Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

salon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 217 posts

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#171

Post by pdonis »

chaddeshon wrote: post #131
pdonis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What always strikes me when reading Court opinions is, first, that there are well reasoned, logical arguments that support both sides ; and second, that in almost every case where I've seen a marked difference in the quality of the arguments (this case is not one of them, btw--both sides' arguments seem to me to be well reasoned and logical, it basically comes down to a judgment call about interpretation and what Con…

I've noticed that as well. I think it is because whoever is writing the majority opinion has to temper the opinion to make it agreeable to a majority of the justices. Authors of minority opinions have no such restriction and can swing with full force.

That's a good point; in fact, it's even stronger in a way, because the majority opinion is the "official" one that becomes effectively law, so it not only has to be agreeable to a majority of the justices, it has to be agreeable enough to become part of the law of the land indefinitely.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#172

Post by kd0amg »

greenyoda wrote: post #18
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

The worst offenders are the professors who write their own textbooks (even though there are dozens of better ones already available) and then use them in their courses, making money off each student. Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities. The heroes in this game are the instructors who are creating open-source textbooks.

Maybe there should be conflict of interest rules in universities.

Where I studied (undergrad, at least), there were conflict of interest rules -- professors were not allowed to collect royalties on books they use in their classes.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#173

Post by CamperBob2 »

pdonis wrote: post #169
CamperBob2 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal fiction of a "corporation" is abused in all manner of ways. True, but I don't see how to fix it without serious unintended consequences in other areas.

Are there particular consequences you have in mind?

Yes, you still haven't explained how to suppress Monsanto's political speech while preserving that of the New York Times.

The idea that a corporation must be organized for an "express purpose," declared in advance, that will determine that corporation's rights relative to others, is troublesome to put it mildly. A government that enforces things like that WILL enforce things that you and I don't like as well.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#174

Post by brownbat »

Roberts and Sotomayor on one side, Scalia and Ginsburg on the other. Not really a right/left split.

If you had to draw some line, you might notice that the dissenters, Ginsburg (80), Scalia (77), and Kennedy (76), are the oldest on the bench.

I wouldn't read too much into that, just thought it was interesting. We probably already make too much of the "right/left" line in the court, since cases like this--where people don't cleanly line up according to political ideology--are fairly common.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#175

Post by seanmcdirmid »

_delirium wrote: post #136
abraxasz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best class I've ever taken was an intro class in statistics, in which the professor recommended... no book. He had an entire set of notes, practice problems (with extraordinarily detailed answers), and problem sets. Every year, he creates new exam problems so the old exams with answers become practice material. Honestly, his lecture notes (and all the additional material) is so vast that a student would hardly ha…

That answer is essentially, "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. That could be an interesting solution, but is mostly practical if you already have tenure, since it is a quick way to not get tenure otherwise. If you spend your junior professorship time writing a text…

> "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook.

This isn't really true. A majority of my math text books at UW were written in note form by the professor teaching the class. They were just very efficient...and hey, its math where a glossy text book really gives you nothing.

> Currently it's typical to budget quite little, because the assumption (and sometimes requirement) is that you'll be teaching using a standard text in the field.

This is definitely not true in math and barely true in computer science. I think it is true in physics and chemistry, but only for entry-level courses. It also depends on the university.

Open sourcing material between professors could go a long way; each could simply collect what they want for the course and then easily publish it in electronic (free) or paper form (students pay printing costs). I think this is how it mostly works already in upper division courses.

Sometimes there is a very nice up to date book; but just as often, say in computer science, everything is out of date anyways (computer architecture, compilers, ...).

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#176

Post by rosser »

jlgreco wrote: post #167
MacsHeadroom wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly certain that was always clearly legal.

Couldn't you say the same of buying books in other countries though?

This case isn't just about buying books elsewhere, though. It's about buying them elsewhere and selling them here.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#177

Post by mayneack »

impendia wrote: post #44
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #9

The publishers will just make sure to produce a different textbook between different regions now. Just re-order the chapters a little and re-order some questions/assignments. So even if someone ships in the foreign book it will be as useless as a previous edition. In general the whole textbook industry makes me sick. But fact is that lecturers are entirely responsible for it. The publishers can only do what the lectu…

I am a lecturer in a math department. I also despise the textbook industry. Would you please recommend what I might do, subject to severe limitations of (1) time and (2) political clout within my department?

MIT CS class (6.047) I just took had a mix between course notes and a textbook. It started as a compilation of course notes and then each year, was improved by the class. During each lecture, one or more people were assigned to update the relevant chapter of the book to reflect this year's lecture/changes in the field. Some chapters that were the core of the class or didn't change from year to year were really good and some were only a basic framework. He also recorded all his lectures, so that helped with any places where the book might not be ideally up to date.

http://compbio.mit.edu/teaching/book.pdf

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#178

Post by _delirium »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #175
_delirium wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answer is essentially, "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. That could be an interesting solution, but is mostly practical if you already have tenure, since it is a quick way to not get tenure otherwise. If you spend your junior professorship time writing a text…

> "each professor should write their own textbook", since an extensive series of notes intended to be used in a course of study, along with practice problems, is pretty much a draft textbook. This isn't really true. A majority of my math text books at UW were written in note form by the professor teaching the class. They were just very efficient...and hey, its math where a glossy text book really gives you nothing. >…

> This is definitely not true in math and barely true in computer science.

I haven't surveyed everywhere in CS, but I know the operations of quite a number of schools, and I don't know any that budget significant preparation time for "normal" classes. Some do allocate extraordinary preparation time if you're developing a completely new course that's never been taught at the school before. But in the common case, where it's a longstanding standard course, you're expected to use reasonably standard material, whether it's whatever was used in the previous professor's version of the course, or some moral equivalent that you're expected to be able to adopt within <10 hrs. You definitely aren't supposed to (officially) spend more than a minor amount of time preparing your own curriculum and pedagogical materials for the course.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#179

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

mindcrime wrote: post #118
impendia wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a lecturer in a math department. I also despise the textbook industry. Would you please recommend what I might do, subject to severe limitations of (1) time and (2) political clout within my department?

Unless you're teaching at the very cutting edge where new research is emerging regularly, (in which case I imagine you'd be teaching from your own notes and journal articles anyway), then how about just intentionally using an older text and write your own exam questions? There are usually plenty of copies of "recently out of date" editions of most texts on the second-hand market, and the fundamentals of the material…

>how about just intentionally using an older text ...

Tried it. Those god-damned greedy SOB's buy up all the previous editions and shred them. It's hard to find copies even on the internet after a couple semesters. I still list previous editions of texts on my syllabi though, but students who are on fin-aid are herded toward the campus bookstore.

Re: Supreme Court sides with student in case over textbooks

#180

Post by ubernostrum »

gwright wrote: post #89
akiselev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that this SCOTUS has actually had a pretty good track record on civil liberties and these underdog kind of cases (Citizens United notwithstanding)

I don't understand the disdain that Citizens United gets. It is a pretty clear cut application of 1st Amendment principles. People don't lose their 1st amendment rights simply because they are organized as a corporation. The law can't favor free speech for some corporations/groups (New York Times, MSNBC, UAW, etc.) but not others (non-profit groups like Citizens United). On top of this, the speech involved was politi…

Well.

First of all, "people" don't lose their rights when they organize as a corporation. They still, as individuals, have the same rights they had, as individuals, prior to forming the corporation.

Forming the corporation then creates a legal entity which has, and which passes on to them, certain additional privileges that individuals do not typically have. For example, they gain strong protection from personal liability.

And it has long been recognized that, in order for corporations to work and to be useful -- and they are certainly useful for some purposes -- the privileges extended to this legal entity must resemble, in some ways, the rights afforded to individual persons. For example, a corporation needs to be able to enter into contracts, a corporation needs to be able to file suit, etc.

The tricky question is: which specific set of privileges should be extended? In other words, what is the minimum we must do in order for the corporation to be useful?

And this is not idle when it comes to questions of speech. An argument can be made that granting corporations the "right" to engage in political speech grants no right at all -- rather, it rigidly constrains what the corporation can do, since now arguments can be made about whether support for this candidate or that ballot issue best fulfills the corporation's duty to its investors. Do you really want to have directors sued because they directed the corporation to "speak" for a candidate who later enacted regulations that reduced the value of the shareholders' investment, for example?

Articulating a clear line, which allows corporations to do what they need to do for business to work, but which doesn't go further than that, and which doesn't lead to absurdities like a corporation being forced to "speak" for a particular candidate in order to fulfill its duties, is hard.

Post reply on HN