When will the Human Monitoring Service be available?
The HMS will be available to all Hosted Gaggle Subscription customers starting July 1, 2012. The included HMS is based on Gaggle’s standard filtering lists and policies.
Is Gaggle qualified to do this monitoring and how will you handle the huge number of users?
We started offering the HMS to some limited customers back in 2006 as a paid service. Along the way we learned lot of hard lessons about what does and does not work. We’ve trained employees, developed processes and created custom tools to enable us to quickly identify problem messages and deal with them. As of January 2012 we were monitoring over 300,000 user accounts. We’ll be training many additional Cyber Security Agents over the next 6 months in preparation for the next school year.
What does Gaggle need from us to get started with the Human Monitoring Service?
We highly recommend that you identify an emergency coordinator whom we can contact in case a serious student situation arises. Simply provide us with this persons, name, email address, office phone and mobile number.
What if we still want our teachers to review blocked messages?
Your school or district can choose not to use the HMS service; just inform your Gaggle Account Rep.
If we choose not to utilize the HMS service, will we receive a credit to our account?
No, there is no credit for customers that do not use the service.
We currently use Gaggle's HMS services, but we have customized our service. Will we still need to pay separately for it?
Customers that wish to have customized service and filter settings can choose this option and pay a small fee per user.
What options are available with the customized Human Monitoring Service?
The customized HMS can be used for both customizing the filter settings and for creating a custom process for dealing with inappropriate content.
Filter Settings
If you wish to deviate from any of the settings below, you will need to consider the custom option.
- Strict Blocked Word List
- Customized Blocked Domain Names
- Customized Blocked Word Lists
- Middle & High School Students with access levels other than student level
- Filtering Between Student & Teachers = Off
- Alert Students to Blocked/Flagged Mail = No
- Default Max Sent Messages Per Day = None
- Max Recipients Per Email = None
- A Digital Locker Notification = On
- Blog Approval = Off
- Blog Comment Approval = Off
Custom Processes
There are many ways to customize the process and policies for how Gaggle deals with blocked content for your schools.
- Student warning procedures
- Automatic Student Account Suspension
- District and Teacher Notifications
Is the custom Human Monitoring Service eRate eligible?
No, the custom HMS is not eligible for eRate discounts.
What are the coverage hours for Gaggle’s Human Monitoring Service?
Over time we plan to increase the coverage hours for the HMS. Below is the current coverage policy:
Monitoring is conducted multiple times between the hours of 7 A.M. and 10 P.M. Central Time Monday through Friday. Weekend review is conducted between 10 A.M. and 5 P.M. Central Time. All blocked messages from outside of the covered times will be reviewed during the following coverage period.
Can I have some students be on HMS and some not?
HMS has to be set on a school level, so either they have to all be on or off.
If we have both Free and Subscription groups in our district, will both be monitored?
Only the subscription schools will be monitored.