Big Brother Is Coming To UK Universities (theguardian.com) 75
An anonymous reader writes: An upcoming report by the Higher Education Commission, a UK group of MPs, business and academic professionals, will paint a picture of a higher education system that, thanks to the increasing use of data, may undergo radical change, sometimes with painful ethical considerations. Among their visions: an Amazon-style recommendation service on courses and work experience based on individuals' backgrounds, and similar profiles. Or a system in which students at risk of failure can be identified from their first day so that they receive instant feedback and performance measuring. It is envisioned that the system will include knowing whether they are in lectures, at the gym or in the bar, and in an effort to boost their results, students may also want to share data on their fitness, sleeping patterns, and their academic and semi-academic interactions online.
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So you failed your course I take it.
"Learn nothing useful"
Do a proper subject like engineering or medicine, not some social science crap or golf course management then.
Idiot.
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They're out there if you have the qualifications. Which obviously rules you out.
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Engineering jobs at the upper end pay well, have good working conditions and you can select your employer. Of course, they tend to require actual skills and talent.
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Engineering jobs at the upper end pay well, have good working conditions and you can select your employer. Of course, they tend to require actual skills and talent.
That is true of any field. But, just like not everyone can be a world famous brain surgeon or concert pianist, so not everyone can be a superstar engineer. Or do you think that most people deliberately choose to work for poor employers with bad pay?
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I think some people go into the STEM field not because they love the the field, but because they want to have a secure job and make a decent pay. That does not work and they need to stop.
I also think that this was about whether getting a university education was worthwhile and in the STEM field, if you have the talent and interest, it most decidedly is. I do know several engineers that regret finishing with a BA or MA and not having gone higher. I know no STEM graduates that think their studies were a waste
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i really hope you are not working on something like civil engineering or as a doctor
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Universities used to be useful, and the knowledge handed over was more than just was needed to be OK in one field. For example, people scoffed at Latin as "pointless"... but it has been useful as a gateway to basic French, Spanish, and other languages. Similar with chemistry and math for someone going into languages.
However, over the years, passing on an education has mutated into jumping through hoops for a piece of paper... and then the price of admission to jump through the hoops goes up on an insane b
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No, the brave new world isn't COMING to universities, it's already there. Just try walking the quads at European (and most American) universities with a sign reading "I Think Feminism Is Wrong" or "White Lives Matter Too" and you'll find out soon enough that the thought police are already in place and busting heads.
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Indeed. It s back to the 18th century. Or maybe earlier. The anti-knowledge, anti-understanding and anti-science crowd has taken over.
Sex? (Score:1)
> [...] students may also want to share data on their fitness, sleeping patterns, and their academic and semi-academic interactions online [...]
Now we know how important sexual activity (especially at the typical student age) is. Why not also share data on their sexual life (preferences, frequency, duration, time-to-orgasm, etc.)?
I'm sure they could find good industry partners to set a public-private partnership!
How very wrong (Score:1)
Attending lectures works for many. But some reads on their own and do just as well that way. Nothing wrong with attending the gym or the bar either - successful people are often enough both fit and social. Some drop-outs fail due to the bar perhaps, but some spend all their time reading and fail anyway - not having talent.
So this excessive monitoring is silly - what they can measure has very little correlation to academic performance. Students at risk of failure can readily be identified through existing p
Re:How very wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
...if they choose.
If it becomes established then there will probably be penalties for not choosing to. "But why would you decline something that can help you?" says the university administrator as they set the "expel at earliest minor infraction" flag on the students file.
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...if they choose.
If it becomes established then there will probably be penalties for not choosing to. "But why would you decline something that can help you?" says the university administrator as they set the "expel at earliest minor infraction" flag on the students file.
Why would a business want to treat its customers so badly?
That's the real issue, not MRA-fuelled paranoia about feminazis monitoring your wanking hours.
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So this excessive monitoring is silly - what they can measure has very little correlation to academic performance
As a former uni prof, I wholeheartedly agree.
Perhaps UK universities need to test their students a bit more often
Ye Gads! This is the ENTIRE problem with modern education.
The main reason I stopped teaching was because we spent more and more time testing and monitoring, less and less time teaching. Every test is another missed class, and more extra curricular work for the prof - do you you think we just create and mark them in 5 minutes over coffee? Lord - we have to do two or three rounds of exam design->critique by fuckwits in admin - before we get them OK'd, and this i
Result of Poor Secondary Schools (Score:3)
Attending lectures works for many. But some reads on their own and do just as well that way. Nothing wrong with attending the gym or the bar either
All this is true the problem is getting the balance correct: you can't spend ever night in the bar, you must spend a reasonable amount of time reading etc. The problem students have getting this balance right is that the standards in secondary schools has dropped significantly over the past few years. Couple that with insane new initiatives at schools such as "no grade zeros" and retakes of exams if they don't do well enough the first time and you have incoming university students who don't expect to need
The number one result of this: (Score:5, Funny)
"People who put up with this in the university, also went on to become amazon warehouse employees, and went on to fit in just fine."
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Once upon a time, we had advisors and house mothers in college, and it seemed to work better. They did things, you know, like pay attention to when we were studying and if we went to class. But, that was at a time when college was valuable and worth paying for, instead of being another 5 years of babysitting and welfare.
Advisors and house mothers sounds exactly like babysitting to me.
A hundred years ago, college was a chance for wealthy young men to sow a few wild oats in relatively controlled circumstances before taking over their father's business.
What a waste of time and money (Score:1)
Tutorials identify the weak students pretty quickly. Specific gradings are uncertain, but likely failures are obvious.
In general I think it is the responsibility of the student to sort themselves out as an adult, not the university's job to enforce sensible behaviour, especially by expensive and futile monitoring that will be easily circumvented. Failure *is* the punishment for drinking yourself stupid for three years. Personal responsibility damnit.
Alternative idea... (Score:1)
An upcoming report by the Politicians Advisory Board will paint a picture of a political system that, thanks to the increasing use of data, may undergo radical change. Among their visions: an Amazon-style recommendation service on lobby contacts and media outlets based on individuals' backgrounds, and similar profiles. Or a system in which politicians at risk of falling into oblivion can be identified from their first day so that they receive instant feedback and performance measuring. It is envisioned that
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Man that must be a bummer, being treated like you're a failure on your first day!
On the contrary, it's good training for the world of work, which is apparently what university is all about now anyway.
If you're not able to study on your own... (Score:1)
....without constant supervision, then you are obviously not university-material. ...or rather: if all the dumb and stupid people are taking over our institutions of advanced eductation, then where do the *actual* smart people go?
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You're confusing "motivated" with "smart".
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You're confusing "motivated" with "smart".
If you're at university doing something you're interested in you shouldn't need any more motivation. And if you're not interested you shouldn't be at university in the first place.
Product rating courses and lecturers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Among their visions: an Amazon-style recommendation service on courses...
I went to a university where they did this and it is a pretty double edged weapon because the students who spent their lecture time playing online games or posting on Facebook ended up giving courses and the lecturers bad reviews because they blamed the course/lecturer for their bad grades rather than their own procrastination. The knee-jerk reaction of lecturers was to ban laptops and mobile devices in lectures which had a detrimental effect on me and the others who actually used their laptops to take notes. I for one gave courses where I was not able to take electronic notes a lower grade than I otherwise would have even though I understood why the lecturer banned computer devices and even though I generally liked the course and the lecturer's performance because it forced me to spend double the time I normally would re-writing my paper-notes in electronic form. Basically I don't think applying this form of a product rating system to courses and lecturers is a good idea because it can give you a very skewed idea of the situation. I say let the procrastinators fail and let them piss and moan about it at home, don't give them a forum at school to do that. If they want to play games in class rather than take notes it's their own damn fault and if they want to waste of their own money that way that's their business. That way people who actually pay attention and use their computers for learning are not disadvantaged. Banning computers in lectures just forces the procrastinators to find new ways to procrastinate.
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At least you got to give some visible feedback on your course.
I remember very well when I went to university that while some of the lecturers were great, too many were clearly just phoning it in, with a level of presentation skills and lack of commitment that would have prompted immediate intervention by management in almost any other professional setting. Spending many hours in a lecture theatre as the bad lecturers droned on adding little insight with their commentary or even just literally writing their
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For legal reasons, my university took a register of every student who attended a lecture. That way they had a legal defence if anyone claimed the course notes were hopeless. They actually had one student who actually turned his lecture notes into a book back home.
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I'm curious: How would that give them any useful evidence in the event of legal action? Is the idea that if the student didn't slavishly turn up to the 28th lecture after the first 27 were rubbish, the university could claim the student didn't really try or something?
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For the record, they had university lecture notes that were no different from any other university (undergraduate courses are usually taught from the textbooks that every other university uses). The theory was that if a student didn't attend lectures and get the handouts that were provided, they would fail that course, and then fail to get a pass to go to the next year. So if the university could prove that the student had attended the lecture and got the handouts, then if the student failed, then that was
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Besides, there are already plenty of other e
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sleeping patterns, and their academic and semi-academic interactions online.
The year I dropped out was the year a just ended military service had altered my sleeping patterns, and the suicide of one of my COs, which I blamed myself for carelessness of word choices near an already broken man, had started its nagging effect. I increasingly became isolated and incapable of performing even the simplest of tasks. So yes, I'd say for those students with "traumatic" backgrounds it might be a good self-monitoring service. Although I personally wouldn't have been able do anything about the situation without external support which is not there when you really need it. So, now instead of a becoming a trained MSc computer and information technology engineer with a diploma and 100% employment, I consider cleaning jobs in some local service homes. Now I only have to contend with my increasing paranoia towards the way the society is changing.
That makes a change from the normal slashdot "I dropped out of college because I was so clever I got bored and had to resort to drink/drugs to amuse myself" excuse for working as a lightbulb changer in McDonalds.
How to keep education producing experts (Score:2)
When they have done with their course send them back home or offer them some rapid degree to work deal if they have great grades. No over staying or ability for the failed or mediocre to just to slip into the work force for many years.
Ensure every student is at their tutori
Funny (Score:3)
Basically the chances of this being implemented are zero
Two Models/Rant for students (Score:3)
There are two models of education, either "society" invests in its future and education is free or close to free (including higher ed.)
because educated people are the ones who are able to builds a long term sustainable economy and pay our retirements.
Or education is an individual choice and you should pay for it, and society just invest to avoid loosing some of the outliers among people without the necessary means...
In the first case it might be argued that "as society pays" they have "some right of supervision" ... although the kind of students who can be "properly supervised" are also the kind of students you do not want as future colleagues...
In the second case, WTF how dare you define "how" I'm supposed to organize my time, ok I'm not allowed to do a strip tease in a restaurant just because I ordered food, but how much I eat, if I eat, and what exactly I choose are the privileges I BUY.
Now our bright politicians supported by armies of idiots are doing their best to give us the worst of both models...
You pay through the nose huge amounts of money, and you have very little say about what you really study, how, at what rythm and now they want to hover over students schoulders to make sure they act "as expected"....
So the only advice I have is : study things you are really interested in, or who are helping you learn things useful for some future goal, find the cheapest place possible to study, at least for the untergrad part (for graduation studies, if you have to pay for it, you probably aren't good enough, work harder ....) ...
And do no try to study "for work"/"to be adapted to the industry/corporate/business world", what ever that world will be when you start to really look for a job, it has little to do with what your professors know now, and close to nothing to do with the world as it was when the courses where designed
So "use" professors for what they might be good at, scientific knowledge and knowing how to learn...
And for the rest, try to find an activity that you really like (well not this one, another additional one :)) and use it to mingle with interesting people, create your own "competing network" to build what "top universities and schools" are offering.
Good luck
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In the first case it might be argued that "as society pays" they have "some right of supervision" ... although the kind of students who can be "properly supervised" are also the kind of students you do not want as future colleagues...
The students ARE society. THEY are paying too, in the form of debt — not just theirs, but the nation's.
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It depends on the country, the US/UK model is "you pay through the node you lazy bastards" including things that they "really need to be the best scientist an thinker for the future" like 0.5 Giga $ for the UCB statium "renovation" ....
Other countries still believe that it's saner if the whole society pays for the education of the next generations...
So yes everybody is part of the society, but it does not mean that everybody has access to something paid by all, or not ...
WTF??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why the hell would people want this shit?
Is this just to get people used to living in a surveillance society?
How about none of your fucking business? This constant sharing of every aspect of your life is idiotic.
You're in school to learn, in part, who the hell you are. This shit is getting ridiculous.
The world doesn't need analytics of every goddamned thing you do. And one of these days all these people who have plugged everything into their smart phone will realize just what they've really been giving away.
Yeah, get off my damned lawn. I don't want any of your tracking doodads. This shit sounds like a terrible idea to me.
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This sort of data could be quite useful to the individual, if it were kept entirely private. Say it never left their phone, which of course is encrypted. I've used sleep monitors and fitness trackers to analyze my lifestyle and found the results helpful, but I never allowed that data to leave my phone/PC.
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I'd already done four years in the Corps before I went to school. I returned and did four more years and then did another four years of college. I was the old man on campus. Errr... I honestly can't even begin to name, or count, the number of women I slept with. Sadly, I'm not kidding. :/
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How this got started (Score:2)
That one guy thought a dashboard for the college would be great. IT said, yeah, we can do that, and then when the guy left the meeting, they all looked at each other. If they pull this off, I'm going to request the feature be added where you can zoom in on someone's eyeball to see the reflection of what they were looking at. This will be so cool.
Really misguided! (Score:2)
What's depressing about this is not so much that the data is available, but that important idiots will use the data to make significant decisions about students. You can bet they will do it even without any evidence that library time is an independent variable causally responsible for positive outcomes, and that A- students who go to bars are somehow worse employees/grad students/med students/interns than A- students who go to the library.
There is a growing pressure in universities to reward students merely
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Indeed. It is massively anti-intellectual and anti-education. But if you think as the UK as one of the nations working on the new world order (same as the last attempts to establish a world order, but with a different name and logo) it makes perfect sense. Hence I expect this authoritarian system does have a bright future. People too dumb to learn from history are bound to repeat it. We are seeing that in action here.
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It will kill higher education in the ultimate consequence. Not a problem though, because the UK has been in decline for a long time now. Empires die slowly. On can only strongly recommend to any smart UK students to get their education somewhere else.
And, of course, this will not work at all (Score:2)
Education above a certain level (and the western states are critically dependent on having a significant number of people getting education above that level) is a very individual process and vastly different for everybody. Hence this may work for producing dumb but somewhat educated public servants, but it will fail for anything above that level.
Not really a problem though, the UK has massively overstayed their welcome as a member of the first world anyways. Their attempts to correct that are therefore a de
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There are no other options in you world? My condolences to you for having a small mind...