Broadband and Network Capacity

According to the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the top priority for Primary Education IT Administrators is Broadband and Network Capacity. IT Administrators are challenged by more devices coming onto the network and new applications that stretch the limits of aging infrastructure.

A wireless and wired network that scales to handle the device growth and meet the demands of the digital learning environment is the cornerstone of solid learning foundation. Choose a network that grows with your districts’ needs and budget constraints. With Ruckus, you can provide the highest device density per AP, wired network scaling capabilities, flexible management infrastructure and easiest device onboarding available.

Student Data Privacy

As of June 2016, 49 of 50 US States had draft legislation or enacted laws around the need to protect student data. Primary education IT administrators and superintendents are under enormous pressure to ensure that student data is protected and used in accordance with applicable local, state and federal laws.

By examining your network and sensitive repositories to see where student data lives, you can begin to take the necessary steps to protect it. Ruckus primary education solutions can provide secure device authentication, user policy definitions and encrypted communication to Student Information Systems that live on-premises or in the cloud.

Digital Learning Transition

According to the 2016 CoSN IT Leadership Survey, 90% of K-12 IT administrators expect their curricula to be at least 50% Digital in the next 3 years. With this transition to a collaborative, blended learning environment, the network is no longer a nice to have, but depended on to be always available and elevate the classroom experience for teachers and their students.

Ruckus solutions provide a continuous, non-stop wired and wireless networked learning environment that adapts to the needs of instructional technology applications and its users, enabling flexible learning spaces for STEM lessons, screen casting, flipped classrooms, online assessments or even virtual reality field trips.

Automated, Self-Service Wi-Fi Onboarding

In years past, K-12 students entered computer labs and then exited, leaving the tools behind. Today, students walk in with devices and leave with those same devices to use at night. Decades of computer-centric thinking are giving way to connectivity-centric thinking – leading to a BYOD phenomenon that allows students to have access to educational tools around the clock.

Wi-Fi in education is about more than just accessing the network. Whether adopting a BYOD approach or an IT-based one-to-one initiative, the transformation to an unmanaged set of network users presents a new challenge to provide safe, predictable connectivity. However, the ultimate goal of improving students’ educational experience must not be compromised.

Secure onboarding solutions allow K-12 institutions to extend wireless access to a broad spectrum of users, devices and use cases without a phone call or a trip to the support desk. This happens by providing automated, self-service onboarding for a wide array of devices and determining the appropriate policy for each user and device.

There are many benefits of deploying secure onboarding in K-12, including:

• Eliminate the management and security headaches related to pre-shared keys (PSK).
• Eliminate the inconvenience and security risks of captive portal logins.
• Automate the device onboarding for all permitted users, including students, staff, contractors and visitors.
• Ensure users get securely connected, not just configured.
• Automate the enforcement of policies and access controls, including AUP, authentication and network privileges.
• Provide ‘gold standard’ WPA-Enterprise encryption without needing to be a certified security expert
• Track information related to users, devices and application policies for all wired and wireless connections.

Ruckus offers a leading solution to realize all of the above benefits of secure onboarding. With Cloudpath ES you can leverage your existing Wired or Wi-Fi infrastructure to ensure that users are easily provisioned and connected to your secure network across a wide range of laptops, phones and tablets. Learn more about Cloudpath.

Certificates for Chromebooks

Chromebooks are beloved in schools for being simple and secure. With Cloudpath ES, you can deploy the gold standard in security and certificates to Chromebooks in an automated manner.

Whether issuing from an existing Microsoft CA or through the built-in PKI, Cloudpath ES ensures every device receives the appropriate certificate without IT overhead. Once installed, the certificate is available for a wide array of uses, including certificate-based Wi-Fi, web authentication, and more.

For managed Chromebooks, Cloudpath ES deploys both user and device certificates, which are TPM-backed (burned into hardware for maximum protection). For unmanaged Chromebooks, Cloudpath ES provides self-service, automated installation of the certificate along with related services, such as WPA2-Enterprise WiFi using EAP-TLS.

To learn more about leveraging Chromebooks for a digital classroom, read our free whitepaper.