The cost of education really has sky-rocketed. Perhaps a study or two needs to be done on the real cost of education...
There have been and continue to be many studies examining the costs of higher education. Some posters have already mentioned the shift in education from a "public good" to a "private good" and the consequent reduction in state funding and that certainly plays a large role in rising tuition and fees.
Just as importantly, education is a manpower-intensive process; typically, between 70-80 percent of a college or university budget is personnel costs. That means that some of the other costs that have dramatically risen in the last couple of decades, especially health care, have hit education (and other manpower-intensive fields) particularly hard. Further, many industries have seen huge efficiency gains through the use of technology so their costs have gone down. Education, on the other hand, hasn't experienced similar efficiency gains. Education is as complex as the people who are being educated so there are rarely huge gains in efficiencies such as those gained in most other industries through increases in scale.
Yes, we can do better and technology can play a role in that. But that, too, takes time and money to figure out and implement. It's hard to invent a new swimming stroke when you're fighting just to tread water and that's what it feels like to many of us.
This is very much in line with "normal science" as described in Kuhn's classic book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Most of science is "filling in the holes" of widely-accepted theories and ideas. Because it's not paradigm-shifting, it seems obvious that much normal science can be interpreted as "duh science." It's inherent in the way that science and discovery work.
Unless I'm mistaken, this person wasn't on the witness list for the "The Role of Technology in Reducing Illegal Filesharing: A University Perspective" hearing. The witnesses are not only listed on the website but also in the Hearing Charter. I've watched the entire hearing (there's a link to a Real stream on the website) and Safwat Fahmy was not in the video that I watched.
Am I missing something? Am I looking at the wrong hearing? Or did this person simply write a letter to congress and we've now given him and his company lots of free press?
The current issue of the Journal of Law & Economics has four articles dealing with similar issues and analyses. The authors of each of the articles are, as typical in academic literature, fairly cautious in drawing their conclusions and they are a mixed bag. The articles and their topics are limited in scope but they're peer reviewed and fairly interesting. Alejandro Zentner, the author of one of the article "Measuring the Effect of File-Sharing on Music Purchases," seems to have reached a similar conclusion as the article of the article described by Ars Technica.
I think I heard that the Bush administration planned devising a smaller nuclear bomb that could be used in the battlefield or for bunker busting. It is obvious, since there is no longer a nuclear-capable adversary (except North Korea, which is left alone just because of that).
I think it's important to remember that the nukes developed and built by the USSR still exist and are still out there. Hopefully most of them are in the hands of responsible Russians but the USSR stockpile of nuclear weapons did not cease to exist when the USSR ceased to exist.
Because I want to be able to use it from anywhere.
Its [sic] faster, and your thoughts are (mostly) private
When I am collaborating with others, I don't want my thoughrs to be private - I want to share them. Or maybe I just want to share them anyway in case someone finds them interesting or useful. And maybe someone else will have something to add.
I really hope that Google Notebook has bibliographic features built in to it. I'm using a pilot implementation of WIKINDX because it allows me to:
Take notes
Associate bibliographic information with those notes
Share them
I'd really like Google to leverage their brainpower to automate most or all of the bibliographic information gathering and input. I'd love to throw a URL at Google Notebook and have it figure out (or make really good guesses about) the author, publication date, title, etc. And it would have to be able to format that information in different ways (APA, MLA, etc.) and export it in different formats (BibTex, EndNote, etc.) but that should be relatively easy as those are all well-defined formats.
danah boyd, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley and a well-known expert on social networking and adolescent identity development, spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science2006 annual meeting a few months ago about the critical role social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook play in the socialization and identity development of adolescents. In a nutshell, she argues that social networking sites are areas where young people can experiment with their identity in a venue frequented by their peers but (erroroneously) perceived to be sheltered from the prying eyes of authority figures. Thoughtlessly banning social networking sites and environments from public schools and libraries without input from psychologists and others who can testify why and how students actually use these sites would be foolhardy.
Ask Slashdot? Are you serious? There are much better resources out there that are much more appropriate and useful. EDUCAUSE and SIGUCCS spring to mind immediately. There are probably other local or more specialized organizations of which your institution is already a member.
How about doing some research, identifying some institutions who have mandatory laptop programs, and giving them a call or sending them e-mail? I've NEVER had an institution refuse to help me, answer my questions, or pass on their experiences and suggestions (but the real trick lies in finding the right person to contact - THAT can be difficult or even impossible).
To add some real content to my post: I interviewed with an institution in the north a few months ago for a position managing their mandatory laptop program. They contract with the manufacturer to provide on-site support. They also have a very close relationship with the manufacturer - the head rep was a part of the interview team and the closeness between the rep and the other "regular" university employees was apparent. The program appears to be very successful due in large part to their very close, positive relationship. Shoot me an e-mail (thekevbo1 at yahoo.com) if you'd like to dig up some more specific information.
But: unlike most people I don't think politicians are evil assholes, suck-ups or idiots. I think they have mostly good intentions, but often select the wrong solution - not because of evil intentions, but because of short-sightedness, lack of understanding of consequences, wrong priorites, lack of respect for the indidual's right to autonomy and so-on. (emphasis added)
Personally, I characterize those who possess those "qualities" as either idiotic or evil, depending on if they recognize or attempt to compensate for those shortcomings.
I can't speak for other institutions but you're more than welcome to do so at mine. Unfortunately, you can't do so in many of our buildings because of their physical contruction and wiring. But in our newer apartments which have the physical infrastructure you're certainly allowed to purchase a cable modem and use it. Of course, if everyone else did the same thing you'd be back at square one.
I assume you live on campus. I recommend you take your case to Housing, the Dean of Students, or someone else in Student Affairs. We're generally much more sympathetic and student friendly (it's our job). We're professional student advocates who should be able to help you navigate the processes and translate the language of the higher education bureaucracy.
In particular, if you can make your case to Housing you may be in a stronger position as we are typically a self-sufficient or lightly subsidized auxiliary service and dependent on your rent for our budget. Unhappy residents makes our lives more difficult and if it impacts the bottom line strongly enough it may make our jobs nonexistent. But more than that: most of us are in this profession to understand your concerns and help you convey them to the right people. It's part of the educational process. We honestly believe (and have the research to support) a huge amount of important educational and learning experiences occur outside of the classroom and labratory. This is one of those experiences.
IMHO, there should be a healthy tension between the Housing dept and the IT dept regarding the policies and use of the residential computer network. There is an inherent tension between needing to protect the network and keeping it open for legitimate academic and recreational uses. Unfortunately, it's usually the residents who get caught in the middle between these opposing viewpoints.
I've been involved in similar "fights" and discussions. There's no easy answer particularly in areas where bandwidth is expensive and public support for higher education is declining (i.e. nearly everywhere). And ultimately my responsibility is to all of the residents not just one or two of them. If that means I have to deny access to an application, port, etc. to a few residents to ensure the rest of them can use the network then I'll do that or recommend our network engineers do that. It's a poor solution and I wish we didn't have to do it but sometimes we have to make compromises. We can't afford (more realistically: YOU can't afford) to buy the bandwidth necessary to satisfy all of the academic and entertainment needs of all of the residents.
Best of luck! I hope your campus administration makes the right decision (whatever that is) and you learn something (hopefully positive) from this process. If it helps, I am dismayed by the situation as you have described it and would do my best not to allow a similar situation on my campus.
If you really are doing research in computer science or IT, a subscription to the ACM portal is well worth the expense. There is an astounding amount of information available through the portal and I've gotten quite a bit of use out of it. A quick search with Google Scholar shows that at least some of the portal content is indexed by this new tool but I don't know how much and if it is all available for free (I would hope not - at least not for another year when most of the current ACM portal subscriptions expire!).
If they value "broad, liberal education" so much and have such a hard time finding room for all the people who want to enroll, let them provide their history classes, foreign languages, music appreciation, philosophy, poli sci, etc., as downloadable audio courses that anyone can download and, to the extent possible, let those who want credit take a machine gradable test or series of tests so that attention from a live instructor is not needed.
The "give course content away free" part of your idea is perfectly feasible. There are, of course, sticky intellectual property issues involved. MIT seems to be doing well with OpenCourseWare which does exactly what you asked with respect to giving away course content.
However, there is no way to do this and give people credit. Our accreditation bodies would (rightfully so) not allow us to do this and remain accredited. Think of it as quality control.
Please don't ask me how we get away with "distance education" and remain accredited. It's not much different from what you're asking ("put the material online and have a computerized test!").:(
Whaddya mean "Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he switched his initial "yes" vote to "no" after being shown Justice Department documents asserting that terrorists have communicated over the Internet via public library computers???"
I hope this meant he changed his mind before casting his vote and not that he changed his vote after placing it. If our congresspeople can go back and change their vote, can we go back and change our votes, too (to a vote for their challenger(s))?
It's no wonder we are having so much trouble convincing our leaders to ensure that electronic voting must be secure. As demonstrated by these and similar actions, they lack all respect for democracy and proper procedures regarding voting.
But it was the sublime view that affected him the most. "The sky was jet black, with light blue along the horizon - it was really an awesome sight," he said. "You really do get the feeling that you've touched the face of God."
Many(most?)people who love music only rarely get out to hear it live. Their primary source of info about new sounds is the radio.
People who love music don't listen to the radio. And they certainly don't listen to the radio hoping to hear "new sounds." Maybe if they listen to college radio.
Sure, it's ballsy for Apple to try to do this [gee, let's get someone else to push/advertise our product/service for free], but I don't see there being any upside for a university to actually take part in it.
Reduced number of DMCA allegations. At some universities the sheer number of DMCA allegations consumes a significant amount of time and resources to log, respond, follow up, etc.
Personally, I see this and the Napster deals as thinly veiled commercialism. We've allowed the corporations onto our public elementary, middle, and high schools in a desperate attempt to ensure adequest funding. Universities have been immune to this for a long time but as state dollars continue to dwindle universities are feeling they are being forced into the same situation as their k-12 brethren. It's a tough choice but many of our state legislators have abandoned the traditional concept of publically funded institutions of higher learning.
All of this is, of course, just my opinion and certainly not that of my employer.
...I'll bet that the courts would ultimately decide that as long as someone's not disrupting business, they can spout their political agenda in the mall.
Nope. The courts have already ruled that malls are private property and mall patrons are not protected by the first amendment. It's similar to how the courts view private universities whose students are not protected by the first amendment, only by their contractual agreement with the university.
Slashdot Mirror
The cost of education really has sky-rocketed. Perhaps a study or two needs to be done on the real cost of education...
There have been and continue to be many studies examining the costs of higher education. Some posters have already mentioned the shift in education from a "public good" to a "private good" and the consequent reduction in state funding and that certainly plays a large role in rising tuition and fees.
Just as importantly, education is a manpower-intensive process; typically, between 70-80 percent of a college or university budget is personnel costs. That means that some of the other costs that have dramatically risen in the last couple of decades, especially health care, have hit education (and other manpower-intensive fields) particularly hard. Further, many industries have seen huge efficiency gains through the use of technology so their costs have gone down. Education, on the other hand, hasn't experienced similar efficiency gains. Education is as complex as the people who are being educated so there are rarely huge gains in efficiencies such as those gained in most other industries through increases in scale.
Yes, we can do better and technology can play a role in that. But that, too, takes time and money to figure out and implement. It's hard to invent a new swimming stroke when you're fighting just to tread water and that's what it feels like to many of us.
This is very much in line with "normal science" as described in Kuhn's classic book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." Most of science is "filling in the holes" of widely-accepted theories and ideas. Because it's not paradigm-shifting, it seems obvious that much normal science can be interpreted as "duh science." It's inherent in the way that science and discovery work.
"We're seeking to do public policy advocacy in a Googley way," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's director of public policy and government affairs.
Unless you're quoting Ned Flanders, use of the word "googley" should be forbidden.
Unless I'm mistaken, this person wasn't on the witness list for the "The Role of Technology in Reducing Illegal Filesharing: A University Perspective" hearing. The witnesses are not only listed on the website but also in the Hearing Charter. I've watched the entire hearing (there's a link to a Real stream on the website) and Safwat Fahmy was not in the video that I watched.
Am I missing something? Am I looking at the wrong hearing? Or did this person simply write a letter to congress and we've now given him and his company lots of free press?
The current issue of the Journal of Law & Economics has four articles dealing with similar issues and analyses. The authors of each of the articles are, as typical in academic literature, fairly cautious in drawing their conclusions and they are a mixed bag. The articles and their topics are limited in scope but they're peer reviewed and fairly interesting. Alejandro Zentner, the author of one of the article "Measuring the Effect of File-Sharing on Music Purchases," seems to have reached a similar conclusion as the article of the article described by Ars Technica.
I think I heard that the Bush administration planned devising a smaller nuclear bomb that could be used in the battlefield or for bunker busting. It is obvious, since there is no longer a nuclear-capable adversary (except North Korea, which is left alone just because of that).
I think it's important to remember that the nukes developed and built by the USSR still exist and are still out there. Hopefully most of them are in the hands of responsible Russians but the USSR stockpile of nuclear weapons did not cease to exist when the USSR ceased to exist.
Why not use on your own machine?
Because I want to be able to use it from anywhere.
Its [sic] faster, and your thoughts are (mostly) private
When I am collaborating with others, I don't want my thoughrs to be private - I want to share them. Or maybe I just want to share them anyway in case someone finds them interesting or useful. And maybe someone else will have something to add.
I really hope that Google Notebook has bibliographic features built in to it. I'm using a pilot implementation of WIKINDX because it allows me to:
I'd really like Google to leverage their brainpower to automate most or all of the bibliographic information gathering and input. I'd love to throw a URL at Google Notebook and have it figure out (or make really good guesses about) the author, publication date, title, etc. And it would have to be able to format that information in different ways (APA, MLA, etc.) and export it in different formats (BibTex, EndNote, etc.) but that should be relatively easy as those are all well-defined formats.
danah boyd, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley and a well-known expert on social networking and adolescent identity development, spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2006 annual meeting a few months ago about the critical role social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook play in the socialization and identity development of adolescents. In a nutshell, she argues that social networking sites are areas where young people can experiment with their identity in a venue frequented by their peers but (erroroneously) perceived to be sheltered from the prying eyes of authority figures. Thoughtlessly banning social networking sites and environments from public schools and libraries without input from psychologists and others who can testify why and how students actually use these sites would be foolhardy.
Ask Slashdot? Are you serious? There are much better resources out there that are much more appropriate and useful. EDUCAUSE and SIGUCCS spring to mind immediately. There are probably other local or more specialized organizations of which your institution is already a member.
How about doing some research, identifying some institutions who have mandatory laptop programs, and giving them a call or sending them e-mail? I've NEVER had an institution refuse to help me, answer my questions, or pass on their experiences and suggestions (but the real trick lies in finding the right person to contact - THAT can be difficult or even impossible).
To add some real content to my post: I interviewed with an institution in the north a few months ago for a position managing their mandatory laptop program. They contract with the manufacturer to provide on-site support. They also have a very close relationship with the manufacturer - the head rep was a part of the interview team and the closeness between the rep and the other "regular" university employees was apparent. The program appears to be very successful due in large part to their very close, positive relationship. Shoot me an e-mail (thekevbo1 at yahoo.com) if you'd like to dig up some more specific information.
But: unlike most people I don't think politicians are evil assholes, suck-ups or idiots. I think they have mostly good intentions, but often select the wrong solution - not because of evil intentions, but because of short-sightedness, lack of understanding of consequences, wrong priorites, lack of respect for the indidual's right to autonomy and so-on. (emphasis added)
Personally, I characterize those who possess those "qualities" as either idiotic or evil, depending on if they recognize or attempt to compensate for those shortcomings.
Let's make sure we keep the blue lasers for the good guys and only sell/export red ones to the bad guys.
I can't speak for other institutions but you're more than welcome to do so at mine. Unfortunately, you can't do so in many of our buildings because of their physical contruction and wiring. But in our newer apartments which have the physical infrastructure you're certainly allowed to purchase a cable modem and use it. Of course, if everyone else did the same thing you'd be back at square one.
I assume you live on campus. I recommend you take your case to Housing, the Dean of Students, or someone else in Student Affairs. We're generally much more sympathetic and student friendly (it's our job). We're professional student advocates who should be able to help you navigate the processes and translate the language of the higher education bureaucracy.
In particular, if you can make your case to Housing you may be in a stronger position as we are typically a self-sufficient or lightly subsidized auxiliary service and dependent on your rent for our budget. Unhappy residents makes our lives more difficult and if it impacts the bottom line strongly enough it may make our jobs nonexistent. But more than that: most of us are in this profession to understand your concerns and help you convey them to the right people. It's part of the educational process. We honestly believe (and have the research to support) a huge amount of important educational and learning experiences occur outside of the classroom and labratory. This is one of those experiences.
IMHO, there should be a healthy tension between the Housing dept and the IT dept regarding the policies and use of the residential computer network. There is an inherent tension between needing to protect the network and keeping it open for legitimate academic and recreational uses. Unfortunately, it's usually the residents who get caught in the middle between these opposing viewpoints.
I've been involved in similar "fights" and discussions. There's no easy answer particularly in areas where bandwidth is expensive and public support for higher education is declining (i.e. nearly everywhere). And ultimately my responsibility is to all of the residents not just one or two of them. If that means I have to deny access to an application, port, etc. to a few residents to ensure the rest of them can use the network then I'll do that or recommend our network engineers do that. It's a poor solution and I wish we didn't have to do it but sometimes we have to make compromises. We can't afford (more realistically: YOU can't afford) to buy the bandwidth necessary to satisfy all of the academic and entertainment needs of all of the residents.
Best of luck! I hope your campus administration makes the right decision (whatever that is) and you learn something (hopefully positive) from this process. If it helps, I am dismayed by the situation as you have described it and would do my best not to allow a similar situation on my campus.
"Intel and MS will make protected content flow freely throughout the home and make DTCP IP interoperate."
What the fuck does that mean?
Try small-town Quebec. That's where real french is spoken.
Uh, wouldn't it be France where real French is spoken?
If you really are doing research in computer science or IT, a subscription to the ACM portal is well worth the expense. There is an astounding amount of information available through the portal and I've gotten quite a bit of use out of it. A quick search with Google Scholar shows that at least some of the portal content is indexed by this new tool but I don't know how much and if it is all available for free (I would hope not - at least not for another year when most of the current ACM portal subscriptions expire!).
While researching for an embedded systems project (a magstripe enabled Coke machine)
In other words you wanted to get a Coke the other day and didn't have any spare change, right? :)
If they value "broad, liberal education" so much and have such a hard time finding room for all the people who want to enroll, let them provide their history classes, foreign languages, music appreciation, philosophy, poli sci, etc., as downloadable audio courses that anyone can download and, to the extent possible, let those who want credit take a machine gradable test or series of tests so that attention from a live instructor is not needed.
The "give course content away free" part of your idea is perfectly feasible. There are, of course, sticky intellectual property issues involved. MIT seems to be doing well with OpenCourseWare which does exactly what you asked with respect to giving away course content.
However, there is no way to do this and give people credit. Our accreditation bodies would (rightfully so) not allow us to do this and remain accredited. Think of it as quality control.
Please don't ask me how we get away with "distance education" and remain accredited. It's not much different from what you're asking ("put the material online and have a computerized test!"). :(
Whaddya mean "Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he switched his initial "yes" vote to "no" after being shown Justice Department documents asserting that terrorists have communicated over the Internet via public library computers???"
I hope this meant he changed his mind before casting his vote and not that he changed his vote after placing it. If our congresspeople can go back and change their vote, can we go back and change our votes, too (to a vote for their challenger(s))?
It's no wonder we are having so much trouble convincing our leaders to ensure that electronic voting must be secure. As demonstrated by these and similar actions, they lack all respect for democracy and proper procedures regarding voting.
But it was the sublime view that affected him the most. "The sky was jet black, with light blue along the horizon - it was really an awesome sight," he said. "You really do get the feeling that you've touched the face of God."
What does God need with a starship?
Many(most?)people who love music only rarely get out to hear it live. Their primary source of info about new sounds is the radio.
People who love music don't listen to the radio. And they certainly don't listen to the radio hoping to hear "new sounds." Maybe if they listen to college radio.
Fool! Don't give them any ideas! Do we really need to add more things into Emacs???
NO. Do not use the font tags.
There are two lists of recommendations which would be helpful for you and your team:
Sure, it's ballsy for Apple to try to do this [gee, let's get someone else to push/advertise our product/service for free], but I don't see there being any upside for a university to actually take part in it.
Reduced number of DMCA allegations. At some universities the sheer number of DMCA allegations consumes a significant amount of time and resources to log, respond, follow up, etc.
Personally, I see this and the Napster deals as thinly veiled commercialism. We've allowed the corporations onto our public elementary, middle, and high schools in a desperate attempt to ensure adequest funding. Universities have been immune to this for a long time but as state dollars continue to dwindle universities are feeling they are being forced into the same situation as their k-12 brethren. It's a tough choice but many of our state legislators have abandoned the traditional concept of publically funded institutions of higher learning.
All of this is, of course, just my opinion and certainly not that of my employer.
Kevin
Nope. The courts have already ruled that malls are private property and mall patrons are not protected by the first amendment. It's similar to how the courts view private universities whose students are not protected by the first amendment, only by their contractual agreement with the university.
Kevin