Whenever these cases come up, we tend to look at it with a status-quo bias - assuming that <i>of course</i> this data exists, and it's a question of whether it should be "free" (whatever your interpretation of that term). But in reality, things like YBB+ can impact the existence of the data in the first place - in this particular case, the evaluations existing in as comprehensive a form as they do depends on Yale's explicit sponsorship (having professors hand out the eval forms, etc.)<p>I'm not sure what the policy implication is - there's no easy rule here. But it's worthwhile to keep in mind that "information wants to be free, Yale can't decide how it's used" (an attitude that's a bit of a straw-man, but not too far from what some have argued here) ignores the reality that the next time the Yale faculty debate whether or not to collect and collate evaluations (or whether to have a numeric score component), they may well decide not to. (Which, of course, is a principle that applies to other cases of data collection - sometimes it's best not to collect it, just because you don't know how it'll be [mis-]used...)
As much as I would love to sit here carrying on about how Information Wants to be Free, I do appreciate where she's coming from. YBB forced to students to actually read course evals and apply critical thinking to their class selection. YBB+ wrongly suggests that the quality of a class can be reduced to a scalar value.<p>We've complained about this bitterly going the other way. How many app developers are frustrated when they get a one-star review that says, "This app couldn't sync to my online account unless I was connected to the internet. Changing to five stars when that's fixed"? How many Amazon shoppers have seen one-star reviews that say, "The package was damaged during shipping. The return was really easy and I got a replacement in two days, but I wanted it for an event that happened before the replacement came."?
> In doing so, the developers violated Yale’s appropriate use policy by taking and modifying data without permission, but, more importantly, they encouraged students to select courses on the basis of incomplete information. To claim that Yale’s effort to ensure that students received complete information somehow violated freedom of expression turns that principle on its head.<p>I think she doesn't really know what free expression means. It does not mean, "you can say what you want as long as we agree with it." That's certainly how I read "more importantly, they encouraged students to select courses on the basis of incomplete information". Free expression means that the administration cannot control the message; people can say what they want. This is OK; win in the marketplace of ideas ("maybe I should evaluate my courses with more contextual information"), not by treating your students as children who can't decide for themselves how to consume information.<p>Also, this bit about reconsidering whether to provide the data at all is childish. "You're not interpreting our data the way we want so now you can't have any! I'm taking my ball and going home!" It's worth remembering (both here and in the thus-far imprecise and confused discussion of who "owns" the data) that the students are the ones providing the evaluations being aggregated here; at the very least, it's unclear why they'd be expected to continue doing so without getting some quid pro quo benefit from it.<p>Stop trying to control everything and trust your students to be smart and thoughtful.
> Yale dean […] apologizes<p>Perhaps I'm missing something, but I do not see an apology behind that link. A detail of Yale's reasoning, but not an apology.<p>> However, I disagree that Yale violated its policies on free expression in this situation.<p>I'm not sure what "[Yale's] policies on free expression" are, but my understanding here is that Yale blocked the IP address of a site because it was using some data that Yale published, and modifying it in a way Yale disagreed with. There might be an argument to be had under copyright, but I don't think it's important at the moment. Yale states this:<p>> the developers violated Yale’s appropriate use policy by taking and modifying data without permission, but, more importantly, they encouraged students to select courses on the basis of incomplete information.<p>Abusing the fact that you have power over the students' access of information to prevent access to information you disagree with is what people have a problem with; this is especially true when you label something like this "malicious activity". These concerns are not addressed by the dean's letter.
I think this is a great example of both compromise and overreaction. In the end, they are clearly trying to give students the tools they want, but this should have been the first response, not the second. I can't find it now but the other yale student that wrote the chrome extension was the main catalyst. He took the complaints of Yale and removed them therefore forcing them to find new logic, which they did. Hats off to him.
I did get a chuckle at this backhanded positioning in the very first paragraph (which I highlight in _ _ below). Kind of set the tone of what I expected in the note, but was disappointed to see:<p>"In retrospect, I agree that we could have been more patient in asking the developers to take down _information they had appropriated without permission_, before taking the actions that we did."<p>The entire note has an odd, arrogant read to it. If the new tool in fact provided complete comments as well as numeric scores, Yale would have cheered and saluted them ... but because they didn't, Yale shuts it down? Is that really the issue?
If by "apologizes" you mean "does not apologize", I guess so. ;-)<p>Universities tend to move very slowly, and I get that these situations can be hard for them, but the whole letter is disingenuous, at best. AFAIK, the students aren't guilty of "modifying data without permission", nor did they "encourage[d] students to select courses on the basis of incomplete information." That's like saying no one should use a course catalog because it doesn't have complete information. Of course scalar averages don't capture the entirety of the feedback on courses. But I bet there's a meaningful difference between 4 stars and 2 stars, or whatever the rating system is, and I'd like to think that Yale students are clever enough o understand this, and to be able to go through more detailed evaluations when it makes sense to them.<p>If the Dean had just said "holy crap, we didn't realize how easy it is to do this and we're freaked out about it, we need you to close this down for now, but please help us build the next generation system", people would have a very different reaction.
<i>To that end, the Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee, which originally brought teaching evaluations online, will take up the question of how to respond to these developments, and the appropriate members of the IT staff, along with the University Registrar, will review our responses to violations of University policy.</i><p>In other words, death by committee.
Did no one else feel that the biggest issue with the original ip block was not the motivation for the block but rather Yale's blocking of a website on copyright grounds in the first place?<p>Maybe Yale is indeed in the right to try to control use of this data. But Yale most certainly is <i>not</i> in the right to unilaterally block access, regardless of the reasoning.<p>(NB., my concern is not with legal rights, but rather a higher standard of moral or ethical rights that Yale, as a purportedly high-minded institution, should hold itself to.)
"we need to review our policies and practices"<p>Welcome to the 21st century. That single minor incident now escalated into a news item of several days. Lot of lost PR points. All because they feel the need to control the course selection process. Sad.
Original post for context: <a href="http://haufler.org/2014/01/19/i-hope-i-dont-get-kicked-out-of-yale-for-this/" rel="nofollow">http://haufler.org/2014/01/19/i-hope-i-dont-get-kicked-out-o...</a>
I've mentioned these in a couple responses in this thread, but if anyone is curious, here is Yale's Freedom of Expression Policy:<p><a href="http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-expression" rel="nofollow">http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-expression</a><p>And here is their Appropriate Use Policy:<p><a href="http://its.yale.edu/forms-policies/appropriate-use" rel="nofollow">http://its.yale.edu/forms-policies/appropriate-use</a><p>The most interesting thing to me about these policies is that the Freedom of Expression Policy explicitly states how crucial it is to be tolerant and accepting of people's ability to express ideas that are "provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox," and that this means they value the ability to "think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable." And yet, they are having a rough time because some students used their data to express an idea in a way they hadn't intended or thought was possible.<p>At the same time, I actually couldn't find a single clause in their Appropriate Use Policy that had been violated. The only restrictions I saw in the policy were that their data be used only for non-commercial and academic purposes (which it was). I didn't see anything about only being able to use data in its intended manner. But maybe I'm missing something (for example, maybe the actual YBB site has its own Appropriate Use Policy separate from their IT policy).<p>EDIT: I also just realized I was looking at the Quick Reference for their Appropriate Use Policy, so maybe there's something else in the full text that was violated:<p><a href="http://policy.yale.edu/policy/1607-information-technology-appropriate-use-policy" rel="nofollow">http://policy.yale.edu/policy/1607-information-technology-ap...</a>
I can't find the apology in that letter. I see stifling:<p>* "we need to review our policies and practices" -- We're going to make it policy that these ratings are gone.<p>* "We will also state more clearly the requirement/expectation for student software developers" -- The requirements will become more burdensome and bureaucratic, and we will be able to better cover our asses.<p>* "and we will create an easy means for them to do so" -- (I don't buy this one.)
<i>Han Solo: I must have hit her pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh, kid?</i><p>Yale is going to end up on the wrong side of history in this one. And the irony is that the dean is a professor of history.
It's almost certain that Yale will no longer make any course/instructor review information available online as a result of all this. The Dean as much as telegraphed this in his missive.
Censorship is not a valid tool for an educational institution to use. They are free to promote their version of the information, ask people to not use the other, etc. but however much they dislike it, blocking it should not even be considered.
If the dean is suggesting that there are limits on the value of single-measure evaluation, I look forward to hearing about what she has in mind for student evaluations. I hope and expect that she will devote the same amount of energy to our long-outdated grading system as she devotes to hiding information about professor evaluations.
It probably has to do with how the YBB+ portrayed some teacher in a bad light. The integrity of those 'excellent' professors and tenured careers has to be protected.<p>I wish my university even had all those reviews we do at the end of the year available for all to see. They don't do sh*t with it. I once wasted my time by suggesting my university create an API for students to easily get any data about the school. B/c then we would all see how 'great' some of our professors are and what we each think about them.<p>Sure 3rd party website like 'ratemyprofessor' are good, but they don't have the ease of acquiring rating data like schools do that pass out reviews to each student at the end of a semester. They have to protect the 'wizard of oz' lest we all see who really is behind the curtain.
entrenched bureaucratic culture and a wide gap between the students and the faculty.<p>a post facto weak-sauce apology is about what I expected here. I get the distinct impression that what the Dean regrets most is that the story was widely publicized, rather than that her initial reaction was "heavy handed".
Well, they should have contacted the developer of the interface beforehand. If that was not plausible, they should have given all the students a heads-up a suitable time before blocking.<p>If they had done all the above, then I don't know what the fuss is all about.
This is a pretty big setback for Yale in terms of refocusing more on STEM. But they're in good company. I'm sure 10-15 years ago music company executives were similarly pissed off.
I'm gonna bet that the advisory committee is going to be made up only or at least largely faculty and administration. If they want to do things right, any such advisory committee on the matter should be approximately 50/50 students and faculty with administrative people there to listen and figure out how to overcome and legal issues that may exist that would inhibit the solution that faculty and students come up with together.
Locking down data and requiring that students get approval before working with it fundamentally violates the freedom of intellectual inquiry that any healthy university requires to function.