Retroid Raving

I was fascinated to see, when opening my Tuesday paper this am (that I had to steal from a colleague's box, as someone had similarly lifted mine), the headline "Centre tackles urban transport problems", followed by:

It would be nice to know.  I don't need the stress of avoiding the Big Blue Taxis (sorry, JS^TM) every day while coming to / going from work, and I am sure they don't need the stress of avoiding me - and everyone else who uses that stretch of road.

I am sure the students wouldn't mind risking death slightly less often, too: sandwiched up against the side of a bus can't be a pleasant way to go.  And I can see it happening, any day now.

A Retroid non-rave this morning, for a change...!  Or at least a positive one.

I was greatly heartened this morning to see, on the UCT News page, that:

"A group of students swopped their lunchtime food for scrubs and soap on 24 April to clean the decades-old statue of Cecil John Rhodes at UCT.

Members of the Residence Sports Council, an initiative of the Student Representative Council comprising sport representatives from residences, cleaned the dirt on the statue "in recreating the image of the man recognised in South Africa".

Mzo Daphula (pictured left), SRC member for sport and recreation, said the statue, unveiled in 1934, was in the main area of the university, and cleaning it was a sense of identifying that "he (Rhodes) is still with us".

"We should forget about the past and what people may attach to him. Away with reverse racism! If this image was not needed, it could have been removed. We see the significance of it on our campus, and the least we can do is to clean it," Daphula added.

- Author: Myolisi Gophe"

What an image; what a visual metaphor, my colleagues SOJS* might say, for the complexities of our history, and hope for the future.  Only they would usually be a lot more verbose and use bigger words.  B-)

What I see is UCT students embracing the past, and making it theirs: Cecil did make it possible for us to HAVE a University in a place where you can look out from, after all, whatever else he may have done - and for that he deserves some recognition.

And he has it.  He will continue to sit, in that awkward-I'm-favouring-my-piles position, surveying his old haunts - only a lot cleaner now.

Thanks to the ministrations of folk that he probably would never even have contemplated would attend "his" University.

Viva, Mzo Daphula et al., viva!  You have just done more to make me hopeful for the future of OU^TM than 90% of all Bremner-speak I have read in years.  Thank you.

* = South of Jammie Steps.  Where they say "postmodern" a lot.  And wear funny clothes.

So y'all wanna use Facebook/Vuisboek in education, do ya??  Retroid knew there were good reasons to be suspicious of these new-fangled thingies...B-)

From the Toronto Sun, 6th march 2008:

 "Freshman hit with 147 academic charges for online study network at Ryerson University

Mar 06, 2008 04:30 AM

Louise Brown
Education Reporter

Study groups may be a virtual trademark of the Ivory Tower – but a virtual study group has been slammed as cheating by Ryerson University.

First-year student Chris Avenir is fighting charges of academic misconduct for helping run an online chemistry study group via Facebook last term, where 146 classmates swapped tips on homework questions that counted for 10 per cent of their mark.

The computer engineering student has been charged with one count of academic misconduct for helping run the group – called Dungeons/Mastering Chemistry Solutions after the popular Ryerson basement study room engineering students dub The Dungeon – and another 146 counts, one for each classmate who used the site.

Avenir, 18, faces an expulsion hearing Tuesday before the engineering faculty appeals committee. If he loses that appeal, he can take his case to the university's senate.

The incident has sent shock waves through student ranks, says Kim Neale, 26, the student union's advocacy co-ordinator, who will represent Avenir at the hearing.

"All these students are scared s---less now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it's no different than any study group working together on homework in a library," said Neale.

"That's the worst part; it's creating this culture of fear, where if I post a question about physics homework on my friend's wall (a Facebook bulletin board) and ask if anyone has any ideas how to approach this – and my prof sees this, am I cheating?" said Neale, who has used Facebook study groups herself.

 

Ryerson officials have declined to comment while the case continues.

Ryerson's academic misconduct policy, which is being updated, defines it as "any deliberate activity to gain academic advantage, including actions that have a negative effect on the integrity of the learning environment."

Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation.

Avenir said he joined the Facebook group last fall to get help with some of the questions the professor would give students to do online. As the network grew, he took over as its administrator, which is why he believes he alone has been charged.

"So we each would be given chemistry questions and if we were having trouble, we'd post the question and say: `Does anyone get how to do this one? I didn't get it right and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.' Exactly what we would say to each other if we were sitting in the Dungeon," said Avenir yesterday.

He is still attending classes pending his hearing but admits the stress of the accusations is affecting his midterm exam results.

"But if this kind of help is cheating, then so is tutoring and all the mentoring programs the university runs and the discussions we do in tutorials," he said.

Neale said the Facebook account appears to have been pulled offline yesterday, although Avenir said it has not been in use since the course ended in December.

He had earned a B in the class, but after the professor discovered the Facebook group over the holidays, the mark was changed to an F. The professor reported the incident to the school's student conduct officer and recommended expulsion.

Neale said Avenir missed two meetings to discuss the matter because of a miscommunication. Tuesday's hearing was arranged to give him a chance make his case against explusion. Ryerson is not obliged to do so.

While Neale admits the professor stipulated the online homework questions were to be done independently, she said it has long been a tradition for students to brainstorm homework in groups, particularly in heavy programs such as law, engineering and medicine.

Each student in the course received slightly different questions to prevent cheating, she said, and she did not see evidence of students doing complete solutions for each other. Instead, she said, they would brainstorm about techniques.

"They'd say to each other stuff like ... `Remember what to do when you have positive cations (a type of positively charged ion)' and that sort of thing," she said.

But Neale admitted the invitation to the Facebook group may have been what landed them in trouble. It read: "If you request to join, please use the forms to discuss/post solutions to the chemistry assignments. Please input your solutions if they are not already posted."

Still, said Neale, "no one did post a full final solution. It was more the back and forth that you get in any study group." "

Yes.  Well.  Over-reaction, anyone??  Sounds like something that could be got around without too much problem - remember when we only had to worry about people writing things on themselves, or very,very small on tiny pieces of paper - and not about SMSing answers in after surreptitiously photographing and sending out pictures of exam/test papers??  Hey, I still remember the first time calculators were allowed into UCT tests!  In 1974, as it happens.

Nice thing about blogs, BTW: you can modify them according to comments received.  So my point was...OK, this has happened, and maybe we need to take it on board, BUT it probably makes a lot more sense to exploit Facebook rather than ban it.

Guesting on View From the North:

 I just had to comment on this function: I had ignored what I thought was a boilerplate invitation, only to be told sternly that they really did want to see me there...so I went, and I was glad I did.

Prawns.  Serious three-corner jobs and hot sauce.  Fruit kebabs.  Satay chicken.  A more-than-passable Merlot/Cab blend....

Oh, and folk from the Shuttleworth Foundation, a public signing of the Declaration - and some very interesting conversation with folk that I only ever meet at occasions like this.  Nice to see you again, Gudrun!

And new ones: well met, Transplant_Ed; it is time again to blog!  No matter that people don't comment; they read - and things happen as a result.

Great also to meet Eve Gray, AND son: putting faces to good blogs is always good; getting into some depth on the discussions sparked by blogs doesn't hurt either.

I was very glad to discover that the penetration of computer technology in to education at UCT has come a long way since the old M(M)EG days, of which Martin Hall reminded us - and that WebCT, which I found so clunky I never got into it, despite trying hard - is completely superseded by Vula.

I have had Web material up for teaching at UCT - and anywhere else that wants to use it - since late 1994, so I am a natural convert to the concept of "open source" educational material.  However, my material is very static, in that there is no way for students to interact with me or the material except via email - and preparing new Web pages is a bit clunky.

I have lately been enthused, then, by my introduction to the use of blogs and wikis via the offices of my far-off colleague Alan Cann, at University of Leicester: he runs a very successful blog called "MicrobiologyBytes", on which I have done a number of guest articles.

Enough to accumulate the courage to actually set up my own, on the WordPress server: this is "ViroBlogy", and is aimed at providing current news for Virology students at UCT (or anywhere) - and an opportunity for them to comment on it or ask questions on it.  It is also examinable...B-)

I plan a wiki next, to allow solicited contributions from students - which will also be examinable.  Nothing like a little technology to add some new spark to teaching!

 But I am waaaay behind the curve on this: I was very pleased to hear at the Declaration that so many at UCT are using the new toys - it makes my life easier, as I can just just follow in well-trodden footprints and use Vula, and avoid all the kinds of mistakes I made when setting up HTML teaching for the first time.

So thanks, all at CET / CHED; thanks also to Martin Hall and Ken Masters et al. for all their early enthusiasm for the technology: it really HAS been a success story.

 Ed Rybicki

OK, at this point Retroid aka View From the North will confess to being Aggrieved Goose...if only to legitimately join in the correspondence which seems to have been generated by his/her/my original letter to the Tuesday paper.

Which has generated a response from "Featherless Biped", which I quote:

"I would like to support the suggestion of "Aggrieved Goose" (Monday Paper Feb 18-2 March 2008) that individual researchers at UCT should receive a substantial cut of the government subsidy for journal articles.

The claim by the administration that this will lead academics to publish in journals of "dubious quality" is disingenuous [yes!! = Retroid] , since journal publication is already a criterion for promotion and RFJ.

Prof Vaughan claims that (some of) the universities that "earn greater subsidy than UCT ... based on the number of their publication outputs" have a great number of "publications of dubious quality".

However, without further information, nothing can be deduced from this [yes again!! - Retroid]. It is absurd and insulting to suggest that academics will publish anywhere just to get money - no one goes into academia for the paycheque, and any subsidy money would go directly into one's research account.

Here's one reason I can think of for rewarding academics a substantial cut of the subsidy: conferences. UCT's conference awards committees meets only twice a year, in February and September.

Often, calls for papers come out between these dates, making it impossible to apply for funding from UCT. ...If academics had more research money available, this would give us greater freedom to attend the conferences we deem important.

I also note with interest that UCT is not averse to granting researchers money in other ways. In that same edition, Monday Paper proudly reported that: "Fifteen UCT researchers... have benefited from a collective R232 000, awarded by the Innovation Fund for South African patents granted in 2006.

The money is an incentive to encourage researchers to file patents". I rest my case.

Featherless Biped
Humanities Faculty"

Ja, boet.  It's not just me...though I am a recipient of the Patent Incentive Fund, as it happens.  Wait for it: there's a tsunami (or two) coming on the subject; UCT (sorry, OU^TM) does NOT do anything LIKE as well as other SA Universities - and some quite reputable ones, I might note - in giving back some incentive from publication (and other) subsidy earned by researchers.

A taster: who do you think funds Honours projects in the Health Sciences and Science faculties at OU^TM?  Researchers, that's who...and where from, do you ask?  Research funds....

Another: who funds the bulk of the postgraduate student bursaries at OU^TM, do you think?  Answer: well, we don't really know, do we?  Seeing as no-one has ever bothered to find out...but I'm willing to bet it's not OU^TM . whatever they have to say about being "research led".

Watch this space. 

Life, as it has a tendency to do, gets away from one.  As it has got away from me, lo, these many days...53!!  I'm really 53.  Still here.  Still in the same office.  Same old, same old....

But not quite: see, I listened.  To my good wife, as it happens, who speaks more sense than I deserve.  And whose signal advice to me was "Stop moaning and look on the bright side for once!"  Only probably more forcefully than that.

So I did: stop moaning, that is, or largely, anyway.  I still don't like the view out of my office - hey, that RW James roof really sucks big time, even if they are renovating it - and I have problems with The Vision Thing (or lack thereof) at OU^TM and I am presently manopausal, but there ARE good things happening.

Mad Bob M may be going, for a start.

While the ways of funding bodies in SA continue to amaze and bewilder, the research seems to be really getting somewhere.

And my family gave me Cream 2005 - the Reunion Concert DVD -for my birthday.

Sublime.

Soothing.

Transcendant.

"In the white room with black curtains near the station.
Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings.
Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes.
Dawnlight smiles on you leaving, my contentment.

I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines;
Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves...."

First heard on Radio London, UK, 1968 - and never forgotten.  Ah, me.  Time for the second career, methinks.  Rock nostalgist.

Until the mellow feeling wears off then: have a good weekend.