the entire district. With dozens of predefined web filtering categories, Spector 360 gives you the power to eliminate excessive and explicit Internet surfing while keeping your students focused and on task.

Customizable Reporting

Graphically analyze how PCs and the Internet are being used throughout your organization with literally dozens of customizable built-in charts and reports.

Display the events recorded today, yesterday, last week, a specific month or over an entire semester or year. Focus on one student, a department, or everyone in a given school.

Spector 360 enables you to generate reports on demand from any of the displayed charts or data tables. Additionally, you can schedule automatic email delivery of reports.

Manage Via the Network

Spector 360 is easy to install and manage over your existing network. System administrators will find the MMC (Microsoft Management Console) interface familiar and will be productive from the start without any special training. Installation, configuration, data security and more can be accomplished from anywhere on the network.