Somthing else for the spelling police!!!

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:10:57 -0000, "whisky-dave"
<whisky-dave RemoveThis @final.front.ear> wrote:

>
>"H Duffy" <hester_duffy RemoveThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:4sok53FvunoeU1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>> "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave RemoveThis @final.front.ear> wrote in message
>> news:ek74g5$7lr$1@qmul...
>>>
>
>>> Perhaps you can show me at least one legal site.
>>
>> *heh* I didn't say they were legal.
>Well that would make a differnce. :)
>
>> However, do any of your computers at WMUL _not_ have a word processor of
>> some sort?
>tut tut QMUL.
>
>Anyway the answer is yes. Although I should only speak for teh computers in
>my lab.
>I have about 50 computers in my lab none of which have word.
>You see we run a labs where the student uses the computer for computer and
>simulation
>rather than typing up their course notes which they should do in their own
>time.
>If we put WPs on our PCs they would get used by everyone doing WPing and
>this would
>severely restrict students doing 'proper' work on them.
>In fact quite a number of the computers have restricted web access as this
>is even more
>of a problem. Most of our student PCs don't have office installed. WP
>facilities aren't really
>a part of teaching Electronics or computers. With more and more students
>having their
>own computers especially laptops we expect them to use them for writing up,
>we even provide
>wireless access points I have one in my lab.
>
>
>>
>>>> So why do they ask for PDFs? It seems a really odd format to ask for
>>>> work in. What are the benefits?
>>> How can it be an odd format considering it's the standard format for
>>> reports.
>>
>> Well, you say it's standard for your department; it isn't standard for any
>> of the departments I've worked in or with, or studied in.
>Perhaps they're a little outdated then and should join 21st century.
>
>
>>> Even fonts can be added/embedded in to the PDF, so if the reader doesn't
>>> have the correct
>>> font it doesn't matter.
>>> This pretty much makes an excuse of I didn't have the correct software
>>> unusable
>>> as blaming the dog for chewing it up.
>>
>> Fair enough.
>
>I'm sure you've heard some excuses for not submitting work.
>A few years back it was the trains high voltage cables that erased their
>floppy discs was why they hadn't finished the work.
>Then it was because the printer wasn't working etc....
>Which we now refuse to accept even if it our printers that stopped working.
>students can work very hard on excuses we just have to work harder
>at ignoring them :)
>
Fucking great. Early afternoon - time for the goths to slither out of
their coffins and start boring every body to death.
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:35:54 +0000, Dr Walpurgis wrote:

> I know I speak for everyone in alt.horror when I say the SIGHT of your
> PUBLIC MELTDOWN is ABSOLUTELY RIVETTING. You SINK ESTATE SCHOOL SPASTIC.

Unfortunately for the regulars of UPG, this public meltdown has been going
on day-in, day-out for years and there's no end in sight.

#Andy#
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"H Duffy" <hester_duffy RemoveThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4t06jnF11f7odU1@mid.individual.net...
>

>>> Well, you say it's standard for your department; it isn't standard for
>>> any of the departments I've worked in or with, or studied in.
>> Perhaps they're a little outdated then and should join 21st century.
>
> *shrug* In Psychology, there's no call for .PDF files; all our computers
> have a word processor on them,
We have far too many to do that.
And we have far better things to spend our limited budget on.
Perhaps you should find out how much it actually costs.
We have an electronic submission today about 50 studetns submitting a lab
report. Using PDFs measn there's far less strain on the printers, we use
less toner
and ink and that is better for the envioment or perhasp we should insist on
everything
on paper and in triplicate.
This year we have just over 300 seperate submissions the students have to
make.
Some submissions can be on as little a 5 sheets of paper but some we expect
reports
of 40-60 pages. We also require handed in documents to be put in a plastic
folder.

Now we have approx 550 students in our dept. and 857 based in China.

Now just how many student do you have. Do you use your computers for any
actual lab experiments or just for writing up.


>students hand in a hard copy, not a digital format, and there's no reason
>to use PDFs.
How can you check hard copies for piracy and general copying of others work
or do you just ignore it. Do you bother checking each report for
plagiarism.

>Even if they handed in a soft copy, as long as it was non-rewriteable, a
>word document would be more sensible than PDF.

Not for us we need to be a little more professional we know that there are
other
quite acceptable word processing packages out there and we wouldn't want to
fail a student
just because he wasn't part of the micro$oft empire.
When you say non-rewriteable are you talking about a protected floopy, a
CD-R etc..

Well that too is a little wasteful and we have had problems with that method
too.
What do you do if you get media you can't read, do you believe that the
student
has submitted it correctly, do you give them another day to hand in other
media.
And wht if that was their only copy ?
Another advantage of PDFs ZIPs etc..is that the uploading time can be
recorded accurately,
and if submission day is today they have until midnight rather than the 5pm
I work until.
Another is that if a student uploads the wrong file yes this happens they
can keep uploading
and each will have it's own date and time. The database can also then send
out emails
to the markers and lecturers telling them exactly who has submited when they
submited
and were they submitted from, we can automatically generate lists of late
submitters, automatically
deduct marks for lateness etc..
mean while your staff are carrying home paper submissions.
The last batch of paper submissions required the female lecturer to carry 4
boxes
of files back to her room, if she then wants to take them home well I
couldn't carry
4 boxes I can just manage two if I'm lucky and I don't have to open any
doors.

I think we have this organised far better than your dept. in UEL
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"Dr Walpurgis" <burke.dennings RemoveThis @cunting.hun> wrote in message
news:2006112713355416807-burkedennings@cuntinghun...

>
> I know I speak for everyone in alt.horror when I say

Really, I very much doubt that, you seem to speak only for the clueless.
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

On 2006-11-27 16:00:43 +0000, "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave DeleteThis @final.front.ear> said:

>> I know I speak for everyone in alt.horror when I say
>
> Really, I very much doubt that, you seem to speak only for the clueless.

It would explain why you're TUNED IN to my EVERY WORD, you
LEATHER-LICKING JEW-GASSER.

--
You would do better not to discuss any aspect of your ordeal with the
mocking imbeciles residing in the alt. horror newsgroup. Let them
chatter and slaver and drool as much as they wish. Discussing something
as upsetting and horrendous as that with dribbling, gibbering
schadenfreude infected monkeys is hardly a recipe to be recommended. -
T.Bone, 22/11/06
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"whisky-dave" <whisky-dave RemoveThis @final.front.ear> wrote in message
news:ekf22v$1re$1@qmul...
>
> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy RemoveThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4t06jnF11f7odU1@mid.individual.net...
> Now we have approx 550 students in our dept. and 857 based in China.
>
> Now just how many student do you have. Do you use your computers for any
> actual lab experiments or just for writing up.

In our department, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head; around 350
first years, I think, and slightly fewer second years, and fewer third years
again, due to attrition rates. The computers belong to the University rather
than to my department,a nd are used by many different subjects; we use them
for stats practicals,a nd students are allowed to use them for their own
studies when lessons aren't running; I couldn't tell you what other
departments use them for.

>
>
>>students hand in a hard copy, not a digital format, and there's no reason
>>to use PDFs.
> How can you check hard copies for piracy and general copying of others
> work
> or do you just ignore it. Do you bother checking each report for
> plagiarism.

Students are required to submit their work to a piece of plagiarism software
and attach the report it outputs. Also, plagiarism is actually pretty easy
to spot when reading through work; I've pulled two students up on it in the
last batch.

Are PDFs easy to check for plagiarism?

>
>>Even if they handed in a soft copy, as long as it was non-rewriteable, a
>>word document would be more sensible than PDF.
>
> Not for us we need to be a little more professional we know that there are
> other
> quite acceptable word processing packages out there and we wouldn't want
> to fail a student
> just because he wasn't part of the micro$oft empire.
> When you say non-rewriteable are you talking about a protected floopy, a
> CD-R etc..

Or just a protected file. After all, none of the staff are going to make
deliberate changes to a student's work, so it only needs to be protected
against accidental changes.

>
> Well that too is a little wasteful and we have had problems with that
> method too.
> What do you do if you get media you can't read, do you believe that the
> student
> has submitted it correctly, do you give them another day to hand in other
> media.

As I said, our students hand in hard copies, not soft copies.

> And wht if that was their only copy ?

Then they'd be a bloody idiot?

> Another advantage of PDFs ZIPs etc..is that the uploading time can be
> recorded accurately,
> and if submission day is today they have until midnight rather than the
> 5pm I work until.
> Another is that if a student uploads the wrong file yes this happens they
> can keep uploading
> and each will have it's own date and time. The database can also then send
> out emails
> to the markers and lecturers telling them exactly who has submited when
> they submited
> and were they submitted from, we can automatically generate lists of late
> submitters, automatically
> deduct marks for lateness etc..
> mean while your staff are carrying home paper submissions.

Yes, that certainly is an argument for electronic submission, although I
think marking online would probably destroy what's left of my eyesight
fairly quickly.

> The last batch of paper submissions required the female lecturer to carry
> 4 boxes
> of files back to her room, if she then wants to take them home well I
> couldn't carry
> 4 boxes I can just manage two if I'm lucky and I don't have to open any
> doors.
>
> I think we have this organised far better than your dept. in UEL

Quite possibly; I've already raised various issues within my department
about the way the submission of work is organised.

Part of our problem is that over the past few years we've gone from a small
department with perhaps 60 students in each cohort to really quite a big one
with over 300 each year, but our logistics haven't kept up with that growth,
so the system which worked fine a few years ago has been outgrown, but not
updated. I'm trying to get them to notice that, and do something about it.

H
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"H Duffy" <hester_duffy RemoveThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4t07d1Fv54r6U1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave RemoveThis @final.front.ear> wrote in message
> news:ekeoed$u5d$1@qmul...
>>
>> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy RemoveThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:4soke3F10p1g3U1@mid.individual.net...
>>>> Presenting data.
>>>
>>> Well, yes, but so what? In this particular case, it clearly isn't a
>>> useful way of presenting it, in that you totally misunderstood it.
>> But I didn't I noticed that there were many ways to sort the data.
>
> But only one which was relevant to what we were talking about, which was
> the ratings for teaching. Sorting them alphabetically doesn't tell you
> anything about where each institution is ranked.

No it doesn't but neither does the yellow pages listings services,
but it's amazing how many name themselves AAA plumbing etc...
just to get to the top of the list. Of course universities are unlikely to
change their name even though we have a few times.
But there has been moves going back yeasr to drop the college word and
make more of the university word.


>
>>> You tell me; you're the one who chose to order them alphabetically. Why
>>> did you do that?
>> That is the default setting on the site.
>
> No it isn't.
It was when I went there.
Perhaps you can tell me what your default listing was.



>>> Well, you seem to be implying that there's something unfair about the
>>> way the ratings are set up.
>>
>> Well yes, as it's far easier to teach clever students to be a bit
>> cleverer than it is to
>> teach students that aren't really that good to become good.
>
> No it isn't; the Universities are not ranked on how the students perform,
> they're ranked on the teaching itself; a good teacher is a good teacher
> whether they're teaching clever people or stupid people.

As you should know and you have said yourself YOU are teaching,
so what are the academics doing, well a lot of our spend so much time on
research they
don't spend that much time teaching the research students do the marking a
lot
of the other stuff lecturers used to do.
On Friday I had our teaching assistant teaching our 1st years in the lab,
the lecturer
doesn't seem to want to be in the lab when the students are here too many
questions to
answer I assume. So the research student came and asked me for some scissor.
I explained we call them scissors because they come as a pair of blades.
A bit like tights and stockings and suspenders but I didn't want to get into
them
as I'm not that sort of boy.
She then said oh that's not what I want, I want something to take the skin
off the wires.
I said they are called wire strippers and handed her a pair and she went off
to teach the students
Remember I'm not a teacher though, but if I hadn't asked why she wanted the
scissors she'd
be stripping wire with scissors which is quite dangerous and not the sort of
thing
you should be teaching 1st year elec. eng students.


>>>Thing is, QMUL _could_ decide only to take in more able students,
>>>couldn't they?
>> Well they could but what of those students that haven;t quite got the
>> required grades
>> would the 'top' universities taken then on and risk their reputation ?
>> I don't think so.
>
> Exactly; Universities acquire a good reputation by being tough,
But they don't get funding for beign tough.

> and by having a good reputaiton, they attract the best students. They've
> _earned_ the reputation,a nd therefore the good students.
So how come ELU doesn't do the same.

And perhaps york should not take so many bad studetns tehn it might be able
to compete
with Oxford and cambridge and perhaps those is America list Harvard
and MIT.


>>> You do know that the universities aren't graded by the final results,
>>> but by teaching quality?
>>
>> But do you know how that is decided upon, if it's not to do
>> with what the students have been taught.
>> Has it something to do the the quality of beer in the bar ?
>
> Observers go in and observe the teaching. It's not measured on how well
> the students perform, it's measured on how well the teachers perform.
We've had them here I've never heard of them observing teaching, we select
some
students work at 'random' which they inspect, they look
at the equipment and facilities that's when we hid our old equipment and
'borrowed'
some good equipment from research to put out on the benches.
Last time we were told we need to do more hardware to make the grade
so we had a few days of more hardware since then we've cancelled even more
hardware courses replacing them with simulators. Oh yes and we had the room
painted
the electrics rewired again and a new floor put down that too was a way to
increase
a TQA.



>> But as you say the top institions the teaching staff get paid more,
>
> I didn't say that, actually, and I'm not entirely sure that it's generally
> true; the top paid people will generally be in the better institutions,
> but I'm fairly sure a senior lecturer at UEl gets about the same as a
> senior lecturer at York or wherever.
But I'd say a senior lecturer in UEL would be as senior if in York.
We had that here a very senior lecturer he was very well thought of given
his own
office private secretary, he left her to go to a better univ. and was
virtually
just another lecturer there.



>> but the cost of the course is the same as anywhere else isn't it.
>> So if an instition pays more for it teachers and more on equipemtn for
>> the students
>> then where does the money come from ?
>
> Research, mostly.
Who does the research.

>Various funding bodies (some public, many private) fund research in various
>areas. A while ago, for example, I was told that the psychology department
>at Warwick was effectively self-funding, in that they brought in enough
>money in research grants every year to pay for all their research _and_
>their teaching.

yes that's how we worked out until a few of years ago,
but when the college realised we could fund ourselves they took away
other funding to build a new chemistry block as the dept was loosing money.
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"whisky-dave" <whisky-dave RemoveThis @final.front.ear> wrote in message
news:ekf69b$3fd$1@qmul...
>
> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy RemoveThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4t07d1Fv54r6U1@mid.individual.net...
>>
>> "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave RemoveThis @final.front.ear> wrote in message
>> news:ekeoed$u5d$1@qmul...
>> But only one which was relevant to what we were talking about, which was
>> the ratings for teaching. Sorting them alphabetically doesn't tell you
>> anything about where each institution is ranked.
>
> No it doesn't but neither does the yellow pages listings services,

That's right, which is why we weren't talking about those. And we're still
not.

>>> That is the default setting on the site.
>>
>> No it isn't.
> It was when I went there.
> Perhaps you can tell me what your default listing was.

The link I provided should give the institutions in order of rating.

>> No it isn't; the Universities are not ranked on how the students perform,
>> they're ranked on the teaching itself; a good teacher is a good teacher
>> whether they're teaching clever people or stupid people.
>
> As you should know and you have said yourself YOU are teaching,

That's right. That's why I'm commenting on it.

> so what are the academics doing, well a lot of our spend so much time on
> research they
> don't spend that much time teaching the research students do the marking a
> lot
> of the other stuff lecturers used to do.

Academics have two main purposes; to teach,a dn to research. Some do more
research adn less teaching, some do more teaching and less research. Do you
have a point here?

>> Exactly; Universities acquire a good reputation by being tough,
> But they don't get funding for beign tough.

No, they get funding for being good at research, on the whole.

>
>> and by having a good reputaiton, they attract the best students. They've
>> _earned_ the reputation,a nd therefore the good students.
> So how come ELU doesn't do the same.

You mean UEL? Because it's a new University, and is not particularly great
at the moment; it takes a long time, on the whole, to build up an excellent
reputation. Unfortunately, I don't think my department is anywhere close at
the moment; we have some fairly serious (in my view, anyway) issues with the
way the department is run, and we're not going to improve much until those
issues are resolved.

>
> And perhaps york should not take so many bad studetns tehn it might be
> able to compete
> with Oxford and cambridge and perhaps those is America list Harvard
> and MIT.

York doesn't take bad students, and does compete with Oxford and Cambridge,
and indeed Harvard and MIT.

>> Observers go in and observe the teaching. It's not measured on how well
>> the students perform, it's measured on how well the teachers perform.
> We've had them here I've never heard of them observing teaching, we select
> some
> students work at 'random' which they inspect,

Yes, but they're not actually checking the quality of the students' work,
they're checking the quality of the marking; that is, they're checking that
the work has been given an appropriate grade, and that the feedback which
has been given is appropriate. Formative and summative feedback on assessed
work is a part of teaching, which is why they check it. Again, they're not
looking at the students' achievements, but at the quality of the teaching.

they look
> at the equipment and facilities that's when we hid our old equipment and
> 'borrowed'
> some good equipment from research to put out on the benches.
> Last time we were told we need to do more hardware to make the grade

I suspect that would be to do with the "spend per student" rating?

>> I didn't say that, actually, and I'm not entirely sure that it's
>> generally true; the top paid people will generally be in the better
>> institutions, but I'm fairly sure a senior lecturer at UEl gets about the
>> same as a senior lecturer at York or wherever.
> But I'd say a senior lecturer in UEL would be as senior if in York.

Is there supposed to be a "not" in there somewhere?

> We had that here a very senior lecturer he was very well thought of given
> his own
> office private secretary, he left her to go to a better univ. and was
> virtually
> just another lecturer there.

Well, certainly a lot of academics would rather go for a less senior
position in a better university than a higher position in a less
well-respected institution.
Which, in effect, means exactly the opposite of what you've suggested; far
from meaning that the top universities pay more, it means they can get away
with paying less and getting more for their money.

>>> but the cost of the course is the same as anywhere else isn't it.
>>> So if an instition pays more for it teachers and more on equipemtn for
>>> the students
>>> then where does the money come from ?
>>
>> Research, mostly.
> Who does the research.

Researchers. Some of those researchers are also lecturers or other teachers.
Post-graduate studens also do some of the research.


>>Various funding bodies (some public, many private) fund research in
>>various areas. A while ago, for example, I was told that the psychology
>>department at Warwick was effectively self-funding, in that they brought
>>in enough money in research grants every year to pay for all their
>>research _and_ their teaching.
>
> yes that's how we worked out until a few of years ago,
> but when the college realised we could fund ourselves they took away
> other funding to build a new chemistry block as the dept was loosing
> money.

Um... so the department was funding itself, and then the University stopped
funding it, whereupon the department lost money? In which case it wasn't
actually funding itself, was it?

H
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"H Duffy" <hester_duffy DeleteThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
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>
> "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave DeleteThis @final.front.ear> wrote in message
> news:ekf22v$1re$1@qmul...
>>
>> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy DeleteThis @nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:4t06jnF11f7odU1@mid.individual.net...
>> Now we have approx 550 students in our dept. and 857 based in China.
>>
>> Now just how many student do you have. Do you use your computers for any
>> actual lab experiments or just for writing up.
>
> In our department, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head; around 350
> first years, I think, and slightly fewer second years, and fewer third
> years again, due to attrition rates.
Do you mean due to failing or not coming back from previous years ?
Here all I do is click on a link which takes me to a page that lists
all our students I can export that to a excel file or there's a total at the
bottom.
Students are arranged by courses, year of study degree program etc.
we even keep attendence records on line.
Theere's really no need to use the top of our heads for this sort of thing.


> The computers belong to the University rather than to my department,a nd
> are used by many different subjects; we use them for stats practicals,a nd
> students are allowed to use them for their own studies when lessons aren't
> running; I couldn't tell you what other departments use them for.
well we have a computing services dept. for general WP.
Our computers are for teaching purposes. They run simulation packages
and anything else a student needs for the actual course. We don't really
want students
using them for love letters, emails, party invites or anything else that
isn't course related.
So we restrict access to certain uses.
If your dept had to buy the computers perhaps you wouldn't be too keen to
see
students using them their personnel stuff.


>>>students hand in a hard copy, not a digital format, and there's no reason
>>>to use PDFs.
>> How can you check hard copies for piracy and general copying of others
>> work
>> or do you just ignore it. Do you bother checking each report for
>> plagiarism.
>
> Students are required to submit their work to a piece of plagiarism
> software and attach the report it outputs.
How does that actually work I assume this is done before printing out.

> Also, plagiarism is actually pretty easy to spot when reading through
> work; I've pulled two students up on it in the last batch.
Well that's debatable some is.

> Are PDFs easy to check for plagiarism?
Yes.
As easy as any text file is for goggling text. As that's not part of my job
I don't know what software they use but on my Mac it's as easy to search
through PDFs as it is any other type of text in documents, you don't even
have to open
the documents in a WP.



>>>Even if they handed in a soft copy, as long as it was non-rewriteable, a
>>>word document would be more sensible than PDF.


>> When you say non-rewriteable are you talking about a protected floopy, a
>> CD-R etc..
>
> Or just a protected file. After all, none of the staff are going to make
> deliberate changes to a student's work, so it only needs to be protected
> against accidental changes.

How do you protect a Word file ?


>> Well that too is a little wasteful and we have had problems with that
>> method too.
>> What do you do if you get media you can't read, do you believe that the
>> student
>> has submitted it correctly, do you give them another day to hand in
>> other media.
>
> As I said, our students hand in hard copies, not soft copies.

So in paper form how do yuo know that copy is the same one that has been
checked for
plagiarism. If a studetn hands you a 20 page report how do you know every
page
has passed the checker ?


>> And wht if that was their only copy ?
>
> Then they'd be a bloody idiot?
There students, they do leave things in canteens on trains etc..

We're limiting the number of paper submissions as much as possible,
it is rather a wasteful and inefficient.
I think I have 5 remaining before xmas.
There are 5 electronic submissions due today.
Last year I had about 1100 paper report to sort into order.
Previous year it was about 2300.


>> Another advantage of PDFs ZIPs etc..is that the uploading time can be
>> recorded accurately,
>> and if submission day is today they have until midnight rather than the
>> 5pm I work until.
>> Another is that if a student uploads the wrong file yes this happens they
>> can keep uploading
>> and each will have it's own date and time. The database can also then
>> send out emails
>> to the markers and lecturers telling them exactly who has submited when
>> they submited
>> and were they submitted from, we can automatically generate lists of late
>> submitters, automatically
>> deduct marks for lateness etc..
>> mean while your staff are carrying home paper submissions.
>
> Yes, that certainly is an argument for electronic submission, although I
> think marking online would probably destroy what's left of my eyesight
> fairly quickly.

I'll agree with that, but then you can get automatic marking.
That's one of the reasons our class tests and more and more test are going
over to
multichoice (MCQ) you can't get easier marking than that.
I'm not surprised you have to do marking but what do the academics do in
your dept.
Years ago our academics used to lecture, be in the labs helping students
with any problems
they have, design lab experiments etc... but not I hardly ever see them,
some won't even
come in the lab when students are about.


> with over 300 each year, but our logistics haven't kept up with that
> growth, so the system which worked fine a few years ago has been outgrown,
> but not updated. I'm trying to get them to notice that, and do something
> about it.

well good luck with that, I just hope you can get them to see what's right
rather than what suits them personally as that will be thier first choice.
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"H Duffy" <hester_duffy.DeleteThis@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4t0l4sF11rrm3U1@mid.individual.net...
>
> "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave.DeleteThis@final.front.ear> wrote in message
> news:ekf69b$3fd$1@qmul...
>>
>> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy.DeleteThis@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:4t07d1Fv54r6U1@mid.individual.net...
>>>
>>> "whisky-dave" <whisky-dave.DeleteThis@final.front.ear> wrote in message
>>> news:ekeoed$u5d$1@qmul...
>>> But only one which was relevant to what we were talking about, which was
>>> the ratings for teaching. Sorting them alphabetically doesn't tell you
>>> anything about where each institution is ranked.
>>
>> No it doesn't but neither does the yellow pages listings services,
>
> That's right, which is why we weren't talking about those. And we're still
> not.
But names are important, we spent quite a while dropping college from our
name,
which was OK for decades.
we were QMC, then QMW then QMWC and now QMUL.


>>>> That is the default setting on the site.
>>>
>>> No it isn't.
>> It was when I went there.
>> Perhaps you can tell me what your default listing was.
>
> The link I provided should give the institutions in order of rating.
Oh right, I went straight from that to the latest 2006.


>>> No it isn't; the Universities are not ranked on how the students
>>> perform, they're ranked on the teaching itself; a good teacher is a good
>>> teacher whether they're teaching clever people or stupid people.
>>
>> As you should know and you have said yourself YOU are teaching,
>
> That's right. That's why I'm commenting on it.

And you work at UEL, they aren't high in the ratings are they,
lower than QMUL and we're less than 5 miles apart I believe.
If you're teaching what are the lecturers doing ?
and do the accessors really look at the research students
to evaluate good teachers.



> Academics have two main purposes; to teach,a dn to research. Some do more
> research adn less teaching, some do more teaching and less research. Do
> you have a point here?
Yes that ours at least have been told to do more and more research as that's
what brings money in, so we get the research students to help out with
teaching
including marking and assisting in teaching even though they have NO
teaching experience, I have far more teaching experience than they do.
The results our students are getting are not good 30% average on the last
test.
I'm not convinced it's because the students are think, it's because they
aren't being taught
properly. We really need to understand the students today are at a lower
level
of general education as well as specific subject knowledge than they were
years ago
when the academics were students. I've just been expaining to a 3rd year
student
how to divide 3.5 by .01 I did it in my head, he but came up with the
answer 3
on his calculator ! When I left school we were teaching this stuff
in CSE electronics and physics when I was 15.


>>> Exactly; Universities acquire a good reputation by being tough,
>> But they don't get funding for beign tough.
>
> No, they get funding for being good at research, on the whole.

So those employed by taxpayers money get used to do research rather than
teach students.


>>> and by having a good reputaiton, they attract the best students. They've
>>> _earned_ the reputation,a nd therefore the good students.
>> So how come ELU doesn't do the same.
>
> You mean UEL? Because it's a new University, and is not particularly great
> at the moment;
So just increase the standard of student but not accepting the lower ability
ones,
you know the same way Oxford does.

>it takes a long time, on the whole, to build up an excellent reputation.
>Unfortunately, I don't think my department is anywhere close at the moment;
>we have some fairly serious (in my view, anyway) issues with the way the
>department is run, and we're not going to improve much until those issues
>are resolved.

I would have thought such serious issue would be quite easy to deal with by
employing
those clever enough to sort them out. perhaps insist on beter staff or more
closely
inspect their CVs before employing them.


>
>>
>> And perhaps york should not take so many bad studetns tehn it might be
>> able to compete
>> with Oxford and cambridge and perhaps those is America list Harvard
>> and MIT.
>
> York doesn't take bad students, and does compete with Oxford and
> Cambridge, and indeed Harvard and MIT.

http://ri.epfl.ch/webdav/site/ri/shared/Rankings.pdf

Oxfor 5th
QMUL 100th
York 137th
UEL doesn't apear in the top 200



>> We've had them here I've never heard of them observing teaching, we
>> select some
>> students work at 'random' which they inspect,
>
> Yes, but they're not actually checking the quality of the students' work,
> they're checking the quality of the marking; that is, they're checking
> that the work has been given an appropriate grade, and that the feedback
> which has been given is appropriate. Formative and summative feedback on
> assessed work is a part of teaching, which is why they check it. Again,
> they're not looking at the students' achievements, but at the quality of
> the teaching.

Is this work selected at random ?
NO we select work from students that have passed, failed got merits
etc. WE select the work to be accessed.




> they look
>> at the equipment and facilities that's when we hid our old equipment and
>> 'borrowed'
>> some good equipment from research to put out on the benches.
>> Last time we were told we need to do more hardware to make the grade
>
> I suspect that would be to do with the "spend per student" rating?
Not sure.
We could spend more per studetnm by putting Word on every one of our
50 PCs; we have another 150 or so on the ground floor about 100
on the 2nd floor. It's quite easy to spend more, any fool can do that.
Spending it efectively is far more difficult.


>>> I didn't say that, actually, and I'm not entirely sure that it's
>>> generally true; the top paid people will generally be in the better
>>> institutions, but I'm fairly sure a senior lecturer at UEl gets about
>>> the same as a senior lecturer at York or wherever.
>> But I'd say a senior lecturer in UEL would be as senior if in York.
>
> Is there supposed to be a "not" in there somewhere?
Yep sorry.



>> We had that here a very senior lecturer he was very well thought of given
>> his own
>> office private secretary, he left her to go to a better univ. and was
>> virtually
>> just another lecturer there.
>
> Well, certainly a lot of academics would rather go for a less senior
> position in a better university than a higher position in a less
> well-respected institution.
> Which, in effect, means exactly the opposite of what you've suggested; far
> from meaning that the top universities pay more, it means they can get
> away with paying less and getting more for their money.
That isn't true because when leaving I've never know anyone to take a pay
cut.
Are you saying that going from one univ. to a 'better' one then that means
the person takes a cut in salary I think not.
If you went from your curretn job to a similar one at York or Oxford are you
saying you'd expect a pay cut ?

>> yes that's how we worked out until a few of years ago,
>> but when the college realised we could fund ourselves they took away
>> other funding to build a new chemistry block as the dept was loosing
>> money.
>
> Um... so the department was funding itself,
yes basically, we were about £2M in profit at one point.

> and then the University stopped funding it, whereupon the department lost
> money?
Started to lose money.

> In which case it wasn't actually funding itself, was it?
It was funding itself, but they changed the rules.
we started to have to pay for everything including space by volume
rather than area. When you have a lab with an 80ft ceiling that costs,
and the money to heat it too isn't cheap.
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"whisky-dave" <whisky-dave.RemoveThis@final.front.ear> wrote in message
news:ekhcia$eij$1@qmul...
>
> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy.RemoveThis@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4t0k8hF11v2ivU1@mid.individual.net...
>> In our department, I couldn't tell you off the top of my head; around 350
>> first years, I think, and slightly fewer second years, and fewer third
>> years again, due to attrition rates.
> Do you mean due to failing or not coming back from previous years ?

Yes.

> Here all I do is click on a link which takes me to a page that lists
> all our students I can export that to a excel file or there's a total at
> the bottom.
> Students are arranged by courses, year of study degree program etc.
> we even keep attendence records on line.
> Theere's really no need to use the top of our heads for this sort of
> thing.

I'm at home, not at work.

>> The computers belong to the University rather than to my department,a nd
>> are used by many different subjects; we use them for stats practicals,a
>> nd students are allowed to use them for their own studies when lessons
>> aren't running; I couldn't tell you what other departments use them for.
> well we have a computing services dept. for general WP.
> Our computers are for teaching purposes. They run simulation packages
> and anything else a student needs for the actual course. We don't really
> want students
> using them for love letters, emails, party invites or anything else that
> isn't course related.
> So we restrict access to certain uses.
> If your dept had to buy the computers perhaps you wouldn't be too keen to
> see
> students using them their personnel stuff.

Every university I've ever attended, as a student or staff member, expects
their computers to be used for email and so on as well as for work.

>> Students are required to submit their work to a piece of plagiarism
>> software and attach the report it outputs.
> How does that actually work I assume this is done before printing out.

That's right.

>> Or just a protected file. After all, none of the staff are going to make
>> deliberate changes to a student's work, so it only needs to be protected
>> against accidental changes.
>
> How do you protect a Word file ?

It's in the "save" options.

>> As I said, our students hand in hard copies, not soft copies.
>
> So in paper form how do yuo know that copy is the same one that has been
> checked for
> plagiarism. If a studetn hands you a 20 page report how do you know every
> page
> has passed the checker ?

Because the report tells me how many pages went in. Our students can't be
arsed to write two separate reports, one plagiarised and one not; if they
could, why would they then hand in the plagiarised one?

>> Then they'd be a bloody idiot?
> There students, they do leave things in canteens on trains etc..

Well, yes, but that's hardly the department's problem, is it?

>> Yes, that certainly is an argument for electronic submission, although I
>> think marking online would probably destroy what's left of my eyesight
>> fairly quickly.
>
> I'll agree with that, but then you can get automatic marking.

Not in the sort of work we do.

H
 >> Stay informed about: Somthing else for the spelling police!!! 

"whisky-dave" <whisky-dave.TakeThisOut@final.front.ear> wrote in message
news:ekhdbr$er4$1@qmul...
>
> "H Duffy" <hester_duffy.TakeThisOut@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:4t0l4sF11rrm3U1@mid.individual.net...
>>> As you should know and you have said yourself YOU are teaching,
>>
>> That's right. That's why I'm commenting on it.
>
> And you work at UEL, they aren't high in the ratings are they,
> lower than QMUL and we're less than 5 miles apart I believe.
> If you're teaching what are the lecturers doing ?

They teach as well; we have a lot of teaching staff.

> and do the accessors really look at the research students
> to evaluate good teachers.

I'm not just a research student, I'm a graduate teaching assistant; they
look at a range of different teachers, from senior lecturers to GTAs.

>> Academics have two main purposes; to teach,a dn to research. Some do more
>> research adn less teaching, some do more teaching and less research. Do
>> you have a point here?
> Yes that ours at least have been told to do more and more research as
> that's
> what brings money in, so we get the research students to help out with
> teaching
> including marking and assisting in teaching even though they have NO
> teaching experience, I have far more teaching experience than they do.

Well, all teachers have to start somewhere, but here, GTAs have to do a
PGCHE.

>>> But they don't get funding for beign tough.
>>
>> No, they get funding for being good at research, on the whole.
>
> So those employed by taxpayers money get used to do research rather than
> teach students.

No, those paid for from taxes tend to teach; research tends to be paid for
by grants.

>> You mean UEL? Because it's a new University, and is not particularly
>> great at the moment;
> So just increase the standard of student but not accepting the lower
> ability ones,
> you know the same way Oxford does.

*heh* We don't get enough top quality applications at this point; our
reputation isn't good enough.

>
>>it takes a long time, on the whole, to build up an excellent reputation.
>>Unfortunately, I don't think my department is anywhere close at the
>>moment; we have some fairly serious (in my view, anyway) issues with the
>>way the department is run, and we're not going to improve much until those
>>issues are resolved.
>
> I would have thought such serious issue would be quite easy to deal with
> by employing
> those clever enough to sort them out. perhaps insist on beter staff or
> more closely
> inspect their CVs before employing them.

Well, you'd be wrong.

>>> And perhaps york should not take so many bad studetns tehn it might be
>>> able to compete
>>> with Oxford and cambridge and perhaps those is America list Harvard
>>> and MIT.
>>
>> York doesn't take bad students, and does compete with Oxford and
>> Cambridge, and indeed Harvard and MIT.
>
> http://ri.epfl.ch/webdav/site/ri/shared/Rankings.pdf
>
> Oxfor 5th
> QMUL 100th
> York 137th
> UEL doesn't apear in the top 200

That's a rather bizarre rating; they appear to give points for having a lot
of international students (which is presumably why QMUL get a decent score);
there's no external or independent rating of the quality of either the
teaching or the research

>> Yes, but they're not actually checking the quality of the students' work,
>> they're checking the quality of the marking; that is, they're checking
>> that the work has been given an appropriate grade, and that the feedback
>> which has been given is appropriate. Formative and summative feedback on
>> assessed work is a part of teaching, which is why they check it. Again,
>> they're not looking at the students' achievements, but at the quality of
>> the teaching.
>
> Is this work selected at random ?

Yes, in theory at least.

> NO we select work from students that have passed, failed got merits
> etc. WE select the work to be accessed.

Assessed, not accessed; Different word, different meaning.
But yes, so what? You're not selecting the work that is to be assessed,
you're selecting the work whose _marking_ is to be assessed. That's why work
from different grades is selected.

>> Well, certainly a lot of academics would rather go for a less senior
>> position in a better university than a higher position in a less
>> well-respected institution.
>> Which, in effect, means exactly the opposite of what you've suggested;
>> far from meaning that the top universities pay more, it means they can
>> get away with paying less and getting more for their money.
> That isn't true because when leaving I've never know anyone to take a pay
> cut.

You may not personally know anyone who has done so, but I do; in fact, I
_have_ done so.

> Are you saying that going from one univ. to a 'better' one then that means
> the person takes a cut in salary I think not.

Sometimes, yes.

> If you went from your curretn job to a similar one at York or Oxford are
> you
> saying you'd expect a pay cut ?

It depends what the job was; given my current job, it would be quite hard to
find a worse-apid job. But, for example, I recently applied to do a funded
PhD at Newcastle (a good department); if I'd got it (which sadly I didn't),
I'd have taken a pay cut in order to take it.

>>> yes that's how we worked out until a few of years ago,
>>> but when the college realised we could fund ourselves they took away
>>> other funding to build a new chemistry block as the dept was loosing
>>> money.
>>
>> Um... so the department was funding itself,
> yes basically, we were about £2M in profit at one point.
>
>> and then the University