Hi. Here's some flava from a news article of note up here in Canuckistan's major national daily.
Alberta’s highest court is siding with two University of Calgary students who say their Charter rights were violated when the school punished them for criticizing a professor on Facebook. The Court of Appeal upheld Wednesday a lower court ruling that found the Charter of Rights and Freedoms do apply when universities are meting out discipline to students.
The case involved twin brothers, Keith and Steven Pridgen. In 2007, both posted critical remarks in a Facebook group devoted to complaints about one of their professors, Aruna Mitra, who was teaching a law and society course for the first time. She was described as “inept,” “illogically abrasive” and “inconsistent.” One post suggested Prof. Mitra should be “drawn and quartered” for all to see.
There's some possible salvation here: teachers and profs should be able to cite this court case if/when a university, college or school board seeks to fire them for complaining about their students on their own personal Facebook account, yes? What say you?
Prof Poopiehead
You'd be stupid for complaining about students on your FB account. And as I said in a comment to a previous thread, my school recently fired a teacher for criticizing a disciplinary decision made by the head of school.
ReplyDeleteI like FB; I have a select group of "friends" and the highest security settings. I enjoy keeping up with my friends and family and sharing pictures, jokes, vids and interesting articles. Everyone seems to get that FB is for positive messages, not specific gripes. To the limited extent that people I know complain on FB, it's very generalized, and usually involves parenting struggles or the weather. I never see anyone complaining about work, for example.
When students complained in my evaluations about comments I had made on my FB page regarding plagiarists, I ramped up the security. I now keep my security settings nice and high -- and refuse friend requests from students until they are both clear of my teaching circle and shown to be people that I'd like to keep in touch with.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think students don't appreciate the public nature of their seemingly private griping circles. I once came across a gripe about ME on FB -- as part of a FB group that I belong to. I entered the discussion not to correct the gripes (which were inaccurate representations of classroom interactions), but to point out that I was part of that group and therefore a witness to their exchange.
Student here - I'm not sure if my question is relevant to the original post, but why don't universities have explicit rules on what can/cannot be published on the internet, either a website or FB? By the way, Dreamweaver can make constructing a website a simple 1 hour job. Why use the the university templates anyway?
ReplyDeleteHere is a list of "don'ts" that comes to mind in web etiquette:
1. Don't write about anyone from class (obvious)
2. Don't post assignments, tests, labs, or notes because they are automatically protected.
Some things that I'm unsure of:
1. If posting a paper or essay on the web, should I bother with submitting them to some company that specializes in keeping papers safe from plagiarism such as turnitin.com? Aren't the papers automatically given protection if posted on the web? The only reason I'm posting such essays is track my progress as I go up in course levels.
2. If using Mathematica to demonstrate a lab assignment or homework problem, do I need to cite the textbook for the problem? Would I need to worry about unintentional collusion?
Am I missing something?
I can't speak to all of your questions, but I do know that turnitin.com doesn't scan everything on the internet (just not possible, what with daily newspapers and such posting things 24/7). It tracks specific key terms and compares to what is in its database, so if a student plagiarizes from a recently-published source, it typically won't get caught by the turnitin.com machine b/c it hasn't become part of its database just yet.
DeleteWhat happened to the libel laws?
ReplyDeleteIf a libel action were brought against these students, Canada is probably about the best place in the English-speaking world for it to succeed. Canadian defamation laws place considerable burden on defendants to prove themselves innocent. US laws are far more friendly to free speech in this area.
DeletePersonally, I think that suing someone for what is clearly an opinion like this is a dick move, and one that demonstrates a lack of belief in freedom of expression. If one of my students wants to describe me in public as "inept" or "abrasive" or "inconsistent," let them have at it. I'm happy to show them to be wrong through the work I do in the classroom every day.
Factual assertions about particular actions or behaviors are different. For example, recently on CM one correspondent discussed an incident in which a student reported the instructor to the Dean for being drunk during class. If a student of mine made a public accusation that I came to class intoxicated, then I would be happy to sue for defamation. A simple, easily-refuted opinion about my teaching, though? Doesn't bother me a bit.
"Never ... sue anybody for slander or assault and battery. The law allows no remedy for such outrage that can satisfy a gentleman. Fight." (Andy Jackson´s mum)
ReplyDelete