It is in the interests of all organisations to encourage all network users to behave responsibly online. Providers have legal responsibilities to make sure that internet use stays within the law and to deliver services equally to all learners. Alongside this they have a legal responsibility to protect vulnerable adults and children under 16. Evidence that they meet these responsibilities must be demonstrated through teaching and learning practice:

• E-safety awareness and procedures should be included in schemes of work, lesson plans and resources on the VLE. Include assessment and monitor access.

• The e-safety policy should be developed and delivered in consultation with the learners through the curriculum, peer-education. The Policy and process is regularly audited, reviewed, revised and re-visited with learners to ensure they know and adhere to them.

• The e-safety education programme is embedded in the induction process and curriculum and reflects differentiation and actual risk. Resources should be varied, appropriate and easily accessible to learners with alternative formats made easily and widely available.

• There should be suitable provision made for all vulnerable learners to access appropriate resources on e-safety that reflect and meet their needs allowing them equitable access to safe resources.

• E-safety should be addressed in staff training programmes, TNA audits and surveys, inductions and in the quality review process, appraisals and performance reviews.

• All staff should have access to a formal (Safeguarding related) CPD programme that includes e-safety which is compulsory for those using IT in their work.

• Staff development opportunties and organisational training should encourage responsiblity for sharing their good practice, skills and knowledge in this area.

• Where possible make accredited training available to staff.

TechDis are engaged in a number of initiatives with expert partners on developing appropriate resources and guidance on e-safety for vulnerable learners. The complex and diverse issues are addressed in this e-safety for vulnerable learners overview.

Digital reputation and digital identity

Learners and staff are both at risk of giving away to much about themselves online. Young people routinely give away personal information, financial and personal data and comments on their emotional state without thinking about it in converstaion with 'online friends'. It is important for them to begin to think about the information they release to others online and how it might be used because increasingly employers and universities are researching digital identities using social networking sites. To start a dialogue on Who is going to see it? What will they think? What might they do? you could show the YouTube video circulated by Orange called Digital Dirt. It shows how your information on Facebook can influence a potential employer.

Universities have begun to develop resources for students to explore the impact of the Digital Footprint they are leaving behind. University of Plymouth have a site called myBrand and University of Reading have developed a site called This is me See urls below. JISC Legal have a video with specific advice for HE.

Staff skills

Safeguarding responsibilities include e-safety so staff will need the skills to protect their learners and themselves online. Staff should consider e-safety on a number of levels, their personal use of the internet, their professional use and its impact on their professional identity and their skills and knowledge applied when teaching and working with learners. Staff development programmes should include e-safety within safeguarding training and linked with any ICT skills training needs addressed in appraisals and reviews. LSIS have a personal risk-assessment audit to test your knowledge.

Personal use and professional use - don't mix the two

As in any other teaching activity it is important to recognise and define the boundaries between professional and personal contact.

• By all means use a web 2.0 application for collaborative learning, such as a social networking tool like FaceBook, but consider keeping personal and work separate or use a separate professional networking tool like Linked-In for work. LSIS have produced a guide to the safe use on Facebook and FaceBook have their own guide for educators.

• Check your digital footprint regularly and review your friends' FaceBook pages.

• You can remove tags on photos.

• When using social networking with learners make sure you set up a new page and group for that course and have a separate professional account that doesn't link to your personal account. Web 2.0 technology poses real challenges - approach it sytematically

• Link the behaviour required with the student code of conduct.

• Get Safe Online covers a range of commercial online risks including and offers a beginners handbook.  

• knowthenet have a good range of online quizzes that test your knowledge of the web. 

• SWGfL have guidance on protecting your online reputation  

Working with learners

• Make sure you have read your organisations AUP policy, professional conduct policy and e-safety procedures and find out what it means to your role. This should be clearly defined. If not seek clarification.

• Find out who is the responsible for e-safety or designated Safeguarding Officer. Make learners aware too. Make your own simple risk assessment of the REAL risks to your learners and to you in each instance that you use the internet at work, based on what activities you do, what the learners can do, the level of skill on both sides and any problems you can forsee. Talk to learners too and other staff and decide if there may be any risk to the organisations reputation or your own.

• Discuss e-safety with your learners and make sure they know the organisations processes and procedures

• If a staff and learner induction is available make sure you have seen it and use the learner induction in your lessons

• Link the student code of conduct to online behaviour directly

• Report any misconduct immediately

• Remove any innappropriate material immediately

• Ask for skills training and CPD on eSafety linked to your role with learners and with Safeguarding and other policies.

E-safety requirements will continue to change and the skills need to support learners and staff will needupdating constantly. Online communities can be a great source of information in a fast changing environment. The RSC SW has a NING group for discussing e-safety.

Learners skills

Learners may be very capable and tecnologically savvy. They will not neccesarily consider themselves to be at risk online and often they may be a risk to others without realising it. They must have clear guidelines about behaviour online in college and guidance about use outside. There should be a separate AUP for learners in language they can understand that spells out what they can and cannot do and any sanctions that will be employed, linked into student code and referral procedures.

Learner Induction

Don't just provide access to e-safety information on your website or portal - build it into induction and curriculum activities and take steps to assess learners understanding at intervals. Many good resources exist for learners, select those that will be relevant to and understood by your specific learners. Take special care with vulnerable learners. Communicating issues to them may be more difficult so it is important to check their understanding. A humorous approach may be better for some learners. For example the real facebook highlights why you shouldn't "Friend" some people even if you do know them. On the Excellence Gateway you will find an eSafety induction with session plan.

Peer teaching has a special role in teaching young learners about responsible digital behaviour. Gateshead College have been successful in incorporating this into the curriculum and extra-curricula activities. You can see a video they made on how to communicate this message and peer advice on e-responsible behaviour on youtube.

Learner Inductions should include information on the widest range of risks to their personal and financial well-being and include indformation on: Social Networking, Chat Rooms and Instant Messaging, Email and phishing, Cyberbullying, Mobile phones, Gaming and Gambling, Financial Transactions, AND anything else they feedback as important.

It is crucial that there is some self-assessment so learners can gauge their knowledge and have some incentive to do so. A quick assessment of social media legal knowledge can be seen at the knowthenet link below.

LSIS has an interactive powerpoint presentation on e-Safety on the Excellence Gateway for staff to use with learners as a module of a safeguarding course. This module addresess: Safe social networking, bogus emails and phishing, chatroom and IMS (Instant Messaging) behaviours and dangers and cyberbullying as well as using mobile phones. There is guidance on how to use the materials in a session with learners but it is important to be familiar with the presentation and to judge its use with your own learners. Examples of resources can be contributed to the Excellence Gateway.

Promoting Digital Values

Cover all areas of online activity not just cyberbullying - the aim is to create well informed, responsible users of technology. Many resources are focused on school age children but are still useful as long as the focus is on responsible behaviour. Digizen from ChildNet is a useful site that promotes digital citizenship skills and digital values. It covers copyright and plagiarism as well as cyberbullying and social networking. Other resources aimed at older children and young people often present e-safety issues as interactive games or challenges in order to engage young people and support their understanding. Several films are available via YouTube that really demonstrate well the potential dangers of not being 'E-responsible'. ChildNet also have a site an information site called Sorted on keeping your personal information secure online written by an 18 year old for older teenagers.

The ThinkYouKnow website has a number of age targetted resources for teachers to use including some for Special Educational Needs learners including videos in BSL (british Sig Lanaguage). There are contextual notes and a series of scenarios learners can work through independently as part of an induction - followed by assessment through games and quizzes. Other informal self-assessment games can be found below.

Related Links

Parents Guide to Technology: includes safe use of smart phones and gaming devices

Gateshead College resources on YouTube:

Communicating the message http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXm9mMn-cC4

E-responsibility http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0MP-XtvZI

Facing up to FaceBook An LSIS funded research-based project with Cornwall College dissemination webinar and other resources.

FaceBook Facial Recognition Settings allow automatic tagging. Instructions on how to disable this feature

LSIS powerpoint to use with learners for E-Safety Induction

Accidental Outlaw - Knowthenet quiz on using social media legally

Risk assessment for Staff using ICT

FaceBook Security Settings - Control How you share your FaceBook page

CEOP Advice: Staying safe on FormSpring

Dimensions Hairdressing Learners Guide to e-safety - What's new online, covers the key risk areas for work-based learning

OnGuardOnline - Games and quizzes with assessment activities that can be downloaded

Phish or no Phish - a quiz to test if you can spot the difference between a real site and a fraudulent one

Digizen website has a range of resources one-safety - Social Networking session plan for learners 

iKeepSafe - resources for educators on checking your Digital Identity

Smokescreen An online role play game created by Channel 4 about eSafety issues around a social networking site

Think Before You Post a Video on Teacher Tube that raises awareness of the way information and images are circulated through social networking

"Using Facebook Safely - A Guide for Professionals Working With Young People produced by the Yorkshire & Humber Grid For Learning. This a great awareness raising tool designed to assist users of Facebook to use it safely. This rescource is best suited for use at an operational level and is suitable for use across all sectors and age ranges.

Facebook's Own Guide to Educators Using Facebook

Password Checker - An ideal tool for checking the strength of your password http://www.passwordmeter.com/

Digital Dirt This is a great video to show staff and students. It clearly shows that what's posted online stays on online!

University resources on digital identity and responsible behaviour

This is me- University of Reading student  http://thisisme.reading.ac.uk/

MyBrand - University of Plymouth http://e-portfolio.plymouth.ac.uk/viewasset.aspx?oid=32723&type=webfolio&pageoid=136620

Northern Grid eSafety assessment tool. Although aimed at Schools this is a useful self-assessment tool for learners and tutors.

RSC Eastern Moodle eSafety course. http://moodle.rsc-eastern.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=105

LSIS Facebook Guide