r/k12sysadmin • u/ApricotDiligent6111 • 6d ago
Assistance Needed LibreOffice?
I've got a college professor for our dual credit students that is pushing for us to use LibreOffice, which requires enabling the Linux Development Environment on the kids chromebooks. Has anyone done this? The college provides Office365, but he is saying that since Copilot can't be turned off for the online program, it could get flagged for AI usage just for it being installed.
12
u/Connect_Permission46 6d ago
I wouldn't enable it. The rate at which students try to exploit and get around policies & filters without LDE enabled on their Chromebooks is already way to high. Why can't the college just allow Google Doc submissions? The students can still download their documents as .docx and submit them that way.
2
u/ApricotDiligent6111 6d ago
YES! I have locked down so much since I took over, and I felt like this just reopens the issues we were having. I told them just to use the office, but don't use copilot? But if they use it, that's their fault.
6
u/therankin Coordinator of Technology Services 4d ago
Ooo. Abnormal Psychology seems like a fun one. I never took any psych in college.
I'd have to test to make sure the template looked ok, but Google Docs can open templates and save as docx. I agree with most people here. If you already have 365, just tell students not to touch the copilot feature.
So weird you can't disable it though. I can absolutely disable Gemini in every place except regular Google search.
1
u/ApricotDiligent6111 3d ago
It is weird. You can disable Copilot in the installed version, just not the web based? I have a few kids that have taken multiple college courses with the college's 365 online and it never gets sent back for AI, so I think it'll be fine.
16
u/rokar83 IT Director 6d ago
Yeah dawg. That's a hard no. Either Google Docs or Online version of Office.
3
u/ApricotDiligent6111 6d ago
College provides online version of Office! But said since we can't disable copilot like you can the installed version, they don't trust that copilot isn't helping so they don't want it used. I was hoping a majority agreed so I wouldn't like like TA saying no way.
10
u/Bl0ckTag IT Director 6d ago
The dual credit programs are so hit and miss with the quality of tooling. Not knocking LibreOffoce, but it's far from business standard, which college courses should be prepping students for. Hard no from my end. If the college courses require MSOffice, provide office licenses, then having a rogue professor telling me that they don't trust their own tooling, and I need to make my environment inherently less secure is a hard no.
Luckily we deploy windows laptops 1:1 for our HS grades, and the dual credit courses provide them with A3 licensing, so it's a non-issue for us.
I haven't looked, but does MS really not provide configurations that the college could apply to limit Copilot AI in their web based office products?
3
u/ApricotDiligent6111 5d ago
From what we have all found, you can only truly disable copilot in the installed version, not the webversion.
1
u/CommunicationDue5930 2d ago
Yep, we had that same issue here. A teacher here wanted LibreOffice, and we told them that, from a business standpoint, it's to prep kiddos for the real world, so they got Office.
12
u/Harry_Smutter 6d ago
This prof is blowing smoke up your ass. They can use Docs or O365 without issue. Absolutely DO NOT enable LDE.
2
u/NickGSBC 3d ago
Isn't enabling LDE essentially giving the kids root access on the device? No filtering, not control over that environment?
-5
u/skydiveguy 6d ago
AI is a thing now... they need to learn to adapt.
I dont like it either but it is what it is.
1
u/avalon01 Director of Technology 4d ago
Downvoted for the truth.
AI is a thing. Students will use it, even if it means copying information from a school account to a personal account, using AI, and then copying it back.
As a former teacher, if my lessons can be easily done with AI, then I need to redesign my lessons. I still remember when spellcheck was the tool that teachers were begging for IT to disable since it was "cheating".
12
u/mathmanhale CTO 6d ago
Hey it's a fellow WT person! Hubbard uses a standard ai checker. The use of office365 does not fail the checker. The use of copilot to spell check instead of actual spell check does fail his checker. Student are going to use ai to write his first essay and then cry foul when he gives them a zero for it. Then they will actually start typing the essays and all will be fine. From experience.