Guidelines for Student Use of the Internet

The Internet is a global computer network of schools, businesses, governments, organizations, and millions of individuals-all exchanging or publishing ideas and information on every topic under the sun. Its resources are constantly changing (and not always authoritative), and include outstanding government and scientific information, as well as not-to-be-beaten material on business, current events, the arts, and popular culture.

The net is largely unregulated, and not all of the information it carries is suitable for schoolchildren. Hopkinton Middle & High Schools subscribe to a filtering service that screens out most of this unsuitable material. Sadly, any filtering program cuts both ways: some useful information will be stopped simply because it is stored on a machine known to contain pornography or other highly objectionable material.

Hopkinton Middle & High Schools are connected to the Internet through the generosity of Comcast, whose shareholders subsidize our World Wide Web access.

Access to the Internet gives students an opportunity to use a wide range of electronic resources in their classwork, to pursue many different avenues of independent study, and to explore their own interests.

All students may use the World Wide Web to search for information. Computers in the Library, in the Computer, Business, Geography, Tech Ed, and Science Labs and in all classrooms have been set up for Internet use.

With the support of a faculty sponsor, students may use the Internet to create and publish web pages related to their classwork or school-sponsored activities.

Every user of our Internet connection must accept the responsibility to respect the rights of all other network users, and to act in a responsible, ethical, and legal manner at all times.

Because in-school access to the Internet is a privilege, and because each student is personally responsible for his or her own actions on the Internet, unacceptable behavior will result in the suspension or revocation of Internet access. Some examples of unacceptable behavior are

• using the school's Internet connection in ways that violate school policies and standards of behavior
• using the school's Internet connection for any illegal activity, including copyright violation
• using the school's Internet connection for personal financial or commercial gain
• disrupting or interfering with network users, services, or equipment, including hacking, cracking, sending chain letters or broadcasting messages to multiple lists or individuals ("spamming"), etc.
• gaining unauthorized access to restricted resources or organizations
• using the school's Internet connection to play games
• sending, downloading, storing, or printing files or messages that are profane, obscene, offensive, or harassing
• forwarding or otherwise publishing personal communications without the consent of the person who wrote them

Students are encouraged to produce and publish educational materials on the World Wide Web. Hopkinton High School and Hopkinton Middle School maintain home pages on a remotely hosted web server, to which student publications may be added as long as there is space available. Many of our clubs and athletic teams seek student web designers, as well.

Students are urged to follow the design guidelines laid out in the Web Project Toolkit and the Web Project Checklist.

To be eligible for publication:

• each project must have a faculty sponsor who will serve as webmaster
• each project must comply with current copyright law
• no project may include text, images, movies, sounds, or other elements that contain profanity, obscenity, hate speech, or other offensive language
• no project may contain links to pages containing profanity, obscenity, hate speech, or other offensive language
• student identities must be protected
• students may publish no more than an initial plus their first or last name (J. Doe, Jane D.)
• students appearing in pictures, movies, or sound clips may be identified or referenced only by their initials (ex., JQP for John Q. Public)
• students may not publish other identifying information (email address, street address, home phone number, etc.) about themselves or others
• the project's opening page must contain a link to the official Hopkinton Middle & High Schools page