Slashdot Mirror
Campus Pipeline: Schools Selling Students' Eyes
magnanamous_cow_herd writes: "This semester i returned to the university to finally finish off my degree,
and after going to the computer center to re-activate my e-mail account, the
helpdesk guy started telling me about this fabulous new service called Campus
Pipeline
I looked into it a bit and found out that there are over 400 universities who
signed up with this company to provide them with a shiny new "free" advertising-supported
student intranet in exchange for many many eyeballs.
They claim they are positioned to become the fifth largest portal on the Internet.
I'd like to know what the Slashdotters think about this. Here is the only article
I found on this "service" that was even questioning it."
Corporate influence in the schools has been covered here on slashdot before and this is a good example of the crap that is going on.
.com model that has been failing pretty badly as a whole. I would never invest in such companies.
A lot of the problem is with bloated Universities who have no financial feedback mechanism (much like the government) so while the school might be making good money, the budget is streched thin anyway with uneeded high level management types, etc. Not that mass privatising is a good solution (I would never recommend it myself).
These days it's easier to get funding for new prisons than it is for education. I think California is a good example. I beleive they are now putting more money into law enforcement than education. Not a good sign, and not a good way to improve the world.
Years ago I think programs like this would have been rejected out of hand. In today's world colleges and universities are run more as corporations. By this I'm not referring to the increasing corporate control, but as in being bottom line money driven. Therefore money saving schemes like this often look attractive to college administrators at the expense of their students.
This companies business model is also suspect, it's the typical
The article mentioned by /. says the software is free, but doesn't mention that you need to buy a pretty expensive Solaris box to run it on. And I guess university IT departments have plenty of available manhours to administrater the system, huh?
Campus Pipeline appears to promise the world to everyone. They say they can tie existing university systems together (with Java). They say they will be coming out with a version that runs on Linux. I think they are simply a company spin-off that was aiming at a big bucks IPO (before that bubble burst).
Faculty on many campuses don't like it and are putting up a fuss. That, plus the fact that the IRS is looking at taxing income unrelated to an educational institutions "primary mission", may be putting the brakes on Campus Pipeline implimentation.
Yes, Campus Pipeline is (at best) tacky but the fact that many institutions are hopping in bed with them is a result of the financial pressure that many universities are under in the face of State government funding cutbacks.
Curious George
***General Consultant to the Human Race*** My opinions are free. You get what you pay for.
Okay, I attend Westark Community College in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Since our college here has recently inflicted this program upon us, I have a few things to say about it.
I don't mind the ads so much, its just that this whole system is designed not to help the student, but instead to sell them things. Maybe I don't want to spend 20 minutes checking my mail each day..maybe i want to spend them studying.
Anyway, on an unrelated note, yesterday i noticed that one of the e-mails I'd received was sent to "everyone@collegename.edu". Thinking it was too easy to be true, i sent a limerick to the address (really short rhyming dirty poem). Turns out my limerick went to ALL the faculty! Had I been thinking clearly, I would have sent it anonymously, and probably would have sent an essay on why pipeline sucks. As it stands now, my Pipeline access was promptly suspended after a chat with the Dean today. Ah well....i guess i really deserved that. (if any of the faculty read this, i profusely apologize!) I certainly won't miss Pipeline, though.
-- Juju
An example: there is, naturally, a section on printers. At the bottom of the page is a picture of a Hewlett-Packard inkjet that looks better than what you see in a four-color catalog. A half-dozen pages later is a focus on two innovators in technology, Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard. The facing page has a spotlight on a company on a cutting edge--Hewlett-Packard. Flip to the section on E-Commerce, and there's a screenshot of the Hewlett-Packard online store showing somebody about to buy--you guessed it--a Hewlett-Packard inkjet printer. There are also multiple pictures of Pavillions, etc., scattered throughout the rest of the book.
HP isn't the only offender, not by a long shot. AMD gets an "oh-by-the-way" mention in the body of the text, but all the pictures, charts, and examples show Intel processers, chipsets, etc. Office programs only come from Microsoft, period (and, yes the first technological innovator is Bill and the first cutting-edge company is Microsoft).
The sidebar on how voice recognition works is probably a direct quote from the side of the Via Voice box. It mentions all of the great things that voice recognition can do, and how Via Voice is the best program to do all that. Would you be surprised if I told you that a few pages later was a bio of Lou Gerstner and a puff piece on IBM?
Sun is only mentioned a couple times, and then only for Java. Java isn't even listed as a programming language, but instead as a two-paragraph description of multimedia enhancements to web pages, right after Shockwave.
Iomega is the only company that makes removeable mass storeage.
Oh--and I forgot: this textbook is "web-enhanced" by CNN. At the end of every chapter is instructions to go to a CNN web page where you can watch movie clips about the preceeding material. So, naturally, the chapter on processors has a movie bio of Andy Grove and another multimedia something-or-other about Intel.
I think I should shut up now before I break an O-ring....
Well, okay one last comment: I all but told the students to take the books back, and I'm supplying them with my own resources or pointers to web pages, etc.
0-7895-5937-4
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Instead of pimping out students, they could have better software and keep some respect.
The first time they approached the people who run the network. They wanted us to use their modifed browser on all computers at the university. This included all privatly owned computers in the dorms as well as faculty computers in offices, and even dial-in users. Additionally the university would be required to provide network access to C.P. so that they could sell their "service" to private appartment complexes in the area. No guarntee that those appartments would not have USU students. We are not allowed by law to provide network access to people not associated with the university. And one other little thing...they wanted a 5-year exclusive contract with no commitment on C.P.'s part that they would upgrade any part of their system to keep up with the times. We were to trust that they would.
So, we were supposed to force everyone associated with the university to use a specific browser. We were also supposed to provide Internet access to anyone that happend to live in an appartment where they resold our bandwidth. We got a 10% kickback on the net proffits and we would be stuck with it for five years. We said no.
The second time they approached the university administration directly. The story they told them was "hey look, FREE MONEY!" Since administrators tend to be whores, they were for it. I mean what problem could there be with free money? FREE MONEY! Additionally they "gave" transmiters, radios, etc., to the university to get a high speed connection to the president's home. This was a gift "free from obligation." It took an act of war on us mere techies to convince the administration that this was not a good idea. After it was clear that we were not going to bite C.P. took back the "gift" of the free radio link equipment.
There are lotst of details that are too messy to get into, but we figured that this would be a tar baby, and we would be sorry if we had taken the offer.
-g
The students, staff, and faculty WILL use pipeline for all their e-mail. POP, IMAP, alternate e-mail clients are not allowed because if you get your e-mail that way, you won't see the wonderful advertisements.
It's horrible, but I have no choice besides just up and quit...
(And I *am* an anonymous coward and have good reason to be! :)
I attend Appalachian State University in Boone NC. My school began beta testing Campus Pipeline sometime last fall, and let me tell you it sucks. I work at the help desk on campus and I have had nothing but trouble with the beast. It is slow, requires java and is prone to crashes, which causes a 1000 calls to the help desk "Help I cant get my email". It sucks to have to explain that it is Campus Pipline's fault. Why cant the school just set up a pop server? Hell I had rather use Pine over VMS or UNIX.
It really ticks me off that I pay to attend an University and I get spam in my inbox because the university wants more money.
I think the concensious (sp?) here at AppState is that Campus Pipeline sucks major ass. What is happening at other schools?