Administration Tools The tools on the BrightBox which allow the administrator to add and remove users, create a school Internet Policy, set Cost Control parameters and examine activity logs. The Administration Tools are accessed from a web browser. Check out our demo here. Blacklist A list of sites considered inappropriate for student access. A Blacklist uses an "allow all unless explicitly denied" filtering policy. For a more restrictive policy, many schools limit their students to the EduList, confining students' viewing to approved sites only. BrightBox The Computer System which is remotely administered by BrightSparks that sits on your school network providing BrightSparks services, including filtering, e-mail, administration tools and much more. BrightSparks Information Hub The BrightSparks phone support centre which provides technical support, general help and friendly advice from 9am - 5pm AEST Monday to Friday. The Information Hub can be reached on 1300 650 630. Caching The practice of storing frequently accessed content in a location that allows your school to access the same content again and again. Users will not need to access the Internet to retrieve that same content until the content itself changes. This saves the school money and is done transparently to the end user through a highly optimised Proxy on the BrightBox. Centralised The concept of keeping services at a central point. Since the entire computing load is at this central point, more resources are required to ensure quality of service, driving the costs up or the service quality down. BrightSparks promotes the Decentralised approach by providing remote administration for all onsite equipment. The school's only responsibility is to ensure the system remains plugged in and switched on. Content Filter Filtering software that enforces your school Internet Policy by ensuring that certain listed content is inaccessible to selected users. Content Filters run on the BrightBox and upstream BrightSparks servers as part of our custom developed Multi-State filtering system. Console Tools The local BrightBox tools that allow the administrator to change system settings. Cost Control A feature of the BrightBox Administration Tools which allows the administrator to monitor and control the amount the school is spending and how much users and groups are costing the school. Access to users and groups can be set to automatically terminate when certain usage points are reached. Decentralised The concept of moving services away from a central point and using local resources to distribute the computing load. Decentralisation allows BrightSparks to provide a superior service at a fraction of the cost as it reduces the amount of equipment required at the data centre. Domain The hierarchical naming structure that allows a network to have a presence in a way easier to remember than a bunch of numbers. For example: School.vic.edu.au is a domain name. An Internet domain has absolutely nothing to do with a Windows NT domain. Downstream Towards the school away from the Internet. For example, your school is downstream of VicSmart, which is downstream of the BrightSparks network, which is downstream of the Internet. EduList (Education Resource List) The EduList is a list of content approved by the Department of Education & Training. It works with a Content Filter that works on a "deny all unless explicitly allowed" policy. BrightSparks make use of this list as the default option. Schools can instantly allow their students further access by adding allowed sites or even allowing Internet access through a Blacklist which works on an "allow all unless explicitly denied" policy. EduMail An e-mail system within VicSmart, which provides Victorian eduction staff access to e-mail facilities. EduMail is completely independent from the BrightSparks e-mail system. EduMail is available to schools regardless of what Internet solution they choose. EFTel A leading Australian ISP who provide high speed networking infrastructure for corporate and residential services. BrightSparks guarantee a complete end to end service with the combination of BrightSparks infrastructure and EFTel connectivity. Internet Policy A school policy determining what your users are and aren't allowed to see. This is determined by the BrightBox policy control system accessible through the Administration Tools. Intranet An internal network not directly visible from other networks such as the Internet. All school networks are Intranets. ISP Internet Service Provider. A company or organisation that provides access to the Internet. An example ISP is EFTel. Mail Gateway A system Upstream of the BrightBox Mail Server that forwards e-mail to and from all schools in a secure fashion. Mail Server Software that delivers, recieves and forwards e-mail. A mail server runs on the BrightBox, receiving and delivering mail to local accounts or to the Internet through the BrightSparks Mail Gateway. Multi-State Filtering The BrightSparks developed system of dividing the filtering responsibilities among multiple systems. Our technology allows us to have as many filters as needed. We currently have 3 filters. There are two filters Upstream which are responsible for the EduList and the Blacklist, whilst at the school the BrightBox is responsible for school Internet Policy settings which supplement the Upstream filters. Overall our Multi-State Filtering solution gives schools the power and versatility they deserve. Open Source A software development model which provides the program code to all users and developers alike. This allows increased scrutiny of the code and is a catalyst to more features being added and more bug and security fixes being implemented. When Open Source projects are developed across the Internet, they often reach a critical mass of developers working on a single project. BrightSparks use a large amount of Open Source software in our school Internet solution and actively take part in the development of Open Source software so our improvements may benefit others. Check out Open Source Schools for more details on Open Source in schools. POP Post Office Protocol. A method supported by the BrightBox that allows users to read their e-mail using a mail program instead of the Web Mail. Proxy A service on the BrightBox which your web browser must connect through to access the World Wide Web. The proxy is responsible for Content Filtering and Caching all content which passes through, ensuring an economical, fast and safe Internet experience. Because the proxy is optimised and located on the BrightBox in your school, your downloads are kept to an absolute minimum. Quarantine A BrightBox feature that stores e-mail for inspection if questionable content is found. Remote Administration The ability to maintain a system from a remote location. For example all BrightBoxes are remotely administered and monitored from the BrightSparks offices. Another example of remote administration is your school administrator securely accessing the BrightBox Administration Tools from outside the school network. Squid The original Proxy software that the BrightBox uses to Cache and filter content. Squid is a clear leader in proxying software proving again and again to be one of the fastest caching solutions available. Squid is freely downloadable from the Internet and conforms to the Open Source model of software development. It is this "Open" model that has allowed BrightSparks to heavily modify Squid and combine it with a modified version of SquidGuard to provide the powerful Multi-State Filtering engine that powers your BrightSparks school Internet solution. SquidGuard A powerful Content filtering system. BrightSparks use SquidGuard with Squid both on our Upstream Proxies and on the Downstream BrightBoxes to provide the powerful Multi-State Filtering engine. Upstream Towards the Internet away from the school. For example (relative to your school), the BrightSparks network is upstream of VicSmart, which in turn is upstream of your school network. VicSmart Also known as TCS, VicSmart is the network Victorian government schools directly connect to. Any data transfer between EFTel and the school will pass through VicSmart. Many services like EduMail and SofWeb are provided directly from the VicSmart network. The BrightBox is aware of this and automatically ensures connections to these services are direct ensuring no download costs are incurred. Web Mail A program that allows a user to read, compose and delete e-mail with a web browser. BrightSparks web mail also includes spell checking, an address book and multiple folders. Web Server A system that provides web content for others to view. Each BrightSparks school has an account on a high speed web server for high speed serving of content to the Internet. Schools may also elect to serve content to the Internet using their own web server located on the school network. An Intranet web server also runs on the BrightBox for serving local content.