Safeguarding students in a learning environment

[Mara Cruzado]

Seems I haven't managed to find an answer to this query yet, so I thought I would bring it to the forum:
We use Office365 in an educational institution in the UK (in the US it would be "high school" - us Brits call it Further Education/college, for learners 16+).
Here we teach (teaching, learning and assessment) with digital skills such as OneNote/ClassNotebook, etc - a colleague came up with an interesting query: how is Safeguarding guaranteed in this platform?

That is, our students have to log onto Microsoft Stream with their login details, but how can we guarantee that inappropriate content won't be loaded by said students? (most of them are minors, same with their peers).
Would anybody have a link I could read on? It would be very much appreciated 

Mara

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Mara Cruzado

You can restrict uploaders. See here

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/stream/restrict-uploaders

You can set a use policy

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/stream/company-policy-and-consent

You can also disable comments which is recommended. However, there is still some way to go as Stream is still a relatively young app. One of those features I want to see is the ability to report Stream videos to the admin - doesn't currently have this which I think is the big one

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-stream-ideas/add-functionality-to-report-abuse-non-...

Other safeguarding measures I can think of is having supervision policies for transcripts meaning is specific words come up in the comments (if turned on) or the video transcript then it reports it. When reported it freezes the video and is unplayable until reviewed and approved. Gate approval of videos meaning when a user approves then the group owner (probably a teacher) reviews and approves.

I think these will come in time. We are only really at the start of things with Stream and so more has been focussed, like most products, on the productivity end. Today, more emphasis is on self regulation and good conduct. Teams was like this, and Forms too. However, more security measures have been brought in for them, and I am sure they will do for Stream too.

Hope that answers your question

Best, Chris

[#3]

@Christopher Hoard 
Thank you so much for such thorough and prompt reply.

Your feedback does indeed answer my question - personally I love the idea of self-regulation (awareness of consequences, etc) - however, in education we have to consider the well-being of content creators, but also - of those who have access to said content (preparing for worse case scenarios... just in case).

Many thanks once more - you have been most helpful.

Mara