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I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

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Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#141

Post by ColdTakes »

jdkaim wrote: post #7

Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…

I was a similar position as yours when I was at university. Do not have faith in your university administration.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#142

Post by jjmarr »

uwthrowaway wrote: post #70
jjmarr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the GitHub commit history, the repo was created before the blog post from UW, and also never contained actual courses. This is important, because it's the only explicit reference to "trading open spots" they've made. The Registration Abuse policy covers access to the registration system for: * buying or selling one’s seat in a class, * holding seats for another student, * or otherwise registering for a…

UW student - see the "Tampering and Abuse" section of ( https://registrar.washington.edu/registration/policies-proce... ) which has been around for much longer and is well communicated with students.

Yes, I saw that linked in the top comment.

What isn't clear is how this site actually violated that policy, if there was no course slot trading actually occurring. You could describe it as an attempt, but in this situation, the student asked for permission from the school before doing something that would violate their policies.

To use an analogy, if I sneak notes into an exam, that is likely academic misconduct. However, creating a formula sheet and asking the professor if I can use it is not academic misconduct. I wouldn't consider that to be attempted cheating.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#143

Post by dekhn »

ericmcer wrote: post #62
impendia wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a university professor, and this is batshit crazy. Who ? As in not "they" or "the university", but who within the university? Can you tell where the directive is coming from? If this comes from, say, the Provost's Office then this probably can't be handled internally. (The position of Provost is the #2 position at a university, and the provost usually runs the show while the President or Chancellor goes schmoozin…

Are those numbers a sum of the total benefits or something? It seems insane that a campus security guard is making 170k.

It's total pay without benefits. It includes overtime and on-call time (which are typically paid at a higher rate).

It wouldn't surprise me that an experienced security guard is making $170K; the state itself is expensive, and they have to retain staff. The staff is often ex-cop, and guards very frequently work overtime (paid time-and-a-half or more). The guard may be a people manager (I don't know which row you're referring to but it looks like the typical guard makes far less).

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#144

Post by thfuran »

jdkaim wrote: post #7

Update: I immediately took down my class project site after receiving yesterday’s ultimatum. I still don’t think the simple demo site violated the letter or spirit of the registration rules, but I took it down because I always want to operate in good faith. They followed up today to thank me for doing it, but also indicated that they were putting a hold on my account anyway. As a result, I am not going to be able to…

>I have faith that UW leadership will make it right in the end.

What about their actions so far suggests that?

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#145

Post by loeg »

userbinator wrote: post #136
loeg wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not call that overzealous? It's not couched in legal language / demands, it fully explains the rationale for the request . Intro CS students cheat all the time , they're very lazy about it, having posted answers as top Google results facilitates that and increases TA burden. (Full disclosure, I was personally acquainted with Whitaker long ago. He was a TA for the intro classes. I think he just sincerely wante…

It's definitely an overreach, and reflects badly on him and his employer. If one of my open-source projects got hit with that sort of request, my response would be far less polite. (Full disclosure: I have taught CS courses before.)

I guess I assumed it was actually written directly to a UW homework assignment, but looking at the repository, I don't actually see any reference to that. So you may be right.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#146

Post by impendia »

turbojet1321 wrote: post #139
impendia wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a university professor, and this is batshit crazy. Who ? As in not "they" or "the university", but who within the university? Can you tell where the directive is coming from? If this comes from, say, the Provost's Office then this probably can't be handled internally. (The position of Provost is the #2 position at a university, and the provost usually runs the show while the President or Chancellor goes schmoozin…

The head coach of football gets paid $4mil a year (4x the president) and is the highest payed employee. The top 7 staff are all sports related. Is this, like, common in the US? It seems batshit insane to an outsider.

Yes, this is extremely common.

On the one hand, yes, this is absolutely batshit insane.

On the other hand, college sports are enormously popular; football games regularly play to sold out crowds of over 50,000, and during football season there will be games on TV all weekend (not just local ones). They bring in a lot of revenue and publicity for the university -- and the latter (debatably?) helps attract students to apply.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#148

Post by mingus88 »

SteveNuts wrote: post #72
zcrossing wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The one time I mentioned getting a lawyer over a grievance with a car dealership, the customer service people immediately stopped talking to me and said all further communication goes through their lawyers. Whoops

That’s the only reasonable thing to do in their position. Anything you say from there can and will be used against you.

It’s also the best way for any customer service rep to eject from an unpleasant exchange. 100% done with you; lawyers problem now.

Re: I had to take down my course-swapping site or be expelled

#149

Post by isotypic »

charlieyu1 wrote: post #132
LPisGood wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It opens up for abuse by offering to sell a spot.

The downside is that you may be unable to sell it and actually have to take a course that you don’t want

You can just drop the course - pretty much every university (in the United States, at least) allows students to drop courses one or two weeks into the semester without any record (on say, a transcript). Otherwise students cannot possibly plan their semesters, since courses may not make material available until after the semester actually starts.

So if you are planning to sell the slots and it does not work out, you just drop the course, no harm to you.

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