Slashdot Mirror
Big Brother Is Coming To UK Universities (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: An upcoming report by the Higher Education Commission, a UK group of MPs, business and academic professionals, will paint a picture of a higher education system that, thanks to the increasing use of data, may undergo radical change, sometimes with painful ethical considerations. Among their visions: an Amazon-style recommendation service on courses and work experience based on individuals' backgrounds, and similar profiles. Or a system in which students at risk of failure can be identified from their first day so that they receive instant feedback and performance measuring. It is envisioned that the system will include knowing whether they are in lectures, at the gym or in the bar, and in an effort to boost their results, students may also want to share data on their fitness, sleeping patterns, and their academic and semi-academic interactions online.
"People who put up with this in the university, also went on to become amazon warehouse employees, and went on to fit in just fine."
FCKGW 09F9 42
Among their visions: an Amazon-style recommendation service on courses...
I went to a university where they did this and it is a pretty double edged weapon because the students who spent their lecture time playing online games or posting on Facebook ended up giving courses and the lecturers bad reviews because they blamed the course/lecturer for their bad grades rather than their own procrastination. The knee-jerk reaction of lecturers was to ban laptops and mobile devices in lectures which had a detrimental effect on me and the others who actually used their laptops to take notes. I for one gave courses where I was not able to take electronic notes a lower grade than I otherwise would have even though I understood why the lecturer banned computer devices and even though I generally liked the course and the lecturer's performance because it forced me to spend double the time I normally would re-writing my paper-notes in electronic form. Basically I don't think applying this form of a product rating system to courses and lecturers is a good idea because it can give you a very skewed idea of the situation. I say let the procrastinators fail and let them piss and moan about it at home, don't give them a forum at school to do that. If they want to play games in class rather than take notes it's their own damn fault and if they want to waste of their own money that way that's their business. That way people who actually pay attention and use their computers for learning are not disadvantaged. Banning computers in lectures just forces the procrastinators to find new ways to procrastinate.
Why the hell would people want this shit?
Is this just to get people used to living in a surveillance society?
How about none of your fucking business? This constant sharing of every aspect of your life is idiotic.
You're in school to learn, in part, who the hell you are. This shit is getting ridiculous.
The world doesn't need analytics of every goddamned thing you do. And one of these days all these people who have plugged everything into their smart phone will realize just what they've really been giving away.
Yeah, get off my damned lawn. I don't want any of your tracking doodads. This shit sounds like a terrible idea to me.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
...if they choose.
If it becomes established then there will probably be penalties for not choosing to. "But why would you decline something that can help you?" says the university administrator as they set the "expel at earliest minor infraction" flag on the students file.