I’ve placed a tag cloud on the second sidebar of this blog. I’ve also placed a screenshot in this post.
The real tag cloud has clickable tags that I’ve used to organize my blog posts. A tag cloud displays the frequency or importance of tags by using color, size and position. It’s a great way to display a textual summary in a graphical format. For more examples, here’s a link to Wikipedia’s article on tag clouds.
Here’s a response that I wrote to an IS 6100 student this morning. This student was pleased that I’m not using WebCT. Frankly, I share their joy! I think the university’s implementation of WebCT is clumsy, awkward and slow, and I had having to log into Pipeline first.
However, the student was also concerned about how to keep up with my announcements to the class.
Note: IS 7010 students can check http://billso.com/courses/7010/ for their announcements, and I’ll be setting up a new IS 7010 page soon, too.
Thanks for your questions! They’re good!
As you noted, HPU’s implementation of WebCT is not reliable. Fortunately, I can use TurnItIn.com to manage the assignments and post your grades. It’s much more secure than anything I could install on billso.com.
The originality checker is a nice bonus. It helps keep your assignments from being copied by other students.
I can understand your concerns about checking two additional web sites! If you check http://billso.com/courses/6100 regularly, you shouldn’t miss anything. I would bookmark that web address if I were you!
Believe me, I work hard to manage these sites and make them easy to use. So I will be phasing out my current page at http://hpu.sodeman.com/6100 during the next couple of weeks. They are butt-ugly and difficult to use.
I’m setting up a page on billso.com to post files for IS 6100. There will be a big announcement about it when I get it done.
Let me know if you have more questions!
William A. Sodeman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Information Systems
I like Wikipedia. Really, I do. It’s a handy general reference, and I’ve included Wikipedia links in some of my blog postings, especially when they involve technical terms and IT standards.
I cringe when I see my graduate students cite Wikipedia articles in their written assignments, however. At best, these are secondary references. Most of the time, a paper that includes more cites to Wikipedia and Webopedia than to the course textbook is a sign that the student hasn’t dug very deep. We expect graduate students to find and cite authoritative sources, not encyclopedia articles or dictionary entries.
Rick Jelliffe, an Australian CTO and an expert on XML, revealed in a blog post on Monday that Microsoft (MSFT) managers wanted to pay him to edit at least one Wikipedia article.
Microsoft spokesperson Catherine Brooker claimed that article on OpenXML had several contributions from IBM employees and was biased against Microsoft.
No money changed hands, and Jelliffe never edited anything. Of course, the mess has hit the fan.
Paying for Wikipedia edits appears to violate Wikipedia’s culture and policies. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales suggested that Microsoft commission and post a white paper that addressed the company’s concerns. Wikipedia users could then reference that paper in the Wikipedia article.
Brad Patrick, a Wikipedia lawyer, stated that that Microsoft’s plan was unethical. “This is a hot issue, and Microsoft wanting to soften the edges on an entry raises concerns about the perceived independence of both Wikipedia and Microsoft.”
I’ve read that Another Wikipedia board member contacted Jelliffee to offer support and encouragement. If I can find the link to that article, I’ll post it.
When companies start paying for Wikipedia edits, it’s time to question the site’s authority. I have a little experience in editing Wikipedia. I do visit Wikipedia once or twice a month to edit articles about my university, Honolulu, my favorite sports teams and comic book characters. Sometimes the changes stick. Sometimes my changes have been edited, improved or removed by other users. I’m fine with that.
As I discussed in my page about finding good references, peer review is a helpful tool that academics use in their writing. Wikipedia’s version of peer review allows almost anyone to change an article, regardless of their knowledge on that subject.
I used to run an information technology certification exam program when I lived in Austin. We used VUE and Prometric to deliver our exams all over the world. The program still exists, even though it’s been through a few ownership and management changes. The latest incarniation is avialable at http://ciwcertified.com
I’ve got no problems with ETS’ terms of service. It’s their copyrighted exam, and ETS has worked with the testing centers to set the rules of engagement.
No one’s forcing this anonymous coward to take a GRE exam and go to grad school.
One reason our university subscribes to TurnItIn.com is that service helps protect our students’ intellectual property.
We do have problems with academic dishonesty, and sometimes it’s hard to determine if a student doesn’t know how to paraphrase or cite correctly. I’ve seen students change a word or two in a multi-sentence passage, without quotation marks or an in-text citation. TurnItIn.com almost always catches these unattributed quotations, and the originality report provides me with links to the original work.
Our students are enthusiatic Googlers, but it’s clear that some of them haven’t Googled “how to parapharase” and found good links like these:
Articles and contents posted on this blog represent billso's personal opinion and does not represent the views of my employer, employees or my clients. Comments are provided by individual users.
A tag cloud displays the frequency or importance of tags by using color, size and position. It’s a great way to display a textual summary in a graphical format. For more examples, here’s a link to Wikipedia’s article on tag clouds.
