RFID Checks Student Attendance in Arizona

The student newspaper at UW-Madison is running a piece about the use of RFID to check lecture attendance at Northern Arizona University. One poster to an email discussion list suggested that getting around this system would be simple if "all one has to do is walk into a classroom with 10 RFID-enabled cards in their pocket." "The new system will use sensors to detect students' university identification cards when they enter classrooms, according to NAU spokesperson Tom Bauer. The data will be recorded and available for professors to examine. ... [The spokesman] added the sensors, paid for by federal stimulus money, initially would only be installed in large freshmen and sophomore classes with more than 50 students. NAU Student Body President Kathleen Templin said most students seem to be against the new system. She added students have started Facebook groups and petitions against the sensor system. ... One of the most popular Facebook groups ... has more than 1,400 members." What are the odds that the use of tracking RFID will expand over time on that campus?

Comments

Re:Attendence in college?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, evidently they are cattle.

Re:Attendence in college?

[joaommp]

I don't know what the fuss is about. That's being done in some universities in Portugal for some years now.

Re:Attendence in college?

[mi]

Then I support Osama bin Laden, but not his mission.

And both of us have to thank the Democratic Party for this wonderfully creative and innovative weaselese, that started it all: "We support the troops, but not their mission."

Re:Stimulus?

[mi]

You'd just blow it on hookers and credit-default swaps.

That's a good argument for 100% taxation, with everything one could need provided by the government for free... That the government's managerial overhead is staggering, is the cost we ought to be prepared to pay.

Decades after the takeover of retirement, the Universal Healthcare is, finally, taken care of — that's a giant wedge, that will soon allow the government to also take over:

• food:
  • you can't be healthy without good nutrition, can you?
  • it is cheaper to feed you than to treat hunger-caused deceases, is not it?
• housing — much the same reasons as above — housing projects for everyone!
• College curriculum — by making the Federal government the sole source of tuition loans, it was placed into position to set rules for both would-be students ("volunteer" or else ...) and the colleges (teach this and that, or else ...) — the colleges will soon be as terrific as the public schools already are

Soon, the ideal of the all-knowing government staffed with benevolent well-meaning bureaucrats (as opposite to the evil private corporate CEOs) will be achieved. We will have no money (the root of all evil), nor need for any, as everything we truly need will be provided by the more equal ones in power. Slaves on plantations had a similar deal — the fools disliked it for some reason...

Supporting weaselese

[mi]

How, precisely, do you 'support the troops'? Do you support them in that you hope they will come back alive? Do you support them in re-integrating into civilian life after discharge? Do you support them by hoping they win their battles? Do you support them in hoping they succeed in their mission?

Although different people would stress different items from your list, a straightforward person would list all of the above. An obama or a pelosi would keep trying to weasel out.

Make no mistake, 'support our troops' means everything and nothing.

Weaselese...

Re:Attendence in college?

[cdrguru]

Well, just exactly who are these privileged students that can do well without attending class? Who gets to decide that they should be superior to other students that have to attend class? Why would you promote class distinctions, racial disharmony and unfairly awarding privileges to some students and not others?

All the students deserve to be equal. Haven't you been paying attention?

Re:American universities are more like businesses.

[BitterOak]

A comparison of these two lists show how meaningless they are. Harvard doesn't even appear in the top 20 of the first list, and it appears as No. 1 in the second list! Also, I strongly suspect the author of the Times list probably graduated from the Southeast Missouri State University. It has been number 1 (!!!!) on that list for six years. It doesn't even make the top 100 on the ARWU list. There's definitely something strange about that.

Re:Attendence in college?

[Attila Dimedici]

Of course there are, there are failing public schools in Arizona.