School districts have many responsibilities when building a technology infrastructure, including devising acceptable-use policies and security procedures. Although most schools report positive experiences with technology, it is still important for districts to have rules specifying the consequences of misuses.
Deciding how a school district would respond to technology infractions, such as altered or deleted files, disabled or missing workstations, miss-configured networks, and misuses of the Internet, is important to determine in advance.
There are two types of security issues in a technology infrastructure: physical security and electronic security. Physical security measures include installing and/or upgrading the locking systems throughout the school, installing electronic monitoring devices where technology is stored, and electronically tagging all equipment for easy identification if stolen.
Electronic security measures include designing a hierarchical access structure for the network; installing firewalls and filters; installing and continually updating monitoring software to search for and report viruses, thefts, and vandals; and installing backup and recovery tools, such as a tape drive that can record and retrieve all networked files and applications.