As summer approaches, I'd like to share a few tips for administrators on managing student accounts on My Big Campus. Some of your students will be graduating or moving on to other schools or districts. Most will be advancing a grade or year level, and virtually all will have new teachers and classes.
Removing and graduating user accounts
You don't need to (and shouldn't) delete your student users at the end of every term. When you delete user accounts, all user content disappears — content that students and their parents may want to keep, particularly their files and photos. This is especially important for graduating seniors, whose digital portfolios will be valuable for job and college applications. You can also do this for teachers who retire or transfer out of your district.
District Administrators can manually upload a users.csv file that will disable access and remove accounts from your district, while still preserving student content. You'll find that option at the bottom of the SIS page on the Administration dashboard. Please note that this is not reversible -- only use this if you want to remove these users permanently from your district. After the import is complete, email the file to support@mybigcampus.com, and we'll use it to add these accounts to the new Alumni Portal (coming this summer) so students will be able to access the content they've created in My Big Campus. Access to the Alumni Portal is free.
Updating student grade / year levels
One of the most common questions we get from students at the beginning of each school year is "I'm in grade / year x, but my profile says I'm still in grade / year y. How do I fix that?"
This isn't something the students can change from their Account Info page, however -- it must be done with a SIS import. First, make sure your student grade levels are updated in your Student Information System. Then create a new users.csv file with the updated student info, and import that into My Big Campus. The updated grade goes in column F, as shown in the following table.
Col. A
Col. B
Col. C
Col. D
Col. E
Col. F
Col. G
Col. H
Col. I
Col. J
unique_
sis_
user_id,
User
name
first_
name
last_
name
unique_sis_
school_i,
Grade
Email
user_
type
Pass
word
authent
ication
US: Student grade level or year (1 through 12) Use 0 (zero) for Kindergarten, and -1 (minus one) for Pre-Kindergarten.
UK: Student year (1 through 12). Use -1 (minus one) for Reception, 0 for Year 1, 1 for Year 2, etc.
Changing Schools
It's also easy to transfer students and teachers to new schools within your district. Update your SIS with the new information, then export a users.csv with the people who are changing schools. The updated school ID goes in column E, as shown in the following table.
Col. A
Col. B
Col. C
Col. D
Col. E
Col. F
Col. G
Col. H
Col. I
Col. J
unique_
sis_
user_id,
User
name
first_
name
last_
name
unique_sis_ school_i,
Grade
Email
user_
type
Pass
word
authent
ication
Updating groups
To secure your groups from use while the group owner is away, remove students from all groups.
If your groups are auto-populated and memberships maintained with SIS imports, you can use a SIS import to remove group members. In the "memberships.csv" file, if the field unique_sis_group_id matches an existing group, the import will remove all existing users (except the group owner) from the group, and replace them with the list of users in the CSV file. Use "groups.csv" to create new groups or update an existing group with a new group owner. Specify existing group ID to overwrites group settings for existing groups; new unused group ID to create a new group.
If group owners maintain the group memberships, group owners can use the Group Maintenance tool to remove members.
NOTE for schools not integrated with the Lightspeed filter: If you have a free account and the students you've given accounts will no longer have you as a teacher, there's a bonus. When your students are removed from all groups, their policy will automatically change to lock down their accounts until they are added to a group again. They'll still be able to log in and browse the Library, but most social activities will be disabled.
Also, speaking of groups, we've made the decision to retire the Bob's Corner group when the redesigned My Big Campus interface goes live early in June. While we recognize that many students enjoy being able to interact with other students on My Big Campus, we also realize that the "drama" that sometimes happens in Bob's Corner can be distracting for both students and administrators.
Updating parent information
If you haven't already deployed the Parent Portal at your district, this is the perfect time to plan the rollout. This series of blog post explains what to do:
If you've already enabled the Parent Portal, you can update parent and child information from your SIS. Remember that parents log into the Parent Portal with their email address -- teachers who have children attending schools in your district will need to provide a personal email address, not their school email address.
Column A
Column B
Col. C
Col. D
Col. E
Col. F
unique_sis_student_id,
unique_sis_parent_id,
email,
first_name,
last_name,
password
Note: For parents with multiple students in the district, include each student on a separate row.
Managing student access during breaks
Because users can access their My Big Campus accounts from anywhere at any time, including school breaks and vacations, you will need a procedure for monitoring user actions when staff resources are limited. If staff are not available, you can use policies in MBC to limit or remove access to My Big Campus features during breaks. In addition, I and my staff continue to monitor user activity just as if school was in session. Anyone violating the terms of use will have their account suspended—and our school contacts will be notified in the usual fashion.
Through MBC Administration, you can adjust the policies for students at each school to disable any aspects of the site you don't want them using over the summer, such as student-to-student messaging.
District and School administrators can also disable accounts using policies. You'll see it as just another check box in the list. We hope this won't be necessary, and I want to assure you again that My Big Campus is monitored by my staff even during school breaks.
If this is your choice, however, here's how to turn off My Big Campus for all students, or for specific groups of students:
In the top navigation bar, click Administration, then click the Policies tab.
To disable all student accounts, left click the "All Students" policy and choose Edit.
Select (check) Disable all users that get this policy.
Click Save
If you only want to disable a subset of students, you can create a Custom Policy and assign it to MBC groups, Active Directory groups (requires Lightspeed filter integration), or individual students. This Tech Note explains how.
Important: Update your Emergency Contacts
When school lets out for the summer, MBC staff will continue to monitor user activity. Occasionally, they find posts that must be referred to local school or district administrators for action. When student safety is at stake, we need to be able to reach someone who can help. As your staff makes plans for summer vacation, make sure your emergency contacts are up to date, especially if you will be allowing students to use MBC over the summer break.
Make sure everyone on the list is available and willing to be contacted in case of a serious incident.
That's it for now. I'm eagerly awaiting the launch of the newly redesigned My Big Campus website and mobile apps, and our staff is hard at work on training materials to ease the transition. As always, I welcome your comments and questions related to this blog post. I'll see you around Campus!
I want everyone using My Big Campus to feel safe. When school lets out for the summer, MBC staff will continue to monitor user activity. Occasionally, they find posts that must be referred to local school or district administrators for action. When student safety is at stake, we need to be able to reach someone who can help. I blogged about this a few months ago, and I want to remind admins again about this important subject.
As your staff makes plans for summer vacation, make sure your emergency contacts are up to date, especially if you will be allowing students to use MBC over the summer break.
Make sure everyone on the list is available and willing to be contacted in case of a serious incident.
That’s why when we first launched My Big Campus and began to see alarming conversations, posts, and images, we were compelled to act. But who do we contact when a student is threatening someone, abusing drugs or alcohol, cheating, or worse, contemplating suicide? I wish I could say this is an irregular occurrence, but it’s not.
That’s where district and school administrators come in.
My Big Campus staff members regularly review content on the site for suspicious activity. Some of the things we watch for include profanity, discussions of drug or alcohol use, fighting, cheating, and inappropriate photos. In addition, we encourage My Big Campus users to report inappropriate content through the Report Abuse link below every wall post, comment, and upload.
While most of these situations can be handled by deleting the inappropriate item and sending a warning to the student, sometimes we find behavior that is sufficiently concerning that we need to notify school administrators as quickly as possible. Some situations also fall under the "mandatory reporting" guidelines for your state's Child Welfare laws.
These scenarios include
Activity that violates security and privacy requirements of My Big Campus (such as uploading viruses or spamming users)
Activity that appears to be instigating damage to property and/or physical violence (such as students planning to meet after school for a fight), discussing abuse of drugs or alcohol, or assisting with cheating or plagiarism
Activity that appears to reflect personal danger for a user (such as a student threatening suicide or discussing abusive situations)
When we detect an emergency, we need a reliable way to get in touch with the right people at your school. The first place we look for contact information is on your school's Emergency Contact Preferences page in My Big Campus. If you've provided one or more contacts for each type of emergency, we can refer emergencies to you immediately, with a good likelihood that you'll get the notification in time to follow up appropriately.
If you haven't updated your school's Emergency Contact page, all we have is the contact person in your customer support file – someone who may not even be at your school. For time-critical incidents involving student safety, this is obviously not enough, especially if that person isn't immediately reachable by phone or email.
If you're a school or district administrator, please make a point to visit the Emergency Contact page regularly, to make sure the information is current and correct. This video shows you where to add the contact information.
You can learn all about our Emergency Contact program and procedures in the MBC Orientation Center.
That’s why when we first launched My Big Campus and began to see alarming conversations, posts, and images, we were compelled to act. But who do we contact when a student is threatening someone, abusing drugs or alcohol, cheating, or worse, contemplating suicide? I wish I could say this is an irregular occurrence, but it’s not.
That’s where district and school administrators come in.
My Big Campus staff members regularly review content on the site for suspicious activity. Some of the things we watch for include profanity, discussions of drug or alcohol use, fighting, cheating, and inappropriate photos. In addition, we encourage My Big Campus users to report inappropriate content through the Report Abuse link below every wall post, comment, and upload.
While most of these situations can be handled by deleting the inappropriate item and sending a warning to the student, sometimes we find behavior that is sufficiently concerning that we need to notify school administrators as quickly as possible. Some situations also fall under the "mandatory reporting" guidelines for your state's Child Welfare laws.
These scenarios include
Activity that violates security and privacy requirements of My Big Campus (such as uploading viruses or spamming users)
Activity that appears to be instigating damage to property and/or physical violence (such as students planning to meet after school for a fight), discussing abuse of drugs or alcohol, or assisting with cheating or plagiarism
Activity that appears to reflect personal danger for a user (such as a student threatening suicide or discussing abusive situations)
When we detect an emergency, we need a reliable way to get in touch with the right people at your school. The first place we look for contact information is on your school's Emergency Contact Preferences page in My Big Campus. If you've provided one or more contacts for each type of emergency, we can refer emergencies to you immediately, with a good likelihood that you'll get the notification in time to follow up appropriately.
If you haven't updated your school's Emergency Contact page, all we have is the contact person in your customer support file – someone who may not even be at your school. For time-critical incidents involving student safety, this is obviously not enough, especially if that person isn't immediately reachable by phone or email.
If you're a school or district administrator, please make a point to visit the Emergency Contact page regularly, to make sure the information is current and correct. This video shows you where to add the contact information.
You can learn all about our Emergency Contact program and procedures in the MBC Orientation Center.
I want everyone using My Big Campus to feel safe. While school may be out for the summer, MBC staff continue to monitor user activity. Occasionally, they find posts that must be referred to local school or district administrators for action. When student safety is at stake, we need to be able to reach someone who can help. I blogged about this a few months ago, and I want to remind admins again about this important subject.
As your staff makes plans for summer vacation, make sure your emergency contacts are up to date, especially if you will be allowing students to use MBC over the summer break.
Make sure everyone on the list is available and willing to be contacted in case of a serious incident.
That’s why when we first launched My Big Campus and began to see alarming conversations, posts, and images, we were compelled to act. But who do we contact when a student is threatening someone, abusing drugs or alcohol, cheating, or worse, contemplating suicide? I wish I could say this is an irregular occurrence, but it’s not.
That’s where district and school administrators come in.
My Big Campus staff members regularly review content on the site for suspicious activity. Some of the things we watch for include profanity, discussions of drug or alcohol use, fighting, cheating, and inappropriate photos. In addition, we encourage My Big Campus users to report inappropriate content through the Report Abuse link below every wall post, comment, and upload.
While most of these situations can be handled by deleting the inappropriate item and sending a warning to the student, sometimes we find behavior that is sufficiently concerning that we need to notify school administrators as quickly as possible. Some situations also fall under the "mandatory reporting" guidelines for your state's Child Welfare laws.
These scenarios include
Activity that violates security and privacy requirements of My Big Campus (such as uploading viruses or spamming users)
Activity that appears to be instigating damage to property and/or physical violence (such as students planning to meet after school for a fight), discussing abuse of drugs or alcohol, or assisting with cheating or plagiarism
Activity that appears to reflect personal danger for a user (such as a student threatening suicide or discussing abusive situations)
When we detect an emergency, we need a reliable way to get in touch with the right people at your school. The first place we look for contact information is on your school's Emergency Contact Preferences page in My Big Campus. If you've provided one or more contacts for each type of emergency, we can refer emergencies to you immediately, with a good likelihood that you'll get the notification in time to follow up appropriately.
If you haven't updated your school's Emergency Contact page, all we have is the contact person in your customer support file – someone who may not even be at your school. For time-critical incidents involving student safety, this is obviously not enough, especially if that person isn't immediately reachable by phone or email.
If you're a school or district administrator, please make a point to visit the Emergency Contact page regularly, to make sure the information is current and correct. This help page shows you where to add the contact information.
You can learn all about our Emergency Contact program and procedures in the MBC Orientation Center.
