Internet Scout project to partner with leading software developer

The Internet Scout Project, a UW–Madison-based project to help students and educators effectively navigate the Internet, is one of five initial partners selected by SurfWatch, a leading Internet filtering software company, to provide content for its newest product.

The Internet Scout Project joins the Children’s Television Workshop, Yahooligans, NevaSoft and the Tech Museum of Innovation in supplying content for SurfWatch Educational Edition, a program that, instead of filtering content, directs students to preselected, age-appropriate areas of the World Wide Web.

According to SurfWatch, the new software was developed at the request of teachers who want to ensure a safe and educational experience when students are introduced to the Internet.

Susan Calcari, project director for the Internet Scout Project, said the partnership with SurfWatch will enable efficient and safe use of the web by students by providing a base of thousands of preselected sites for use in schools. “The content in the Scout Reports and our other services is selected especially for the education community, so this collaboration with SurfWatch is a good opportunity for us to reach an even larger audience of students and educators,” Calcari said.

Established in 1992, the Internet Scout Project is based in the UW–Madison Department of Computer Sciences and is supported by the National Science Foundation. Each week, the Internet Scout staff reviews hundreds of educational and other topical Web sites and advises Web users of the best sites in the sciences, engineering, the humanities, business, education and other fields. Reports are distributed online at the Scout World Wide Web site and through the Scout Report, a weekly report distributed over the Internet to more than 100,000 subscribers.

SurfWatch Software is a division of Naperville, Illinois-based Spyglass, Inc. SurfWatch is best known for Internet content filtering and is a leading supplier of filtering software to schools.