myON follows the expertise and guidance of our publishing partners regarding appropriate reading level, interest level, and subject-matter suitability. We also understand that some topics are appropriate for different audiences based on the local guidelines, requirements, customs, culture, and norms of the communities that we serve. Educators need to be empowered with choice and control for their students, keeping educators at the center of those decisions. Therefore, we provide administrators with tools to control access to news articles as needed.
Group Administrator Settings
In the group Account Options, group administrators can choose the minimum years that can see news articles that are flagged as belonging to one of two special categories:
- Sensitive content: This flag indicates the content may be sensitive for some students, typically because the subject matter relates to violence.
- Legislation-related content: This flag indicates the article may refer to topics that are regulated by some legislatures.
When administrators and teachers view articles that have one of these flags, a notice will tell them that the article has been flagged and the type of flag that has been applied.
Group administrators can also allow school administrators to choose different settings for their own buildings.
Follow these steps to change the settings:
- At the top of any page, select My Group, then Group Settings.
- Select the Account Options tab.
- Under "myON News Management," choose your preferred settings:
Sensitive Content
In the drop-down list under "Sensitive content", choose the lowest year that should have access to news articles with that flag. By default, this is set to the lowest year, which would mean all students can access and read these articles. If you choose a year, students in that year and higher can access the articles. If you choose "No Access", no students or teachers can access the articles. (Teachers are only affected by the No Access setting.)
Below the setting, the tick box lets you decide whether school administrators can choose different settings for their own schools. Tick the box if you want to allow school administrators to do this.
Legislation-Related Content
In the drop-down list under "Legislation-related content", choose the lowest year that should have access to articles with that flag. As in the sensitive content setting, students in the year you selected and higher years will see the news articles; younger students will not. "No Access" means no students or teachers can access the articles.
Below that setting, use the tick box to choose whether to allow school administrators to choose different settings for their own schools.
Allowing School Administrators to Set Minimum Years Directly on News Articles
Group administrators can set a minimum year for any specific news article while viewing the article. If you tick the last box under myON News Management, school administrators can do so as well for their own schools, and their settings for each article will be used for students in their school instead of the group administrator settings.
- When you have finished, select Save to save your changes.
School Administrator Settings
School administrators can also choose myON News Management settings if group administrators have chosen to allow it. For more information, see School Administrator School Settings Overview.
Setting the Minimum Year for Specific Articles
Group administrators can also set minimum years for specific articles, regardless of whether the articles are flagged sensitive content or legislation-related content. School administrators can also do this if the group administrator allows them to set minimum years for any article. Administrators can do this while viewing a day's news articles, or they can search for the articles on their Account News tab.
Searching for Articles by Keywords, Minimum Year Settings, Flags, or Release Dates
If you are a group administrator, select My Group, then Group Settings. Then, select the News tab.
If you are a school administrator, select My School, then Account, and then the News tab.
On the News tab, you will see several search options:
- Article title and content: Search for words that appear in titles or in the articles themselves.
- Minimum year: Search for articles that have any minimum year setting or a specific setting.
- Flag: Search for articles flagged sensitive content or legislation-related content.
- Release date: Find articles that were released in the last week, month, 3 months, 6 months, or year. This is a good way to find recent articles that you have not yet reviewed.
Any search option left blank is not applied. After choosing search options, select Search.
In the search results, you'll see the following for each article:
- title
- minimum year (the lowest year if no change was made to the level)
- who set the minimum year (if anyone)
- the flag if the article has one
- the release date
By default, the list is sorted by release date, with the most recent articles first, but you can select any column heading to sort by that column.
To open an article in a new tab, select the title of the article.
Choosing Minimum Years for Multiple Articles
You can set minimum years for multiple articles in the News tab's search results:
- Tick each article in the search results that you want to choose a setting for. Note: School administrators who are not allowed to set minimum years for news articles will not see tick boxes.
- Above the search results, use the drop-down list to choose the minimum year that will be allowed to read these articles.
- Select Save to the right of the drop-down list. After you save, you will see the new value in the Minimum Year column and your name in the Set By column.
Choosing Minimum Years for an Open Article
If you have selected an article to open it, or if you have opened an article from the myON News tab while viewing the day's news, you can set a minimum year in the article itself (or choose not to allow student access). Group administrators always see this option; school administrators also see it if they are allowed to set minimum years for news articles. (School administrators with this option also see the group setting as shown below.)
To set a minimum year for an article, select the drop-down list below the article title and the flag (if there is a flag). After choosing a setting, select Save to apply it to your students.
What Administrators See When Articles Have Minimum Years
After restrictions have been applied to an article, on the main news page for the day, administrators will see a message telling them that the article has year restrictions applied.
What Students See When They Cannot Access an Article
When students do not have access to an article, they see the message "This article is unavailable" instead of seeing the article title and image. Teachers also see this message if the article setting is "No Access".