Preparing for Coronavirus?

[bento]

On the subject of laptops:
At my U, an adjunct faculty member had a U-issued laptop stolen out of his car, a few years back.  He duly reported the theft to campus authorities.  He was then asked, "Was there any confidential student data stored on it?"
And the honest soul answered Yes, there were grades for his classes.
He was disciplined and forced to pay for the laptop replacement out of pocket, and then his contract was not renewed.

Moral #1: No matter how badly we treat adjuncts, there are always several degrees worse available to us.
Moral #2: Be careful what you download during these work-from-home times.

[Caracal]

On the subject of laptops:
At my U, an adjunct faculty member had a U-issued laptop stolen out of his car, a few years back.  He duly reported the theft to campus authorities.  He was then asked, "Was there any confidential student data stored on it?"
And the honest soul answered Yes, there were grades for his classes.
He was disciplined and forced to pay for the laptop replacement out of pocket, and then his contract was not renewed.

Moral #1: No matter how badly we treat adjuncts, there are always several degrees worse available to us.
Moral #2: Be careful what you download during these work-from-home times.

The absurd ways that schools interpret FERPA never cease to amaze me. The key thing about student grades is that while they are confidential, they are also basically useless to anyone but the instructor and the student. There's nothing a thief can do with them. Displaying grades publicly is obviously a violation of student's privacy, but that is really only an issue within the immediate environment. That's why all the rules about grades in person are about not carelessly disclosing grades. Don't post grades on your door, or allow students to rifle through a big stack of papers in your mailbox and indulge their curiosity. Nobody ever says that when a student comes to talk about a grade during office hours you need to set up a secure perimeter in case someone is listening outside the door.

Yet you see these ridiculous rules and interpretations about electronic information. Many schools seem to believe that you can't send grades through email because of the possibility of your email account getting hacked. Who are these hackers who are desperate to know that John got an 82 on the exam, but Priscilla got a 74? The car break in is a classic example of people oddly thinking that electronic information is different than other information. I've left blue books in my bag in the car plenty of times. Am I supposed to clutch the bag everywhere until I come home and put them in my safe? If my bag got stolen and I hadn't graded them that would be a mess but I wouldn't worry about student privacy because a thief would take my computer and immediately toss the blue books.

Rant Over.

[nebo113]

In very clunky terms (someone can correct this!) it's a little box that acts like an antenna and lets you connect to the internet wherever you are.

You plug it in with (I think) a USB plug, or one of the other kinds of plugs, and it acts sort of like a wifi router.

You are charged by the amount of data you pull.

   -   -   -   -  ( (((((   ((((   (((((       ....  ....   ... /      /

OK, have at it, those who know IT much better than I do....!

;--}

M.

Thanks Mamselle.  I have used my phone as a hotspot, so I grasp the concept.  However, the notion of borrowing a hotspot is..... weird.  Is one borrowing the device or the "ether"?

[polly_mer]

My group at work is solely computational scientists and were just told the new default is telework for anything that can be done at home.  We are to work out shifts so we don't go together to work in large numbers, but can still go in for a few hours multiple times a week to work on the computers that don't talk to the outside world.

It's been entertaining to discover how many people in the category of using a computer all day every day had little-to-nothing set up at home.  A wiki was set up yesterday to share excess employer equipment and to explain how to log in to the work computers using a VPN or remote desktop.  There's detailed instructions on how to use home/personal computers to access employer cloud resources.

The faculty at Super Dinky I knew often weren't computer literate and many will not have any equipment at home except a smart phone.  I remember particularly having to sort out the accessibility issues when faculty simply scanned photocopies of photocopies of photocopies and uploaded unreadable-by-anyone PDFs for reading assignments.  Converting to online in the middle of a term would be a logistical nightmare for them since there's only one person who does anything with the LMS and she only created shells by specific request two months before the start of the term.  She didn't get to spend full time on her LMS work and Super Dinky doesn't have any excess IT capacity in other categories as well.  My bet is Super Dinky is not unique in having practically no ability to ramp up for online-only and is the primary reason they and many other tiny places haven't already announced that solution.

In other news, is anybody re-reading The Plague by Camus?  Or re-watching Contagion or The Hot Zone?

I tried to interest Blocky in Stephen King's The Stand, but kids these days ...

I know it's serious here because the public libraries were shut yesterday indefinitely.  An email came from the public library telling us to not return any materials--everything has been auto renewed until late April.

[sinenomine]

In very clunky terms (someone can correct this!) it's a little box that acts like an antenna and lets you connect to the internet wherever you are.

You plug it in with (I think) a USB plug, or one of the other kinds of plugs, and it acts sort of like a wifi router.

You are charged by the amount of data you pull.

   -   -   -   -  ( (((((   ((((   (((((       ....  ....   ... /      /

OK, have at it, those who know IT much better than I do....!

;--}

M.

Thanks Mamselle.  I have used my phone as a hotspot, so I grasp the concept.  However, the notion of borrowing a hotspot is..... weird.  Is one borrowing the device or the "ether"?

In my case, my school has loaned me the physical box — technically called a jetpack.

[apl68]

In very clunky terms (someone can correct this!) it's a little box that acts like an antenna and lets you connect to the internet wherever you are.

You plug it in with (I think) a USB plug, or one of the other kinds of plugs, and it acts sort of like a wifi router.

You are charged by the amount of data you pull.

   -   -   -   -  ( (((((   ((((   (((((       ....  ....   ... /      /

OK, have at it, those who know IT much better than I do....!

;--}

M.

Thanks Mamselle.  I have used my phone as a hotspot, so I grasp the concept.  However, the notion of borrowing a hotspot is..... weird.  Is one borrowing the device or the "ether"?

In my case, my school has loaned me the physical box — technically called a jetpack.

Quite a few larger public libraries circulate mobile hotspots.  It's something to check into. 

Smaller libraries like ours don't usually have those resources to offer.

[Caracal]

It's been entertaining to discover how many people in the category of using a computer all day every day had little-to-nothing set up at home.  A wiki was set up yesterday to share excess employer equipment and to explain how to log in to the work computers using a VPN or remote desktop.  There's detailed instructions on how to use home/personal computers to access employer cloud resources.

I think this is one of those things where academics, or at least certain kinds of academics, are very different than many other people. Many of my non-academic friends don't have a computer at home, or if they do have a laptop it isn't something they use regularly. For lots of people, a phone and perhaps a tablet are all they really need. I remember seeing a journalist point out years ago that tech journalists had totally missed the utility of the iPad, because it wasn't particularly useful to them.

[spork]

[. . . ]

I know it's serious here because the public libraries were shut yesterday indefinitely.  An email came from the public library telling us to not return any materials--everything has been auto renewed until late April.

I started stocking up on books from the university library two weeks ago for this very reason.

Faculty are starting to get the message that they can't simply ride this out and do nothing for the next few weeks until students return to campus (some apparently had that as their "plan"). So now they are getting crazier about being immediately trained on technologies none of them have ever used before. And we don't have any instructional designers on staff, so this duty has fallen to faculty (I am one, and I also have administrative responsibilities) who are familiar with the technologies.

I am now receiving an email approximately once every three minutes.

[apl68]

Well, our library will now join the general trend of closing to the general public.  However, we will continue offering reference service by telephone and e-mail, curbside checkout of materials by appointment, and fax and certain computer services by appointment.  We can keep everything disinfected by limiting the number of patrons we have using the facility at any given time.

Although the American Library Association has officially recommended that public libraries close, libraries will often have limited availability of service like ours above.  Check your local public libraries to see what they may still offer.

[Parasaurolophus]

Took advantage of my IRL meeting today to snag the library's copy of Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year before they close. I have some hometime hammock reading to do!

Ohand. The department has already put feelers out for moving my teaching load online on a more permanent basis. So I'ma continue to do a bad job of transitioning.

[apl68]

The paperback of Defoe that I read some months back and then put in the book sale room has sold in the meantime.  And we don't have a copy in our catalog! 

Oh well, there's always Project Gutenberg.

[Cheerful]

Ohand. The department has already put feelers out for moving my teaching load online on a more permanent basis. So I'ma continue to do a bad job of transitioning.

This is a big deal.  Universities that had been pushing for more online learning see this crisis as a huge opportunity to energetically advance that cause.

[Parasaurolophus]

Ohand. The department has already put feelers out for moving my teaching load online on a more permanent basis. So I'ma continue to do a bad job of transitioning.

This is a big deal.  Universities that had been pushing for more online learning see this crisis as a huge opportunity to energetically advance that cause.

Yeah... there's gonna be a bloodbath of small and underendowed universities and colleges closing as a result of this. And so much of what's left is going to be intarwebzed.

Over here , it's international enrollment that keeps us afloat. It's gonna tank, and I expect my courses will get the axe. I sure am glad I've got at least 5 pubs coming out in 2020... =/

[apl68]

Actually I wonder whether the rush of poorly-planned, last-minute online courses might just cause a real reaction against online education.  A lot of students are going to have some very bad experiences of online education that they would not otherwise have had.

[downer]

Actually I wonder whether the rush of poorly-planned, last-minute online courses might just cause a real reaction against online education.  A lot of students are going to have some very bad experiences of online education that they would not otherwise have had.

Maybe. Who knows? I think that many students who are not well suited to online learning will have a bad experience and will not pass, whatever the quality of the instructor.

But for the most part, most faculty are going to give students a break and grade very generously, with pretty minimal requirements. Students will get through the semester with the grades that they wanted and they will be happy about it.