How to use parental controls in Sora
If your school offers parental controls in Sora, you can use them to see the books your student has access to, view your student's checkout history, and lock individual books. Your student needs to be signed into Sora for you to enable parental controls and use Parent Mode.
Enabling parental controls and entering Parent Mode
To enable parental controls:
- Have your student log into Sora.
- Go to
, then select Parental Controls (under "Support").
- Turn on Parental Controls.
- Enter a 6-digit PIN. You'll use this PIN whenever you want to access Parent Mode.
- Select Enable.
You'll be in Parent Mode right after you enable parental controls. Make sure to exit Parent Mode before returning Sora to your student.
After you enable parental controls, you can get back to Parent Mode by going to > Parental Controls and entering your PIN.
Using Parent Mode
In Parent Mode, you can:
- Select Browse to see all the titles your student has access to in Sora, including those from their school library and any additional libraries they've added. You can also search for specific titles.
Searches performed in Parent Mode aren't saved and don't show under recent searches. - Select History to see the books your student has borrowed or placed on hold. You can edit the history or remove individual items.
- Lock a title to prevent the student from sampling, borrowing, or reading it. Learn more below.
Locking titles
You can lock books to prevent your student from sampling, borrowing, or reading them. To lock a book, go to the title details page and select Lock.
Note: If you lock a magazine, all issues of that magazine will be locked.
Students will still see a locked book when browsing, and can see a locked book's details page, but won't be able to borrow it or place a hold. If the student already has a hold on the book, they won't be able to borrow it when it's available.
Locking a book only locks that format and edition. For example, if a book is available as both an ebook and audiobook, you'll need to lock both of them. Or, if you lock a book and another edition is added, you'll need to return to Parent Mode to lock the new edition.
To unlock a book, go to the title details page and select Unlock.
Disabling parental controls
When parental parental controls are disabled:
- The PIN to enter Parent Mode is reset.
- Any locked books are unlocked and available to your student.
To disable parental controls:
- In Sora, go to , then select Parental Controls (under "Support").
- Enter your PIN, then select Enter Parent Mode.
- Turn off Parental Controls.