I'd be willing to be that they're also the recipient of more FOIA requests than any other two agencies combined. If that's so, then this may be as meaningless a statistic as any other. In addition, I'm sure that many of the requests relate to the late 1960s - which won't be found anyway.

The William & Mary mess? They've also got an extensive (and wealthy) enough alumni donor base that remains fairly generous. He knew it was a safe choice (as such decisions go).

I have yet to have a student (in 4 years) not subscribed to Facebook (I teach college students). My evidence? Inevitably each one of them asks to "friend" me (and is turned down). It astonishes me how willingly they plug information into an online form - and how indifferent they are to the idea that anyone can find out anything about them with the right searches. The reason? They presume it as a fact.

Poke around in a few respected sociology publications - they'll confirm a number of my observations, as will any number of faculty.

Honestly, what I said wouldn't be questioned by most of my colleagues, hence my flippant phrasing. I assure you, I'm far more concerned than my offhand remark might indicate: we have a generation grown up accustomed to giving up information without question online - not to many phishing sites, mind you, but to companies, schools, and state entities. Yes, some students are careful - most of the geeks are - but the majority by far aren't geeks, and they've been programmed. Lessig was right in Code - once corporations drive online development for commerce, architectures of control will become so entrenched as to be accepted as the norm.

Thanks for calling me out - I should have taken the chance when I first posted to explain what I see as the greater threat: not the shiny new intrusion, but the trusted tool we've had in our lives for years.

First - the constitution prevents only the government from banning free speech. It doesn't prevent you from signing away your right.

BUT - these agreements aren't enforceable because the implied threat of withheld medical treatment means that the patient is signing under duress.

The difference between this form and those you sign agreeing to pay is important: this form requires you to "pay" (with the promise of silence) in order to be treated while the latter is a promise by you that you will pay after services are rendered.

For all the gloom & doom - and I'll admit that I agree with some of it - nobody seems to have actually read the article and seen any of the pluses. Yes, it's somewhat suspicious that the biometric registration is being applied only to sixth formers (I assume this is akin to our senior year of high school), whose adult features have pretty much developed, but honestly, who the hell thinks that it will be any easier to spy on them than it is already, given the astonishing amount of privacy they give up via facebook or similar sites?

For those who don't read, here are a few of the stated positives to give a bit of balance to the proceedings:

"Not only a hit with the students, who enjoy signing themselves in, the system is saving a member of staff about an hour and a half each day in recording data."
[...] Principal Richard Barker said: "With this new registration technology, we are hoping to free up our teachers' time and allow them to spend it on what they are meant to be doing, which is teaching.
[...] "Only today (Thursday, 05 March) we had a fire alarm test and the administration staff were able to quickly and effectively print data off from the system showing who was on site.

There's a long history of technologies being used for purposes unintended by the designer - it's one of the marks of a useful tool - and as long as we are users of tools, this will continue.

You're wrong. Students (usually graduate students) sign "patent" agreements stating that patents produced using school facilities are the property of the school. Except in cases where they have to submit to Turnitin, students retain the rights to all copyrightable material.

No. At most schools, they own the patents you produce using their facilities (hence the reason it's called a patent agreement), much like workplaces. If you can't patent it, they can't take it. My articles, my papers, they are mine.

Besides, I'm somewhat skeptical of the OP's premise - who keeps their notes handwritten? My handwriting's so godawful bad I've been transcribing notes since my sophomore year (I'm at the end of a Ph.D. program now).

Circuit City had the same prices as Best Buy. They'd alternate sales weeks, but generally, they're identical around me. Do you think big box stores are ever really different?

So now you're in possession of determinate meaning? Please share.

PROTIP: Education is not a consumer-oriented service industry. You have as much a responsibility as faculty to facilitate your own learning. Part of college is learning how to learn. Most schools offer free tutoring services, and their centers have well trained staff.

Large research universities are not there to educate, but rather to produce knowledge. Even at state schools, tenured faculty have a greater responsibility to research than to teaching. Want proof? Look at budgets. Less than 10% of salaries in Engineering, Math, and Natural Sciences colleges come from tuition or state funding. The rest comes from grants - private corporations who expect research and care nothing for your pass/fail ratio.

To take your first clause: If I'm receiving $2.5 million for my current project from Bayer, and $50 from you, I expect you to shut up and try your best to learn in the three hours a week we're in class, or failing that, to show up at office hours, because I'm spending the rest of my time earning my paycheck.