Greetings!
 
The need for online education is growing and is here to stay. Looking ahead ECNO is building partnerships and working behind the scenes to make sure members have the tools necessary to distribute online education safely and efficiently. This month’s newsletter will discuss what we have been up to in order to make sure members have what they need.
Microsoft Renewal Updates:
Microsoft continues to be a trusted partner in delivering key software to staff and students and were kind enough to highlight our journey with their MSIX package here. We are currently working with Microsoft on several renewals to ensure you and your board have the tools they need to deliver student success.
 
Microsoft Premier Support Renewal
ECNO Premier support offers School Boards a program that allows for affordable access to MS Premier Support basic services managed by a Technical Account Manager. Premier Support is a platform that helps customers maximize the value of their on-premises and cloud-based software investment. The result is reduced risk, improved system reliability, and more productivity. In addition to a full-scale Premier support program, we also have a shared Premier support program (4 smaller Boards for shared Premier support).
 
ECNO has been working with Microsoft on the 2020/2021 Premier support renewal and will share information with current Premier Boards during their scheduled May meeting. We will also be reaching out to Board's that are not currently members of the ECNO Premier support program for interest in joining the Premier support program and the added value it provides.
 
Microsoft EES Licensing Renewal
ECNO offers a consortium licensing agreement which permits Ontario school boards to benefit from Microsoft’s Select volume licensing discount program. The benefits of the ECNO ‘framework’ agreement includes lower minimum qualification for EES and common negotiated terms/governance.
 
The Microsoft Licensing Renewal under the current ECNO agreement expires October 2020. ECNO and Microsoft have been busy negotiating a new licensing agreement for district school boards regardless of their size. The ECNO EES License committee recently met with Microsoft and Softchoice (the Licensing Solution Partner) to go over available options for the 2020 EES Licensing renewal. For current members of the ECNO / Microsoft EES Licensing Agreement we have scheduled two community information sharing Teams meetings. The meetings are scheduled for May 27 th  at 9am or May 29 th  at 1pm to present and review the options for the licensing renewal. Boards have been asked to register for one of these two information meetings.
P rivacy and Security Developments
In March the COVID-19 novel coronavirus changed the way we all work, play, shop and interact. It also changed drastically the cybersecurity environment as our network perimeter moved from being mostly inside our school’s LAN and WAN to now existing everywhere at staff and students’ homes. ECNO will continue to pursue and collaborate on solutions to keep you and your board's security effective and efficient.
 
ECNO’s Security Corner – with Steve Payne, RISA for Eastern Ontario
Identity is the New Security Perimeter
Apart from doing full tunnelling over VPN, districts are not able to control what comes in and goes out of our staff and students’ networks. So if employees are fooled by a well-crafted Phishing email and click on the link where typically our security controls would prohibit access to the malicious website users are able to load the pages and possibly give away their board user credentials or other sensitive information.
 
To add to this staff and students are storing more sensitive data in Cloud storage such as OneDrive or Google Drive so these documents are accessible outside of the confines of the network convenient to work on during work and learn from home.
 
That is why protecting the user identity and credentials need to be an immediate focus for board IT security staff. Making sure we are checking on and following up with accounts that exhibit any suspicious activity. Being diligent to use the tools our SaaS providers have given us in Office 365 and GSuite Security to check for user accounts that are logging in from outside of Canada or are flagged for impossible travel. Also, we should be working towards the implementation of Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) on user accounts that could do the most damage to our board. IT technical administrative accounts should always require MFA. School Board Officials, Principals, Vice Principals and Secretaries should all be given guidance on how to enable MFA on their board accounts and why keeping their username and password protected is important.
 
By having our users be diligent to protect their own board accounts we are helping to protect the entire organization. As the saying goes: Hackers don’t typically have to break-in anymore, they login.
 
The VASP (Vetting for Application Security and Privacy) Project
The OASBO Joint ICT-PIM Working Group has established and tested a process for conducting security and privacy risk assessments on educational web applications. In collaboration with ECNO, we are moving forward with our plans to conduct security and privacy risk assessments centrally for the benefit of all boards. The outcome of each assessment includes a list of risk mitigation strategies that boards and schools can implement in order to use the application safely.
 
Please consult with your board's Program and Special Education leads as well as Procurement to identify the top priorities for review in your board. We will collate data from all boards and create one list of prioritized apps to work through the review process.
 
Please note, we are also looking for volunteers to assist in the review of applications! Shadow the experts as you gain skills during the review process. This is a great opportunity to build expertise in your board. Scheduling is flexible; your commitment can be as little as a couple of hours per week. We need people with Privacy, Security, or Risk Management expertise. If you are interested or want to learn more, leave your contact information at the bottom of the survey form, or submit your name, school board name, email address and area of expertise to Wayne Toms via email .
 
We will be following up with further details in June regarding expanding this as an ECNO Shared Service for the 2020/21 school year.
We want to hear from ECNO Vendors!
If you are currently an ECNO vendor that wants to share a new feature or impact you are have on our industry and member boards, we would love to hear from you! Leave a message at ECNO.org/contact
Project Updates and Volunteer Opportunities
ECNO’s strength comes from collaboration with you and other organizations that share the goal of creating board efficiencies. We have a exciting projects below that may also require your expertise. If either project interests you, please l eave a message at ECNO.org/contact
 
Date Reference Architecture Project Update
ECNO has partnered with the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Ontario Association of School Business Officials to support a project to develop a data reference architecture for both and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Student Information System (SIS). We have completed interviews for the ERP Project team and hope to announce the final team members and project details in the coming weeks. We continue to seek SIS expertise to support the SIS project once the ERP project is complete. Please l eave a message at ECNO.org/contact

Regional Information Security Analyst Projects
ECNO continues to work with CIO’s and IT Managers in both Southwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario to acquire an Information Security Analyst for their regions. We have posted for these positions and are now conducting interviews. If you and / or your colleagues are looking for cyber security support, contact us !
Learning. Sharing. Growing.
Our mission to build a collaborative IT community within our provincial boards to create efficiencies and cost savings. If you want to become part of our community you can either sign up for a committee or our User Group Forums!