Introduction to Smart Alerts

Smart Alerts

New to Admin 2.0, Smart Alerts is a feature that uses advanced machine learning algorithms to continuously monitor student behavior for inappropriate content or at-risk behavior. Smart Alerts actively scans web pages in real-time and will categorize content by any of the available categories. 

Please note: Smart Alerts for the "Self-Harm" category is no longer available for new customers. For more information, please reach out to your sales representative. 

Content Categories

Explicit Content

• Alerts for Explicit content are enabled by default.
• Explicit alerts cannot be disabled.

Self-Harm Content

• Alerts for Self-Harm content are disabled by default.
• Users with Super User permissions are presented with an option to enable Self-Harm reporting when first signing into Smart Alerts. 
• Super Users can enable or disable Self-Harm at any time on the Smart Alerts Preferences tab.

Alerts

Smart Alerts actively categorizes web content using a prediction model and confidence level. Individual alerts display the content category and how confident the algorithm is that the content fits the category. 

When are alerts generated?

An alert is generated in the Alerts feed when the category confidence is at least Medium (50% or higher). If the category confidence fails to exceed 50%, an alert is not generated. 

Confidence Levels

• Medium - above 50% confidence
• High - above 70% confidence
• Very High - above 90% confidence

Triggers can be configured to automatically respond to content based on category and confidence level. 

Alert Summary 

Alert Summaries will appear in the alerts timeline as they happen. Summaries provide an overview of the content, site, user, and can be used to quickly interact with the alert. Explicit screenshots will be blurred in the alert summary but can be un-blurred on the full report. Click the alert summary for the full report. 

Triggers, Conditions, and Actions

Triggers offer flexible, customizable, and automated responses to problematic content. Different responses might be required based on the category of content and confidence level. Triggers can be configured to respond to a number of trigger conditions with any combination of the three trigger actions.  

Trigger Conditions

• Org Unit - Select which Org Units (OUs) to monitor. Multiple OUs can be selected for each trigger. 
  Note: If no OUs are specified, the trigger will activate for any account when other trigger conditions are met. 
• Content Category and Confidence Level - Select from Explicit and/or Self-Harm content and the level of confidence. 
  Note: If no category is selected, the trigger will activate for any enabled category and confidence level.

Trigger Actions 

• Notify & Assign - Assigns the alert for review and sends a notification email to the specified users. 
• Message student - Sends a custom message via in-browser Chrome notification. 
• Block content - Blocks the content with a custom message on the block page.

GoGuardian recommends not blocking content related to self-harm in order to prevent students from suppressing research (See: Chilling Effect) into these types of questions so that the program can continue to detect and help users that may need help.

Notifications Emails

Notification emails are sent when an Alert is assigned to a user. “Receive email notifications” must also be enabled on the Smart Alerts Preferences tab for a user to receive these emails. This setting will enable email notifications for your account only. “Receive email notifications” is enabled by default and can be modified at any time.

An alert can be assigned in two ways:

1. Manually Assign an alert by editing the list of assigned users. 
2. Assign an Alert with the Assign & Notify Trigger Action.

When an alert is assigned to a user, they will be notified in-app and if they have "receive email notifications" enabled, they will be sent an email. 

Out of School Mode

Out of School Mode provides the ability to partially or fully disable filtering and monitoring capabilities. If your account has Out of School mode enabled, please see this article about how Out of School Mode affects Smart Alerts. 

Default Settings for New Accounts

New accounts start with the following settings configured:

• Explicit Alerts: Enabled
• Self-Harm Alerts: Disabled
• Email Notifications: Enabled 
• Triggers: GoGuardian does not provide any predefined triggers.