Having worked at HTH Bayshore (not as faculty), I can agree that this poster is generally correct. They leave out several administrative, and political reasons why this school failed as well. This district is notorious for attempting to kill charter high schools in the area, and the school board is very antagonistic toward charter high schools. There was another failed one, "Aurora" High School, that encountered many of the same issues just a few years previous. That said, the charter school model is not a flawed one - the execution of this particular one was.
A friend of mine received a letter from the University, notifying him that the RIAA had his information and was accusing him of file-sharing. He was provided a number to contact them and settle out of court. This was three years ago, so it's not a new tactic.
As to what happens when you do not respond? Apparently, nothing. He's not heard from them since.
Rob
Although keep in mind, sometimes the "easy" way is not the right way. Yes, I know there is an arduous process to set up a secure FTP account on our servers, but there is a process. Suppose one of my users goes around that, and decides to use an alternative service instead. Now, I have to also be aware of and know the ins and outs of that particular service in order to be able to deal with it when problems arise when we have a perfectly fine and working system already.
What happens when my user quits or is fired? That information is not accessible nor secure because they did not use my standard secure FTP procedures. We may have lost a client because of that, or days of work in not having everything on our internal and closed systems.
We try to work with users, but circumventing IT isn't the way to go. Two-way communication is key, and understanding that at the end of the day, the company's interests are what we have to act in. I will also be blocking these sites, although I would personally like to use a few. But as a professional, I can make these kind of judgments and make my job easier. If I say an application is unapproved, that means I don't have time to support it when it breaks. If a user installs it anyway, it becomes crucial, and it breaks, then it becomes my problem, taking time away from priority projects because someone thought the rules didn't apply to them.
I would never call users Yokels, but a little knowledge can be dangerous.
Slashdot Mirror
Having worked at HTH Bayshore (not as faculty), I can agree that this poster is generally correct. They leave out several administrative, and political reasons why this school failed as well. This district is notorious for attempting to kill charter high schools in the area, and the school board is very antagonistic toward charter high schools. There was another failed one, "Aurora" High School, that encountered many of the same issues just a few years previous. That said, the charter school model is not a flawed one - the execution of this particular one was.
A friend of mine received a letter from the University, notifying him that the RIAA had his information and was accusing him of file-sharing. He was provided a number to contact them and settle out of court. This was three years ago, so it's not a new tactic. As to what happens when you do not respond? Apparently, nothing. He's not heard from them since. Rob
Although keep in mind, sometimes the "easy" way is not the right way. Yes, I know there is an arduous process to set up a secure FTP account on our servers, but there is a process. Suppose one of my users goes around that, and decides to use an alternative service instead. Now, I have to also be aware of and know the ins and outs of that particular service in order to be able to deal with it when problems arise when we have a perfectly fine and working system already.
What happens when my user quits or is fired? That information is not accessible nor secure because they did not use my standard secure FTP procedures. We may have lost a client because of that, or days of work in not having everything on our internal and closed systems.
We try to work with users, but circumventing IT isn't the way to go. Two-way communication is key, and understanding that at the end of the day, the company's interests are what we have to act in. I will also be blocking these sites, although I would personally like to use a few. But as a professional, I can make these kind of judgments and make my job easier. If I say an application is unapproved, that means I don't have time to support it when it breaks. If a user installs it anyway, it becomes crucial, and it breaks, then it becomes my problem, taking time away from priority projects because someone thought the rules didn't apply to them.
I would never call users Yokels, but a little knowledge can be dangerous.
Rob