my own products as a student were , i believe, not at all intellectually satisfying. nonetheless they are my very own.
i would claim copyright.
though i would love to see what your students produced, with comments !
GrimJack - 14 years ago
I would prefer to see excerpts as most of the diatribes would probably start to get pretty boring, what with all the random capitals and exclamation points. Your witty responses would be the highlight.
Slxpluvs - 14 years ago
Posting essays has nothing to do with dietary law! That said, unless stated otherwise, I would assume that the student owns the copywrite and any distribution rights to their work.
I would love to see tucked away in a three-page syllabus: "Turning in a paper in PHIL 635 is presumed permission for the work to be shared with PHIL 635 students. Papers shared in such a way will be striped of identifying information (e.g. name, ID, if you share something personal). If you do not wish any piece of your work to be distributed in such a manner, on a separate sheet of paper write 'DO NOT DISTRIBUTE,' your ID number, and the assignment. These sheets will be collected separately (or anonymously have them put in a box somewhere) and will not be looked at until after grades have been recorded."
Elaine - 14 years ago
Putting on my dean hat, even though I'm on furlough today.
While I would consider this to be an educational use of the information, to help people understand a problem you face in communicating science, I am a bit wary of simply scanning the documents whole and dumping them into the web. If you were conducting research on this topic, there would be IRB approvals (which would include having obtained informed consent). And if you tried to make a case for using these data elements as historical artifacts (as historians use diaries or personal letters), I assume the analysis would aggregate patterns in the data and only quote "typical statements" rather than publishing the documents entire. And an IRB might not buy that argument, since the materials were collected from documents the authors presumed would be used in a limited way (for evaluation by an instructor to determine the students' performance in a course).
But this isn't "Research" according to the statutes, and the web is a different world. If the goal is to "just put it out there" and let the masses chew on them, I think, at a minimum, you'd need to ensure that the students' identities are completely disassociated from the content posted, and that the content itself is unlikely to reveal their identities (that is, institution, course title, session and section info are scrubbed, along with any personal references that could be used to identify an individual).
Even so, I think you risk that a former student might find her/his essay had been posted, and that person could object that s/he had a reasonable expectation that submitting a paper for class did not grant permission to have it presented for public discussion. If the objection were formal and legal, I think you'd lose.
Quite honestly, I would rather read a "typical" comment and Bug Girl's always thoughtful analysis of it, as well as the discussion that arises therefrom. I believe the most educational purpose would be in considering what you would do now that you didn't know to do when you were new to teaching, untenured and less securely fixed in your position? Or, what would I do, if I had to deal with a student who pushed back and got the administration involved? What would other readers do, if their classmates' anti-scientific views were having an impact on the class in that way? What I want to know is now "do some students believe" but, "how do we teach through that moment?"
That would be way more interesting to me than simply posting the papers.
my own products as a student were , i believe, not at all intellectually satisfying. nonetheless they are my very own.
i would claim copyright.
though i would love to see what your students produced, with comments !
I would prefer to see excerpts as most of the diatribes would probably start to get pretty boring, what with all the random capitals and exclamation points. Your witty responses would be the highlight.
Posting essays has nothing to do with dietary law! That said, unless stated otherwise, I would assume that the student owns the copywrite and any distribution rights to their work.
I would love to see tucked away in a three-page syllabus: "Turning in a paper in PHIL 635 is presumed permission for the work to be shared with PHIL 635 students. Papers shared in such a way will be striped of identifying information (e.g. name, ID, if you share something personal). If you do not wish any piece of your work to be distributed in such a manner, on a separate sheet of paper write 'DO NOT DISTRIBUTE,' your ID number, and the assignment. These sheets will be collected separately (or anonymously have them put in a box somewhere) and will not be looked at until after grades have been recorded."
Putting on my dean hat, even though I'm on furlough today.
While I would consider this to be an educational use of the information, to help people understand a problem you face in communicating science, I am a bit wary of simply scanning the documents whole and dumping them into the web. If you were conducting research on this topic, there would be IRB approvals (which would include having obtained informed consent). And if you tried to make a case for using these data elements as historical artifacts (as historians use diaries or personal letters), I assume the analysis would aggregate patterns in the data and only quote "typical statements" rather than publishing the documents entire. And an IRB might not buy that argument, since the materials were collected from documents the authors presumed would be used in a limited way (for evaluation by an instructor to determine the students' performance in a course).
But this isn't "Research" according to the statutes, and the web is a different world. If the goal is to "just put it out there" and let the masses chew on them, I think, at a minimum, you'd need to ensure that the students' identities are completely disassociated from the content posted, and that the content itself is unlikely to reveal their identities (that is, institution, course title, session and section info are scrubbed, along with any personal references that could be used to identify an individual).
Even so, I think you risk that a former student might find her/his essay had been posted, and that person could object that s/he had a reasonable expectation that submitting a paper for class did not grant permission to have it presented for public discussion. If the objection were formal and legal, I think you'd lose.
Quite honestly, I would rather read a "typical" comment and Bug Girl's always thoughtful analysis of it, as well as the discussion that arises therefrom. I believe the most educational purpose would be in considering what you would do now that you didn't know to do when you were new to teaching, untenured and less securely fixed in your position? Or, what would I do, if I had to deal with a student who pushed back and got the administration involved? What would other readers do, if their classmates' anti-scientific views were having an impact on the class in that way? What I want to know is now "do some students believe" but, "how do we teach through that moment?"
That would be way more interesting to me than simply posting the papers.