As an IT specialist for my district, how should I configure my firewall or web filtering so students can access CommonLit?

Accessing CommonLit:

• Port 443 must be open.
• [RECOMMENDED] Allow commonlit.org and all subdomains of commonlit.org using a wildcard allow rule such as *.commonlit.org. The format will vary based on your firewall or web filtering software.
  • [ALTERNATIVE] If a wildcard allow rule is not possible the network and any web filtering software should open firewalls for www.commonlit.org, assets.commonlit.org, cdn.commonlit.org, audio.commonlit.org, video.commonlit.org, and private-assets.commonlit.org.
• The network and any web filtering software should allow access to commonlit-private-assets.s3.amazonaws.com, and commonlit-private-assets.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com.
• CommonLit is on a cloud provider that frequently shifts IP addresses, and as such does not have a stable IP range.
• The CommonLit site runs on React JavaScript and occasionally, browser extensions can disrupt JavaScript, so limiting the use of new and untested browser extensions is encouraged.

Accessing CommonLit Support:

• The CommonLit Support Center for Students is managed by Help Scout.
• When CommonLit has an outage, you can find reports via status.commonlit.org pop-ups. Students sometimes see "Restricted" on these pop-ups when their devices block the Status page, which is managed by the Atlassian Status Page. The direct CommonLit Status page link to permit for students is: https://rwty6j9rbg6v.statuspage.io/

Accessing third-party materials linked on CommonLit:

• CommonLit 360 materials link extensively to Google Docs, with several youtube.com videos in the Related Media explorations as well. CommonLit strongly recommends teachers who utilize the 360 platform to allow access to Google Docs from outside of the district's G Suite. The CommonLit Google Workspace Domain is commonlit.org
• Additionally, related media for texts in the CommonLit (non-360) library may come from a variety of sources - most notably from across youtube.com. See this list of related media providers CommonLit embeds directly on the site:
• youtube.com
  • Some YouTube videos are created by and copyrighted to CommonLit under our YouTube channel.
  • Most YouTube links in our Related Media are created and uploaded by third parties.
  • Videos embedded in Google Slides use the URL youtubeeducation.com
• ted.com
• time.com
• npr.org
• nytimes.com
• history.com
• pbs.org & pbslearningmedia.org
• poets.org
• nationalgeographic.com (there are variations on this URL — e.g. kids.nationalgeographic.com, education.nationalgeographic.com, video.nationalgeographic.com)
• CommonLit will also link to several other educational websites (such as museums or virtual maps) for particular lessons.

Accessing the CommonLit Assessment Series

While taking the Assessment Series, students will be on a page with a URL that begins with “https://www.commonlit.org/students/student_diagnostics/” and ends with a number - for example, https://www.commonlit.org/students/student_diagnostics/123456789 . This URL is unique to each student, so if you are using a third party tool to ensure they can only visit the assessment URL, you’ll need to allow wildcard matching of the final part of the URL.

When using third party tools to limit students to certain pages during assessments, we strongly recommend testing your set up before your testing window begins, and working with the support team for your third party tools to resolve any issues.