e2deep

An Electronic Two Deep Youth 

And it’s implementation using

An eGroups Newsletter

 

At present no BSA policy has been written concerning Youth Protection in the electronic environment, however  the National Boy Scout office has been exceedingly clear in issuing Youth Protection guidelines for the interaction between youth scouts and adults.  As anyone who listens to the news knows, at least as much care must be taken to protect our youth in today’s electronic environment (i.e. email, chat rooms, etc.).  e2deep is a policy being implemented by WLACC scouters which applies the intent of the Youth Protection guidelines to the electronic world.

 

e2deep policy

1.     In Chat Rooms where both Scouts and Adults are interacting, there will be a minimum of two adults participating at all times.

2.     In Forums (Community Bulletin Board, Clubs, Newsletters, etc.) where both Scouts and Adults are participating, there will be a minimum of two adults active in the community.

3.     When email is sent between Scouts and Adults, there will be a minimum of two adults on the distribution list (either as the main or as a ‘cc’ recipient.

 

Implementation details and suggestions:

 

Start-up.  When getting started in chat rooms, communities or opening up email communications, it is recognized that a start-up process will take time.  If a plan to implement e2deep is in the works, it’s OK to have a few e-communications or bulletin board postings.  In the same manner, it is recognized that in setting up a chat session that fewer adults may be involved.  That in mind, only a very limited amount of e-communication should be allowed before e2deep is fully implemented.

 

E-mail:  In groups where emailing occurs, at least two adults should be designated for including on email lists.  These people could be scoutmasters and assistant scoutmasters, adult advisors, or parents of the youth in the groups doing the emailing.

 

 

 

Using a Forum for Email Handling

When email traffic becomes high, this sending of email to an individual could become a real inconvenience, discouraging the enforcement of e2deep.  A suggested alternative is the used of available Community Forums as the recipient for email copies, with a minimum of two adult leaders periodically reviewing the mailings.  This approach is particularly appealing when the Forum can bundle all email into a “digest” and automatically send it to the monitoring adults.  The company, eGroup, provides just such a service, and is free to use to boot. 

 

Using a eGroup Community Forum for e2deep

eGroup makes it easy to provide Youth Protection for emailing without a lot of trouble.  After a Forum is set up (see below) all the members have to do is include the Forum’s email address (i.e. e2deep@eGroup.com) on the c.c. list when emails are sent.  Once a group starts using eGroup this will become automatic.  The emails are stored in the Forum’s archive and can either be emailed out as a batch daily, or just held in the archive for browsing by members (youth or adult) at any time.  (This is also a handy way to keep a record of you emails for later.) The advantage of this over just sending a c.c. to your scoutmaster with every email is that your scoutmaster can get a single email and not fill his mailbox daily.  A group moderator (probably the same person who set up the Forum) can occasionally delete old email from the archives after they are “stale”.  The only other work needed to keep e2deep going is for the adults to review the email archives occasionally, and for the moderator to make sure that everyone in the group has his email address registered with the Forum (otherwise the Forum thinks a stranger is sending SPAM to the group). As members join eGroup, encourage them to fill in their Member Profile with information they want to share with your group, it won’t be made available to the general public.

 

Starting a eGroup Community Forum

To start your e2deep forum you must first register on eGroup.  To do this:

  1. Browse to www.eGroup.com. Look around a little to get a feel for what it’s like.
  2. When ready to sign-up click the “Register” link near the upper right corner of their home page.
  3. Fill in your name, email address and other personal information.  Your email address will be your identifier for the Forum so make sure it’s the one you’ll be using.  Also, be sure to pick a password you’ll remember.  You’ll have to enter you email address and password whenever you want to work on your Forum.
  4. After submitting the form, you’ll be asked to confirm you email address.  Make sure it’s been entered correctly.   Hit NEXT and you’re a full fledge member of eGroup.
  5. After signing on to eGroup (both now, and later when you connect again) you’ll find a three tabbed page, with tabs “Explore Communities”, “My eGroup”, and “HELP”.  HELP will let you ask many useful questions, MY eGroup will connect you to any Forums you’re signed up for (none at first), and EXPLORE COMMUNITIES will let you browse through listed communities to see what’s there. 
  6. After exploring eGroup a little, you’re ready to create your own Forum.  To start, click the “start a NEW Community” button near the upper right corner of the EXPLORE COMMUNITIES page.
  7. The biggest decision you have to make now is naming your Forum.  Your name has got to be an easily remembered one, so the members of your group can quickly write it into the c.c. of their emails without having to look it up every time.  You should also write a “Purpose” statement to let your members know what the Forum is all about when they browse in later.
  8. Be sure to mark the “NOT LISTED IN DIRECTORY” button.  The email archive is only for your group, and shouldn’t be available for the world to peek at.
  9. To finish, check a category (Recreation – Scouting (Boys & Girls) seems appropriate), a lanaguage (probably English), maturity (for a scouting group probably either “Safe for Kids” or “10 and up” would be OK).  If you have a related web site you can enter it’s URL if you like.
  10. After hitting NEXT a few not so clear choices are to be made.  I’ll describe them below.  Hit NEXT when done.

Moderation:

Choose “Unmoderated” .  This will let each member add his email to the list without you having to say OK to each.  (you can always delete a posting if it’s inappropriate)

Membership:

Choose Open (anyone can join) if you want your members to be able to invite new members of your group to the list.  If you choose “Restricted” you’ll have to approve every new member.

Attachments:

“Distribute…” will keep email attachments and place them in the archive.
”Discard...” will only keep the email body in the archive.

Reply-To:

“All” will send email to the whole group if you hit the email Reply button and send it back.

“Author” will only send the email to you.

Notification:

Check this box if you want eGroup to send you an email when a new member joins/leaves, etc.  If you don’t check it you’ll need to personally visit the site often to make sure all is well.

Subject Tag:

The name of your Forum will typically be the “Tag” attached to the email digests which are mailed out.  If you want something different, change it here.

Message trailer:

This section is placed at the end of emails sent by eGroup to members.  You could put your groups favorite saying, or anything else here if you like

.
  1. For your final action, the following is recommended:

Message
Archives:

Archives for members only.  (others don’t need to see)

Member
Directory:

Enable member directory (this will make it easy for you to share your email addresses safely to other group members)

Files:

Open to members (lets members share files with all)

Calendar:

No Calendar (unless you want to keep one here)

 
  1. Your FINISHED!!!!!!  You have a Forum, now you need members.  The best way is to send email messages inviting your whole group.  By selecting INVITE in you community, you, or any other member of you group, can invite the rest of the group to join.  Enter their email addresses, hit SEND INVITATIONS, and you’re on your way.

 

REMEMBER

Only your groups members sending email from their home email addresses can be posted to the Forum.  As the Forum moderator, you should first invite your members, but under some circumstances you can ADD members yourself without waiting for them to respond to your invitation.  To do this click the ADD button under Members on your Forum page.  Your emails will be entered into the membership and a confirmation email will be sent to them telling them you’ve added them to the group.

 

As a moderator, you can raise any member to moderator status so they can help you keep the Forum in line.  Be sure to let your helper know how you expect the Forum to be run so you won’t run into problems.

 

GOOD LUCK and HAPPY EMAILING

 

 

 

Please send feedback on how well your e2deep is working (or not working) to

Dave Rozelle (drozelle@hotmail.com) or Larry Pulley (staog@earthlink.com).