billso.com

The Association of College and University Housing Officers–International (ACUHO-I) sponsors the 21st Century Project, an effort to design modular student residences for university campuses.

See http://www.21stcenturyproject.com/home.htm and http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/01/2007012903n.htm for more details.

Some of these designs use inexpensive fixtures and construction techniques, and can be stacked on each other to create buildings. Other designs use movable walls that let residents partition their living space as needed.

These systems could be applied to our own housing problems in Honolulu.

Several students at Diablo Valley College (DVC) have been accused of selling grades. The accused students each had access to the college’s grade management system, and were offering other students better grades.

College officials say that the relevant procedures have been changed to prevent future problems.

Student workers at universities sometimes face potential conflicts of interest, especially if they gain access to registration, grade managemenht, and other information systems. In some cases, university managers welcome student employees because of their low pay scale.

When managers fail to considered the security and ethics issues that are involved, the university’s reputation can suffer.
According to an article in the Contra Costa Times, one DVC student feared that he would have to people that he didn’t pay for his grades.
 http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/email/news/16560143.htm

http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=1579

University admissions departments rely on e-mail to communicate with prospective students, hoping to gain an edge by providing personalized service.

However, two admissions staffers at the University of North Carolina sent the wrong e-mail message to 2700 students who had applied to the university’s undergraduate programs.

The message congratulated each student on their successful admission to the university.

However, the students in this were applicants who were supposed to receive a request for their midyear high school grades.

The admissions department apologized in this statement (PDF).
Thanks to Abe Gruber for the tip!

• http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/01/26/admissions.mistake.ap/index.html
• http://digg.com/offbeat_news/UNC_Congratulates_2_700_Prospective_Freshmen_In_Error
• http://drslounge.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?p=4665465

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6153973.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

Intel demonstrated its Penryn chip family for reporters and analysts last week.

These processors are enhanced, smaller versions of the Core 2 Duo design. The main new feature is enhanced multimedia and mathematical performance, through the use of SSE4 instructions.

Of course, the smaller transistor size should reduce power consumption and heat.
They’ll be available by the end of 2007 for desktop, portable and server computers.
Thanks to one of my IS 7010 students for this tip!

For more information about this technology, see http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25512 and http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/12/04/top_secret_intel_processor_plans_uncovered/page6.html

Both of my Paper 1 assignments are due this week.

IS 6100 students must turn in their Paper 1 assignments by noon HT on Wednesday, January 31.

IS 7010 students must submit their Paper 1 assignments by noon HT on Friday, February 2.

Students who have never turned in an assignment at TurnItIn.com should read the Student QuickStart guide at http://www.turnitin.com/static/pdf/tii_student_qs.pdf. This guide explains the submission process in an easy step-by-step format.

Here’s a very important tip: After a student uploads their file, TurnItIn.com displays it in an unformatted version. This allows the student to confirm that the text of the paper resembles what they submitted.

Some students get confused at this stage because the screen does not display fonts, tabs, tables and other formatting properly, if at all.

Nothing is wrong with the submitted file.
Other students stop at this point, because they haven’t seen the “Yes, submit” button on the confirmation page. They think that the paper has been submitted, but the submission process involves an important final step.

The student MUST press this Yes, submit button to send in their assignment. TurnItIn.com requires students to press two submit buttons on two pages! Here’s an example from the QuickStart PDF file.

TurnItIn.com sends a digital receipt to the student’s registered e-mail account when the file has been submitted. This e-mail message is the student’s confirmation that the assignment was accepted by TurnItIn.com.