HACKERS.

Got this from a student yesterday as the Instructure/Canvas hack started.

No word yet. Not that I'm all that bothered; I 've got lots to do without spending time on the second job.

I guess we're lucky at BYUI, with this happening at the start of one of our semesters, not at the end of the semester as with many other schools.

I feel a little dissed, though. I got a friendly message from BYUI when I tried to open Canvas, not this neat little message from the hackers.

I guess the hackers are trying to prove a point or something? Or they're dicks and just want money. Which, I guess, is a point on its own.

Still Marginally Competent, Still Happy

I re-read The Peter Principle about once a year, just to check in to see if I’ve hit my level of incompetence.

Ironically, it was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote about my last reading here.

Here’s what I wrote in 2009.

Recent research has validated the veracity of The Peter Principle, if this Forbes article is to be believed.

And when it comes to work, I’m still mostly happy.

Have NOT reached my level of incompetence working with Fluor.

HAVE reached my level of incompetence working with BYU-Idaho.

HAVE reached my level of incompetence writing novels (I’m struggling to edit, though I think by trial and error I may be getting better at it). Though this could be a display of Substitution as discussed by Laurence J. Peter, wherein an incompetent person finds something he or she is marginally good at and pursues that above everything else. Maybe this shows I’m more interested in becoming an author than moving up that ladder at BYU-Idaho.

The Peter Principle, illustrated. Here, Tom shows he reached his level of incompetence, accepted demotion, became happy (watch the entire cartoon starting here):



And yes, overall, I’m happy about where I’m at. That’s got to mean something.

I’m noticing the Peter Principle slipping into other areas of my life. For example, this weekend Michelle got fed up with me putting off fixing the ceiling fan in our bedroom and asked for screwdrivers so she could fix it herself.

Male ego and pride meant once tools were fetched, I was fixing the fan, albeit in a foul temper. And nevermind that the last time I tried to “fix” a ceiling fan, I ended up breaking it further than it had been broken, to the point we had to buy a new fan. Level of incompetence reached.

This time, however, I took note of what I did beforehand so when the fan suddenly decided it didn’t want to turn anymore, I was able to retrace my incompetent steps and get the fan spinning once more – and this time, WITHOUT the significant wobble and noise that made it impossible for us to use the fan on its highest settings. No matter it took three times of disassembly and reassembly to get the fan working again. Maybe on that particular fan ailment, my level of incompetence has yet to be reached.

Another point: Level of incompetence not yet reached on putting shingles on a house. This house is taller than what we had in Sugar City and had the added complication of solar panels, but as the solar panels were taken care of by competent people, I had no troubles. I look at others in the neighborhood with roof hip joints and steeper roofs altogether and recognize if that had been my roof, I’d have reached that level of incompetence.

A corollary: Thursday, I spent nearly three hours trying to loosen two nuts holding the main floor toilet to the floor so I could tile the bathroom. Finally gave up, bought a Dremel, and cut the bolts. Levels of incompetence may be vaulted via acquisition of technology, though it’s highly likely that $100 Dremel will now sit idle and useless for years until another toilet bolt needs cutting. Escaping a level of incompetence can be expensive.

This Kind of Thing Should Not Happen

Oh what a week it’s been.

A new semester has started at BYU-Idaho, but never in the two years that I’ve taught here have we had so many technological glitches in one course as we’ve had this semester in the redesigned ENG 106.

Which is a pity, seeing as this is the course meant for students who can’t make it to BYU-Idaho proper, and are taking classes remotely. Many of them are English as a second language students. Many are of age. These are not in of themselves obstacles – but combine them with a classroom that’s malfunctioning at every turn – imagine a physical classroom in which none of the desks have stable surfaces and the fluorescent lighting is flickering constantly – and you’ll have a pretty good picture of what’s been going on this week.

I’m not here to cast blame, because I did next to nothing in looking at the course prior to its inception, though I’d been invited. Maybe if I’d been there, I might have noticed a few of the glitches. But I doubt it. Because many people smarter and more active than I went through the course, tooth and nail, and declared it ready when it was not.

Here’s the flaw: We, as instructors, don’t get to see things from the student point of view. So to find things exploding (as in the syllabus not matching up to questions on the syllabus quiz, journal entries not showing up as completed and readings not available or linked to the wrong article) is not a surprise. We should absolutely have beta tested this course from the student perspective, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that such testing did not happen, or at least did not happen in earnest, as it should have.

And if BYU-Idaho wants to continue offering online courses and to push the Pathways program, we’ve got – and I pardon the expression – to get our shit together now.

There are human ways around the glitches, thank heaven, and we as instructors have taken many of those routes this past week. But the undue frustration adds up – and adds to the expectation that when the next glitch is encountered, the entire class, from the students’ perspective, is flawed, poorly assembled, and rotten. We can put Band-Aids on things, but if the errors continue, no amount of human intervention will heal the damage to the brand.

We’re advised to prepare every needful thing as instructors – but right now I’m unable to post a note from myself to my students in Week 1 of the course because of some glitch. I posted it instead in the discussion thread, and maybe they’ll read it there; maybe not. (Of course, there’s no guarantee they’d read it if it were in its rightful place, but it’s the principle of the thing.)

This is no hysteria. If this continues, we are doomed.

The Campus that Says Go Away

BYU-Idaho, it appears, is continuing on its chosen path to be the campus that says “go away” to its host community.

Twice in Tyler Burgener and Tommy Bailey’s article “BYU-I Stamps on New Policy,” in the Feb. 7 issue of The Scroll, it is mentioned that the policy requiring a hand stamp as proof of payment to use sports facilities on campus was put in place in part “to keep community members who have not paid to use the facilities out” and to “filter out members of the community who don’t have passes.”

Nowhere, however, neither on BYU-Idaho’s web site at least under my powers of Google-fu, nor at either the Hart or the BYU-Idaho Center is the policy clearly explained, nor is it outlined anywhere I can see where these seemingly unwanted community members may go to get a pass or otherwise throw themselves on the mercy of the powers that be to get in a little walk out of the weather in order to stave off obesity and eventual mortality.

As an online adjunct faculty member, I believe I barely qualify to use the sports facilities on campus without having to pay an additional fee, but I have to confess if a BYU-I Center employee came up to me to ask for my I-Number, all they’d get is a stunned bunny look from me. My wife and I walk on the track at least three times a week, and I can recall once being asked by a pleasant-looking person holding a clipboard if either of us were faculty as we huffed and puffed along. I said I was, and that was the end of it. I figured they were taking a student survey or something. Maybe they were preparing to put us on a list of community undesirables.

I would hope to see this policy more clearly explained to the community at large so we may know whether or not we are welcome on campus. As it stands now, it appears we are not.

I understand that BYU-Idaho’s policy overall is that campus facilities are for student use first. Given the amount of money students invest in their tuition, it’s understandable that the university wants to make sure its facilities are available to those who are paying for them. But in the times I have been in the Hart or the BYU-I Center exercising (walking exclusively) I have not seen the facilities overwhelmed by unshaven, uncouth and unwelcome members of the community at large, who apparently are now going to be cast out of the synagogue due to the coarseness of their apparel, though their tithing money goes in part to build the campus that keeps pushing them away.

Wimps

The Deseret News has no sense of humor.

And also, it appears, the need for better copy editing.

They've started a series of articles on BYU-Idaho and, in their first installation, wrote "Rick's College" twice in their article. A minor flub, but one that should not have been missed in either the writing or editing process, since this is a common mistake made by many when Ricks College bore that name and anyone associated with a church-associated publication like the Deseret News should have known this.

I put in a slightly snarky comment, which I will produce here for all who care to read it:

Who is Rick, and why does he have a college?

A common question asked whenever anyone in this neck of the woods wanted to point out that it was Ricks College, not Rick's College.

I got the following reply from the Deseret News editorial team:

Dear Brian Davidson,
Thank you for commenting on On the frontier: How BYU-Idaho is pushing the boundaries of higher education on DeseretNews.com.
Unfortunately, your comment was not approved for one or more of the following reasons:

   * Comment included name-calling, epithets, racial slurs or personal attacks.
   * Comment contained obscenity, vulgarity and/or profanity (including symbol-replaced words).
   * Comment contained over-use of punctuation (e.g. !!!, ???), ALL CAPS SHOUTING and/or was considered incoherent.
   * Comment included a Link to another website.
   * Comment was considered commercial promotion.
   * Comment was intended to provoke or inappropriately addressed other readers by name.

We would invite you to edit and resubmit your comment using the following guidelines:

   * Comments should be thoughtful and helpful to your fellow readers with additional insight or counterpoints to the article
   * Avoid personal attacks and other inappropriate responses to fellow readers.
   * Treat other readers as you would if you were speaking to them from a microphone, looking them in the eyes, then passing the microphone cordially to the next contributor.

If you would like to revise the following comment to comply with DeseretNews.com policy you may resubmit it by logging in and commenting directly from the story again.
********************
Who is Rick, and why does he have a college?
********************
If you have further questions about comment moderation, please visit our Comments FAQ Page http://www.deseretnews.com/site/comments.
Regards,
Deseret News Editorial Team
This email was automatically generated by DeseretNews.com. Please do not reply. To unsubscribe from further comment notifications, click here.

Bunch of wimps.

Sure, they went and edited the story to expunge the "Rick's College" mentions -- but the should have said that in the reply to my comment, rather than suggesting in any way that it was uncalled for, as this email does. I'm not upset they didn't post my comment, and I'm glad they fixed the error. But anyone doing social media these days ought to know that reaching out in a positive way to someone who points out an error -- even a tiny one like this -- is going to be better off than someone who dismisses a poster like they're swatting a fly.

Even better was that earlier I got this message from the same editorial team, or so it seems:

Dear Brian Davidson,
Thank you for commenting on On the frontier: How BYU-Idaho is pushing the boundaries of higher education on DeseretNews.com.

This message is to inform you that your comment on On the frontier: How BYU-Idaho is pushing the boundaries of higher education was approved. Thank you for your participation in keeping our dialogue civil and enlightening. We hope you'll continue to engage in the online conversations on DeseretNews.com and look forward to seeing more from you in the future.

Regards,
Deseret News Editorial Team
This email was automatically generated by DeseretNews.com. Please do not reply. To unsubscribe from further comment notifications, click here.

Can't seem to make up their mind?

I know why it happened -- they fixed the error then realized, "Hey, nobody's going to understand this comment now that w'eve fixed our boo-boo. Better delete the comment, too."

Oops. That's two errors now, Deseret News.

BYU-Idaho Threatens to Eat Rexburg

It appears BYU-Idaho is stirring up a small kettle of crazy in our old Rexburg neighborhood and it’s got residents in the area all riled up.

The Rexburg Standard Journal reports today that the university has bought seven homes along College Avenue, with as-yet undisclosed plans for the property.

First, my prediction, which is simple enough to come up with when you look at the neighborhood on Google Maps (zoom in on College Avenue just north of campus):

View Larger Map

I’m unfamiliar with the house numbers in the area, but it appears that with the exception of one address given by the paper, all of the houses are on the right side of the street, facing north. Note there’s also a LDS church on the block.

Here’s the prediction:

The houses will be torn down, naturally. As will the church. A new church will be built on the combined property, along with parking for church and campus use.

My reasoning:

• As badly as the university wants to be a walking campus, this just isn’t so. The university recognizes this and thus is looking for additional parking on the north side of campus, where parking is scarce.
• The church is still short of meetinghouse space for student wards. The church building in question is of a nonstandard design that further limits usage. So it’ll be torn down and replaced with a modern building. Additional student housing complexes going up on First West – where another five homes were razed to make room for it – is only going to make the meetinghouse space situation to the north of campus worse.

Alternate prediction:

The Kirkham building, just to the south of the LDS Church in question, is also slated to be torn down. Either parking or a church building will be put in on the property once the Kirkham is gone, with the additional property to the north being used for parking only. This is a less likely scenario, however, as the trend is for the church building and parking to be built on the same property. A parking lot in place of the Kirkham is more likely than a church building.

I know residents of the area are concerned about their neighborhood disappearing. All I can say to that is, well, that process has already started. The vacant lot that used to stand across the street from our First South home is now student housing. Other residences on the black to the northwest of us have disappeared to become part of another church parking lot or a car wash. Then there are the houses gone for the new student housing. Many of the other homes – ours included – is now student housing. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of that neighborhood is changed.

Most painful to me is to see the house that was formerly the home of the Anderson photo studios, now vacant, gutted, and open to nature, for more than a year. Evidently, the home was victim to the financial crisis. Stray cats are probably living there now.