Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines(washingtonpost.com)
washingtonpost.com
Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/24/colleges-are-turning-students-phones-into-surveillance-machines-tracking-locations-hundreds-thousands/
292 comments
I attended a private high school that gave us a remarkable degree of freedom at a young age. We were allowed to drive off campus as upper classmen, choose a wide range of electives, and generally were treated as the near-adults we were.
Recently I read that my high school is instituting a random drug testing policy. I wrote a letter (that I'm sure they promptly ignored) saying how the thing I most remember about my high school experience is that I was trusted with a high degree of autonomy, and in return I was expected to act responsibly and to think about issues with a seriousness not often expected of teenagers in our society.
It seems like more and more these infantilizing policies are becoming a norm in our society. Instead of trusting human beings and granting them personal autonomy and responsibility, we act like imposing ever-greater layers of rules and controls will produce good citizens. Frankly I think this is a disastrous approach and is creating entitled, helpless, and childish adults. It's a massive disservice to ourselves and our society.
I'll never forget my first day of college. Lots of the other kids in my dorm were running around like crazy people. You could tell they'd never really been free to be themselves and run their own affairs. I felt very different. While it was a significant change to be totally on my own, it felt like a natural extension of the freedom I had slowly been granted over the previous two or three years. I was ready to deal with it. I didn't do everything perfectly, and I could have made better decisions, but by and large I felt like the transition to adulthood was comfortable and natural. The more we impose these command-and-control models, the more I fear we are robbing our children of that same feeling and casting them into adulthood with poorer tools than we were given.
Recently I read that my high school is instituting a random drug testing policy. I wrote a letter (that I'm sure they promptly ignored) saying how the thing I most remember about my high school experience is that I was trusted with a high degree of autonomy, and in return I was expected to act responsibly and to think about issues with a seriousness not often expected of teenagers in our society.
It seems like more and more these infantilizing policies are becoming a norm in our society. Instead of trusting human beings and granting them personal autonomy and responsibility, we act like imposing ever-greater layers of rules and controls will produce good citizens. Frankly I think this is a disastrous approach and is creating entitled, helpless, and childish adults. It's a massive disservice to ourselves and our society.
I'll never forget my first day of college. Lots of the other kids in my dorm were running around like crazy people. You could tell they'd never really been free to be themselves and run their own affairs. I felt very different. While it was a significant change to be totally on my own, it felt like a natural extension of the freedom I had slowly been granted over the previous two or three years. I was ready to deal with it. I didn't do everything perfectly, and I could have made better decisions, but by and large I felt like the transition to adulthood was comfortable and natural. The more we impose these command-and-control models, the more I fear we are robbing our children of that same feeling and casting them into adulthood with poorer tools than we were given.
I tend to agree with you. I witnessed that simply expecting people to behave had the result of people living up to those expectations.
As for me personally, being dropped into Caltech was like going from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds. I didn't even know how to do my own laundry :-) Getting from LAX to the campus by myself across LA was a very intimidating experience. These days parents bring their kids to college and even set up their quarters for them.
As for me personally, being dropped into Caltech was like going from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds. I didn't even know how to do my own laundry :-) Getting from LAX to the campus by myself across LA was a very intimidating experience. These days parents bring their kids to college and even set up their quarters for them.
I’m almost 2 years into my first job after college and sometimes the amount of freedom I have continues to delight and baffle me.
Like if I want to go to the movies on a weeknight - I can do that. If I want to travel out of state on the weekend, it’s no problem. Like, there’s nothing stopping me.
Like if I want to go to the movies on a weeknight - I can do that. If I want to travel out of state on the weekend, it’s no problem. Like, there’s nothing stopping me.
Wow, so are you saying that being in-college was not like that for you?
If so, that's disturbing given that college was once the time for young people to enjoy their freedom to the fullest. I remember driving from upstate New York to Boston one weekend on a whim with some friends - in the middle of winter, a memorable adventure.
If so, that's disturbing given that college was once the time for young people to enjoy their freedom to the fullest. I remember driving from upstate New York to Boston one weekend on a whim with some friends - in the middle of winter, a memorable adventure.
I think the comment is saying that that freedom began in college, but that freedom is still exciting and new.
Always treat life that way!
I feel like in the case of schools, there legal risks they have to face that cause this. If something happens to a student while that student is in your care, you get the blame. If the school restricts freedoms they're simply reducing their legal risk.
It's a shame. I agree with you that giving students more and more freedom as they grow is tremendously helpful to their ability to adapt and be responsible by the time they reach adulthood.
It's a shame. I agree with you that giving students more and more freedom as they grow is tremendously helpful to their ability to adapt and be responsible by the time they reach adulthood.
Is the legal risk different now from back then? If so then maybe those legal decisions weren't great. Maybe they were. But at least worth revaluation.
I think it is. I think people used to be less litigious, so schools had less to worry about. The law was certainly less complex, providing less potential risk than it does.
Additionally, I'd be willing to bet school districts have dedicated legal departments, or lawyers on retainer these days and I'd bet that's a recent change.
Additionally, I'd be willing to bet school districts have dedicated legal departments, or lawyers on retainer these days and I'd bet that's a recent change.
I think this is mostly a media driven perception that lawsuits have been increasing when in fact the trend is that tort awards and causes of action have been restricted. If you’re a school administrator wanting more control its easy to say “lawsuits” but I bet these people are not doing research on lawsuits for students leaving campus in their jurisdiction.
I somehow managed to be person who least attended my last three years of high school. Which is pretty unusual for someone on the highest, 3rd-tier track which over here is what you need to do to attend college. For comparison, the 1st-tier is stereotyped as pot-smoking dropouts who can only go to vocation schools after finishing high school.
I didn't realize that my attendance was tracked, because there was a pretty laissez-faire attitude all-around. Most teachers liked me because when I did show up, I was actively present, and the only moment that might've caused me to suspect something was a conversation with a teacher who, in a very friendly way, told me he couldn't give me copies of the notes from the past year because my attendance had been abysmal.
Still, I didn't really think about any of this until the principal called me in and told me he should really expel me. And yet, he was sympathetic to my situation (severe anxiety) and let me off the hook because my grades were okay.
And so in the final months before college I stayed, made sure to attend classes, and finished with acceptable grades.
The very next year (in part perhaps because of me?) the school modernized their systems and I had to listen to the tales of woe from my younger siblings at the same school. None of them could get even close to my behavior because everything was tracked, quantified, part of the new computer system.
My sister got diagnosed with severe ADHD and one of my brothers went for the third-tier track even though he's just as smart as I am.
I'm convinced that the increased measurement and decreased freedom affected them negatively, and I find it very worrying that the siblings that went on to college seem to have similar issues (because, of course, at university I was one of the least-attending students who somehow still got along with the professors and had decent grades).
To be clear, I'm not excusing myself. In hindsight I wish had attended more and put in more effort and played the game better. I'm just saying that I at least had the freedom, in high school and university, to do things my own way and still do okay. this strikes me as very difficult for my younger siblings, because so much more is measured and quantified and required.
I didn't realize that my attendance was tracked, because there was a pretty laissez-faire attitude all-around. Most teachers liked me because when I did show up, I was actively present, and the only moment that might've caused me to suspect something was a conversation with a teacher who, in a very friendly way, told me he couldn't give me copies of the notes from the past year because my attendance had been abysmal.
Still, I didn't really think about any of this until the principal called me in and told me he should really expel me. And yet, he was sympathetic to my situation (severe anxiety) and let me off the hook because my grades were okay.
And so in the final months before college I stayed, made sure to attend classes, and finished with acceptable grades.
The very next year (in part perhaps because of me?) the school modernized their systems and I had to listen to the tales of woe from my younger siblings at the same school. None of them could get even close to my behavior because everything was tracked, quantified, part of the new computer system.
My sister got diagnosed with severe ADHD and one of my brothers went for the third-tier track even though he's just as smart as I am.
I'm convinced that the increased measurement and decreased freedom affected them negatively, and I find it very worrying that the siblings that went on to college seem to have similar issues (because, of course, at university I was one of the least-attending students who somehow still got along with the professors and had decent grades).
To be clear, I'm not excusing myself. In hindsight I wish had attended more and put in more effort and played the game better. I'm just saying that I at least had the freedom, in high school and university, to do things my own way and still do okay. this strikes me as very difficult for my younger siblings, because so much more is measured and quantified and required.
St. X in Cincinnati?
Caltech of a few decades ago was great... but even it isn't exempt from the infantization that's been happening everywhere. (Just talk to any of the current undergrads or recent alums -- a shift started happening with some new deans towards the late 2000s/early 2010s and hasn't stopped.)
As an example of this -- one of the comments below mentions iClickers. Those have been a thing for a few years now (mostly bio, but still).
> Fortunately, I attended a college (Caltech) that as institute policy did not take attendance and no part of the grade was based on attendance.
I attended Caltech (BS '01) and given that they allowed us to take exams home with us, it would have been surprising if a professor took attendance. This was part of the overall honor code (http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/explore/about-caltech/hono...) that looking back, I really appreciated as a student.
I attended Caltech (BS '01) and given that they allowed us to take exams home with us, it would have been surprising if a professor took attendance. This was part of the overall honor code (http://www.admissions.caltech.edu/explore/about-caltech/hono...) that looking back, I really appreciated as a student.
Currently attending Caltech (BS ‘22) and thankfully it is still the same way now. If nothing else, it helps a little to take the edge off of the rigor and difficulty (at least, in my opinion). Specifically, if my finals are going to be ~4 hours long each, at least I can choose when and where to do them :-)
Nice to see that Caltech still operates that way! The Honor System there had a very large and positive influence on my later career and interactions with others.
In college right now, and last semester I had an experience similar but someone different in my data structures class. The professor didn't take attendance, and stated that while we didn't have to show up,
a. It was strongly recommended in order to do well in the course (a difficult honors course), and
b. He wanted to make the class interesting enough that we wanted to show up.
The class almost always had perfect attendance. It opened my eyes so much.
a. It was strongly recommended in order to do well in the course (a difficult honors course), and
b. He wanted to make the class interesting enough that we wanted to show up.
The class almost always had perfect attendance. It opened my eyes so much.
Yup. The difference, though, was this was your professor's choice, while at Caltech it was institute policy.
My school was the same. The teachers told us straight up, they didn't care if we showed up or not, we were paying to be there, the teachers got paid the same whether we showed up or not and in the end, if we chose not to show up for a lecture, there's a good chance we wouldn't know the material well enough to pass the tests on it anyway, so our grades just always reflected our own efforts. I remember missing one stats lecture, for a good reason, and being nearly completely screwed over for a bit after that. I ended up having to teach myself the stuff I missed just to stay caught up.
At my college, the professors that took attendance were almost always the worst ones, teaching GEs to a lecture hall of a hundred students that had no reason to care, and ultimately did little to improve learning. I think if any of the upper division major-related professors tried to force attendance, they’d be laughed right out of the room. But the ones worth going to had steady attendance anyways, even if they put up lecture notes or slides, because they were often genuinely useful lectures to go to.
The proliferation of data platforms and fancy tools makes it easy to build dashboards, etc.
One former colleague is doing a lot of research and statistics gathering by correlating use of campus swipe cards to grades and other academic warning signs.
If they detect that you’re out late, using soda machines at 3am, bugging out for the weekend, etc they may trigger some of sort intervention.
One former colleague is doing a lot of research and statistics gathering by correlating use of campus swipe cards to grades and other academic warning signs.
If they detect that you’re out late, using soda machines at 3am, bugging out for the weekend, etc they may trigger some of sort intervention.
An intervention for staying up late and leaving on the weekend? Is this a college or a daycare?
I think I subsisted on something like 4 hours of sleep. There was just too much fun going on.
Sounds like a glorified daycare
"Smith. 6079 Smith W. Yes, you! Bend lower."
The only time I used a soda machine at 3am was when I was pulling all nighters in the library
I remember when I went to university, that in first year the biggest difference was between those who went to private schools and public schools. In private schools, the schools were stricter on attendance and teachers, helped you in such a manner that you didn't know how to help yourself. Whereas at public school, teachers didn't care if you attended class. teachers would help you if you didn't understand something, but in a manner that helped you be more self sufficient.
I think, at least with my group of friends, those from private schools had more growing up to do in a shorter period because they came from schools that over-supported them, so they weren't prepared to be self sufficient.
I think, at least with my group of friends, those from private schools had more growing up to do in a shorter period because they came from schools that over-supported them, so they weren't prepared to be self sufficient.
This sort of thing doesn't work at schools that don't have such a high bar of entry. Caltech can afford to treat their students like adults, because they're picked from the cream of the crop.
On the other hand, schools like the one I went to would have a horrible(r) matriculation rate if students were not forced to attend certain classes. It infuriurates me (and I think students who want to fail should be allowed to fail), but ultimately it's a product of the financial incentive structure; more graduates = more $$$.
And forcing attendance of some classes does indeed increase the likelihood of certain borderline students graduating, nobody can deny that.
On the other hand, schools like the one I went to would have a horrible(r) matriculation rate if students were not forced to attend certain classes. It infuriurates me (and I think students who want to fail should be allowed to fail), but ultimately it's a product of the financial incentive structure; more graduates = more $$$.
And forcing attendance of some classes does indeed increase the likelihood of certain borderline students graduating, nobody can deny that.
Most of those third-tier schools shouldn't exist in the first place. Immature, undisciplined students are just accumulating debt without learning much. They would be better off in community college or working for a while. Then once they gain a little more life experience some will figure out what they want to do and have enough motivation to return to school.
> Most of those third-tier schools shouldn't exist in the first place
I disagree. I was offered admission to zero first rate schools, two second rate schools ($$$$$$ tuition), and my backup which is a third rate school (which I am attending for free).
If my backup school didn't exist, I would either be without a degree, or my parents would have a significant dent in their retirement. I'm willing to put up with the BS of third rate schools so that I can at least have a degree and not be scalped, thank you very much.
I'm grateful that my third rate school exists, no matter how shitty it is.
I will grant you, however, that no school should knowingly take $$$$$ from students and give them an useless degree. But a CS degree? It's pretty cool that I can get that from any school and it's the "same" level of degree whether it's from Caltech or Arizona State.
I disagree. I was offered admission to zero first rate schools, two second rate schools ($$$$$$ tuition), and my backup which is a third rate school (which I am attending for free).
If my backup school didn't exist, I would either be without a degree, or my parents would have a significant dent in their retirement. I'm willing to put up with the BS of third rate schools so that I can at least have a degree and not be scalped, thank you very much.
I'm grateful that my third rate school exists, no matter how shitty it is.
I will grant you, however, that no school should knowingly take $$$$$ from students and give them an useless degree. But a CS degree? It's pretty cool that I can get that from any school and it's the "same" level of degree whether it's from Caltech or Arizona State.
Well put, thank you.
I disagree. I went to the University of Canterbury (the New Zealand one), the bar to entry was literally to pass your high school exams.
We were treated like adults, and attendance was entirely optional for most lectures and tutorials. If you failed a paper because you didn't go to any lectures, that was your problem.
We were treated like adults, and attendance was entirely optional for most lectures and tutorials. If you failed a paper because you didn't go to any lectures, that was your problem.
If you fail out, it's not just your problem though. It's also the taxpayers who paid for the school that the student wasted.
That remains true whether that's a Scandinavian model of fully-paid schools, a US public university model of a partially taxpayer funded & partially student funded or even a private university if it ultimately results in a taxpayer funded loan forgiveness or other subsidy.
That remains true whether that's a Scandinavian model of fully-paid schools, a US public university model of a partially taxpayer funded & partially student funded or even a private university if it ultimately results in a taxpayer funded loan forgiveness or other subsidy.
Rate of dropouts is probably priced in. Plenty of people in the U.S. drop out of public education before they've completed it as we..
I don't think you're disagreeing with me here. It's just that your school doesn't care that much if students fail because of their own negligence. Mine does, because that looks bad or something.
I totally agree with your school's stance, but I acknowledge tha the current financial incentive structure prevents my school from having the same.
I totally agree with your school's stance, but I acknowledge tha the current financial incentive structure prevents my school from having the same.
> Caltech can afford to treat their students like adults, because they're picked from the cream of the crop.
The cream in terms of demonstrated capacity for academic performance, which probably has very little correlation to readiness to be treated as an adult. There selection criteria is why they can afford to have rigorous coursework as the basic freshman core, but not why their decision to treat the young adults attending as adults works.
If anything, that policy is part of the selection system: the people that aren't ready for that treatment don't cause problems for other people as much as they would in other systems, they just fail out fairly quickly.
The cream in terms of demonstrated capacity for academic performance, which probably has very little correlation to readiness to be treated as an adult. There selection criteria is why they can afford to have rigorous coursework as the basic freshman core, but not why their decision to treat the young adults attending as adults works.
If anything, that policy is part of the selection system: the people that aren't ready for that treatment don't cause problems for other people as much as they would in other systems, they just fail out fairly quickly.
> has very little correlation to readiness to be treated as an adult
My words may have been misleading. What I'm trying to say is the kind of student that gets admission to Caltech is not the kind of student to neglect going to class out of laziness or whatever and fail out because of that.
My words may have been misleading. What I'm trying to say is the kind of student that gets admission to Caltech is not the kind of student to neglect going to class out of laziness or whatever and fail out because of that.
> is not the kind of student to neglect going to class out of laziness or whatever and fail out because of that.
Well, I was. I tried repeatedly to skip class and still pass. It did not work. The low point was finals week, first semester, sophomore year. I was looking at flunking out. I had serious pain in my gut from stress.
I squeaked by.
That was it for me. I decided that I was never again going to miss a lecture, always take notes properly, never again skip homework (doing homework was not required), and I would master every single homework problem on time.
That worked for me. I started getting B's, eventually turning into A's.
Well, I was. I tried repeatedly to skip class and still pass. It did not work. The low point was finals week, first semester, sophomore year. I was looking at flunking out. I had serious pain in my gut from stress.
I squeaked by.
That was it for me. I decided that I was never again going to miss a lecture, always take notes properly, never again skip homework (doing homework was not required), and I would master every single homework problem on time.
That worked for me. I started getting B's, eventually turning into A's.
Virtually all universities in Sweden do the same, and it works fairly well even in those with a very low bar of entry. And while our universities are not for profit they still do get funding based on number of students who complete courses. Do we really want tons of unmotivated students in the classrooms?
I don't understand how not tracking attendance is treating adults like adults. Your workplace will track your attendance until you retire. It's pretty normal.
Just because a student has issues with discipline or motivation I shouldn't let them fail. Tracking attendance improves academic results so I'm not sure what the advantage is to not tracking it.
Just because a student has issues with discipline or motivation I shouldn't let them fail. Tracking attendance improves academic results so I'm not sure what the advantage is to not tracking it.
Workplace attendance tracking is certainly not universal.
When I teach classes, if a student does not perform the requisite work to complete the course, I’ve no interest in their success. I am an instructor, not a motivator.
When I teach classes, if a student does not perform the requisite work to complete the course, I’ve no interest in their success. I am an instructor, not a motivator.
For the vast majority of jobs being absent a full work week without approval means you don't have a job the next week. Why does being an adult university student mean you can be absent for months and still succeed? It has nothing to do with adulthood.
And why do we need instructors? Let's just give each student some textbooks and their exam schedule. If they can't succeed we're not interested in their success.
The Darwinist argument can always be used to withdraw any and all levels of support. You can't use it to justify just the level of support you prefer.
And why do we need instructors? Let's just give each student some textbooks and their exam schedule. If they can't succeed we're not interested in their success.
The Darwinist argument can always be used to withdraw any and all levels of support. You can't use it to justify just the level of support you prefer.
In a job, you are being paid to perform a service. If you take the money and do not perform the service, you can expect negative consequences.
As a college student, you are paying to receive a service. The college fulfilled their obligation that you paid for. Your only obligation is to pay the bill that you agreed to. You are not obliged to make use of the services provided.
It's not the same situation at all.
As a college student, you are paying to receive a service. The college fulfilled their obligation that you paid for. Your only obligation is to pay the bill that you agreed to. You are not obliged to make use of the services provided.
It's not the same situation at all.
So the adult argument has fell through. Now it's about being a customer.
Service providers can fire customers. If you pay for membership of a club but never attend functions, the club will end your membership.
If the service aims to provide a community or is invested in the success of its customers then it should fire customers who are not invested in their own success.
Not to mention how many students are not customers. They are sponsored by parents and scholarships and heavily subsidized. All these stakeholders have a vested interest in academic success. Tracking attendance is better for all of them.
Service providers can fire customers. If you pay for membership of a club but never attend functions, the club will end your membership.
If the service aims to provide a community or is invested in the success of its customers then it should fire customers who are not invested in their own success.
Not to mention how many students are not customers. They are sponsored by parents and scholarships and heavily subsidized. All these stakeholders have a vested interest in academic success. Tracking attendance is better for all of them.
If Caltech isn't the place for you, that's fine - there are many other choices. It was the place for me.
The adult argument didn't fall through. If you pay a psychologist for an appointment and you don't show up the psychologist will happily arrange another appointment and gladly receive the money. You are comparing a job to university but they are not comparable in this way.
The adult argument has absolutely fallen through because adults' attendance is tracked in another situation. So it's not a matter of being adult. It's a matter of what the specific relationship is of the student to the university.
It's ironic you mention psychologists. Therapists, personal trainers, life coaches, and other 1-to-1 service providers are the most likely to fire a customer for not attending. I personally know someone whose vocal coach made an ultimatum about attendance and ended up firing the customer. This is all very much adult.
In the end it's the sad consumerization of higher education in America. The pricing makes students so bitter as to demand "better service" rather than "better education". A university is more like a job in most of the world.
It's ironic you mention psychologists. Therapists, personal trainers, life coaches, and other 1-to-1 service providers are the most likely to fire a customer for not attending. I personally know someone whose vocal coach made an ultimatum about attendance and ended up firing the customer. This is all very much adult.
In the end it's the sad consumerization of higher education in America. The pricing makes students so bitter as to demand "better service" rather than "better education". A university is more like a job in most of the world.
> For the vast majority of jobs being absent a full work week without approval means you don't have a job the next week.
College isn't a job for the student, it's a training and certification program that the student is paying for. The accreditation agencies that validate that the program is appropriate for the certifications being offered generally do not require attendance tracking, because regularity of attendance isn't what is being certified.
> Why does being an adult university student mean you can be absent for months and still succeed?
Attendance tracking in schools for children serves a number of purposes related to the fact that the students are children, including that students are not entrusted to review the syllabus and evaluate the level of engagement required for success on their own. Most students can't be absent for months and succeed, and if they try they will fail. Attendance tracking isn't needed for that if your assessment, grading, and academic standards are working properly (and attendance tracking doesn't fix the problem if they are not.)
> And why do we need instructors?
Because those are among the educational resources students are paying for (though there are universities where that is less the case than traditional universities, such as the competency-based WGU, which has won high praise from many corners.)
College isn't a job for the student, it's a training and certification program that the student is paying for. The accreditation agencies that validate that the program is appropriate for the certifications being offered generally do not require attendance tracking, because regularity of attendance isn't what is being certified.
> Why does being an adult university student mean you can be absent for months and still succeed?
Attendance tracking in schools for children serves a number of purposes related to the fact that the students are children, including that students are not entrusted to review the syllabus and evaluate the level of engagement required for success on their own. Most students can't be absent for months and succeed, and if they try they will fail. Attendance tracking isn't needed for that if your assessment, grading, and academic standards are working properly (and attendance tracking doesn't fix the problem if they are not.)
> And why do we need instructors?
Because those are among the educational resources students are paying for (though there are universities where that is less the case than traditional universities, such as the competency-based WGU, which has won high praise from many corners.)
> This sort of thing doesn't work at schools that don't have such a high bar of entry.
This was the policy at the community college I went to. No one took attendance, and it was the students' responsibility to make sure they did the work and prepared themselves for exams if they chose not to show up.
This was the policy at the community college I went to. No one took attendance, and it was the students' responsibility to make sure they did the work and prepared themselves for exams if they chose not to show up.
Other elite schools take attendance and don't have an Honor System.
One interesting consequence of this is the faculty and students become collaborators rather than adversaries.
One interesting consequence of this is the faculty and students become collaborators rather than adversaries.
What elite institutions take attendance?
While I was at UChicago, we had courses with a participation grade - so attendance was effectively taken whether or not a teacher recorded it every class.
At LSE, they used iClickers while I was there for a few lecture hall courses. At least one (LSE100) requires attendance unless one wants to miss their chance of getting a First on the module.
At LSE, they used iClickers while I was there for a few lecture hall courses. At least one (LSE100) requires attendance unless one wants to miss their chance of getting a First on the module.
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I think adults should be treated like adults, no matter the bar for entry into whatever organization they're part of.
Not terribly related, but I personally think it’s really cool that you went to Caltech! It bums me out that Caltech doesn’t have as many associated giants of the tech world as e.g. MIT or Berkeley, which might just owe to Caltech’s smaller size, so I always love it when I learn about an awesome alum like yourself :-)
If you don’t mind me asking, what Hou(v)se were you in?
If you don’t mind me asking, what Hou(v)se were you in?
Page.
Caltech is quite a bit smaller, only 130 undergrads in my graduation class, or something like that (don't recall exactly).
Bill Gross is likely the most famous alumnus of my class. Quite a few in my class (79) became quite wealthy in the tech business, though not the really big money.
Caltech is quite a bit smaller, only 130 undergrads in my graduation class, or something like that (don't recall exactly).
Bill Gross is likely the most famous alumnus of my class. Quite a few in my class (79) became quite wealthy in the tech business, though not the really big money.
Hal Finney was the most famous of the class ahead of me. His dorm room was next to mine. My only brush with fame! Hal was one of the good eggs.
A Rudd myself, but I have some good friends in Page.
That is really interesting that your class size was only 130, AFAICT nowadays they're ~240. At least, the classes of 2022 and 2023 were in that ballpark. (I wonder if Caltech has become less selective, or has just received more applicants?)
Idealab has an active presence on campus even today, so Bill Gross seems to have left his mark :-)
That is really interesting that your class size was only 130, AFAICT nowadays they're ~240. At least, the classes of 2022 and 2023 were in that ballpark. (I wonder if Caltech has become less selective, or has just received more applicants?)
Idealab has an active presence on campus even today, so Bill Gross seems to have left his mark :-)
> Fortunately, I attended a college (Caltech) that as institute policy did not take attendance and no part of the grade was based on attendance.
One pushback I've heard from administators on this idea is that it's really hard to answer certain Federal aid questions when the student drops out, like 'when did they last attend class?' if you don't take attendance. And the student Visa programs apparently require attestations about both attending and passing classes.
One pushback I've heard from administators on this idea is that it's really hard to answer certain Federal aid questions when the student drops out, like 'when did they last attend class?' if you don't take attendance. And the student Visa programs apparently require attestations about both attending and passing classes.
I remember a huge cry went up when our class was told our lecture would be a 9am. At which our head of dept told us "this isn't a holiday camp!" haha
Do people have experience with disruptive behavior in college? I would expect it to be a lot less common due to fewer demands of uninterested students to take classes and professors having both more power and less of a need to get everyone across the finish line.
In my experience, uninterested students just slept or played on their phone
In my experience, uninterested students just slept or played on their phone
But that's CalTech.
Caltech, lower case t.
…and?
It’s an outlier among outliers. Saying students at CalTech are motivated to study and go to class is like saying grass is green. It has little to do with the study habits of the other 99.99% of college kids.
I'm a college student myself (my university, as far as I'm aware, has no system such as this). As far as I'm concerned, it's both an insidious creep of social-credit policy and a gross invasion of student privacy. It treats us as children rather than as the adults we are, and seems to me to be a sign of the re-infantalization of colleges. Many generations ago, when the age of majority was for the most part higher, colleges acted in loco parentis for their minor undergraduates. It was during the twentieth century that college students came to be recognized as real adults. But now it seems that the coddling has in many ways increased, and some find it fit again, as one sees here, to surveil us like children.
Further, while there have been obvious benefits of technological advancement, they have in large part erased informal procedures and social understanding in favor of a rigid and unforgiving process. For example, my assignments are now largely due at midnight, at a very particular second: submit a nanosecond late at your own penalty. Whereas in the past the common practice of most professors would be along the lines of "get it in my mailbox by 4 p.m.", or something like that, but with the informal understanding that at 4:00:00.0...1, the door of the mailbox would not close and chop off your hand. And exceptions to rules were easier to get before the arbiter of the rules became a severe and unfeeling one.
Further, while there have been obvious benefits of technological advancement, they have in large part erased informal procedures and social understanding in favor of a rigid and unforgiving process. For example, my assignments are now largely due at midnight, at a very particular second: submit a nanosecond late at your own penalty. Whereas in the past the common practice of most professors would be along the lines of "get it in my mailbox by 4 p.m.", or something like that, but with the informal understanding that at 4:00:00.0...1, the door of the mailbox would not close and chop off your hand. And exceptions to rules were easier to get before the arbiter of the rules became a severe and unfeeling one.
> For example, my assignments are now largely due at midnight, at a very particular second: submit a nanosecond late at your own penalty.
From the instructor's point of view, there's no winning here -- there will always be a cutoff, and any position of it will lead to complaints. Even for an informal system, there's always a last person allowed in, and hence a cutoff.
If you have a good reason for an extension, you can still get it. But there's no reason anybody needs, specifically, the extra second after a formal deadline. If the deadline were moved to a second after midnight, you would try to submit two seconds after midnight and complain, and so on. (I mean, why do you think deadlines are at midnight in the first place? Because in-person collection would stop working at 5 PM, leading to complaints, so deadlines were extended to midnight to let people work at night.)
This is pointless slippage, and the resolution from the student side is so easy. Just pretend every deadline is 5 minutes earlier than it actually is, and you'll never have problems.
From the instructor's point of view, there's no winning here -- there will always be a cutoff, and any position of it will lead to complaints. Even for an informal system, there's always a last person allowed in, and hence a cutoff.
If you have a good reason for an extension, you can still get it. But there's no reason anybody needs, specifically, the extra second after a formal deadline. If the deadline were moved to a second after midnight, you would try to submit two seconds after midnight and complain, and so on. (I mean, why do you think deadlines are at midnight in the first place? Because in-person collection would stop working at 5 PM, leading to complaints, so deadlines were extended to midnight to let people work at night.)
This is pointless slippage, and the resolution from the student side is so easy. Just pretend every deadline is 5 minutes earlier than it actually is, and you'll never have problems.
I've been an instructor for CS courses before so I know what you mean. I never made deadlines anything but absolutely final, which is appropriately not unlike a lot of other things in life --- from what I've heard from others, any leniency just tends to cause more whining. Someone who waits until the last second to do something is not going to do any better if given a tiny bit more time (nevermind the question of how much more?), and in any case procrastination is not a habit we want to encourage.
My university cs department (most of them, anyway) used a system I liked very much:
- Due dates are hard (usually midnight)
- Everyone gets 3 "emergency tokens", which give you a 24 hour extension on the assignment, no questions asked. Max 2 per assignment.
- On occasion, you could get an extension without using a token by speaking to the professor in advance, if you had extenuating circumstances.
It was a good compromise between meaningful deadlines and humanity. One particular advantage is that, if you missed the midnight deadline, you knew you were using a town anyway, so there was no pressure to sacrifice sleep to get the assignment in "on time".
Most people I knew were happy with it.
- Due dates are hard (usually midnight)
- Everyone gets 3 "emergency tokens", which give you a 24 hour extension on the assignment, no questions asked. Max 2 per assignment.
- On occasion, you could get an extension without using a token by speaking to the professor in advance, if you had extenuating circumstances.
It was a good compromise between meaningful deadlines and humanity. One particular advantage is that, if you missed the midnight deadline, you knew you were using a town anyway, so there was no pressure to sacrifice sleep to get the assignment in "on time".
Most people I knew were happy with it.
In undergrad most of my profs followed an even simpler system: if you get locked out just email the paper when you can with an explanation. Most professors are pretty accommodating, as sometimes your dog really does eat your homework.
Emergency tokens were a lifesaver for many of my college classes.
They gave me the freedom I needed to make micro-adjustments to my college/life balance and greatly lowered stress.
They gave me the freedom I needed to make micro-adjustments to my college/life balance and greatly lowered stress.
I had one professor in college who went hard in the other direction—she told the class "I don't care if you turn in assignments late", and gave no limit on how late you could be.
As a student, it was, well, nice. It was true that it was a bit harder to be motivated to finish a paper right away, but it also made the process far less stressful. When I turned in papers I thought they were the best they could be.
Of course, I'm sure there were at least some students in her classes who ignored everything until the end of the term or something, and were quite stressed out at the end...
As a student, it was, well, nice. It was true that it was a bit harder to be motivated to finish a paper right away, but it also made the process far less stressful. When I turned in papers I thought they were the best they could be.
Of course, I'm sure there were at least some students in her classes who ignored everything until the end of the term or something, and were quite stressed out at the end...
> I had one professor in college who went hard in the other direction—she told the class "I don't care if you turn in assignments late", and gave no limit on how late you could be.
This doesn't work if your class builds on earlier material (most STEM classes). As the professor, I need some feedback as to how well the class understands what I just taught.
This doesn't work if your class builds on earlier material (most STEM classes). As the professor, I need some feedback as to how well the class understands what I just taught.
Depends on the stem classes. Most of mine charged ahead with the new material even if the last exam average was 52%, in fact that might be considered a very good exam average.
It's possible but not in large lecture courses. I took a class with <15 people and our prof was so kind as to essentially let us get in our proofs whenever (which was an absolute lifesaver). But at that scale you of course can tell whether or not people are understanding without the assignments (since everyone is proving things together in class!)
Students are going to complain regardless. I had soft deadlines when I graded. Assignments were due at midnight but I told them as long as it was in by the time I pulled their repos (I'd do it first thing in the morning) I wouldn't dock them. A few times I had students complain. I clearly told them that I was already giving them leniency and if they want to attempt to take advantage of my niceness that I'd remove it for everyone. Those students only tried once and it didn't happen often. Students need to learn personal responsibility or they won't have them by the time they enter the work place or grad school. Also if you don't show them humanity then they won't learn this and we slowly lose it in our society.
Though I ended up with weird reviews. I got just as many students saying I was their best teacher as those saying worst teacher. I also had a surprising number of students try to turn into me the skeleton code I provided them claiming they did the assignment (they'd add like a line or two). Also had students say I was unavailable even though I lived in my office with my door open (students frequently came by outside office hours) and replied to emails between 9am and 1am. Learned that the complaints don't always match what you're doing and are hard to interpret.
Tldr: students will complain no matter what. Just be human. It's easier and less stressful for everyone involved.
Though I ended up with weird reviews. I got just as many students saying I was their best teacher as those saying worst teacher. I also had a surprising number of students try to turn into me the skeleton code I provided them claiming they did the assignment (they'd add like a line or two). Also had students say I was unavailable even though I lived in my office with my door open (students frequently came by outside office hours) and replied to emails between 9am and 1am. Learned that the complaints don't always match what you're doing and are hard to interpret.
Tldr: students will complain no matter what. Just be human. It's easier and less stressful for everyone involved.
> I've been an instructor for CS courses before so I know what you mean. I never made deadlines anything but absolutely final
As a CS professor, the one thing I could do that flipped things on their head was running an automatic submission and testing system for any assignment.
You're getting 0% or 100%, but you know at all times over roughly 2 weeks exactly what score you are getting. You can resubmit over and over. Yes, I'm going to run extra tests once the deadline passes to make sure no one is punking me, but it's rare that someone who gets 100% on the initial tests doesn't get 100% on the later tests.
And, for those of you who think that 0%/100% is a poor programming assignment scoring system--I'll ask you the same question I ask my students: "0%/100% is bad? So which of you are cool with partial credit when I miscalculate your grades?"
As a CS professor, the one thing I could do that flipped things on their head was running an automatic submission and testing system for any assignment.
You're getting 0% or 100%, but you know at all times over roughly 2 weeks exactly what score you are getting. You can resubmit over and over. Yes, I'm going to run extra tests once the deadline passes to make sure no one is punking me, but it's rare that someone who gets 100% on the initial tests doesn't get 100% on the later tests.
And, for those of you who think that 0%/100% is a poor programming assignment scoring system--I'll ask you the same question I ask my students: "0%/100% is bad? So which of you are cool with partial credit when I miscalculate your grades?"
How about having the student’s score decay as some function of how late they turn it in? If they turn it in before the deadline, they get 100% of their marked grade, if it’s an hour late 90%, a day late 50%, etc (use whatever function you want)
Usually, delays lead to logistical difficulties. Until every copy of an assignment is submitted, you can't release solutions, assign grades, talk about the problems in lectures or recitations, or really give any feedback whatsoever. I've had excellent courses that ran on your system, but in those cases they had it completely standardized from year to year, and even automated grading systems.
If you're just trying to solve the bad feelings caused by a really hard deadline, you could do something as simple as "due at midnight, 80% credit from midnight to 6am". Then everyone's still done by class.
This issue only comes up if you have a low caliber class where homework is nontrivial part of the grade.
My graduate classes were 100% homework-based almost without exception. When you're doing hard enough physics, it doesn't make sense to demand people do anything nontrivial in an hour, like in a typical exam. Real problems take at least whole days of thought.
My professor for Assembly did exactly that and it felt very fair. However, I think that was only possible because every assignment used an automated grading program, so we could weigh the risk vs reward when deciding if we should spend another day optimizing the code. If an actual person was burdened with grading each assignment, it makes sense to have a harder cutoff that ensures it's possible to grade in a batch for efficiency.
One of my professors at UCLA has a very lenient policy - you lose 2^(n-1) points, where n is the number of days after the deadline you've submitted. This meant that turning in your assignment one or two days late was no big deal, but turning it in four or five days late would be pretty bad.
At my u iversity your grade would decay by 5% a day, if I recall correctly.
I don't think you appreciate the basic point that many people do not wish to live in such a mechanistic and rigid society to begin with.
Rules aren't made to make people miserable, they're made to keep things running for everybody involved.
Yes, that's the point. The reason that assignments are due on a certain day each week is that you've blocked out a certain afternoon of the week to go over the blasted things. If people routinely handed stuff in late then stuff would pile up, especially near the end of the semester, and the backup would interfere with the rest of your duties.
>Even for an informal system, there's always a last person allowed in, and hence a cutoff.
Is there really? In my faculty, doors were kept open. I entered lectures at 20% of time left and nobody would bat an eyelid.
Is there really? In my faculty, doors were kept open. I entered lectures at 20% of time left and nobody would bat an eyelid.
They meant for turning in assignments.
Oh.
Hard deadline system with some conveniences.
It was possible to upload the work multiple times, and for an hour or so after deathline, to select which of the uploaded copies would be the hand over.
This allowed for e.g. uploading some code that works, and later progressively optimized/improved versions, without fear of uploading something partially broken by the end.
Hard deadline system with some conveniences.
It was possible to upload the work multiple times, and for an hour or so after deathline, to select which of the uploaded copies would be the hand over.
This allowed for e.g. uploading some code that works, and later progressively optimized/improved versions, without fear of uploading something partially broken by the end.
Slippage is never pointless but rather an important aspect for any efficient system. If you are setting the deadline at midnight instead of 4pm then you are making most of the students work longer on the assignment. Set the hard deadline to 4pm and then allow a few students to submit late. That ends up being less of a burden on students and society.
That’s not any different. Now how late are you allowed to submit? 5 PM? Sometime at night? Midnight? How many people are allowed to submit late? What if word gets out that everybody is allowed to? You get the exact same problem, except that more of the professor and TA’s time is wasted, and the whole process now has favoritism baked in.
I have seen deadlines wrap all the way around a 24 hour cycle in this way. 5 PM is bad because people want to work at night, so delay to midnight. Well, people aren’t finishing, so delay to 5 AM, since everybody would be asleep then. Well now people are blaming you for “forcing” them to do all nighters, so delay to 9 AM. Now people say that’s unreasonable, because submitting later in the workday wouldn’t hurt anyone. So delay to 5 PM.
I have seen deadlines wrap all the way around a 24 hour cycle in this way. 5 PM is bad because people want to work at night, so delay to midnight. Well, people aren’t finishing, so delay to 5 AM, since everybody would be asleep then. Well now people are blaming you for “forcing” them to do all nighters, so delay to 9 AM. Now people say that’s unreasonable, because submitting later in the workday wouldn’t hurt anyone. So delay to 5 PM.
It is different. By setting a deadline at midnight, you’re setting a tone that work is expected to happen then.
In my undergraduate education, toxic behavior like this was common. One professor who was a particular asshole deliberately assigned onerous assignments to coincide with an assignment for another critical, difficult class that 75% of the students were taking. Academic hazing was pretty common in CS.
In my undergraduate education, toxic behavior like this was common. One professor who was a particular asshole deliberately assigned onerous assignments to coincide with an assignment for another critical, difficult class that 75% of the students were taking. Academic hazing was pretty common in CS.
The only rebuttal to this that has been effective to a class is: if you see it at the day you ignore the time expecting it to be at 11:59PM. If I put it at 7 AM (to give you the whole night) the next day then you think it will be due at the end of the day so it is staying at 11:59PM.
I don't think those informal understandings should stay so informal. If it's the fact that having your paper due by 4:20 is fine, then let it be 4:20, although the midnight deadline is likely something most people wouldn't do if they had to collect submissions in person, and so in this scenario we have automation possibly enabling more flexibility in student schedules. If students need extra room to pass the bar and it is a meaningful relaxation of rules, then let it be known so that the matter can be studied.
Why? Because empathy at scale works in ways which breeds hostility among groups and it creates an unhealthy incentive to compete over a teacher; it's not really reasonable to expect people to be immune to race or class or sex. Further, if the rules are strict then people need to know rather than _some_ people getting the discretionary treatment and others not.
Why? Because empathy at scale works in ways which breeds hostility among groups and it creates an unhealthy incentive to compete over a teacher; it's not really reasonable to expect people to be immune to race or class or sex. Further, if the rules are strict then people need to know rather than _some_ people getting the discretionary treatment and others not.
Do you actually want to live in this world in which every interaction that's not amongst close friends or family is necessarily bureaucractic with zero discretion?
Is it actually _better_, or does it just maximise specific metrics that you're able to easily quantify?
More to the point - do you want to _be_ that person?
I'm glad that my professors were human beings and not automatons - I probably wouldn't have done well otherwise (bureaucrats are not my idea of good role models).
Is it actually _better_, or does it just maximise specific metrics that you're able to easily quantify?
More to the point - do you want to _be_ that person?
I'm glad that my professors were human beings and not automatons - I probably wouldn't have done well otherwise (bureaucrats are not my idea of good role models).
What it really means you have to have a policy that sounds more humanistic, but in the end is the same as a hard deadline:
For example, if you are arriving for a family dinner, if you are 10 minutes late, it's NBD, but if you are 3-4 hours late you have just pissed everyone off.
If you constantly ask for slack from your friends, to the point where it becomes common, your friend's internal & informal credit rating of you would go down, and they start reducing the amount of slack they gave you.
So a policy that reproduces the above would be: Deadline is 4pm, plus a 30 minute 'slack time' for extenuating circumstances (which everyone will put as 4:30). If a problem has come up, then come to me and we will talk about an extension. I won't give you many extensions although if you show a pattern of relying on them.
For example, if you are arriving for a family dinner, if you are 10 minutes late, it's NBD, but if you are 3-4 hours late you have just pissed everyone off.
If you constantly ask for slack from your friends, to the point where it becomes common, your friend's internal & informal credit rating of you would go down, and they start reducing the amount of slack they gave you.
So a policy that reproduces the above would be: Deadline is 4pm, plus a 30 minute 'slack time' for extenuating circumstances (which everyone will put as 4:30). If a problem has come up, then come to me and we will talk about an extension. I won't give you many extensions although if you show a pattern of relying on them.
It's not the same, because you're ignoring the human factor and focusing on one narrow part of the result.
Imagine a real family that applies these deadlines. You walk in the door and your mother starts talking about applying for an 'extension' for your lateness.
Perhaps at the end of all of this you have the same outcome, that every family member feels the same way about you.
But you don't feel the same way about them in both cases, because in one, they act like robots, and in the other, they act like the imperfect people we all are. In one, they're strange threats, in another, they're lovable human beings.
I can't express strongly enough how nefarious this trend towards engineering all aspect of the human experience into 'process' is.
Theoretically, me having this conversation with you on HN is the same as real life. Practically, it's completely different and the latter would be far preferable if we could do it in the same amount of time, because we're not computers, we have real emotional and physical needs that are unsatisfied if everything is reduced to the most "optimal/efficient" interaction.
It feels like you treat others as threats. Your employer, your professor, the police etc, all threats. The better model is to create a society in which they are your equals - many countries have achieved that - not fence them off as some sort of 'different class of human' and then mitigate the damages.
Imagine a real family that applies these deadlines. You walk in the door and your mother starts talking about applying for an 'extension' for your lateness.
Perhaps at the end of all of this you have the same outcome, that every family member feels the same way about you.
But you don't feel the same way about them in both cases, because in one, they act like robots, and in the other, they act like the imperfect people we all are. In one, they're strange threats, in another, they're lovable human beings.
I can't express strongly enough how nefarious this trend towards engineering all aspect of the human experience into 'process' is.
Theoretically, me having this conversation with you on HN is the same as real life. Practically, it's completely different and the latter would be far preferable if we could do it in the same amount of time, because we're not computers, we have real emotional and physical needs that are unsatisfied if everything is reduced to the most "optimal/efficient" interaction.
It feels like you treat others as threats. Your employer, your professor, the police etc, all threats. The better model is to create a society in which they are your equals - many countries have achieved that - not fence them off as some sort of 'different class of human' and then mitigate the damages.
We could speak the same way about police to make it obvious why some people don’t like the double edge of discretion. Isn’t it such a burden that police have to wear cameras? It’s probably much harder to exercise any executive discretion that way, let alone have any natural conversation, especially when people may demand lawsuits and firings over such footage. Must police be very equally kind to both white and black kids, like in some politically correct universe?
Why then do some people demand cameras? Don’t they like the good old neighborhood discretion? Why is it so hard to feel for those who receive the shitty edge of discretion? Is it because the other side is so sweet?
Another side of discretion is that some judges are harsher in sentencing before vs after lunch. But such a human interface...
Why then do some people demand cameras? Don’t they like the good old neighborhood discretion? Why is it so hard to feel for those who receive the shitty edge of discretion? Is it because the other side is so sweet?
Another side of discretion is that some judges are harsher in sentencing before vs after lunch. But such a human interface...
That's not a reasonable analogy.
Police cameras are there to make sure power is not abused, they are not there to eliminate discretion.
There are actually multiple actors in the justice system that have a large degree of discretion, the police, the prosecutor and the judge. To me this indicates that your thesis is erroneous.
Police cameras are there to make sure power is not abused, they are not there to eliminate discretion.
There are actually multiple actors in the justice system that have a large degree of discretion, the police, the prosecutor and the judge. To me this indicates that your thesis is erroneous.
Cameras and abuse are part of the same language of power, control, and mistrust.
Discretion is a matter of trusting power, and as I've mentioned, discretion shrinks in front of a camera. When cameras provide the kind of ammunition to humiliate, sue, or pressure for job termination, then your discretion is compromised. Why did one forgive one youthful offender of marijuana possession and not the other? Was it race? These are potentially humiliating questions.
We can also contemplate what it means for employers to extend monitoring to social media, and whether that compromises your willingness to express your thinking in forums, and whether monitoring employees has anything to do with control and trust. Recently US border patrol agents were found discussing Latinos and other minorities in depraved ways. Does observation of their social media restrict their individual expression? Yes it does.
As to the fact that judges and other parties have discretion, well, I have at least forwarded one example of judges sentencing more harshly based on whether they've had lunch. That is part of discretion -- that some people get to enjoy the sweet fruits and others do not. This humiliating fact about judicial discretion would not have been known without observation.
Discretion is a matter of trusting power, and as I've mentioned, discretion shrinks in front of a camera. When cameras provide the kind of ammunition to humiliate, sue, or pressure for job termination, then your discretion is compromised. Why did one forgive one youthful offender of marijuana possession and not the other? Was it race? These are potentially humiliating questions.
We can also contemplate what it means for employers to extend monitoring to social media, and whether that compromises your willingness to express your thinking in forums, and whether monitoring employees has anything to do with control and trust. Recently US border patrol agents were found discussing Latinos and other minorities in depraved ways. Does observation of their social media restrict their individual expression? Yes it does.
As to the fact that judges and other parties have discretion, well, I have at least forwarded one example of judges sentencing more harshly based on whether they've had lunch. That is part of discretion -- that some people get to enjoy the sweet fruits and others do not. This humiliating fact about judicial discretion would not have been known without observation.
My interactions with British professors are not in any way comparable to what I know about the US police!
It's a really weird comparison to me. Perhaps US profs are way more uptight in general? I'm not really sure how to respond to that, to be honest.
It's a really weird comparison to me. Perhaps US profs are way more uptight in general? I'm not really sure how to respond to that, to be honest.
Discretion works great for the privileged portion of the population.
You'll have to explain again how bad behaviour by US police generalises to professors.
As far as I can tell this is simply a strawman. And even if it's not - the solution is to replace dickhead staff with reasonable human beings, not chain them with process so that everyone suffers.
As far as I can tell this is simply a strawman. And even if it's not - the solution is to replace dickhead staff with reasonable human beings, not chain them with process so that everyone suffers.
Professors, like cops, have significant power within their sphere. And tenured profs can even go to the point of calling women, gay, and black people less than human. (Indiana University Prof Rasmussen)
The key here is, surveillance shouldn't be used against the students who are of low power, but instead against those who decide if the students succeed or not - the professors.
Trusting power is how one gets to significant asymmetry and gross abuses. Surveillance against those types is how you start to counterbalance "discretion".
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eri...
The key here is, surveillance shouldn't be used against the students who are of low power, but instead against those who decide if the students succeed or not - the professors.
Trusting power is how one gets to significant asymmetry and gross abuses. Surveillance against those types is how you start to counterbalance "discretion".
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/11/24/eri...
I don't think surveillance should be used here at all.
Like I said, attendance at my University was not mandatory. We weren't treated like children.
For many lectures I felt reading the book would be a better use of my time and so did others.
Like I said, attendance at my University was not mandatory. We weren't treated like children.
For many lectures I felt reading the book would be a better use of my time and so did others.
I’m with you here.
I think a decay-based system or an “emergency-token” system doesn’t discriminate between students, but still manages to provide humane leeway to get things done.
I think a decay-based system or an “emergency-token” system doesn’t discriminate between students, but still manages to provide humane leeway to get things done.
> Do you actually want to live in this world in which every interaction that's not amongst close friends or family is necessarily bureaucractic with zero discretion?
You mean a tech companies support as many anecdote has attested over the years upon Ycombinator with cries of trying to just speak with a human and that sad trend that if you want tech-support with a human it can boil down to knowing somebody who knows somebody who works there who can humanise the issue.
With that in mind, think we are already there alas. The aspect that you get emails from companies that are donotreply and to actually reply entails reading thru numerous fineprint to find an email that will automatically process you response.
Yes the days of drive-by support are well are truly here.
You mean a tech companies support as many anecdote has attested over the years upon Ycombinator with cries of trying to just speak with a human and that sad trend that if you want tech-support with a human it can boil down to knowing somebody who knows somebody who works there who can humanise the issue.
With that in mind, think we are already there alas. The aspect that you get emails from companies that are donotreply and to actually reply entails reading thru numerous fineprint to find an email that will automatically process you response.
Yes the days of drive-by support are well are truly here.
> Further, while there have been obvious benefits of technological advancement, they have in large part erased informal procedures and social understanding in favor of a rigid and unforgiving process. For example, my assignments are now largely due at midnight, at a very particular second: submit a nanosecond late at your own penalty. Whereas in the past the common practice of most professors would be along the lines of "get it in my mailbox by 4 p.m.", or something like that, but with the informal understanding that at 4:00:00.0...1, the door of the mailbox would not close and chop off your hand. And exceptions to rules were easier to get before the arbiter of the rules became a severe and unfeeling one.
Speaking as a professor, there are plenty of severe and unfeeling professors out there. Thinking both as a student and as a professor, I'd much rather have everyone subject to the same inflexible rules, rather than to have some students favoured and some disfavoured based on what will inevitably be a subjective opinion—I'll be likely, even if subconsciously, to favour a student who has made a positive impression over one who has made a negative impression (when it is likely the latter who needs more help to get back on an equal footing!), or a student who asks on a good day than one who asks on a bad.
Speaking as a professor, there are plenty of severe and unfeeling professors out there. Thinking both as a student and as a professor, I'd much rather have everyone subject to the same inflexible rules, rather than to have some students favoured and some disfavoured based on what will inevitably be a subjective opinion—I'll be likely, even if subconsciously, to favour a student who has made a positive impression over one who has made a negative impression (when it is likely the latter who needs more help to get back on an equal footing!), or a student who asks on a good day than one who asks on a bad.
The way it works in my courses is, there’s a hard deadline (usually 10pm) for getting full credit.
Then for the next two hours (typically until midnight) you can still submit for 95% of the points. I often also allow even later submissions, but with increasing penalty up to 50%.
Then for the next two hours (typically until midnight) you can still submit for 95% of the points. I often also allow even later submissions, but with increasing penalty up to 50%.
At least at my university, if you had a good excuse you could usually email your lecturer your late assignment. Missing the cutoff by a couple of minutes was generally considered a good excuse.
My university was very reasonable though, they let me sit an exam 2 days late because I had to fly out for a job interview, they simply made me promise that I wouldn't ask my classmates about the exam. Funnily enough I actually ended up failing that paper anyway, but the opportunity was appreciated.
My university was very reasonable though, they let me sit an exam 2 days late because I had to fly out for a job interview, they simply made me promise that I wouldn't ask my classmates about the exam. Funnily enough I actually ended up failing that paper anyway, but the opportunity was appreciated.
I don't grok the insidious creep of social credit policy or the gross invasion of student privacy.
You're attending a lecture at a college. You're not in a private location. Traditionally, what the beacons were doing would be done by TAs taking attendance, class participation grading, or simply by having trivial pop quizzes during class. Adding bluetooth beacons just makes the process more efficient (and makes it easier for students to fool the system), but it doesn't change its essential nature.
Making lecture attendance a part of your grade may seem like bad policy or infantalizing to you, but that doesn't make it an invasion of privacy or social-credit policy.
Your tangential advocacy about "social understanding" missing the negative consequences of that approach. In particular that inconsistency of rule application creates a hole you can drive a truck through for all kinds of unfair and biased consequences (literally exactly what is brought to the table by a "feeling" application of the rules), and with little gained. While thoughtful empathic responses can be very helpful in a lot of situations, I don't think you've made a good case for this one.
You're attending a lecture at a college. You're not in a private location. Traditionally, what the beacons were doing would be done by TAs taking attendance, class participation grading, or simply by having trivial pop quizzes during class. Adding bluetooth beacons just makes the process more efficient (and makes it easier for students to fool the system), but it doesn't change its essential nature.
Making lecture attendance a part of your grade may seem like bad policy or infantalizing to you, but that doesn't make it an invasion of privacy or social-credit policy.
Your tangential advocacy about "social understanding" missing the negative consequences of that approach. In particular that inconsistency of rule application creates a hole you can drive a truck through for all kinds of unfair and biased consequences (literally exactly what is brought to the table by a "feeling" application of the rules), and with little gained. While thoughtful empathic responses can be very helpful in a lot of situations, I don't think you've made a good case for this one.
(relatively) fine for the class attendance (although I still don't feel comfortable with that kind of mechanism for doing it). But the article talks about interventions based on a constant monitoring under the guise of "caring about students' mental health". Now, I suppose I am glad their intentions are in the right place, but I would feel rather infantilized if anybody saw it fit to track me around the clock like that.
It's true that unwritten social rules aren't 100% fair. They're not entirely consistent either. But the foremost one I was thinking about was the increased acceptance of human margin of error in accounting: humans, unlike computers, don't count down the the nanosecond. I've had assignments automatically marked as late because they only finished transferring over the network a second after the due time. A human would never say that's late. Could you tell me that I should be submitting earlier? Sure, fine, but I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo. Thankfully in all those cases I've been manually marked not late. But I don't think it's entirely beneficial for us humans to deal with a machine-type accounting of time for our own actions.
It's true that unwritten social rules aren't 100% fair. They're not entirely consistent either. But the foremost one I was thinking about was the increased acceptance of human margin of error in accounting: humans, unlike computers, don't count down the the nanosecond. I've had assignments automatically marked as late because they only finished transferring over the network a second after the due time. A human would never say that's late. Could you tell me that I should be submitting earlier? Sure, fine, but I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo. Thankfully in all those cases I've been manually marked not late. But I don't think it's entirely beneficial for us humans to deal with a machine-type accounting of time for our own actions.
> A human would never say that's late.
You don't know humans very well then. A human might say it's late even if you turned it in on time. Heck, a human might say you never turned it in.
> Could you tell me that I should be submitting earlier? Sure, fine, but I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo.
Hey, I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo from thirty years ago. I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo from a HN comment from weeks ago. It's nice wanting things. That doesn't make them good ideas.
A computer might try to make corrections right up until the last nanosecond, but a human might wisely recognize they need to get their corrections out of the way well ahead of time and stop looking for typeohs after they've handed in their assignment. ;-)
> But I don't think it's entirely beneficial for us humans to deal with a machine-type accounting of time for our own actions.
That's absolutely true, and in those cases you'd expect a different approach, regardless of whether there was a machine keeping time or not. I just don't think you've found such a case here.
You don't know humans very well then. A human might say it's late even if you turned it in on time. Heck, a human might say you never turned it in.
> Could you tell me that I should be submitting earlier? Sure, fine, but I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo.
Hey, I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo from thirty years ago. I would still want to reserve the right to correct a final typo from a HN comment from weeks ago. It's nice wanting things. That doesn't make them good ideas.
A computer might try to make corrections right up until the last nanosecond, but a human might wisely recognize they need to get their corrections out of the way well ahead of time and stop looking for typeohs after they've handed in their assignment. ;-)
> But I don't think it's entirely beneficial for us humans to deal with a machine-type accounting of time for our own actions.
That's absolutely true, and in those cases you'd expect a different approach, regardless of whether there was a machine keeping time or not. I just don't think you've found such a case here.
As a human, not referring to a machine... when network delays made you late... how did you know when you submitted it that you got it done in time? ;-) Were network delays not something that needed to be factored in if you were submitting via network, much as postal delays might need to be considered when submitting via mail?
At the very least, the timestamp on the file (although, yes, timestamps can be spoofed, etc., etc.). In any case, I've always been pardoned when the "lateness" is three seconds' worth of processing. But if I were waiting on line at the deadline to hand in a physical assignment (the closest analogy I can make), I think that most reasonable profs would not take issue with me if I didn't happen to get to the end of that line by the nanosecond specified. Of course, it's _possible_ that a prof could be a real stickler, with a huge digital clock on the wall and a hand on the submission box. But that, again, to me reflects only an extension of the way people are treated in huge classes (often largely freshmen) in college. If there are a handful of people in a seminar, "deadlines" have never in my experience been a thing in the same way.
The timestamp on the file was a machine precise measure. So it seems to me like you're wanting the benefit of the machine precision there, without the disadvantages that come with it.
I wouldn't suggest a measure where a prof was relying on a huge digital clock. I was trying to address a context that wasn't machine driven as you were advocating. There are simpler realities. A prof who will accept submissions until they leave for the day. For remote education, the physical mail thing is very real (or at least it used to be).
If neither party is benefiting from machine precision, there's no reason for the onus to be on the professor or administrator to make allowances for that imprecision. It actually makes a lot of sense for that onus to be on the student.
I wouldn't suggest a measure where a prof was relying on a huge digital clock. I was trying to address a context that wasn't machine driven as you were advocating. There are simpler realities. A prof who will accept submissions until they leave for the day. For remote education, the physical mail thing is very real (or at least it used to be).
If neither party is benefiting from machine precision, there's no reason for the onus to be on the professor or administrator to make allowances for that imprecision. It actually makes a lot of sense for that onus to be on the student.
I went to University that had a similar deadline system (sometimes midnight, sometimes midday, sometimes 3pm - all depended on the lecturer/tutor).
If you had a truly extenuating circumstance, you could always speak to the lecturer via email or during their office hours. Some had more relaxed policies than others, while others had various penalties for being late.
As far as I'm aware, the difference between 12:00:00 and 12:00:30 wasn't ever really a thing, as any reasonable system can expect a few minutes of delay owing to computer problems.
If you had a truly extenuating circumstance, you could always speak to the lecturer via email or during their office hours. Some had more relaxed policies than others, while others had various penalties for being late.
As far as I'm aware, the difference between 12:00:00 and 12:00:30 wasn't ever really a thing, as any reasonable system can expect a few minutes of delay owing to computer problems.
> Whereas in the past the common practice of most professors would be along the lines of "get it in my mailbox by 4 p.m."...
I had professors who would give their home address so you could get your assignment turned in on the calendar day and not get docked for it being late -- distinctly remember having to drive to the next town over to do that once.
Then again this was before the internets were all popular so they couldn't really expect the students to submit it by email.
I had professors who would give their home address so you could get your assignment turned in on the calendar day and not get docked for it being late -- distinctly remember having to drive to the next town over to do that once.
Then again this was before the internets were all popular so they couldn't really expect the students to submit it by email.
The real informal understanding IMHO was that rules should be there for a sensible reason. The reason for giving a 4pm deadline usually is that you want to grade the submissions sometime after 4pm. The reason for giving a midnight deadline is that it is a deadline and you've got to give deadlines.
This never happened to me at any age. So maybe it's not about age. Maybe it's about generation.
""Several students said they didn’t mind a system designed to keep them honest. But one of them, a freshman athlete at Temple University who asked to speak anonymously to avoid team punishment, said the SpotterEDU app has become a nightmare, marking him absent when he’s sitting in class and marking him late when he’s on time.
He said he squandered several of his early lectures trying to convince the app he was present, toggling his settings in desperation as professors needled him to put the phone away. He then had to defend himself to campus staff members, who believed the data more than him.""
This is downside of tech, false positive and negatives
Also, couldn't you just buy a cheap burner phone and hand it to a friend to take to class for you? Just because the phone is there doesn't mean the person is.
He said he squandered several of his early lectures trying to convince the app he was present, toggling his settings in desperation as professors needled him to put the phone away. He then had to defend himself to campus staff members, who believed the data more than him.""
This is downside of tech, false positive and negatives
Also, couldn't you just buy a cheap burner phone and hand it to a friend to take to class for you? Just because the phone is there doesn't mean the person is.
Lets not blame tech, the root cause is the administrators are douchebags. Tracking because they can is their fault. Adding control because they can is their fault. Not doing their testing of their unneeded system? Not being responsive at the tech support level? All their fault. They neither need nor deserve the excuses and allowing them that rhetorical shield has only harmful results.
I work in higher ed. I wouldn't say admin are douchebags, they are just under pressure and responding with a solution. For various reasons schools are under pressure to increase student success which is measured by retention, persistence, graduation rates among others. These systems help "teach to the test" if you will. They are pitched in slick presentations with complex statistics with dubious claims to non-technical staff who are poorly versed but like many high-level managers, smarter than their own good.
These systems are often pitched as turnkey solutions with very little input from the people on the ground who are expected to support and triage incidents in a system where training is thin if it even exists.
If, before you send your kids off to college, you look at college rankings then you're just as culpable in the use of these metric boosting systems.
These systems are often pitched as turnkey solutions with very little input from the people on the ground who are expected to support and triage incidents in a system where training is thin if it even exists.
If, before you send your kids off to college, you look at college rankings then you're just as culpable in the use of these metric boosting systems.
In fairness though, thinking by enforcing attendance you improve outcomes is a misreading of the data. Sure, when students attend classes, they tend to do better... when the choice to attend is without consequences. Once you make it mandatory, there's a good chance it will cease to be an effective predictor of outcomes, and it may even negatively harm outcomes (classrooms behave differently when attendance is mandated).
>Lets not blame tech, the root cause is the administrators are douchebags.
as if there aren't sales people in these tech companies pushing these kinds of products.
as if there aren't sales people in these tech companies pushing these kinds of products.
There is an entire industry of these kinds of soulless tech products geared towards surveiling education, and it's been that way since I was in high school even 10 years ago...
Students used to (still) take the iClickers (https://www.iclicker.com/) for other students to answer questions in large lectures.
That's likely a violation of the institution's academic honesty policy.
I recall that Harvard employed the "honor system" which required each student to be truthful on all things academic but that it all assumed honor in the student - it had the assumption that the university would not engage in constant surveillance of the students.
A policy of "we'll surveil you as much as technologically possible and we are allowed to harshly punish all evasions of this surveillance" is essentially a "dishonor" policy, indistinguishable from the policies that prisoners face.
A policy of "we'll surveil you as much as technologically possible and we are allowed to harshly punish all evasions of this surveillance" is essentially a "dishonor" policy, indistinguishable from the policies that prisoners face.
True, but it's a two-way street. An academic honesty policy seems predicated on the assumption that the system run by faculty is inherently honest.
> [...] said the SpotterEDU app has become a nightmare, marking him absent when he’s sitting in class and marking him late when he’s on time. He said he squandered several of his early lectures trying to convince the app he was present, toggling his settings in desperation as professors needled him to put the phone away. He then had to defend himself to campus staff members, who believed the data more than him.
I pride myself on my honesty, but even I would have a hard time feeling bad about cheating this system.
> [...] said the SpotterEDU app has become a nightmare, marking him absent when he’s sitting in class and marking him late when he’s on time. He said he squandered several of his early lectures trying to convince the app he was present, toggling his settings in desperation as professors needled him to put the phone away. He then had to defend himself to campus staff members, who believed the data more than him.
I pride myself on my honesty, but even I would have a hard time feeling bad about cheating this system.
I agree. All the more reason colleges and universities ought not engage in such behavior.
> This is downside of tech, false positive and negatives
As opposed to non-tech solutions, which don't have false positive & negatives? Please.
As opposed to non-tech solutions, which don't have false positive & negatives? Please.
> “They want those points,” he said. “They know I’m watching and acting on it. So, behaviorally, they change.”
I can't tell if he realizes that his students find electronically-tracked attendance points more valuable than his lectures.
That sounds like a fundamental problem. You can lead a horse to water, and all that. Are these students paying attention in class? Are they getting better grades? If they're showing up to lecture but playing on their phones or reading other books, you've accomplished exactly nothing.
The only justification I can imagine is that it's an intro class for freshmen, and so maybe they're trying to ease students into an environment (i.e., the real world) where they have the freedom to do whatever they want, even if it's bad for them. Do they stop requiring this system for upperclass students? They doesn't say, but it doesn't sound like it.
I can't tell if he realizes that his students find electronically-tracked attendance points more valuable than his lectures.
That sounds like a fundamental problem. You can lead a horse to water, and all that. Are these students paying attention in class? Are they getting better grades? If they're showing up to lecture but playing on their phones or reading other books, you've accomplished exactly nothing.
The only justification I can imagine is that it's an intro class for freshmen, and so maybe they're trying to ease students into an environment (i.e., the real world) where they have the freedom to do whatever they want, even if it's bad for them. Do they stop requiring this system for upperclass students? They doesn't say, but it doesn't sound like it.
> The dream of some administrators is a university where every student is a model student, adhering to disciplined patterns of behavior that are intimately quantified, surveilled and analyzed
An appropriate dream for a college administrator. But a travesty for creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists.
I’d be curious. Would these same administrators object to their timeliness being similarly measured? Quantified coffee-break time theft, for example, could be deducted from pay cheques.
An appropriate dream for a college administrator. But a travesty for creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists.
I’d be curious. Would these same administrators object to their timeliness being similarly measured? Quantified coffee-break time theft, for example, could be deducted from pay cheques.
I've observed there are a class of people that desire to keep everyone else under control. There seems to be no other reason than it makes them feel better, the fact that some people are not under control makes them feel uneasy. These people seem to be inserting themselves everywhere, IT is a bonanza for these people. Anyone know any psychology researching this? It's something that's been irritating me more and more since I've noticed it.
It's called authoritarianism.
Thanks, @droithomme's comment put me onto that to, I didn't realise it was classed as a personality type not just a form of government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personalit... this irritates me even more that its been known since the 50's and we still put up with it.
The book is here https://smile.amazon.com/Authoritarian-Personality-Theodor-A... the comments are an interesting study alone.
The book is here https://smile.amazon.com/Authoritarian-Personality-Theodor-A... the comments are an interesting study alone.
The book is pretty well derided as political propaganda masquerading as science. It's the same as the modern day "scientific" view that all Trump voters are mentally ill and Clinton voters are not.
That's not to say it doesn't offer valuable insights, though - nor does it comment on the validity of further empirical and theoretical[0] work on authoritarianism. I've found that many people who make such a comparison both misunderstand Adorno, and many don't understand the context in which the book was written (counting Adorno's experience of the Holocaust) nor the actual content. The nature of authoritarianism, for Arendt and Adorno, goes deeper than personalities in the modern democratic state.
For what it's worth, though...
>In his “Remarks on The Authoritarian Personality” (a text that was not included in the published 1950 work), Adorno laid out a series of objections that call into question the notion of an underlying personality structure; they suggest that under the modern conditions of the late-capitalist culture industry, the individual as a psychic unity is beginning to dissolve. This dissenting perspective deserves notice, especially in an age that has seen the reemergence of authoritarian politics in the United States.
By Adorno's reckoning, we have authoritarianism in both Trump and Clinton.[1]
[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016344371877214...
[1] "After first sketching Adorno’s conception of the “authoritarian personality,” with the help of Sándor Ferenczi’s concept of the “identification with the aggressor,” the article proceeds to examine the exchange of the letters between Adorno and Marcuse, illustrating Adorno’s changed orientation: that “fascism” or “authoritarianism” maybe either left or right. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about the authoritarian tendencies of the contemporary Left."
For what it's worth, though...
>In his “Remarks on The Authoritarian Personality” (a text that was not included in the published 1950 work), Adorno laid out a series of objections that call into question the notion of an underlying personality structure; they suggest that under the modern conditions of the late-capitalist culture industry, the individual as a psychic unity is beginning to dissolve. This dissenting perspective deserves notice, especially in an age that has seen the reemergence of authoritarian politics in the United States.
By Adorno's reckoning, we have authoritarianism in both Trump and Clinton.[1]
[0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/016344371877214...
[1] "After first sketching Adorno’s conception of the “authoritarian personality,” with the help of Sándor Ferenczi’s concept of the “identification with the aggressor,” the article proceeds to examine the exchange of the letters between Adorno and Marcuse, illustrating Adorno’s changed orientation: that “fascism” or “authoritarianism” maybe either left or right. Finally, some conclusions are drawn about the authoritarian tendencies of the contemporary Left."
It does seem to fit in with many of my observations, and explains some behaviour - is there some alternate reading you'd suggest?
>this irritates me even more that its been known since the 50's and we still put up with it.
Throwing a label on it doesn’t make it a bad thing. Authority can be a gift. It helps people thrive by giving them the motivation to live up to their potential. If everyone just let everyone else do whatever they wanted, humans wouldn’t have gotten very far. Of course, freedom to choose does a lot of good too. There is a balance to be had.
Throwing a label on it doesn’t make it a bad thing. Authority can be a gift. It helps people thrive by giving them the motivation to live up to their potential. If everyone just let everyone else do whatever they wanted, humans wouldn’t have gotten very far. Of course, freedom to choose does a lot of good too. There is a balance to be had.
Certainly, but is that discipline you mean? Discipline is a good thing in general, but this isn't discipline - its imposed conformance.
> Authority can be a gift. It helps people thrive by giving them the motivation to live up to their potential. If everyone just let everyone else do whatever they wanted, humans wouldn’t have gotten very far.
The first and third quotes sentences are probably true, but how in the world does authority or authoritarianism give people motivation? Or do you mean that it substitutes for internal motivation the motivation of an external threat? This is probably true, but it is rarely in the state's, or the authority's, interest to maximise each person's potential individually; the authority will rather prefer to maximise each person's contribution to the authority's good, which likely involves forcing each person into a channel that (for at least some and probably many) poorly serves him or her as an individual.
The first and third quotes sentences are probably true, but how in the world does authority or authoritarianism give people motivation? Or do you mean that it substitutes for internal motivation the motivation of an external threat? This is probably true, but it is rarely in the state's, or the authority's, interest to maximise each person's potential individually; the authority will rather prefer to maximise each person's contribution to the authority's good, which likely involves forcing each person into a channel that (for at least some and probably many) poorly serves him or her as an individual.
Authority can be a gift. It helps people thrive by giving them the motivation to live up to their potential.
Potential for what? Pleasing the authoritarian. Authority is about who gets to be the author of a person's life - themselves, or someone else. Authoritarians are people who want to be in charge of other people's lives, but don't like to be accountable to anyone else for their own.
Potential for what? Pleasing the authoritarian. Authority is about who gets to be the author of a person's life - themselves, or someone else. Authoritarians are people who want to be in charge of other people's lives, but don't like to be accountable to anyone else for their own.
The issue with authority isn't that it is bad or evil in and of itself. The issue lies in the fact that the people who would seek to have authority are almost universally the worst candidates for such a position.
This is a primary driver of people who believe strongly in the minimalism of government or people like myself who believe that processes that bestow authority need to be extremely cautious, and ideally double-blind and short-lived rather than personality-driven.
This is a primary driver of people who believe strongly in the minimalism of government or people like myself who believe that processes that bestow authority need to be extremely cautious, and ideally double-blind and short-lived rather than personality-driven.
Definitely a good way to prep the students for the corporate world
Administrators are leaches, at least homeless people pay by the disrespect they receive but administrators suck away resources and hurt people while everyone acts like they actually contribute something to the world. Professors lack the appropriate autonomy to teach and students lack the appropriate autonomy to learn and all the while administrators are seeing what different deals they can make with these software companies to wedge one more thing onto everyone’s machine in order to gain more control.
I’ve been told all this extra tuition money isn’t going to professors or research, it’s just going to administration; they are what we’ve mortgaged the future for.
I’ve been told all this extra tuition money isn’t going to professors or research, it’s just going to administration; they are what we’ve mortgaged the future for.
> An appropriate dream for a college administrator. But a travesty for creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists.
And teachers.
While there are some conformist "I am always right, don't stir the shit" authoritarian teachers, there are many who rely in part on students to question and hone the teacher's own expertise, especially people who teach in rapidly changing fields. This is healthy, I think, and many of my best teachers (in and out of structured school) have been like this.
And teachers.
While there are some conformist "I am always right, don't stir the shit" authoritarian teachers, there are many who rely in part on students to question and hone the teacher's own expertise, especially people who teach in rapidly changing fields. This is healthy, I think, and many of my best teachers (in and out of structured school) have been like this.
Universities are now obsolete if you are an inventor, scientist, entrpreneur, etc. One can be more successful and better allocate time outside a university at this point, than in the rigidly retarded academic environment (which holds people back from true discovery and learning).
Good luck being hired for a staff scientist job without any degree.
I have received staff scientist job offers
Many of the colleges that use this are third rate colleges that aren't going to have too many "creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists". The creator of the app is a guy who has a restraining order because of violent threats he made against a school he was kicked out of as coach. Based on his history that the article touches on, it seems possible he's a controlling authoritarian sociopath. Why anyone would roll out his system, based on a desire to control and manipulate others, well it's because they're a third rate college that doesn't have a lot of good ideas about academics, that's why.
> Many of the colleges that use this are third rate colleges that aren't going to have too many "creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists".
Surely on HN at least we can be free of the idea that only first-rate colleges have (a substantial quantity of) students with such exceptional potential. (I would go even farther and deny that there is any particularly strong correlation between 'rate' of the school and future potential of its students, except in the self-selecting sense that a Harvard degree opens doors that a community-college degree doesn't.)
Surely on HN at least we can be free of the idea that only first-rate colleges have (a substantial quantity of) students with such exceptional potential. (I would go even farther and deny that there is any particularly strong correlation between 'rate' of the school and future potential of its students, except in the self-selecting sense that a Harvard degree opens doors that a community-college degree doesn't.)
He never once wrote that only first-rate colleges produce these individuals, nor has anyone with any sense ever stood by rankings as anything more than a proxy for some deeper hierarchy. And yes, like it or not, the higher ranked schools attract and produce more ambitious and intelligent humans in the aggregate.
> He never once wrote that only first-rate colleges produce these individuals, nor has anyone with any sense ever stood by rankings as anything more than a proxy for some deeper hierarchy. And yes, like it or not, the higher ranked schools attract and produce more ambitious and intelligent humans in the aggregate.
The specific claim was:
> > Many of the colleges that use this are third rate colleges that aren't going to have too many "creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists".
which is much stronger than saying that more such people are attracted by higher-'rated' colleges; I have no problem with the idea that there are lots of such people at first-rate colleges, only with the idea that there aren't many at other colleges. I agree that the claim says nothing about causality or about 'production' of such students, but neither did I.
The specific claim was:
> > Many of the colleges that use this are third rate colleges that aren't going to have too many "creators, entrepreneurs and groundbreaking scientists".
which is much stronger than saying that more such people are attracted by higher-'rated' colleges; I have no problem with the idea that there are lots of such people at first-rate colleges, only with the idea that there aren't many at other colleges. I agree that the claim says nothing about causality or about 'production' of such students, but neither did I.
> “We’re reinforcing this sense of powerlessness … when we could be asking harder questions, like: Why are we creating institutions where students don’t want to show up?”
This is a great rebuttal. The tracking app of focus, SpotterEDU, was made to target student athletes and reduce truancy. But the founder has an odd history and this just smells of a money grab under the guise of helping students. The professors who lay laurels on the application because attendance is up need to assess performance of their classrooms with the app and those from the past without it to really make a statement.
This is a great rebuttal. The tracking app of focus, SpotterEDU, was made to target student athletes and reduce truancy. But the founder has an odd history and this just smells of a money grab under the guise of helping students. The professors who lay laurels on the application because attendance is up need to assess performance of their classrooms with the app and those from the past without it to really make a statement.
In the early 80s at several large universities I knew of, it wasn't uncommon for attendance at lectures to be effectively optional. The student was expected to do the homework, pass the midterm and final and maybe participate in discussions in a small section with a TA or graduate student.
This varied from class to class, of course. Still, this was an incentive for a given professor to make their lecture interesting and useful enough that students wanted to attend.
This varied from class to class, of course. Still, this was an incentive for a given professor to make their lecture interesting and useful enough that students wanted to attend.
This reminds me of when I was at university 20 years ago.... I had a friend who was paid to follow a basketball player to class and make sure he went. The player didn't even know he was being followed, my friend reported his info directly to the athletic department. Always stuck out to me as an example of how ridiculous college sports are.
I guess now they have just automated that job.
I guess now they have just automated that job.
The app sounds like a dystopian nightmare, but this rebuttal is equally bad. Students are adults. If they don't want to show up, then they can not show up. If they can't muster the internal motivation to go to college and do the work, then that's on them.
Not sure if this is still the case or not but at Maryland circa. 2007-2010 it was school policy that no class could have attendance factored into the grade. If you wanted to skip every class and only show up for exams, that was your choice. Privacy implications aside, I feel that this should be the case everywhere since college is effectively a business transaction. What you decide to do with the product after you've paid should be entirely up to you.
Seriously. I was lowered an entire grade in one class for not attending despite my work being of the highest quality. Attendance was not even listed as part of the grade on the syllabus so I was graded on something without even being told ahead of time. Teachers that do that should be fired. As should teachers that lose your midterm. But I doubt anyone cares about the students and the impact things like this have on them. Then we wonder why people cheat at the highest levels of our society. Because our society and education system encourages them to cheat by showing students in the harshest way possible that the rules are stacked against them and the playing field is uneven. And I paid over $100k to have my work devalued while being treated like an infant.
There are very few universities where you can be graded on something that is not on the syllabus.
People cheat in life because the rewards are so high, not because they had a bad experience in college. Someone who uses a bad experience in college is just looking for an excuse.
People cheat in life because the rewards are so high, not because they had a bad experience in college. Someone who uses a bad experience in college is just looking for an excuse.
So you expect people to act counter to everything they've been taught in life? That shows a deep understanding of the human condition.
> I was graded on something without even being told ahead of time
Ever heard of a pop quiz?
Ever heard of a pop quiz?
Pop quizzes have always been included in the syllabus's grading rubric in every class I've ever taken that has them. The date of the quiz is the surprise, not the fact that it exists and will be part of your grade.
Pop quizzes should be used to give the teacher information about what the students are actually understanding vs not understanding, not to actually determine a student's grade in a class.
Nope, never had one. We do not do those in my country.
Ever heard pop quiz testing on material that wasn't part of the class or even the subject? Me neither.
That’s not the kind of unexpected situation the comment you are replying to is referring to at all. If the rules are not set in advance, they are basically arbitrary.
After reading other peoples comments I would like to add that there were a few classes freshman/sophomore year that had discussion sections that were mandatory. Although these were usually only held once a week. The few that I had usually had quizzes during the first 15 minutes or weekly homework due at the beginning of the session. The sections were mostly a way for the students to get face-time with the Grad Student teaching assistants since office hours were impractical for these classes due to their size (70+) . Sometimes you had to stay for the duration of the session and other times you could bounce after turning in your homework.
None of these sessions were instructor mandated. They were part of the normal course curriculum, and were chosen during class registration. The standard setup was M-W Lecture, Fri Discussion.
None of these sessions were instructor mandated. They were part of the normal course curriculum, and were chosen during class registration. The standard setup was M-W Lecture, Fri Discussion.
I teach in political science and I require regular attendance as part of one's grade. Miss more than a few classes absent a compelling excuse and you are docked a half letter grade.
Why?
My classes are typically small, under 15 students, and are heavily discussion dependent. Engendering open discussion between students, as opposed to top-down lecturing, has resulted in keeping students engaged and actively learning in class. If a handful of people decide to skip a class that impacts both their learning outcome as well as it deprives their attending classmates additional and varied perspectives of the issues under discussion. Hence the incentive to attend.
Yes, these are all adults who are engaged in a "business" transaction with the college to be formally educated. However, the students have the opportunity to review the syllabus in advance and the class participation requirement is clearly stated.
Why?
My classes are typically small, under 15 students, and are heavily discussion dependent. Engendering open discussion between students, as opposed to top-down lecturing, has resulted in keeping students engaged and actively learning in class. If a handful of people decide to skip a class that impacts both their learning outcome as well as it deprives their attending classmates additional and varied perspectives of the issues under discussion. Hence the incentive to attend.
Yes, these are all adults who are engaged in a "business" transaction with the college to be formally educated. However, the students have the opportunity to review the syllabus in advance and the class participation requirement is clearly stated.
> Miss more than a few classes absent a compelling excuse and you are docked a half letter grade.
Why not give a half letter grade boost to those with good attendance rather than docking a half letter grade to someone who misses a few classes? Why not incentivize with a reward rather than a penalty? The carrot rather than the stick?
> However, the students have the opportunity to review the syllabus in advance and the class participation requirement is clearly stated.
That's fine if only you require attendance and most other professors don't and if your class isn't one of the mandatory classes. But if every professor requires attendance or if your class is mandatory, then students really have no choice when it comes to attendance.
Why not give a half letter grade boost to those with good attendance rather than docking a half letter grade to someone who misses a few classes? Why not incentivize with a reward rather than a penalty? The carrot rather than the stick?
> However, the students have the opportunity to review the syllabus in advance and the class participation requirement is clearly stated.
That's fine if only you require attendance and most other professors don't and if your class isn't one of the mandatory classes. But if every professor requires attendance or if your class is mandatory, then students really have no choice when it comes to attendance.
If the class is easy, then the half letter grade won't matter much and nearly everyone will get high scores, rendering attendance useless. If the class is curved, then boosting those that attend is functionally the same as penalizing those that do not.
Classes shouldn't be easy. I had the privilege as an American of studying at a university abroad that used the English system of marks, where a top grade began at 75%, and that was difficult to attain. The quality of education I received there was exemplary, and the grades were not inflated, at least not to the extent I've seen at American universities.
This only seems fair if it's a purely optional course, or you're one option of many who don't implement the same policies. Otherwise, students are paying to be forced to teach their classmates in your class, when that's your job as the instructor.
Fundamental misunderstanding of how it works, I think. You're not paying for a transfer of information from professor to student. You need to engage with the material and make arguments. That's crucial in that field.
Speaking as a student who 'grew up' through these classes in highschool and college, I grew to detest them. Collaborative learning is great in a study session environment where everyone is a willing and eager participant by virtue of taking time to study at a certain time and place outside of class requirements.
Make class mandatory and even speaking in discussions mandatory, and you end up with a lot of disengaged and annoyed people reiterating the same points just to get the participation grade up. To me that isn't a quality discussion, and therefore a waste of my time and tuition. People rarely get to the meat of a concept in those discussions, if at all, without the teacher jumping in and spelling out the entire point. IMO, better to just lecture and spell out more points, and leave the discussions for the optional study or review sessions attended by the most motivated students.
Make class mandatory and even speaking in discussions mandatory, and you end up with a lot of disengaged and annoyed people reiterating the same points just to get the participation grade up. To me that isn't a quality discussion, and therefore a waste of my time and tuition. People rarely get to the meat of a concept in those discussions, if at all, without the teacher jumping in and spelling out the entire point. IMO, better to just lecture and spell out more points, and leave the discussions for the optional study or review sessions attended by the most motivated students.
Totally makes sense. Seminar style classes should have attendance factored in, but not by “did you attend” but by “did you contribute to the converstion?”. (And you shouldn’t use an app to track them. )
These classes end up feeling unproductive for me. By mandating attendance and contribution, you end up getting the entire class raising their hand to reiterate the same point and get their participation mark for the day. People who are actually engaged with the material enough to formulate a new point are stifled. By the end of class only maybe 10% of the discussion ends up being worthy, the rest a waste by this middle school participation exercise that rewards noise and length equally to a well worded argument.
I’m sorry to hear that, but that’s on your teacher. They should do a better job of facilitating.
A good seminar is 16 people (max, 12 is better). No hand raising needed. The goal is learning and understanding. Ideally there’s not any grades. If there are they should be opaque and subjective up to the instructor :)
A good seminar is 16 people (max, 12 is better). No hand raising needed. The goal is learning and understanding. Ideally there’s not any grades. If there are they should be opaque and subjective up to the instructor :)
Should the school nag or gameify their showing up, or should it be on the student to be responsible for their own self?
I'm 32 years old, going back to school part time to finish up my degree. I'm paying tuition fully out of pocket. Thankfully my school doesn't seem to be doing this yet, but if they did, there's absolutely no way I would tolerate them surveilling me and treating me like a child like this
I'm paying them, so if I choose to skip class that's on me. And thanks but no thanks for trying to assess my mental health -- I already pay people who are actually qualified to do that for me.
Also, why is it that in articles like this they can always find someone willing to say "this isn't invasive, I have nothing to hide"? Christ.
I'm paying them, so if I choose to skip class that's on me. And thanks but no thanks for trying to assess my mental health -- I already pay people who are actually qualified to do that for me.
Also, why is it that in articles like this they can always find someone willing to say "this isn't invasive, I have nothing to hide"? Christ.
It's not so bad: https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-02-27
Schools and colleges should ideally be a place for creativity, free thinkers and open by default.
Using surveillance and improving attendance through fear tactics is not going to help. You will get their physical presence but not their involvement.
I wonder how long it will take for students to start placing check Bluetooth devices in all places they are expected to be present and remotely switch them at desired times. I hope this happens and defeats this unethical forced surveillance by colleges.
Alternatively, I would encourage student counselors spend a little more time with students and assist them to monitor themselves. Motivate the youngsters to better regulate themselves and grow up to be independent and responsible adults.
Note: On Android, there is an app named Tasker. You can automate your phone with it. Schools could start maintaining shared Tasker profiles that can help students stick to some well defined and commonly followed routines. This is giving control back to the student and coaching them about the merits in planning and sticking to plans.
Using surveillance and improving attendance through fear tactics is not going to help. You will get their physical presence but not their involvement.
I wonder how long it will take for students to start placing check Bluetooth devices in all places they are expected to be present and remotely switch them at desired times. I hope this happens and defeats this unethical forced surveillance by colleges.
Alternatively, I would encourage student counselors spend a little more time with students and assist them to monitor themselves. Motivate the youngsters to better regulate themselves and grow up to be independent and responsible adults.
Note: On Android, there is an app named Tasker. You can automate your phone with it. Schools could start maintaining shared Tasker profiles that can help students stick to some well defined and commonly followed routines. This is giving control back to the student and coaching them about the merits in planning and sticking to plans.
Due to what we know of history, universities who deploy this type of system will clearly not be the melting pots of tomorrow's leaders, geniuses, and world changers. Neither do I see how this helps a university's bottom line. To me this seems only like a university-killing move, by forcing many talented folks to non-campus ways of learning - or other institutions that respect diversity.
Yep, I am already a non-academic mathematics researcher. Pursuing the degree and putting up with the toxic university environment is not worth it.
Weird.
My university didn't care if you attended lectures. Why would they? It's not a prison camp.
More focused tutorials with 1 on 2 or 1 on 4, sure.
Not everything needs to 'scale'.
My university didn't care if you attended lectures. Why would they? It's not a prison camp.
More focused tutorials with 1 on 2 or 1 on 4, sure.
Not everything needs to 'scale'.
In my experience it varied from professor to professor. Many professors would notice when you don't attend lecture, which I found to be impressive given the size of some of the classes. I found that some professors were more likely to be lenient or accommodating if they recognized you as a frequent and engaged attender, or if you went to office hours or asked insightful questions during lecture.
On the other hand, there were classes I didn't attend very often at all, and I remember a couple of times being stumped on the homework and going to office hours to gain some traction only to be gently ribbed for not going to lecture. You get the sense that many professors do pay attention to that kind of thing and it does factor in, if only unconsciously.
On the other hand, there were classes I didn't attend very often at all, and I remember a couple of times being stumped on the homework and going to office hours to gain some traction only to be gently ribbed for not going to lecture. You get the sense that many professors do pay attention to that kind of thing and it does factor in, if only unconsciously.
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...so does this mean that if you buy a Librem 5, you'll be automatically considered absent and will recieve a lower grade? I can't imagine the apps these colleges are using would be compatible.
I realize this might seem like a lower concern compared to everything else, but it strikes me as one more way that people are permanently locked into the major platforms.
I realize this might seem like a lower concern compared to everything else, but it strikes me as one more way that people are permanently locked into the major platforms.
> "calculate personalized risk scores”
Seems like they're trying to predict social outcomes. Red flag.
Also seems the technology behind this is a BLE Beacon - would be hillarious if someone dropped a rasperrby pi in the class in some corner that kept making web requests on your behalf the entire year.
Attending class is a choice - and that decision is best left up to the student.
Seems like they're trying to predict social outcomes. Red flag.
Also seems the technology behind this is a BLE Beacon - would be hillarious if someone dropped a rasperrby pi in the class in some corner that kept making web requests on your behalf the entire year.
Attending class is a choice - and that decision is best left up to the student.
Maybe Jeff Rubin should spend his time improving the quality of his lectures instead of strong arming his students into attendance. From my own college days I remember the really good lectures being mostly full while the bad ones were deserted and people rather spent their time self studying textbooks (which is also fine).
What if a student doesn't have a smart phone (yes they do exist). If they did this at the university I teach at, I would resist using this and there might be some "accidents" with these beacons.
I find it telling that they are afraid of letting students know what their bluetooth receivers look like. I know that if I was in still school and being tracked like this, I'd ether vandalize or come up with a way to jam those receivers..
I think you answered your own question and I'd be right there with you.
It is no wonder, that young people are growing up with more authoritarian beliefs. All through their life, into early adulthood, a greater power is monitoring and controlling what they do. They then expect the government to have the same power over citizens.
Treating people like babies, results in people acting like babies. Treating people with respect and autonomy like adults, makes adults.
Treating people like babies, results in people acting like babies. Treating people with respect and autonomy like adults, makes adults.
> the schools rely on networks of Bluetooth transmitters and wireless access points to piece together students’ movements from dorm to desk. One company that uses school WiFi networks to monitor movements says it gathers 6,000 location data points per student every day.
I already turned off the bluetooth on my phone. I guess I should turn off the wifi when I'm not home, too.
I already turned off the bluetooth on my phone. I guess I should turn off the wifi when I'm not home, too.
Unless they are doing deep packet inspection or analyzing your browser through a wifi login portal, I think an iPhone's MAC randomization should be able to defeat WiFi-based tracking (barring WiFi-as-radar, those are much more difficult to evade, there is a ton of metadata you can collect from stuff like breathing, gait and heart rate etc. Cross reference with CCTV to prevent false positives.).
If you are 'logged in' into a wifi network, then MAC address randomization is turned off for that network and the iPhone gives the real MAC address of the device. It's only used in non connected scenarios such as scanning for available networks.
Another bad thing is how iBeacon bluetooth is something you can't turn off specifically on an iPhone if you have bluetooth on in any capacity. And there is no per app privacy permission to turn off ibeacon processing. It's a huge privacy violation and I always wonder why it's not brought up that much.
Another bad thing is how iBeacon bluetooth is something you can't turn off specifically on an iPhone if you have bluetooth on in any capacity. And there is no per app privacy permission to turn off ibeacon processing. It's a huge privacy violation and I always wonder why it's not brought up that much.
Oh that's terrible, I also thought the randomization is constantly on. Is this the case for Android and the desktop operating systems too? Windows, OS X, Ubuntu etc.?
Speaking from the Devil's Advocate side, as I work in Higher Education analytics:
First: this data is, by the vast majority of institutions, used very respectfully in terms of privacy rights and it is ABSOLUTELY never sold. Third part vendors that provide hosted systems are REQUIRED to affirm that they pass nothing on to any other party whatsoever. (I should note that this is the case in public and traditional private non-profit schools. For-profit schools are much less scrupulous and should not be regarded as trustworthy in this respect)
Beyond this, students are apprised of these uses of data with the ability to opt out. This is done as upfront as we can, very "in your face", though the tendency to click "agree" to something without reading, even very short and to the point, is of course always an issue.
Finally, the data collected is extremely useful. I cannot emphasize that enough. It is extremely useful in helping students be more successful. And it's not used in terms of surveillance. It's used pretty much exclusive in understanding the patterns the coincide with success and those that coincide with failure, dropout, academic struggling, and so on. In short, it is used to proactively intervene with students at risk rather than wait for it to be too late, e.g., final grades are in and no tutoring intervention is possible. A recent use had me using Xgboost to examine patterns of LMS usage to determine students at risk of early drop out. It worked, and we can now identify about one third of early drop outs with practically no effort and almost no false positives and work with those students to address there problems before they go too far.
I'm sure privacy maximalists will not be satisfied with the above, but really, within the realm of data comprehensive I idividual data collection, I'm not aware of any business, much less an entire industry, that treats such data as responsibly as this, and that really is concerned with using it only to further the best interests of it's constituents. Obviously I'm biased. That probably means things are not as rosy as I envision. But I think it is nonetheless an important and valid synopsis of the issue.
First: this data is, by the vast majority of institutions, used very respectfully in terms of privacy rights and it is ABSOLUTELY never sold. Third part vendors that provide hosted systems are REQUIRED to affirm that they pass nothing on to any other party whatsoever. (I should note that this is the case in public and traditional private non-profit schools. For-profit schools are much less scrupulous and should not be regarded as trustworthy in this respect)
Beyond this, students are apprised of these uses of data with the ability to opt out. This is done as upfront as we can, very "in your face", though the tendency to click "agree" to something without reading, even very short and to the point, is of course always an issue.
Finally, the data collected is extremely useful. I cannot emphasize that enough. It is extremely useful in helping students be more successful. And it's not used in terms of surveillance. It's used pretty much exclusive in understanding the patterns the coincide with success and those that coincide with failure, dropout, academic struggling, and so on. In short, it is used to proactively intervene with students at risk rather than wait for it to be too late, e.g., final grades are in and no tutoring intervention is possible. A recent use had me using Xgboost to examine patterns of LMS usage to determine students at risk of early drop out. It worked, and we can now identify about one third of early drop outs with practically no effort and almost no false positives and work with those students to address there problems before they go too far.
I'm sure privacy maximalists will not be satisfied with the above, but really, within the realm of data comprehensive I idividual data collection, I'm not aware of any business, much less an entire industry, that treats such data as responsibly as this, and that really is concerned with using it only to further the best interests of it's constituents. Obviously I'm biased. That probably means things are not as rosy as I envision. But I think it is nonetheless an important and valid synopsis of the issue.
Just because the institution does not use the data irresponsibly doesn't mean the service provider will not. Not to mention third parties which could potentially gain access to this data directly or indirectly by listening for the check in signal devices send.
Per the article, this is not being used to help the students succeed, instead it is being used to damage their grade for a lack of attendance. I think most reasonable people would agree attendance is not a reliable metric by which to base a students grade. The exception being discussion based or interactive courses like debate or public speaking.
Per the article, this is not being used to help the students succeed, instead it is being used to damage their grade for a lack of attendance. I think most reasonable people would agree attendance is not a reliable metric by which to base a students grade. The exception being discussion based or interactive courses like debate or public speaking.
We have extremely stringent security checklists for 3rd part vendors, as I alluded to in my post. Both the vendors, and any of the vendor's vendors, must be able to demonstrate that data is not used for any purpose but the school's. As for attendance, automated attendance tracking has been around for decades in the form of swipe cards, and simply automated a process professors undertook manually. No data is captured that would not have been in the analog world, and professors are still free to have no attendance policies at all schools I have spoken to about it. Granted, that may only be a sample size of 100 or so.
I work in higher ed and we use a student success analytics platform. Where I see this going wrong is administrators want a system to do everything. We want to identify the at-risk student, nudge them automatically, and have a successful outcome. Schools don't want to invest in people to actually make outreach or connection with students because that is hard. As a result, we generate a ton of data with little to show other than numbers.
I'd be very curious to learn about your LMS usage project. Are you saying you identified at-risk students quickly enough to intervene at a point in the term where it made a difference between passing and failing and that the school successfully intervened in those cases?
I'd be very curious to learn about your LMS usage project. Are you saying you identified at-risk students quickly enough to intervene at a point in the term where it made a difference between passing and failing and that the school successfully intervened in those cases?
We're not perfect, but as we have brought on analytics systems and engaged in institutions drive projects like my use of Xgboos with LMS data, we have invested heavily in additional advising resources because we recognize that data is irrelevant if you don't have people that will take action on it. I can make data driven predictions all day long about students at risk. What matters is what do we do about it? I've spoken with schools that thought buying an analytics platform was all they had to do. They have universally been disappointed with their lack of results.
That's great, thanks.
I get frustrated as a technical staff person, who personally enjoys being on the cutting edge, often being the one in meetings saying 'data is great but how will we actually use it?'.
Honestly, I'll probably retire form higher ed in a few years and go work for an outfit like yours.
I get frustrated as a technical staff person, who personally enjoys being on the cutting edge, often being the one in meetings saying 'data is great but how will we actually use it?'.
Honestly, I'll probably retire form higher ed in a few years and go work for an outfit like yours.
Hah, actually the "outfit like mine" is a university that has relatively recently come to some very good conclusions on this sort of thing. 5 or 6 years ago... Not so much. But one nice thing about working for an institution like this is that mostly people are looking to do the right thing for students, and don't just look at the thing as some commercial revenue extraction machine.
Ahhhh now I get it. It's so rare for institutions to do internal projects like this I didn't even consider it to be anything but a commercial revenue extraction machine.
> Beyond this, students are apprised of these uses of data with the ability to opt out.
What happens if they opt out?
And can they opt out of assessment by default, while still allowing data collection? That is, could the data be collected, but go into a secure archive, which only the student could access? So if the student isn't doing well, they could release selected data to advisers.
What happens if they opt out?
And can they opt out of assessment by default, while still allowing data collection? That is, could the data be collected, but go into a secure archive, which only the student could access? So if the student isn't doing well, they could release selected data to advisers.
Unfortunately it's not as granular as that, so there is still lots of room for improvement. There are some specific things that can be opted out of as required by FERPA, but otherwise it's a bit all or nothing.
I think I understand the rationale behind this fairly well, and find it sensible to a certain degree.
With that said, I find a particular part of your explanation more intellectually dishonest than the anal probe comment. That's not to say you're being flippant as perhaps that commenter was.
To claim that you're not using this data in terms of surveillance is utterly nonsensical. If you can demonstrate to me how you're not actively conducting surveillance, I'm open to hearing it.
Privacy trade offs may provide measurable gains, but I've yet to come across even attempts at quantifying the loss of individual privacy. You can show asymptotically improving trends, but the costs seem to remain blank, unknown, and I think that is what our flippant friend was trying to get at.
With that said, I find a particular part of your explanation more intellectually dishonest than the anal probe comment. That's not to say you're being flippant as perhaps that commenter was.
To claim that you're not using this data in terms of surveillance is utterly nonsensical. If you can demonstrate to me how you're not actively conducting surveillance, I'm open to hearing it.
Privacy trade offs may provide measurable gains, but I've yet to come across even attempts at quantifying the loss of individual privacy. You can show asymptotically improving trends, but the costs seem to remain blank, unknown, and I think that is what our flippant friend was trying to get at.
Thanks for the respectful and nuanced take.
I am somewhat concerned with where this stuff leads, not because I assume it's a one step process between education analytics and oppressive dystopia, but precisely because the use cases you describe seem like great ideas.
I agree that minimizing drop-out rates is important, and that we should avail ourselves of whatever tools we can to do it. What you're describing does not bother me, and seems like a reasonable use of the data.
So why not take it a step further? Let's authorize a limited release of student-identifying data to government social work agencies (like the DHS in the United States), so that concerning student performance data could be correlated with whether a student's family was on income/food/housing assistance. Heck, to maximize the signal, we could even correlate it with families who aren't on assistance but whose homes are likely to be foreclosed upon (leading to a likely student move, possibly changing schools--a very disruptive educational experience whose impact can be mitigated with careful preparation). Why not correlate with criminal records, to help promote after-school programs to students who would otherwise be returning to troubled or dangerous homes?
To be clear, I'm bothered because those things all seem like good ideas. I think they'd probably work, if done properly. And would probably help a lot of people. The systems we have currently to try to accomplish those things (overworked social workers, underfunded public-education and after-school programs) aren't succeeding.
...they'd also result in a de facto surveillance state.
If that data were compromised by or sold to an outside (nongovernment) entity, the damage due to the breach would be very severe, from inability to get financing (because lenders know details about your life that may not be reflected on your credit score) to individual persecution (e.g. employer discrimination against family members whose leaked data indicated their financial/housing situation may put their long-term employment at risk).
If the government programs using that data were "compromised" (i.e. staffed, perhaps via an electoral sea-change, with discriminatory people), the damage would be even worse. School funding allocation could suffer because someone at the top decided "Our data shows that so many of the students at $school_x have so much else going against them in their lives--why bother? Starve that school for funding and let it wither; that money would be better allocated to schools attended by our kids/kids of different races/kids with higher income." Additionally, correlations could be dishonestly interpreted by bigoted officials ("the algorithm says that female/male/dyslexic/$race_x kids are a lost cause!").
There are other, logistical issues. If school staff (i.e. counselors) have direct access to all this information, could they discriminate against kids and their families if bigoted? If school staff didn't have direct access, will the right conclusions be drawn by distant analysts (or worse, algorithms) without the personal context of counselors and teachers? A failure to consider all those factors could result in IEP-like things that harm, rather than help (consider: "You talked back to counselor Bob, so he won't authorize you for additional meal points or recommend you for after-school tutoring in an area where you're struggling", or "the DOE algorithm decided you need to take more English classes even though counselor John has been working on getting you individual reading time because he knows there's a bullying risk from other kids in the English program").
Many of these things are already happening, in varying degrees. I worry that making ubiquitous data available could make them worse, if it is not done carefully.
I am also sensitive to the benefits that education analytics (and more pervasive, cross-cutting data availability for government use across the board) can provide. I think the answer is to proceed carefully (i.e. the opt-out buttons you discuss, and careful data anonymization whenever it makes sense to do so) and to insist on comprehensive regulation regarding data exchange between government programs, and between those programs and non-government entities.
EDITS: explained logistical issues. Typos.
I am somewhat concerned with where this stuff leads, not because I assume it's a one step process between education analytics and oppressive dystopia, but precisely because the use cases you describe seem like great ideas.
I agree that minimizing drop-out rates is important, and that we should avail ourselves of whatever tools we can to do it. What you're describing does not bother me, and seems like a reasonable use of the data.
So why not take it a step further? Let's authorize a limited release of student-identifying data to government social work agencies (like the DHS in the United States), so that concerning student performance data could be correlated with whether a student's family was on income/food/housing assistance. Heck, to maximize the signal, we could even correlate it with families who aren't on assistance but whose homes are likely to be foreclosed upon (leading to a likely student move, possibly changing schools--a very disruptive educational experience whose impact can be mitigated with careful preparation). Why not correlate with criminal records, to help promote after-school programs to students who would otherwise be returning to troubled or dangerous homes?
To be clear, I'm bothered because those things all seem like good ideas. I think they'd probably work, if done properly. And would probably help a lot of people. The systems we have currently to try to accomplish those things (overworked social workers, underfunded public-education and after-school programs) aren't succeeding.
...they'd also result in a de facto surveillance state.
If that data were compromised by or sold to an outside (nongovernment) entity, the damage due to the breach would be very severe, from inability to get financing (because lenders know details about your life that may not be reflected on your credit score) to individual persecution (e.g. employer discrimination against family members whose leaked data indicated their financial/housing situation may put their long-term employment at risk).
If the government programs using that data were "compromised" (i.e. staffed, perhaps via an electoral sea-change, with discriminatory people), the damage would be even worse. School funding allocation could suffer because someone at the top decided "Our data shows that so many of the students at $school_x have so much else going against them in their lives--why bother? Starve that school for funding and let it wither; that money would be better allocated to schools attended by our kids/kids of different races/kids with higher income." Additionally, correlations could be dishonestly interpreted by bigoted officials ("the algorithm says that female/male/dyslexic/$race_x kids are a lost cause!").
There are other, logistical issues. If school staff (i.e. counselors) have direct access to all this information, could they discriminate against kids and their families if bigoted? If school staff didn't have direct access, will the right conclusions be drawn by distant analysts (or worse, algorithms) without the personal context of counselors and teachers? A failure to consider all those factors could result in IEP-like things that harm, rather than help (consider: "You talked back to counselor Bob, so he won't authorize you for additional meal points or recommend you for after-school tutoring in an area where you're struggling", or "the DOE algorithm decided you need to take more English classes even though counselor John has been working on getting you individual reading time because he knows there's a bullying risk from other kids in the English program").
Many of these things are already happening, in varying degrees. I worry that making ubiquitous data available could make them worse, if it is not done carefully.
I am also sensitive to the benefits that education analytics (and more pervasive, cross-cutting data availability for government use across the board) can provide. I think the answer is to proceed carefully (i.e. the opt-out buttons you discuss, and careful data anonymization whenever it makes sense to do so) and to insist on comprehensive regulation regarding data exchange between government programs, and between those programs and non-government entities.
EDITS: explained logistical issues. Typos.
You're absolutely right, data could be used for these other things that, while potentially beneficial to society and individuals, carry further potential for misuse as well.
To address misuse in general: That is always a problem, with any technology, tool, data... anything. It's important that we don't discard useful tools due to potential misuse though. Instead, it's of the utmost importance that, at the outset, issues of misuse be enumerated, discussed, mitigation strategies thought out, how to accurately talk about data gathered, the insights obtained, what they can and cannot be used for from a statistical analysis (correlation != causation etc. type of thing) and so on. Let me talk a little about what we did at my institution along these lines. It wasn't perfect, we could have done better, but in the outlines I think it formed a pretty good starting place for a template of how society should engage in conversations about issues that arise from the current revolution in our ability to gather data on individuals:
In 2014 we started using an LMS system that made data collection on easy. I was given sole access to that data to begin exploring and cataloging the available data being collected, it's possible uses, potential points of concern. I had sole access, but those things I was looking for were done in intense conversation with administrative and faculty colleagues, including the university executive board and the faculty union and faculty senate along with conversations with students. During this process, no else had the level of unfettered access that I did (I am a data analyst) not even the system administrators. (Technically they could have granted themselves access though, but if they didn't go through the proper channels, such a thing is a firing offense.)
This went on for about three years, all the while I was able to accumulate data and evaluate it against actual student performance and validate its utility and continue to report back on my findings to further the discussions going on. When that stage of actually using the data to drive conversations ended, I took a step back and simply spoke at gatherings every once in a while to go over what I'd done, findings, etc. After that, for the next two years, it was in the hands of the administration working up policies in conversation with faculty surrounding expectations for responsible use of this information. To say there were disagreements would be an understatement. But over time tentative points of compromise were reached, and for the past 2 years were have begun carefully rolling out initiatives that utilize all of this. We are cautious. We are open. We continue to have conversations with valid concerns on all sides that we seek good compromises for.
Again, the above wasn't perfect, but it's a good outline of how responsible use of data should be approached.
To address misuse in general: That is always a problem, with any technology, tool, data... anything. It's important that we don't discard useful tools due to potential misuse though. Instead, it's of the utmost importance that, at the outset, issues of misuse be enumerated, discussed, mitigation strategies thought out, how to accurately talk about data gathered, the insights obtained, what they can and cannot be used for from a statistical analysis (correlation != causation etc. type of thing) and so on. Let me talk a little about what we did at my institution along these lines. It wasn't perfect, we could have done better, but in the outlines I think it formed a pretty good starting place for a template of how society should engage in conversations about issues that arise from the current revolution in our ability to gather data on individuals:
In 2014 we started using an LMS system that made data collection on easy. I was given sole access to that data to begin exploring and cataloging the available data being collected, it's possible uses, potential points of concern. I had sole access, but those things I was looking for were done in intense conversation with administrative and faculty colleagues, including the university executive board and the faculty union and faculty senate along with conversations with students. During this process, no else had the level of unfettered access that I did (I am a data analyst) not even the system administrators. (Technically they could have granted themselves access though, but if they didn't go through the proper channels, such a thing is a firing offense.)
This went on for about three years, all the while I was able to accumulate data and evaluate it against actual student performance and validate its utility and continue to report back on my findings to further the discussions going on. When that stage of actually using the data to drive conversations ended, I took a step back and simply spoke at gatherings every once in a while to go over what I'd done, findings, etc. After that, for the next two years, it was in the hands of the administration working up policies in conversation with faculty surrounding expectations for responsible use of this information. To say there were disagreements would be an understatement. But over time tentative points of compromise were reached, and for the past 2 years were have begun carefully rolling out initiatives that utilize all of this. We are cautious. We are open. We continue to have conversations with valid concerns on all sides that we seek good compromises for.
Again, the above wasn't perfect, but it's a good outline of how responsible use of data should be approached.
Is it open source / free software?
These things should not be allowed to be proprietary software.. if I attend a public institution that surveils me, I want the surveilance software to be fully open source and I want to be able to know all the data points you would have on me.
Then, I would like to decide for myself whether I want to participate or not.
These things should not be allowed to be proprietary software.. if I attend a public institution that surveils me, I want the surveilance software to be fully open source and I want to be able to know all the data points you would have on me.
Then, I would like to decide for myself whether I want to participate or not.
“ respectfully in terms of privacy rights and it is ABSOLUTELY never sold.”
Could it be hacked? How good are university IT security operations?
Could it be hacked? How good are university IT security operations?
At my school, they're surprising good. I mean, the systems aren't in an air gap, but we use 2FA, requests for data access are scrutinized, and not from a bureaucratic perspective but from a conversational perspective: "Let's talk about what you're trying to do with this data, what's the minimum needed for your goal? Is on-going access really necessary or can we provide a single extract that you access via a secure environment?" That sort of thing. Infrastructure security isn't something I'm involved with, but we do have a robust security team that works on it, that I engage with when working through vendor checklists and other security matters, and they are up to date on the field and conscientious to the point of (reasonable) paranoia.
We're also not a high-profile target: Most hackers looking to crack a system holding personal data seem most concerned with high value targets with millions, not thousands of records. That doesn't stop our security team from treating the possibility with the utmost seriousness though.
However, the above applies to where I work. This is not universally the case. I think most schools are increasingly aware of the potential, are take minimally necessary steps to make sure they aren't wide open, but there are simply too many small schools with 1,000 to 5,000 students that simply don't have the scale needed to really devote resources to this. Again, the low-value target helps here, but it's not great.
We're also not a high-profile target: Most hackers looking to crack a system holding personal data seem most concerned with high value targets with millions, not thousands of records. That doesn't stop our security team from treating the possibility with the utmost seriousness though.
However, the above applies to where I work. This is not universally the case. I think most schools are increasingly aware of the potential, are take minimally necessary steps to make sure they aren't wide open, but there are simply too many small schools with 1,000 to 5,000 students that simply don't have the scale needed to really devote resources to this. Again, the low-value target helps here, but it's not great.
> We're also not a high-profile target
Really now? Have you checked your school on Shodan recently?
Long story short, there's enough people doing hacking, with varied enough interests. You don't know what makes someone else tick.
Really now? Have you checked your school on Shodan recently?
Long story short, there's enough people doing hacking, with varied enough interests. You don't know what makes someone else tick.
wott(2)
Caltech and other top-tier schools (MIT, Princeton, Berkeley, Chicago, etc.) won't have the problems this was described as addressing, namely students who are at the school but don't care about getting the education. It makes sense that "student-athletes" were the original targets- having a majority focus on sports instead of scholastics has been a real problem in schools with strong NCAA men's programs.
There's another background problem here: young adults being given the assumption that they need to install someone else's nanny on their own phone. In the work world, if your employer needs you to use an app on a device, they need to pay for the device- there is no way they can force you to spend your own money on their business requirements. (Unless your employment contract says you need to maintain a smartphone or similar, I've never seen that though.) I have a feeling that carrying school apps on your phone will erode that understanding.
And this app sounds like a nice hacking target. I won't elaborate any doubts about the app security or the backend service security, let's just see what happens.
Very likely, the schools that are prone to having the problems will institute this more and add more institutional conformity while the schools that aren't won't. The students that go to these institutions will assume more background surveillance while the students to go to better schools will be free of it.
If I were back in school I'd probably just give up the attendance points. But I didn't go to a school that was likely to use this
There's another background problem here: young adults being given the assumption that they need to install someone else's nanny on their own phone. In the work world, if your employer needs you to use an app on a device, they need to pay for the device- there is no way they can force you to spend your own money on their business requirements. (Unless your employment contract says you need to maintain a smartphone or similar, I've never seen that though.) I have a feeling that carrying school apps on your phone will erode that understanding.
And this app sounds like a nice hacking target. I won't elaborate any doubts about the app security or the backend service security, let's just see what happens.
Very likely, the schools that are prone to having the problems will institute this more and add more institutional conformity while the schools that aren't won't. The students that go to these institutions will assume more background surveillance while the students to go to better schools will be free of it.
If I were back in school I'd probably just give up the attendance points. But I didn't go to a school that was likely to use this
Real question is, what are we educating people to be?
This, so much. I was a developer in the Moodle community once. I was several times puzzled by how deep the interest of teachers was to just get to control students, regardless of whether it seemed to serve any apparent learning goal/purpose.
Compliant, and then time permitting, students.
Also if you don't carry your phone with you everywhere, you're going to penalized for that. Hmm.
This is so ripe for abuse. I would not want my daughter going to a school that implemented such a program.
Disgusting that an IT "professor" forces students to install spyware on their own hardware.
Students should unite and collectively uninstall the malware.
Students should unite and collectively uninstall the malware.
Now, now, don't get too frisky there or these same people might get the idea to uninstall the spyware put on their phones by the manufacturer, the carrier, the OS provider, and the app devs. Then where would we end up?
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Just wanted to chime in here- I'm an undergraduate student at a major state university in the US, but I've also built a (small) start-up in edtech.
I condemn schools that are using techniques like Bluetooth beacons to track attendance, but I can say it's definitely not the norm.
The vast majority of schools use pure software solutions (apps like Top Hat) to track attendance (if they choose to do so.) These typically function by having a randomly generated code that the professor writes on the board at the start of class, and students then have to enter into their apps.
It's not the best, and I generally don't agree with tracking attendance in college courses, but it's certainly less invasive than the system described in the article.
I condemn schools that are using techniques like Bluetooth beacons to track attendance, but I can say it's definitely not the norm.
The vast majority of schools use pure software solutions (apps like Top Hat) to track attendance (if they choose to do so.) These typically function by having a randomly generated code that the professor writes on the board at the start of class, and students then have to enter into their apps.
It's not the best, and I generally don't agree with tracking attendance in college courses, but it's certainly less invasive than the system described in the article.
What if the student does not have a cellphone?
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The uni I work for is about to introduce this, but we're leading with transparency - everything the system sees is on a student-facing dashboard, and there's the opportunity to opt out. And we're targeting engagement rather than attendance - use of the LMS, watching videos, etc rather than basic attendance.
And we have had vendors attempting to get us to look at video-based attendance and attention trackers. This is a privacy nightmare so we have always said no, but as we are keen to get a handle on room usage and efficiency, we investigated using the existing cameras used for lecture capture to count the backs of heads - in this case how many is more interesting than who.
And we have had vendors attempting to get us to look at video-based attendance and attention trackers. This is a privacy nightmare so we have always said no, but as we are keen to get a handle on room usage and efficiency, we investigated using the existing cameras used for lecture capture to count the backs of heads - in this case how many is more interesting than who.
The problem is many classes don't require attendance, especially the sort obsessed with making sure athletes are present as mentioned.
This is about forcing compliance.
The REAL issue is people unprepared for college come, do not attend lectures, fail out, and complain.
Conversely, students who understand that a class is rote memorization and put in the memorization at a time of their choosing after reviewing the powerpoint are penalized if they have physical/mental/social issues that sometimes prevent them from being attentive at a specific time in a specific place.
If instructors want to complain about grade grubbing and cheating, they need to focus on teaching, not measuring compliance.
This is about forcing compliance.
The REAL issue is people unprepared for college come, do not attend lectures, fail out, and complain.
Conversely, students who understand that a class is rote memorization and put in the memorization at a time of their choosing after reviewing the powerpoint are penalized if they have physical/mental/social issues that sometimes prevent them from being attentive at a specific time in a specific place.
If instructors want to complain about grade grubbing and cheating, they need to focus on teaching, not measuring compliance.
One way to resolve this is to pay vigilante students to remove and destroy these unwanted tracking devices.
>The launch was so sudden that some students were alarmed to see an unknown man enter their classroom, stick a small device near their desks, and walk away. The student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, reported on “an individual” entering class to install a “tracking device” and filed for school records related to the SpotterEDU contract.
This can be undone.
>The launch was so sudden that some students were alarmed to see an unknown man enter their classroom, stick a small device near their desks, and walk away. The student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, reported on “an individual” entering class to install a “tracking device” and filed for school records related to the SpotterEDU contract.
This can be undone.
So I don't even see the point in taking attendance (and as far as I remember at my university in the UK lecturers didn't even take attendence), but if you do, what's wrong with taking a register at the beginning? It's probably cheaper, less error prone and the teach can use their discretion if a student is a little late to class because of ~reasons~.
For large classes, it’d take a while, and students would show up and leave halfway through.
What happens if you don't own a smart phone?
You probably just don't get those attendance points?
... and then your grades suffer because you don't have a smartphone?
Or what am I missing?
Or what am I missing?
[deleted]
What's wrong with an attendance sheet?
Why does attendance matter?
That's where you learn the material?
Beyond that most of my anthropology classes (I minored in anthropology) had class discussion as part of the grade. I even had one professor who had us move the desks into a big circle as we entered (and put them back as we were leaving) in order to better facilitate discussion.
Also you'd have to be there to hand in previous assignments and get new assignments. Most of my classes (in all classes) had assignments due either every day or at least most days.
You'd also have to be there to hear about changes in the schedule. If you only show up for tests and the day of the test changes you'd need to know.
Plus pop quizzes. They aren't used much in college, but I think I had one or two.
Beyond that most of my anthropology classes (I minored in anthropology) had class discussion as part of the grade. I even had one professor who had us move the desks into a big circle as we entered (and put them back as we were leaving) in order to better facilitate discussion.
Also you'd have to be there to hand in previous assignments and get new assignments. Most of my classes (in all classes) had assignments due either every day or at least most days.
You'd also have to be there to hear about changes in the schedule. If you only show up for tests and the day of the test changes you'd need to know.
Plus pop quizzes. They aren't used much in college, but I think I had one or two.
Attendance is irrelevant to most of your points:
1) Some can learn the material without attending. If they don't learn it, their grade will reflect that.
2) If one is present but doesn't participate, how does taking attendance help reflect that? (This is just a lazy prof/TA as they really should be noting participation, rather than attendance, if it's relevant to grading for a course)
3) If your assignment(s) don't get handed in, they don't get handed in and your grade will reflect that.
4) If you don't attend and show up on the right day for tests etc, your grade will reflect that.
5) If you're not there for a pop quiz, your grade will reflect that.
Taking attendance is a weak mechanism at best to address any of these issues. One of the things that college should be doing is preparing people for the real world where they won't have paid babysitters. Classes are proxies for meetings etc. where you may, or may not, show up but are responsible for the content covered either way. Taking attendance just reinforces the view that the students are still children.
1) Some can learn the material without attending. If they don't learn it, their grade will reflect that.
2) If one is present but doesn't participate, how does taking attendance help reflect that? (This is just a lazy prof/TA as they really should be noting participation, rather than attendance, if it's relevant to grading for a course)
3) If your assignment(s) don't get handed in, they don't get handed in and your grade will reflect that.
4) If you don't attend and show up on the right day for tests etc, your grade will reflect that.
5) If you're not there for a pop quiz, your grade will reflect that.
Taking attendance is a weak mechanism at best to address any of these issues. One of the things that college should be doing is preparing people for the real world where they won't have paid babysitters. Classes are proxies for meetings etc. where you may, or may not, show up but are responsible for the content covered either way. Taking attendance just reinforces the view that the students are still children.
How does one get the material without attending? Where I studied, the courses were not simply following the course text as the course. Perhaps at lower tier schools that’s all they do.
Professors post slides and documents containing the lecture material online. However, some professors would purposefully leave out key words out of the slides to force you to come to class and fill to fill in the blanks
Attendance was mandatory for almost all classes when I was at college.
A classmate can sign it for you.
A classmate can also bring your phone with them for you.
Load the app onto a cheap phone and leave it taped to an unobtrusive place in the lecture theatre.
It’s work.
So now it seems like students are required to bring a smartphone with them on their way to class. So, if they leave their phone at home, this ridiculous system will mark them as "absent"? This is pure madness.
Why are kids paying for school if they’re not going to class?
To get a degree -> to get a job. For me personally, there were many classes that I could easily pass without needing to go to class
I stay at home and read the lecture slides on my computer because it's easier for me, and lets me be nocturnal. Am I really missing out on that much by not being there?
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What if you don’t have a smart phone or if your phone dies? I know most people have one ... but this makes it a requirement. Maybe it already was one?
What happens if the athlete gives their phone to someone else who will go to class for them and take notes/record lectures.
How hard would it be to make a device that spoofs everyone's phone?
Not hard. No dedicated device required, either.
It requires reverse engineering which data in being transferred to the school. This likely occurs using a simple HTTP request. Or series of requests. Copy the data from that HTTP request. Then replicate those HTTP requests.
It requires reverse engineering which data in being transferred to the school. This likely occurs using a simple HTTP request. Or series of requests. Copy the data from that HTTP request. Then replicate those HTTP requests.
That works only if the app authors have no basic idea of security
Good news: that's very likely the case for the system described in the article.
What a terrible turn to combat online schooling...
Yeah that's incredibly creepy.
Super creepy! Another reason to teach yourself or go to a bootcamp.
A large fraction of student borrowers are not repaying their loans, as documented at https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2019/10/who-bo... . In a private loan market, lenders would monitor how students are doing in college when deciding what interest rates to charge each semester or whether to make further loans at all. This would encourage college students to attend class and work harder.
Fortunately, I attended a college (Caltech) that as institute policy did not take attendance and no part of the grade was based on attendance.
The result was nobody was disruptive in class, because if students didn't want to attend, they didn't attend.
I remember sitting in class as a freshman thinking about this and enjoying being treated as an adult for the first time in my life. Nobody was telling me to go to class, admonishing me for not going, giving me credit for attendance or docking me for not.
The freshman EE class professor was famous (infamous?) for scheduling his lectures at 8AM, because he only wanted the interested students showing up at them.