71–80 of 86 posts
This is a pretty big setback for Yale in terms of refocusing more on STEM. But they're in good company. I'm sure 10-15 years ago music company executives were similarly pissed off.
I am pretty sure this isn't going to set Yale back in the slightest.
Whenever these cases come up, we tend to look at it with a status-quo bias - assuming that of course this data exists, and it's a question of whether it should be "free" (whatever your interpretation of that term). But in reality, things like YBB+ can impact the existence of the data in the first place - in this particular case, the evaluations existing in as comprehensive a form as they do depends on Yale's explicit…
An example where this has happened: Some (many?) U.S. public libraries have stopped storing historic checkout data for patrons, in order to avoid having to turn the data over to a govt. agency. I recall being able to get a list of every book I had ever checked out. Not any more.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the university no longer provides the data this seems like a good opportunity for the application developers to manage that data themselves. They already have the students' course information so they could email them at the end of term and get their own evaluations -- removing Yale from the equation entirely.
Also worth pointing out that it's in Yale's interest to collect and provide the data. If they collect it, they can ensure a more representative sample size, even if they can't ensure how that data is ultimately presented. If students start using a third party service, not only does Yale still not have control over presentation, the data collected will probably make the faculty look worse by virtue of the fact that di…
Censorship is not a valid tool for an educational institution to use. They are free to promote their version of the information, ask people to not use the other, etc. but however much they dislike it, blocking it should not even be considered.
Can it be both?
Coming from a country where higher-education is covered by the government, I think it's a conflict of interest for an educational institute to be in the money-making game
As much as I would love to sit here carrying on about how Information Wants to be Free, I do appreciate where she's coming from. YBB forced to students to actually read course evals and apply critical thinking to their class selection. YBB+ wrongly suggests that the quality of a class can be reduced to a scalar value. We've complained about this bitterly going the other way. How many app developers are frustrated whe…
If the performance of the professor in a class cannot be reduced to a scalar value, then it seems probable that the performance of a student in a class also cannot be reduced to a scalar value, and professors should be required to write paragraph evaluations of students instead of just assigning them something from an A to an F. In other words, if reduction of complex performance to a scalar value is invalid, then th…
Doing so at a college scale would be too costly. But you do have all the grades that go into your average, comments on each essay, office hour time, etcetera. The nuances of your performance don't matter in your GPA, that is, your Grade Point Average, but you do have a bit more information available to you, yourself.
As much as I would love to sit here carrying on about how Information Wants to be Free, I do appreciate where she's coming from. YBB forced to students to actually read course evals and apply critical thinking to their class selection. YBB+ wrongly suggests that the quality of a class can be reduced to a scalar value. We've complained about this bitterly going the other way. How many app developers are frustrated whe…
If the performance of the professor in a class cannot be reduced to a scalar value, then it seems probable that the performance of a student in a class also cannot be reduced to a scalar value, and professors should be required to write paragraph evaluations of students instead of just assigning them something from an A to an F. In other words, if reduction of complex performance to a scalar value is invalid, then th…
Doing so at a college scale would be too costly. But you do have all the grades that go into your average, comments on each essay, office hour time, etcetera. The nuances of your performance don't matter in your GPA, that is, your Grade Point Average, but you do have a bit more information available to you, yourself.
As much as I would love to sit here carrying on about how Information Wants to be Free, I do appreciate where she's coming from. YBB forced to students to actually read course evals and apply critical thinking to their class selection. YBB+ wrongly suggests that the quality of a class can be reduced to a scalar value. We've complained about this bitterly going the other way. How many app developers are frustrated whe…
If the performance of the professor in a class cannot be reduced to a scalar value, then it seems probable that the performance of a student in a class also cannot be reduced to a scalar value, and professors should be required to write paragraph evaluations of students instead of just assigning them something from an A to an F. In other words, if reduction of complex performance to a scalar value is invalid, then th…
Doing so at a college scale would be too costly. But you do have all the grades that go into your average, comments on each essay, office hour time, etcetera. The nuances of your performance don't matter in your GPA, that is, your Grade Point Average, but you do have a bit more information available to you, yourself.
Whenever these cases come up, we tend to look at it with a status-quo bias - assuming that of course this data exists, and it's a question of whether it should be "free" (whatever your interpretation of that term). But in reality, things like YBB+ can impact the existence of the data in the first place - in this particular case, the evaluations existing in as comprehensive a form as they do depends on Yale's explicit…
Yale can decide how the information is used. But if someone within the Yale community comes up with a Yale-beneficial use for the information, Yale should embrace that use.
I don't think this was a free-speech issue, so much as a missing-the-boat issue. Yale should be nurturing its hackers. Yale has an excellent CS program (I say this as a Yale alumnus), but in recent decades, it's not been much of a countercultural or hackerish place to be. Yale is top-notch at producing lawyers and investment bankers. It needs to get better at producing hackers. (By many recent accounts, it's starting to get considerably better. Maybe this episode will inspire a rethinking of sorts.)
Whenever these cases come up, we tend to look at it with a status-quo bias - assuming that of course this data exists, and it's a question of whether it should be "free" (whatever your interpretation of that term). But in reality, things like YBB+ can impact the existence of the data in the first place - in this particular case, the evaluations existing in as comprehensive a form as they do depends on Yale's explicit…
To collect this data, Yale hands out surveys and students generate the content.
Yale needs the students to gather this data but the students do not need Yale. They could just as easily aggregate this data on an external website. It seems that they even have the ability to auth against Yale servers.
This content is generated by students and is supposed to be used to improve the University for the students. If Yale doesnt trust its own students with their own data it opens up the question of what the relationship between Yale and its students is and whether Yale is the kind of place for kids who understand how technology is shaping democracy, privacy, and our culture in general.
> In doing so, the developers violated Yale’s appropriate use policy by taking and modifying data without permission, but, more importantly, they encouraged students to select courses on the basis of incomplete information. To claim that Yale’s effort to ensure that students received complete information somehow violated freedom of expression turns that principle on its head. I think she doesn't really know what free…
Not everyone acts as rational machines, professors' egos have to be stroked too. They'd like to think that they can't just be reduced to a number between 1 and 5. Besides which, I think exposing rating systems for courses creates perverse incentives. It's been well studied that students who get better grades rate courses higher. Is that really what we want to be measuring professors against?