Re: [Dfey-nw-discuss] How to deal with an nasty and vague Acceptable Use Policy ?

[Lucy]

2008/11/5 Tim Dobson <address@hidden>:
> Lucy wrote:
>> Okay, to play within the rules, what if the college provided some
>> forums that allowed you to talk to like minded people within the
>> college?
>
> Interesting suggestion. I've actually seen this implemented in at least one
> place. My previous school had a internally moderated social forum through
> the Moodle VLE.
>
[snip]
> On a more technical level, allowing students within the college isn't really
> going to help one learn much because the only information on how to write
> functions in VB for example will come from other students who probably just
> know what they have been taught...
>
> In addition, plagerism is probably more likely in a very closed environment
> where everyone uses the same examples of how to do $foo in $barlanguage.
>
> In general, I think closed environments are a bad idea.

Closed environments can sometimes have their advantages. I think
plagiarism is actually less likely because the teachers will be able
to see everything that is posted. On the other hand, like you say, you
won't learn as much as you could by speaking to people outside of your
course. I put forward the suggestion as a possible compromise, because
I feel it's unlikely the college will allow full access to outside
chat spaces (irc, forums, etc).


>> I can understand that the college wants to restrict personal
>> communications/web-surfing, I'm sure it was the same 'in my day'
>> although I just quietly ignored it (like everyone else).
>
> Hehe. Quietly ignoring it is a 'great' plan until someone comes down on you
> with everything they have as they object to you using CGI:Proxy/phpproxy/tor
> to check your personal email/slashdot/anything with *blog* in the url... ;)
>
> It's best to object loudly when you are not in the wrong than hope that by
> staying quiet, things won't effect you.

True, but I think it's wise to pick your battles.

They say that you aren't allowed to do 'private' stuff on the college
computers, yet you're allowed to check your private email accounts for
an hour? What if you propose allowing access to personal email, news
sites and blogs, etc for one or two hours a day? Can you demonstrate
specific examples where the restrictions are preventing you from doing
work? Are the restrictions in place because they have a problem with
bandwidth (even though they have a fast JANET connection)?