How to proceed if you're taken by a fraudulent eBay seller
While eBay officials say the vast majority of transactions take place without a hitch, company spokesmen acknowledge that the growth in online buying has been accompanied by a growth in online disputes, from simple disagreements over a sweater's color to more serious allegations. And, says eBay spokeswoman Catherine England, fraud also occurs against sellers, when buyers don't pay up as agreed. Cracking down on such problems has been a hot topic at the annual "eBay Live!" gatherings of buyers, sellers and company executives. This year's, in Las Vegas in June, was no exception: EBay president and chief executive Meg Whitman in her keynote speech ticked off a number of improvements in eBay's online dispute-resolution process.
Kathleen Day, "Self-Defense For EBay Buyers Avoiding Unpleasant Surprises On World's Biggest Auction Site," The Washington Post, July 2, 2006 --- Click Here
Question
What can you do to prevent being taken on eBay?
(Word of Caution: Never open an email message that pretends to be from
Pay-Pal)
Two brothers have published a book of "true tales of
treachery, lies and fraud" from eBay. "Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats" contains
stories written by eBay buyers and sellers. From stories of disappointing
purchases to out-and-out fraud, the book is a manual of what can go wrong when
buying and selling on auction sites. Brothers Stephen and Edward Klink co-wrote
the book, illustrated by Clay Butler. The idea for the book sprung from a
website Stephen Klink had created. A New Jersey police office, he founded
eBayersThatSuck.com - a site that aims to help people avoid auction scams -
after he himself was ripped off online.
Ina Steiner, "Dawn of the eBay Deadbeats: New Book Uncovers Online Auction
Treachery," AuctionBytes.com, December 28, 2005 ---
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m12/i28/s01
Bob Jensen's threads on how to prevent eBay fraud ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudReporting.htm#eBay
New Multiple-Language Darwin Awards (many of them are now illustrated) --- www.DarwinAwards.com
Real Life Humor and Tragedy: Darwin Awards Questioning Quality of Human Evolution and Pollution of the Gene Pool --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_Awards
A Darwin Award is a tongue-in-cheek honor given to people who purportedly improve the human gene pool by removing themselves from it following an episode of questionable judgement. The prizes, named after pioneering evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin, are awarded over the Internet. There is no monetary prize, only recognition.
To take the premise of the Darwin Award seriously is to suppose that stupidity, of a kind that leads to one's own death, is wholly or partially determined by genetics. The recipients of the award are said to come from the 'shallow end of the gene pool'.
To qualify, one must die (or render oneself incapable of reproducing) in an extraordinarily idiotic manner, such as juggling hand grenades (Croatia, 2001[1]), jumping out of a plane to film skydivers while forgetting to wear a parachute oneself (USA, 1987[2]), trying to get enough light to look down a gun barrel using a cigarette lighter (USA, 1996 [3]), cutting off one's own head with a chainsaw in a macho-contest (Poland, 1996[4]), using a lighter to illuminate a fuel tank to make sure it contains nothing flammable (Brazil, 2003[5]), or heating a lava lamp on a gas stove (USA, 2004[6]). While most Darwin winners are awarded posthumously, self-sterilization is also sufficient, such as the man who had sexual intercourse with a vacuum cleaner (USA, 2000[7]).
Honorable Mentions go to those who, though not deficient in stupidity, fail to remove themselves from the gene pool. Their foolish and dangerous acts are worth mentioning, if only to keep others from standing near them at their next attempt. Some of these include getting hit by a train while trying to see how close to the train one could safely place one's head (USA, 1995[8]), and people petting sharks during a feeding frenzy on a dead whale (Australia, 2001[9]).
Personal Accounts fit most of the requirements for a Darwin Award or Honorable Mention, but cannot be independently verified. Awardees in this category are often submitted, for example, by medical professionals who cannot disclose the identity of the people that they encounter in the line of duty. [10]
While a few Darwin Awards circulated via email for some time, the Awards were added to and popularized by webmistress Wendy Northcutt, a.k.a. Darwin. Her site, www.DarwinAwards.com ([11]), is by far the best known of the Darwin Award sites.
Contents
1 Rules
1.1 Requirements
1.2 Not Darwins2 History
3 Books
4 Movie
5 Ethical reservations
6 External links
|
|
July 3, 2006 message from Auntie Bev
Well, here they are... the 2006 Darwin awards!
In case you haven't received them yet, here are this year's Darwin Awards -- the annual honor given to the person who improved the "gene pool" the most by killing themselves in the most extraordinarily stupid way. As always, competition this year has been keen. And the candidates this year are.............
* IN Detroit, a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.
* A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who "totally zoned when he ran," accidentally jogged off a 100-foot-high cliff on his daily run.
* Buxton, NC: A man died on a beach when an 8-foot-deep hole he had dug into the sand caved in as he sat inside it. Beach-goers said Daniel Jones, 21, dug the hole for fun, or protection from the wind, and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom Thursday afternoon when it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach on the outer banks, used their hands and shovels, trying to claw their way to Jones, a resident of Woodbridge, VA, but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him while about 200 people looked on. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.!
* Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed in Lompoc, CA, as he fell face-first through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth (to keep his hands free) rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.
* Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed in Selbyville, Del, as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.
HONORABLE MENTION:
* Paul Stiller, 47, was hospitalized in Andover township, NJ, and his wife Bonnie was also injured, when a quarter-stick of dynamite blew up in their car. While driving around 2 AM, the bored couple lit the dynamite and tried to toss it out the window to see what would happen, but apparently failed to notice the window was closed.
RUNNER UP:
* TACOMA, WA Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable lay nearby. One end of the cable was secured around Bingham's leg and the other end was tied to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy river water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. "All I can say" said Bingham, "is that God was watching out for me on that night. There's just no other explanation for it." Bingham's foot was never located.
AND THE WINNER:
* Overzealous zoo keeper Friedrich Riesfeldt (Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let it fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop!
Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him. "The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on! a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him" said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern. "With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time he suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that proves that "Shit happens!"
The strange tidbits from Henry Oz --- http://www.geocities.com/~hereoz/
New Pen for Writers Who Prefer to Write With a Pen
The device looks like a slightly plump
ballpoint, and works like any ballpoint. But inside this gadget are a tiny
camera and an optical sensor that record the pen's motions as he writes, and
a microprocessor that digitizes the words, sketches and diagrams that the
optics detect. When he docks the pen in its cradle connected to a USB port,
the handwritten notes flow in a digitized stream into his computer and are
processed by software, reappearing almost immediately on his monitor in his
handwriting. "All the notes I've written are sucked into the computer, and
there they are on the screen," he said. His pen, called io2, is sold by
Logitech of Fremont, Calif., for about $200.
Anne Eisenberg, "A Pen That's More Than Meets the Paper," The New York
Times, July 2, 2006 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02novel.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Jensen Comment
This might be useful for essay examinations when
student handwriting is difficult to read and grade. The digital
pen idea is not new, but the hardware is much improved.
See
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,crid=1553,contentid=9097
Bob Jensen's threads on teaching resources are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/newfaculty.htm#Resources
Question
What is "click fraud?"
Answer:
- The act of purposely clicking ad listings without intending to buy
from the advertiser.
www.tractionsearch.com/se-dictionary.php - In online advertising, click fraud involves sending fraudulent
clicks to Cost Per Click (CPC) advertisers. The clicks can be
artificially generated via automated technology methods (such as hitbots)
or via manual clicking for the purpose of debiting CPC advertiser
accounts or increasing CPC network partner/affiliate commission
revenues. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_fraud
Yahoo settles "click fraud" lawsuit
Yahoo Inc. will consider refunding money to
thousands of advertisers dating back to January 2004 and pay $4.95 million
in attorney fees to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging the Internet
powerhouse has been profiting from bogus sales referrals generated through a
sham known as ''click fraud.'' The agreement, given preliminary approval
Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder in Los Angeles, doesn't
limit Yahoo's liability -- one of several contrasts to a settlement reached
in March by online search engine leader Google Inc. to resolve a
class-action lawsuit over the same issue . . . Although Yahoo doesn't know
how much money it will end up refunding, company officials seem confident it
will be a relatively small amount. Yahoo's ad revenue totaled $9.1 billion
from January 2004 through March of this year. "We want to keep our
advertisers happy,'' said Yahoo lawyer Reggie Davis. ''Whatever credits are
owed will be 100 percent forthcoming.''
"Update: Click Fraud Class-Action Suits at Yahoo and Google,"
MIT's Technology Review, July 3, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17118
Google awaits "click fraud" settlement
Google's financial commitment in its case, overseen
by an Arkansas state court, is capped at $90 million. That's a sliver of the
$13.3 billion in ad revenue that the Mountain View, Calif.-based company has
collected since 2001. As much as $30 million of the Google settlement could
be paid to the attorneys who filed the case . . . In its settlement, Google
is offering to give back less than 1 percent of the money spent on
undetected click fraud and plans to make the payments in the form of credits
that can used to buy more ads on its networks.
"Update: Click Fraud Class-Action Suits at Yahoo and Google," MIT's
Technology Review, July 3, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17118
Bob Jensen's fraud updates are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"Google Launches Payment Service, Competing With PayPal," by Mike Musgrove, The Washington Post, June 30, 2006 --- Click Here
Google Inc. yesterday unveiled its long-anticipated service for helping consumers make purchases online, setting up a potential rival to eBay Inc.'s popular PayPal system.
Called Google Checkout, the service holds consumers' credit card numbers and account information for a "one-click" shopping experience at participating retailers. This means shoppers won't have to spend time entering such information at every online store where they buy something.
The service launched yesterday at http:/
/ with Ritz Camera, Timberland and Starbucks among the companies adopting it.checkout.google.com Continued in article
June 29, 2006 message from Carolyn Kotlas [kotlas@email.unc.edu]
RECOMMENDED READING
"The State of America's Libraries: A Report from the American Library Association" April 2006 http://www.ala.org/ala/pressreleases2006/march2006/stateoflibraries.htm
"This [first ALA] report on the State of America's Libraries is not meant to be exhaustive but simply to show the many ways in which America's libraries and librarians are not only adapting in the Age of Google but continuing to play a vital role as information providers, information advisers and community centers."
HyperStat Online Statistics Textbook --- http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/
- Introduction to Statistics
- Describing Univariate Data
- Describing Bivariate Data
- Introduction to Probability
- Normal Distribution
- Sampling Distributions
- Point Estimation
- Confidence Intervals
- The Logic of Hypothesis Testing
- Testing Hypotheses with Standard Errors
- Power
- Introduction to Between-Subjects ANOVA
- Factorial Between-Subjects ANOVA
- Within-Subjects/Repeated Measures ANOVA
- Prediction
- Chi Square
- Distribution-Free Tests
- Measuring Effect Size
Glossaries
HyperStat
STEPS
Statistics Explained
Concept Stew
NSFReview by the Scout Report on June 23, 2006
Does the mere mention of the phrase “sampling distributions” bring a tingle to your spine? Visitors to this site will fear this basic concept of statistics (along with many others) no longer, as it does a fine job of explaining them in a fashion that is both lucid and jargon-free. Created and maintained by Professor David M. Lane of Rice University, the HyperStat Online site contains an online introductory statistics textbook, complete with sections on normal distributions, confidence intervals, prediction, and the logic of hypothesis testing. Each section contains a number of discrete subsections, and users can feel free to browse around at their leisure. Professor Lane has also included a number of external links to related resources, including a visual statistics site by David Krus of Arizona State University and a “Stat Primer”, authored by Bud Gerstman of San Jose State University. Overall, this site is tremendously helpful, and will be of great assistance to those entering the world of statistics for the first time.
Bob Jensen's links to free online textbooks are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm#Textbooks
Not free but good supplements for statistics learning:
- Statistics For People Who (Think They) Hate Statistics by
Neil Salkind (with humor) ---
Click Here
- Statistics for the Utterly Confused (Utterly Confused Series) by Lloyd R. Jaisingh --- Click Here
Updates from WebMD --- http://www.webmd.com/
Latest Headlines on June 27, 2006
- New Clue on Family Alcoholism Risk
- Birth Order May Affect Homosexuality
- Hot Flashes Linked to Insomnia
- Diabetes Perk From Decaf Coffee?
- Low-Fat Dairy Lowers Blood Pressure
- Prostate Cancer Treatment and Obesity
- Insulin Resistance in Lean Black Women
- RSS WebMD Health News
Latest Headlines on June 28, 2006
- 'Debate Over' on Secondhand Smoke
- 'Activitystat' Controls Kids' Exercise
- Mushrooms Full of Antioxidants
- Recall of Guidant Pacemakers, ICDs
- Insomnia: Talk Beats Sleeping Pills
- Obesity More Complex Than We Think?
- New Clue on Family Alcoholism Risk
- RSS WebMD Health News
Latest Headlines on June 30, 2006
Teenage alcoholics possibly more prone to serious brain damage?
"The Grim Neurology of Teenage Drinking," by Katy Butler, The New York Times, July 4, 2006 --- http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/health/04teen.html
But what was once a social and moral debate may soon become a neurobiological one.
The costs of early heavy drinking, experts say, appear to extend far beyond the time that drinking takes away from doing homework, dating, acquiring social skills, and the related tasks of growing up.
Mounting research suggests that alcohol causes more damage to the developing brains of teenagers than was previously thought, injuring them significantly more than it does adult brains. The findings, though preliminary, have demolished the assumption that people can drink heavily for years before causing themselves significant neurological injury. And the research even suggests that early heavy drinking may undermine the precise neurological capacities needed to protect oneself from alcoholism.
The new findings may help explain why people who begin drinking at an early age face enormous risks of becoming alcoholics. According to the results of a national survey of 43,093 adults, published yesterday in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 47 percent of those who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 14 become alcohol dependent at some time in their lives, compared with 9 percent of those who wait at least until age 21. The correlation holds even when genetic risks for alcoholism are taken into account.
The most alarming evidence of physical damage comes from federally financed laboratory experiments on the brains of adolescent rats subjected to binge doses of alcohol. These studies found significant cellular damage to the forebrain and the hippocampus.
And although it is unclear how directly these findings can be applied to humans, there is some evidence to suggest that young alcoholics may suffer analogous deficits.
Studies conducted over the last eight years by federally financed researchers in San Diego, for example, found that alcoholic teenagers performed poorly on tests of verbal and nonverbal memory, attention focusing and exercising spatial skills like those required to read a map or assemble a precut bookcase.
"There is no doubt about it now: there are long-term cognitive consequences to excessive drinking of alcohol in adolescence," said Aaron White, an assistant research professor in the psychiatry department at Duke University and the co-author of a recent study of extreme drinking on college campuses.
"We definitely didn't know 5 or 10 years ago that alcohol affected the teen brain differently," said Dr. White, who has also been involved in research at Duke on alcohol in adolescent rats. "Now there's a sense of urgency. It's the same place we were in when everyone realized what a bad thing it was for pregnant women to drink alcohol."
One of two brain areas known to be affected is the hippocampus, a structure crucial for learning and memory. In 1995, Dr. White and other researchers placed delicate sensors inside living brain slices from the hippocampi of adolescent rats and discovered that alcohol drastically suppressed the activity of specific chemical receptors in the region.
Normally, these receptors are activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate and allow calcium to enter neurons, setting off a cascade of changes that strengthen synapses, by helping to create repeated connections between cells, aiding in the efficient formation of new memories.
But at the equivalent of one or two alcoholic drinks, the receptors' activity slowed, and at higher doses, they shut down almost entirely. The researchers, led by Scott Swartzwelder, a neuropsychologist at Duke and at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Durham, N.C., found that the suppressive effect was significantly stronger in adolescent rat brain cells than in the brain cells of adult rats.
As might be predicted, the cellular shutdown affected the ability of the younger rats to learn and remember. In other experiments, the team found that adolescent rats under the influence of alcohol had far more trouble than did tipsy adult rats when required repeatedly to locate a platform submerged in a tub of cloudy water and swim to it.
Continued in article
Here Comes the Sunscreen: New Sprays Are Making It Easier to Protect
Yourself
The latest innovation in sun-care packaging --
"continuous spray" sunscreen -- is making it easier to apply and reapply sun
protection. Instead of forcing you to rub on globs of thick white lotion,
the new spray sunscreens work by spraying on a clear mist that coats the
skin. They don't even have to be rubbed in. The new sprays could help solve
one of the biggest problems with sunscreen use: the fact that people
typically find it inconvenient and messy, and don't use enough. Although
spray sunscreens also come in pump bottles, the continuous-spray bottle is
particularly easy to use, coating skin evenly with a fine mist of sun
protection. The continuous-spray bottle works at any angle, making it easier
to apply sun protection to your own back and other hard-to-reach areas.
Tara Parker-Pope, "Here Comes the Sunscreen: New Sprays Are Making It Easier
to Protect Yourself," The Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2006; Page D1
---
http://online.wsj.com/article/health_journal.html
A Safer Way to Detect Heart Disease
Researchers have used a specialized type of MRI to
detect 88 percent of cases of coronary artery disease in a group of patients
with chest pain. The results suggest that the imaging technique can detect
heart disease as accurately as conventional methods, but with much less
risk.
Susan Nasr, "A Safer Way to Detect Heart Disease: MRI can help to
diagnose coronary artery disease -- clearly, accurately, and without
surgery," MIT's Technology Review, June 30, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17065&ch=biotech
Stem Cell Mix Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk
A complex combination of treatments, including stem
cells and growth factors, can heal damaged neural circuits, allowing
partially paralyzed rats to walk. These findings represent a significant
step forward in regenerative medicine, providing new treatment possibilities
for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative
diseases, as well as some types of spinal-cord injury. "This work is a major
stepping-stone to human application of stem-cell transplant approaches,"
says
Hans S. Keirstead, co-director of the Stem Cell
Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. He says that the
ability to grow new neural fibers out of the spinal cord “renders
transplantation approaches to repair realistic."
Emily Singer, "Stem Cell Mix Helps Paralyzed Rats Walk: The rodents
regained mobility after receiving a combination of drugs and stem cells that
rewired their nervous systems," MIT's Technology Review, June 26,
2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17029&ch=biotech
From the Scout Report on June 23, 2006
ConsumerLab.com --- http://www.consumerlab.com/
It may be difficult for the average consumer to evaluate the sometimes grandiose claims that various supplements, vitamins, and other such products make on their labels and such. One way to learn about products is ConsumerLab.com, which provides independent test results and information in order to assist consumers and healthcare professionals to evaluate such products. The casual visitor will want to begin by looking over the "Latest Results" area on the homepage, which provides some information on their recent tests on melatonin sleep supplements and other related nostrums.
Visitors looking for information on specific products will want to direct their mouse to the "Laboratory Test Results" area. Here they can look through a list of product evaluations that include nutrition bars, ginkgo biloba, and the ever-popular echinacea. The site is rounded out by a very nice area on "Recalls and Warnings, which (as its name suggests) includes information on recent notices posted by the Federal Trade Commission and other such agencies.
Protecting Neurons from Parkinson's Disease:
Researchers have uncovered a way to protect neurons
from degeneration and death in animal models of Parkinson’s disease.
Although scientists have known which protein is the main culprit in
Parkinson’s nerve damage, both the protein's normal function and details of
its harmful effects have remained a mystery. Now a recent genetic study has
uncovered some of this protein’s mysterious activities, and researchers have
used what they learned to save neurons affected by the disease. The research
could lead to targeted therapies for human Parkinson’s.
Katherine Bourzac, "Protecting Neurons from Parkinson's Disease:
Insights into the disease's protein culprit could lead to human therapies,"
by MIT's Technology Review, June 23, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17023&ch=biotech
Zapping Migraines
Migraine sufferers may soon be able to shock their
pain away. New research suggests that transcranial magnetic stimulation, a
non-invasive technique to stimulate parts of the brain, can provide pain
relief to migraine sufferers, if delivered soon after the onset of symptoms.
And researchers are now testing a portable version of such a stimulator. In
transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, an electromagnet is held against
a patient's head, emitting electrical current that creates a magnetic field
in the brain. Originally developed about two decades ago, new incarnations
of the TMS technique are also being tested as a treatment for depression and
other disorders.
Susan Nasr, "Zapping Migraines: Preliminary studies suggest that
transcranial magnetic stimulation might help alleviate this common ailment,"
MIT's Technology Review, June 23, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17024&ch=biotech
From NASA
Virtual Skies: Aeronautics Tutorial ---
http://virtualskies.arc.nasa.gov/aeronautics/tutorial/intro.html
Project Constellation --- http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/constellation_front/index.html
Question
How far should a college allow freedom to claim dubious opinions as "facts?"
"Firing of UW lecturer urged for 9/11 comments [He blames CIA]," by Danielle Corcoran, Wisconsin State Journal, June 30, 2006 --- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1659599/posts
A state representative is calling for the immediate dismissal of a UW-Madison lecturer who said on a radio talk show Wednesday that U.S. government officials and the CIA orchestrated the attacks of Sept. 11.
Rep. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, said Kevin Barrett should be barred from teaching an introductory course on Islam this fall because of remarks he made on a WTMJ-AM (620) show hosted by Jessica McBride.
Barrett is co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, a group of scholars, activists and religious leaders urging an investigation of the possibility of official complicity in Sept. 11.
Among other things, he claimed the group believed to have carried out the attacks was "a bunch of losers who couldn't even fly planes," and that evidence indicates the buildings were brought down by controlled demolitions.
Barrett describes the attacks on the World Trade Center as a "fabricated war-trigger event" designed to justify military operations in Iraq, a view he said he sometimes brings up in class.
Nass issued a statement Thursday saying Barrett "needs to be fired" for using university jobs to advance a personal agenda.
Continued in article
In his announcement that Barrett’s plans for the
fall course would be reviewed, Farrell stressed the fact that Barrett had
talked about views he would share in class. “Mr. Barrett is entitled to his
own personal political views. But we also have an obligation to ensure that
his course content is academically appropriate, of high quality, and that
his personal views are not imposed on his students,” Farrell said. The
review will include the planned syllabus, the reading list, and past
teaching evaluations. Farrell said this review was appropriate to deal with
“legitimate concerns about the content and quality of instruction.”
Scott Jaschik, "Investigation Over 9/11 Teachings," Inside Higher Ed,
July 3, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/03/madison
July 12, 2006 update
The University of Wisconsin at Madison — under
political pressure to fire an instructor who argues that the United States
plotted the 9/11 attacks — has cleared the way for him to teach this fall.
Scott Jaschik, "Controversial Scholar Cleared to Teach," Inside Higher Ed,
July 12, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/12/barrett
Fun With Google and Political Correctness Study of College Faculty
History and Meaning of "Political Correctness" --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Correctness
"Fun With Google and Diversity," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, July 3, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/03/diversity
Google doesn’t exactly lack for people doing searches, but it has been getting a boost from culture warriors in the last week.
The National Association of Scholars announced that a search it had conducted of college and university Web sites indicated that academe is not only obsessed with diversity, but more obsessed with diversity than with arguably more important values, like freedom. The study — quickly praised by conservative commentators as a sign of the times, and particularly sad with July 4 approaching — prompted a bunch of others to Web surf as well, with very different results.For starters, here’s how the NAS did its study: It took the top 100 colleges and universities, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report, and compared how many references to diversity were on their Web sites, compared to references to other words, like freedom, liberty, equality and democracy. Diversity references beat out all the other words — a five to one ratio for diversity vs. liberty, for example. The association also compared colleges’ Web sites to those of other parts of society and found higher education far more concerned about diversity.
For the association, which is critical of affirmative action and supports a traditional curriculum, the implications of the study are clear. Stephen H. Balch, president of the association, says that the “endless reiterations in academe” of supporting diversity “indicate the great gulf that has opened between our universities and the rest of the country.”
While not opposing the concept of diversity, Balch says it has a very specific set of meanings in academe: “In ‘diversityspeak,’ America is a collection of ethnicities and lifestyles rather than a common cultural identity, and group membership trumps individuality,” Balch says. “Given the caste mentality associated with the term and its emphasis on grievance and victimhood, it is especially alarming that university references to diversity exceed those to freedom and liberty.”
Not so fast with the college-bashing, says Hiram Hover, a historian who blogs under that pseudonym and who did some Googling of his own. First he checked the Web sites of the National Association of Scholars and Phi Beta Cons, the new higher ed blog sponsored by National Review. On both sites, Hover writes, diversity is far more popular (as a word) than freedom or democracy.
Then Hover compares the ratio of the word diversity to the words freedom and democracy at that ultimate symbol of liberal academe (the University of California at Berkeley) and the ultimate symbol of Bush-era corporate power (Halliburton). The ratios indicate that Halliburton is significantly more liberal (at least judged by references to diversity on its Web site) than is Berkeley.
Balch of the NAS faults Hover’s analysis on several grounds, noting, for example, that the many references to diversity on conservative Web sites are natural, given their skepticism of academic diversity. He also says that Hover is “cherry picking,” while the NAS study looked at entire sectors — and noted that business has adopted some of the same emphasis on diversity as is prevalent in higher education.
But Hover’s Googling got Balch back online — and he says the Halliburton comparison is unfair because there are very few idea/political words on the company’s site generally, so it’s not surprising that words like freedom are few and far between. Diversity is used, Balch says, “on advice of counsel and flacks.” Berkeley’s Web site is full of idea/political words, Balch says, and when you factor that in, it’s clear that Halliburton is not more diversity-obsessed than Berkeley.
Still others are Googling to take on and/or mock the National Association of Scholars study. Over at Free Exchange on Campus, Craig Smith of the American Federation of Teachers reports on Harvard University’s site. Among other things, he finds that words war and corporate do better than diversity. He also discovers that many of the diversity references have nothing to do with race and ethnicity, but are parts of such phrases as “diversity of plants” and “diversity of neutron stars.”
While Smith has fun doing his Google searches, he closes by urging people to step back from their terminals:
“Stop! Just stop! Stop putting out ‘research’ that wouldn’t pass muster in a high school class! Stop surveying the ‘top’ schools and suggesting that tells us anything about all 4,000 institutions in this country staffed by over 1 million faculty and instructors, teaching over 16 million students! Stop suggesting that higher education is some monolithic ’sector’ that is marching lock step to some liberal ideology! Stop screaming that higher education is leading the fall of our country! Please stop, and let us get back to the issues that really matter for higher education.”
Bob Jensen's threads on controversies in higher education are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies.htm
Question
How many CMA and CFM top scoring candidates for these professional
examinations in the U.S. come from outside the U.S.?
"Top CMA and CFM Performers Announced," AccountingWeb, June 29, 2006 ---
http://www.accountingweb.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=102308
IMA congratulates these top-performing professionals, not only for their outstanding performance, but for their commitment to building their capabilities and advancing the management accounting profession,” Paul Sharmann, IMA president and CEO said in the prepared announcement. “Our CMA and CFM credentials are internationally recognized across all industries and are the appropriate standards for professionals working in industry.”
From a pool of more than 4,000 examinations taken during the Winter 2006 period, eleven outstanding professionals are being recognized. For the CMA exam, Gold, Silver and Bronze medals were awarded to the top three scores, as well as Certificates of Distinguished Performance and Student Performance Awards. For the CFM exam, Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals were awarded. Medals awarded to CMA exam performers are sponsored by Proctor & Gamble, and the medals for the highest scores on the CFM exam are sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.
The winners of this year’s awards program include:
CMA Winners
- Thorsten Pruin of Oberursel Hessen, Germany, employed by Kloeber GmbH & Co KG, received the Proctor & Gamble Gold Medal for achieving the highest score on the CMA exam.
- Jinping Zhu of York, Penn., employed by Voith Siements Hydro Power, received the Proctor & Gamble Silver Medal for achieving the second-highest score on the CMA exam.
- Esteban V. Koosau of Hoboken, New Jersey, employed by Johnson & Johnson, received the Proctor & Gamble Bronze Medal for achieving the third-highest score on the CMA exam.
- Jason B. Jiskoot of Waterloo, Iowa, a student at the University of Northern Iowa, received the Student Performance Award as the student who scored the highest on the CMA exam.
- Mark Christian Neil L. Dimal of Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines; Thomas S. Pavlik of Jacksonville, Fla.; Markus Hans of Grossostheim, Bavaria, Germany; Matt C. Cedergren of San Jose, Calif.; and Jia You of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, each received a Certificate of Distinguished Performance for achieving a superior score on the CMA exam.
CFM Winners
- Ben G. Zoutendijk of Cumming, Georgia, employed by B.R. Chamberlain & Sons, Inc. received the Johnson & Johnson Gold Medal for achieving the highest score on the CFM exam.
- Jing Zhou of Shanghai, People’s Republic of China, employed by Fortune SGAM Fund Management Ltd., received the Johnson & Johnson Silver Medal for achieving the second-highest score on the CFM exam.
The CMA certification is a comprehensive credentialing program that assesses competency in the management accounting and financial management body of knowledge, which represents a broad range of controllership knowledge and skill. Subject matter of the four-part exam includes economics, corporate finance, cost management, internal controls, performance measurement, financial reporting, decision analysis, organization management and strategic planning, with a strong emphasis on ethics. IMA’s recent Job Analysis Study confirms that the http://www.accountingweb.com/item/102119
exam content is consistent with the on-the-job functions performed by management accountants.The CFM program provides professionals involved with corporate cash management, financing and investment decisions, and risk management with a means of further demonstrating an expanded skill set. The exam provides an in-depth measure of competence in areas such as financial statement analysis, working capital policy, capital structure, valuation issues and risk management.
Setting out targets: The war between The New York Times
and the Administration turns particularly nasty
In an apparent retaliation for criticism of its
disclosure of classified intelligence to America's enemies, the New York
Times June 30th edition has printed huge color photos of the vacation
residences of Vice President Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, identifying
the small Maryland town where they live, showing the front driveway and in
Rumsfeld's case actually pointing out the hidden security camera in case any
hostile intruders should get careless
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/06/30/travel/escapes/30michaels.html
FrontPageMagazine, June 30, 2006 ---
http://www.frontpagemag.com/blog/printable.asp?ID=676
Question
How can you copy an email message to other people without the main recipient
knowing?
Answer from Walt Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal on June 22, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/mossberg_mailbox.html
Q: I know people can use a "BCC" address line when composing an email to copy the message to other people without the main recipient knowing. But in my email program, there is no BCC line. How do I make it appear?
A: In many email programs, you have to manually turn on the BCC address field in the email composition menu. This is usually done by selecting an option in a menu. Generally, you have to do this only once, and after that, the BCC field will appear every time you start composing an email.
You didn't say which email program you use, but here are some examples. In Microsoft Outlook, when you are in the new-message window, go to the View menu and select "Bcc Field." In Microsoft Outlook Express, in the new-message window, go to the View menu and select "All Headers." In Apple Mail, while in the new-message window, go to the View menu and select "Bcc Address Field." In Google's Gmail, in the "Compose Mail" window, just click on "Add Bcc," which appears above the Subject line.
Question
Will Parallels Desktop run Windows on older versions of a Mac computer?
Answer from Walt Mossberg in The Wall Street Journal on June 22, 2006 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/mossberg_mailbox.html
Q: Last week, you recommended a product called Parallels Desktop, which allows Windows to run on a Macintosh. I have two questions: Will it run on older, pre-Intel Macs? And will it expose my Mac files to Windows viruses?
A: First, I should have made it clear that Parallels Desktop (www.parallels.com) requires a newer Mac that uses Intel processors, like the iMac, the Mac mini, the MacBook and the MacBook Pro. It won't run on older, pre-Intel Macs -- any model sold before this year and some that are still for sale. Parallels takes advantage of a special feature in the Intel chips that allows its "virtual" Windows computer to run as fast as a standard Windows PC, even though it is operating inside a window on the Mac operating system. Older Macs can use a similar product, Virtual PC for Mac, from Microsoft, but it runs much more slowly.
As for viruses, the faux Windows PC created by Parallels is just as susceptible to the vast quantity of Windows viruses and spyware as any real Windows computer. So, if you use Parallels, you must install Windows security software on its virtual Windows PC. However, any viruses you get are unlikely to harm your Mac files unless you turn on a feature that allows Parallels to share folders and files in the Mac OS. That feature is turned off by default.
"A Photo-Sharing Web Site Offers New Services: Tabblo Allows Its Users To Design Sleek Montages; Paying $20 for a Poster," by Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2006; Page D9 --- http://online.wsj.com/article/the_mossberg_solution.html
Sharing digital photos online can be easily done using a Web site like Kodak EasyShare Gallery or Shutterfly to store the images for online viewing. These sites are usually rather basic, with a focus on allowing friends and family to see your digital images. And they generally work well -- permitting others to look through your photos in a slideshow format, buy prints or gift items, and even make comments about the images.
But most of these photo Web sites don't offer you the chance to design handsome layouts for your photos, nor do they offer simple on-screen editing options that work with the ease of a software program.
This week, we reviewed the beta (or pre-release) version of a new photo-sharing Web site called Tabblo (www.tabblo.com), from Boston-based Tabblo Inc., that will be officially released on June 30. Tabblo differs from other Web-based sharing sites. It's a so-called "Web 2.0" service, meaning it functions like a software application, offering features like dragging and dropping and editing all on the same Web page, without the annoying constant reloading that characterizes so many photo sites.
Tabblo also puts special emphasis on presentation, allowing you to arrange your photos in collages and designs with descriptions, rather than as straightforward slideshows, so as to add a little flair and style to your photos. The company calls these photo montages "tabblos." If you really like the tabblo that you create, you can order high-quality printed posters of them in 11x17 inches for $10, or 8.5x11 inches for $8.
We've been playing with Tabblo for the past week, arranging digital shots into collages -- some with text descriptions and some without. Katie made a tabblo of pictures from a friend's graduation party, and Walt made one of photos from the Journal's recent "D: All Things Digital" technology conference.
We used various background colors, photo sizes, style arrangements and image effects, and got results that required very little effort on our part yet still looked professional and polished. An 11x17-inch Tabblo poster that we ordered turned out to be an attractive keepsake that displayed a bunch of photos all at once, eliminating the need to leaf through stacks of prints or scroll through hundreds of digital files.
Tabblo also encourages community interaction through its Web site, so that the tabblos become a form of simple social networking. Just as MySpace.com lets you create a list of "friends," Tabblo.com allows you to add people to your "circle" so that you can see when those people create new tabblos. You can even make tabblos that combine your own photos with those belonging to people in your circle, if they allow you.
The Tabblo Web site works on both Windows and Mac operating systems, using Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows and Firefox and Safari on Macs.
The process for building a tabblo is straightforward. Three tabs labeled View, Upload and Make at the top of the screen walk you through the steps. In View, you can see all of the tabblos that you've already made, as well as a list of those in your circle of friends. In Upload, we quickly added photos to our Tabblo accounts using Java uploader, one of five options offered by the site. Integrating your photos from Flickr.com -- another photo-sharing site -- is one of the five options, if you have an account.
After uploading our digital photos from the conference and the graduation party, we progressed to the Make step, which included four steps of its own: Pick Photos, Choose Style, Edit Tabblo and Share Tabblo. The Pick Photos screen is well designed, with a panel on the left showing all uploaded photos and those from people in your circle. A panel on the right called My Lightbox stores photos that you drag and drop in for use in a tabblo.
In Choose Style, we worked our way through three decisions about our tabblo: photo shape (square or rectangle), layout and theme; 512 total style combinations are offered. The layouts included one with Polaroid-style photos, another with big and small images combined with text and another layout with interlocking photos of differing sizes. For the theme, we chose Bold from a list that included Baby Pink, Wedding Traditional and Museum.
The Edit Tabblo section was especially impressive. We easily dragged photos all around the screen, seeing which fit in the best places of our collage layout and automatically swapping out other images. It was smooth and quick, exactly like working in a full-blown program stored locally on a PC, instead of a Web site stored on a distant server.
In a few instances, the automatic-layout mode made some shifts and adjustments that we didn't like, but for the most part they made the tabblo look better. If you'd rather make all adjustments manually, a manual-layout option is also available.
Continued in article
Question
Are you confused by the nuances of the "Fair Use" section of U.S. Copyright
Law under the DMCA?
From the Scholarly Communications Blog at the University of Illinois on June 19, 2006 --- http://www.library.uiuc.edu/blog/scholcomm/
New Fair Use Site
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law has created a Web site on fair use.
Called The Fair Use Network, the site says it attempts to alleviate the "mass of confusion for artists, scholars, journalists, bloggers, and everyone else who contributes to culture and political debate."
The site guides people on what to do if they get a letter from a copyright owner demanding that they cease and desist from making use of the owner's work. And the site also explains how much people can borrow, quote or copy from another's work.
Jensen Comment
The Fair Use safe harbors are frequently violated by professors who really
do not want to know the limitations of these provisions in the law.
Bob Jensen's threads on the DMCA are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/theworry.htm#Copyright
As Workers' Pensions Wither, Those for Executives Flourish
This is the pension squeeze companies aren't
talking about: Even as many reduce, freeze or eliminate pensions for workers
-- complaining of the costs -- their executives are building up ever-bigger
pensions, causing the companies' financial obligations for them to balloon.
Ellen E. Schultz and Theo Francis, "As Workers' Pensions Wither, Those for
Executives Flourish: Companies Run Up Big IOUs, Mostly Obscured, to
Grant Bosses a Lucrative Benefit The Billion-Dollar Liability," The Wall
Street Journal, June 23, 2006; Page A1 ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115103062578188438.html?mod=todays_us_page_one
Bob Jensen's threads on outrageous compensation of executives are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#OutrageousCompensation
What mobile phone companies don't want you to know
Forwarded by Dick Wolff
Here is something worth knowing if you have a mobile phone:
Have you ever wondered why phone companies don't seem interested in trying to prevent the theft of mobile phones? If you have ever lost, or had one stolen, and if you are on a plan, you still have to pay the plan approximately up to 24 months, and you have to buy another handset and enter into another contract. This is more revenue for the phone company. There is a simple way of making lost or stolen mobiles useless to thieves and the phone companies know about it, but keep it quiet.
To check your mobile phone's serial number, key in the following on your phone: star-hash-zero-six-hash ( * # 0 6 # ) and a fifteen digit code will appear on the screen. This is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it safe. Should your mobile phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset, so even if the thief changes the sim card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody did this, there would be no point in stealing mobile phones. May want to send this to as many people with mobiles as possible.
No charge for directory assistance - Phone companies are charging us $1.00 or more for 411 - information calls when they don't have to. When you need to use the 411 / information option, simply dial 1-800-FREE-411 or 1 800 373 3411 without incurring a charge.
Jensen Comment
You can read more about this at Snopes ---
http://www.snopes.com/crime/prevent/celltheft.asp
Dick Haar reports that it won't work on his phone.
If your laptop is stolen, with your confidential data, several companies will help you get it back and/or prevent thieves from using the stored information
"Solving Laptop Larceny: If your laptop is stolen, with your confidential
data, several companies will help you get it back -– or else disable it," by
Lamont "Wood, MIT's Technology Review, June 19, 2006 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17000&ch=infotech
These new systems, which aren't intended to prevent theft, but rather mitigate their consequences, come in three flavors: tracking software, encryption, and "kill" switches that can make a laptop's data self-destruct.
Extra layers of protection are needed because the password and encryption mechanisms that come with most laptops are weak or inconvenient, says Jack Gold, head of J. Gold Associates, a market research firm in Northborough, MA. "There are hacker tools that let you get around [passwords] very quickly, or you can boot from a CD," Gold says. It's true that any laptop running Windows XP Professional has an optional encryption function that should defeat thieves, but using it slows down normal file access.
One solution, then, is a tracking system, such as Computrace, run by Absolute Software of Vancouver, Canada. William Penn University in Oskaloosa, IA, turned to the system this year, after about 500 laptops in one of its colleges went missing, says Curt Gomes, the university's IT supervisor. The university decided it had become uneconomical to try to hunt down each machine manually. Instead, Gomes decided to try laptop tracking -- a technique that's been around for a decade, but recently has seen sales growth of 50 percent per year.
Each machine subscribed to the Computrace service typically reports to a company server once a day via the Internet. If the computer is reported stolen, the server will instruct it to start sending messages every 15 minutes. And if the missing machine's Internet address can be pinned down to a street address, police will soon show up there, according to company spokesman Les Jickling. In fact, a week after William Penn signed up for the Computrace tracking system, a laptop stolen out of a car was recovered by police five days later.
Continued in article
"Ceelox Announces Biometric Encryption Software Solution to Secure
Critical Enterprise Data,"
PR Web, June 24, 2006 ---
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/6/prweb403052.htm
Ceelox, Inc., a leading provider of biometric security software for enterprise networks and commercial applications, is proud to announce its release of Ceelox Vault, a powerful biometric authentication and encryption solution designed to protect lost or stolen data and combat identity theft.
Ceelox Vault is the ideal solution for protecting any confidential information whether it is credit card numbers, social security numbers, personal financial data, medical records, private correspondence, personal details, sensitive company information, bank account information, business plans, or intellectual property.
The theft or loss of high profile laptops containing social security numbers, employee information, intellectual property, credit reports and more are an everyday occurrence these days. It seems that virtually no organizations are immune to the problem which impacts millions of customers and employees who are relying on others to keep their information secure and out of the hands of identity thieves.
"We created Ceelox Vault because we recognize the value of easily securing confidential data. In today’s world, securing critical enterprise data has never been more important," said Kass Aiken, president & COO of Ceelox. "With Ceelox Vault the key to unlock the encryption is not stored anywhere, it is a unique biometric characteristic carried by the users fingerprint," said Erix Pizano, Director of Software Development for Ceelox. "Many organizations have measures in place to protect sensitive data. However, these solutions sometimes make the user feel incapable of using them due to their complexity," said Pizano. "As simple as drag and drop, with Ceelox Vault, security software finally makes sense. The encryption process can be seen and understood, unlike most security systems which are not noticeable to the end user unless they fail," added Pizano.
Ceelox Vault enables the user to simultaneously encrypt files and copy or move them to a server, personal computer, or external storage device. The customer then selects one of three industry standard ciphers (AES256, 3DES, or Blowfish448) for the file encryption. The encryption algorithms use a key attached to the user in a manner that requires the users fingerprint to encrypt and decipher the files.
The Ceelox Vault user, after gaining access to the Ceelox Vault application through biometric authentication, works from a window, which displays all personal computer files on the left side of the window and the vault drive files on the right side of the window.
Files and folders move back and forth between the computer and the vaulted storage device by simply clicking on them, dragging them to their destination and dropping them.
Access to a vaulted storage location, controlled by the use of a fingerprint scanner embedded in a portable hard drive, an external fingerprint scanner, or the fingerprint scanner embedded in a laptop or mobile computing device.
This provides two levels of security with authentication being required not only to access the drive but also to decrypt the files on the drive.
Ceelox's mission is to develop and market biometric security software products that are simple to implement, deploy, and use. Security software should never make the user feel incapable of using it. Ceelox focuses their attention on building powerful, easy to use applications that will provide the best enterprise and customer experience within all levels of an organization.
About Ceelox
Ceelox is a developer and marketer of biometric security software products for logical access, identity authentication and file security. Ceelox core applications Ceelox ID, Ceelox Vault and Ceelox ID Online improve employee productivity and reduce information technology administrative costs. These products are supported by several U.S. and International pending patents. Ceelox focuses attention on building powerful, easy to use applications that will provide the best customer experience within all levels of an organization while enhancing security through biometric software technology.
For more information regarding Ceelox visit www.ceelox.com
Bob Jensen's threads on computer and network security are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ecommerce/000start.htm#SpecialSection
Blackboard Will Soon Do Online Course Evaluations:
Should They Be Shared With the Administrators and/or the Public?
"Digital Assessments," by David Epstein, Inside Higher Ed, June 20, 2006 --- http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/20/blackboard
Assessment is quickly becoming the new black. It’s one of the themes of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. More and more institutions, some prodded by accreditors, are looking for rigorous ways — often online — to compile course data.
Now Blackboard, a leading provider of course management software, is making plans to enter the assessment field.
Blackboard already offers the capability to do course evaluations, and for over a year-and-a-half the company has been researching more comprehensive assessment practices.
The prospect of online evaluations and assessments, for many faculty members, conjures images of RateMyProfessors.com, the unrestricted free-for-all where over 700,000 professors are rated — often to their dismay — by anonymous reviewers. Blackboard — and some others are looking to enter the evaluation field — are planning very different and more educationally oriented models. Blackboard’s approach is more oriented on evaluating the course than the professor.
Blackboard has generally enjoyed a good reputation among faculty members, dating to its beginnings as a small startup. One of the things that has endeared Blackboard to academics is the ability they have had to customize the company’s products, and Blackboard, though it’s no longer small, will seek to keep important controls in the hands of institutions.
With institutions looking to do evaluations and assessment online, Debra Humphreys, a spokeswoman with the Association of American Colleges and Universities, said that Blackboard’s outcomes assessment program “could make trends that are already underway easier for schools.”
David Yaskin, vice president for product marketing at Blackboard, said that a key component of Blackboard’s system — which is in development — will likely be online portfolios that can be tracked in accordance with learning outcomes that are determined by faculty members, departments or institutions.
Yaskin said he’d like to see a system with “established outcomes, and a student has to provide evidence” of progress toward those outcomes, whether in the form of papers, photography collections or other relevant measures. Yaskin added that faculty members could create test questions as well, if they are so inclined, but that, for Blackboard’s part, the “current plan is not to use centralized testing in version 1.0, because higher ed is focused on higher orders of learning.”
One of the most powerful aspects of the program, Yaskin said, will likely be its ability to compile data and slice it in different ways. Institutions can create core sets of questions they want, for a course evaluation, for example, but individual departments and instructors can tailor other questions, and each level of the hierarchy can look at its own data. Yaskin said that it’s important to allow each level of that hierarchy to remain autonomous. He added that there should be a way for “faculty members to opt out” of providing the data they got from tailored questions to their superiors if they want. Otherwise, he said, faculty members might be reticent to make full use of the system to find out how courses can be improved.
Yaskin added that, if certain core outcomes are defined by a department, the department can use the system to track the progress of students as they move from lower to upper level courses.
Because Blackboard, which bought WebCT, has 3,650 clients, any service it can sell to its base could spread very quickly. While details on pricing aren’t available, the assessment services will be sold individually from course management software.
The idea of online evaluation is not new. Blackboard has been looking to colleges already using online course evaluations and assessments for ideas.
Washington University in St. Louis — which wasn’t one of the consulted institutions named by Blackboard — took over five years to develop an internal online course evaluation system. A faculty member in the anthropology department developed templates, and other faculty members can add specific questions. Students then have access to loads of numerical data, including average scores by department, but the comments are reserved for professors. Henry Biggs, associate dean of Washington University’s College of Arts and Sciences, was involved with the creation of the system, and said that too much flexibility can take away from the reliability of an evaluation or assessment system.
Washington University professors have to petition if they want their ratings withheld. “If faculty members can decide what to make public, there can be credibility issues,” Biggs said. “It’s great for faculty members to have a lot of options, but, essentially, by giving a lot of options you can create a very un-level playing field.”
Biggs said that the Blackboard system could be great for institutions that don’t have the resources to create their own system, but that a lot of time is required of faculty members and administrators to manage an assessment system even if the fundamental technology is in place. “The only way it can really work is if there are staff that are either hired, or redirected to focus entirely on getting that set up,” Biggs said. “I don’t think you will find professors with time to do that.”
Humphreys added that “the real time is the labor” from faculty members, and that technology often doesn’t make things so much easier, but may make something like assessments better. “People think of technology as saving time and money,” Humphries said. “It rarely is that, but it usually adds value,” like the ability to manipulate data extensively.
Some third-party course evaluation systems already offer tons of data services. OnlineCourseEvaluations.com has been working with institutions — about two dozen clients currently — for around three years doing online evaluations.
Online Course Evaluations, according to president Larry Piegza, also allows an institution to develop follow-up questions to evaluation questions. If an evaluation asks, for example, if an instructor spoke audibly and clearly, Piegza said, a follow-up question asking what could be done – use a microphone; face the students – to improve the situation can be set to pop up automatically. Additionally, faculty members can sort data by ratings, so they can see comments from all the students who ripped them, or who praised them, and check for a theme. “We want teachers to be able to answer the question, ‘how can I teach better tomorrow?’” Piegza said.
Daily Jolt, a site that has a different student-run information and networking page for each of about 100 institutions that host a page, is getting into the evaluation game, but the student-run evaluation game.
Mark Miller and Steve Bayle, the president and chief operating officer of Daily Jolt, hope to provide a more credible alternative to RateMyProfessors.com. Like RMP, Daily Jolt’s evaluations, which should be fully unveiled next fall, do not verify.edu e-mail addresses, but they do allow users to rate commentors, similarly to what eBay does with buyers and sellers, and readers can see all of the posts by a particular reviewer to get a sense of that reviewer.
Biggs acknowledged that student-run evaluation sites are here to stay, but said that, given the limited number of courses any single student evaluates, it’s unlikely that reviewing commentors will add a lot of credibility. Miller said that faculty members will be able to pose questions in forums that students can respond to.
“A lot of faculty members want to put this concept [of student run evaluations] in a box and make it go away,” Miller said. “That’s not going to happen, so we might as well see if we can do it in a respectful way.”
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
I think course evaluations should be private information between students in
a class and the instructor. They should be required, but they should not be
used in tenure, performance, and pay evaluations. One huge problem in is
that if they are not private communications, research shows that they lead
to grade inflation. Another huge problem is that students who fill out the
evaluations are not personally accountable for lies, misguided humor, and
frivolous actions. What students want is popular teachers who are not
necessarily the best medicine for education.
You can read more about teaching evaluation controversies at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#GradeInflation
Differences between "popular teacher"
versus "master teacher"
versus "mastery learning"
versus "master educator."
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/assess.htm#Teaching
June 20, 2006 reply from David Fordham, James Madison University [fordhadr@JMU.EDU]
Bob, one of my many, many pet peeves is the almost- ubiquitous use of the term "Course Evaluations" when actually people are referring to the gathering and measurement of "student perceptions".