To minimize the likelihood of cyberbullying

What can be done?

School administrators should at a minimum:

• develop rules and policies that prohibit the use of district computers and other cyber technologies to bully or harass others
• establish policies and procedures that limit students' use of school Internet resources for nonacademic purposes
• educate students and staff about cyber bullying and the school's policies and procedures
• provide adequate supervision and monitoring of students (including the use of Internet)
  
• establish effective mechanism for students and staff to report suspected cyber bullying or other misuse of cyber technologies
  
• establish effective procedures to respond to reports

Teachers and parents can follow some piratical guidelines:

• develop close communications with adolescents and encourage them to relate problems such as episodes of digital harassment
• students should be told not to share personal information such as their email password, with anyone except for parents
• students, parents, educators, and law enforcement personnel should know where to go for information about online abuses, such as cyber intimidation, con artists, identify thieves, predators, stalkers, criminal hackers, financial fraud, security, and privacy problems.
  
• For example, WiredSafety, http://wiredsafety.org, is an organization that provides in this area. The US Department of Justice, www.cybercrime.gov, offers guidelines contacts for reporting Internet crimes. Bill Besley, recipient of the Canadian Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Technology, maintains www.cyberbullying.ca, a website for students, parents, and the public that describes the emotional costs of cyberbullying, forms of mistreatment, and prevention strategies.
  
• Adults should ensure that students realize that people may not be who they say they are in a chat room. For example, someone could claim to be a 16-year-old female, but in reality a 40-year-old male predator seeking to take advantage of a vulnerable adolescent.
  
• Teenagers never should agree to meet someone they have chatted with online unless their parents go with them and the meeting is in a public place.
  
• People should avoid sending impulse messages or staying online when angry. Wait until self-control and a sense of calm is restored so that the message us more sensibly written and excludes hostility.
• People typically regret sending a "flame" (angry) message that could motivate someone to become a cyberbully as an act of revenge. Keep in mind that messages in capital letters are interpreted as shouting by some recipients.
  
• When adolescents tell teachers or parents about cyber harassment, the cooperating adults immediately should inform the police and the Internet instane messaging or mobile phone service provider.
• Victims should never respond to cyberbullies, but keep messages as evidence, including the text and source of information detailing the originating address of the email. Whether or not they are read, messages should not be erased. The police, Internet service provider, or the telephone company often can use the narratives for tracking purposes.
• Most cyberbullies who post anonymous messages are not as anonymous as they may think. If a legitimate threat exist, law enforcement officialism can subpoena records all the Web users for a particular website. From there, users can be tracked to their individual computers.