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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Kate, et al,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>From what my wife and I can tell from the data at
PickaProf, the data are accurate but incomplete: They're getting, say, a full
classworth of info for a given instructor, but not <EM>each class</EM> taught by
that instructor. This suggests that they aren't getting the data officially from
the university (surprise, surprise), but it also suggests they aren't simply
reconstructing grades based on student testimonials. Within a given class, the
data are complete. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Our best guess is that they're relying on
informants to swipe info from occasional gradesheets, which is why they aren't
getting every class we teach. I don't have a second-best guess, because I can't
think of one that fits the data.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>There are two interesting ramifications to this
behavior, if we're guessing right. The first is practical, the second legal.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The practical ramification: If they're swiping
gradesheets, they're going to run out of updates soon, since so many of us (and
so many schools) are shifting to electronic grade-posting. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The legal ramification: </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>It would mean that some employees (and the company) are committing
serious violations of FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). It
means someone is looking at a form with specific, individual student grade
information on it, without the student's specific, individual permission. I'm
starting to wonder whether anyone has filed a tip with the U.S. Department of
Education's inspector general yet. It merits that sort of
attention. Certainly the students (the legal victims) aren't likely
to. (The Dept. of Education's IG can be contacted through this page:
</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2><A
href="http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/focus/online-services.html?src=gu">http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/focus/online-services.html?src=gu</A> )</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As an instructor, I myself am not terribly bothered
by this kind of publication of grade distributions. (Well... I'm a little
annoyed that they apparently only grabbed two of my classes, both from when I
was a fresher instructor and less stingy with grades than I am now, but even
with just that data, I appear to be about center-mass for this department, so I
suppose it's not a disaster. In some ways, it's a little reassuring.) In some
ways, I suspect it might be a long-term good thing to have this sort of
information made public across the board. Released by universities officially,
disclosure would reduce the threat to student privacy that this sort of
alternative presents. It would, as Sandy Baringer noted, probably result in
grade decompression across the board, as individuals within departments
synchronized, and then as departments became more in sync. And, in the long run,
it might defuse a lot of the grade-shopping, grade-grubbing behavior I'm seeing,
which seems to draw a lot of its energy from comparisons of instructors.
Employed on a massive scale, it might leave RateMyProfessor with only substance
to talk about, which is fine by me. At the same time, I cringe at the notion
that it might be -- oh heck, would be -- used blindly as a way to measure
faculty performance, as if classes don't vary from each other considerably
(though they do), and as though employing a range of instructors all with
idiosyncratic (but perfectly valid) teaching philosophies should produce
identical results. And I want a good range of teaching philosophies out there,
just as I want competition among ideas in any other arena. Put bluntly, I like
the idea of instructors looking at this sort of information and using it to pace
each other, building greater uniformity on their own initiative, but I wouldn't
want a mandate. Overall: Tough call. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And now I've once again typed more than I intended.
Back to real work ...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>- Gray</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=katecwatt@gmail.com href="mailto:katecwatt@gmail.com">Kate Watt</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=sbaringer@hughes.net
href="mailto:sbaringer@hughes.net">sbaringer@hughes.net</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=englecturers@lists.ucr.edu
href="mailto:englecturers@lists.ucr.edu">englecturers@lists.ucr.edu</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, January 17, 2008 6:14
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Englecturers] FW: Spring
Semester Registration</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>How precisely would a website outside the university get our
grade distribution data? Beyond the anecdotal reports of a few scattered
students. Can they buy or steal such reports for whole classes or whole
campuses? If so, that's pretty creepy! <BR><BR>And, by the way, if
a commercial website has such statistics, why don't we? Do we have
access to an analysis of our grade spreads, relative to other teachers (as
they do at some community colleges)? Should the self-policing Sandy
mentioned have to be the result of a creepy website's input?
<BR><BR>Kate<BR><BR><BR><BR>
<DIV class=gmail_quote>On Jan 14, 2008 9:53 PM, <<A
href="mailto:sbaringer@hughes.net">sbaringer@hughes.net</A>> wrote:<BR>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Pickaprof has actual quantitative data about grade
distributions, which is making more people nervous. You have to
subscribe for $10 a year to get access to the grade histories. I'm
guessing that in the long run, the publication of the grade data is more
likely to result in grade deflation than inflation, as the worst inflating
offenders (many of them tenured) become exposed to peers and
administrators outside the direct chain of command.</FONT></DIV>
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