Year: 2014

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    Another of our periodic email cautionary notes

    Byuclafaculty

    From time to time, we have provided reminders about email problems.  One problem – which we have noted – is that at a public university, your emails may be subject to public documents requests. Another problem is that hackers may try to get into your email account through “phishing,” probably to use it to send out scam messages to your contacts.  Such an event seems to have occurred at UC-Davis: Hackers compromised the email accounts of three UC Davis doctors last month, potentially gaining access to personal or medical information on as many as 1,800 patients, the university announced Monday… …

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    Stay Away from the 405 Tonight and Tomorrow Night

    Byuclafaculty

    The northbound San Diego (405) Freeway will be closed overnight through the Sepulveda Pass tonight and Wednesday night so crews can re-stripe the roadway and move k-rail barriers. The northbound freeway will be closed between Moraga Drive and Ventura Boulevard, according to Metro, which is overseeing the freeway-widening project. Ramps will begin closing at around 7 p.m., followed by lane closures at 10 p.m. and the full freeway closure at midnight, continuing until 5 a.m… Full story at http://centurycity.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/northbound-405-freeway-to-close-overnight-through-sepulveda-pass

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    MOOc

    Byuclafaculty

    An interesting analysis of MOOCs in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Stanford economist Caroline M. Hoxby suggests that heavy dependence on online ed won’t work for what she terms highly selective post-secondary educational institutions.  In essence, such institutions depend in important ways on alumni loyalty which is hard to obtain if students take courses online that come from anywhere. Abstract: I consider how online postsecondary education, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), might fit into economically sustainable models of postsecondary education. I contrast nonselective postsecondary education (NSPE)in which institutions sell fairly standardized educational services in return…

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    USC Has a Bad Patch

    Byuclafaculty

    We posted yesterday about the news from UC-Berkeley that many earthquake-prone buildings are located in southern California – including in Westwood.  The Westwood-Century City Patch, in picking up the story from the LA Times, blamed USC instead of UC-B, at least in the headline.  See above.  Probably just as well.  Who wants to be the bearer of bad tidings?.

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    Napolitano Responds to UCLA’s Moreno Report

    Byuclafaculty

    Moreno UC President Napolitano issued a response to the (former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos) “Moreno Report” of Oct. 2013, formally titled “Independent Investigative Report on Acts of Bias and Discrimination Involving Faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles.”  It includes directives to all campus chancellors: 1) Every campus should designate an official to serve as its lead discrimination officer. This official is responsible for ensuring that an appropriate response is made to all reports of perceived acts of discrimination, bias, and harassment involving faculty, students, and staff from all parts of the campus. * The discrimination officer will…

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    UC-Berkeley Releases Its Earthquake Survey to the LA Times

    Byuclafaculty

    We have followed the LA Times‘ story of the concern about certain concrete buildings in the southern California area which might be at risk in a major earthquake.  The Times identified some buildings in an earlier story but noted that UC-Berkeley had a survey list of buildings.  Berkeley was reluctant to provide the list because its intent was to get an estimate of the number of such buildings based on public records rather than evaluate each building directly.  It has now provided the Times with the list, along with a legal disclaimer.  The Times now has an interactive map on…

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    Listen to the Regents Morning Meeting of Jan. 22, 2014

    Byuclafaculty

    As promised in previous posts, yours truly is slowly working through the Regents meetings audio.  Below is a link to the audio for the morning session of Wednesday, Jan. 22.  The Regents, for unacceptable reasons in an age where public meetings are archived indefinitely, archives them only for one year.  Moreover, it appears to be policy not to make the audio files available directly.  Hence, they can only be preserved by recording them from the temporary archive in real time.  That is, to preserve one hour of Regents time requires recording from the archive for one hour. To hear the…

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    The Resurrection?

    Byuclafaculty

    [More in our Regents coverage.  See earlier posts.]  The Regents spent some time on the old Master Plan for Higher Ed.  There was discussion, according to news reports, among representatives of UC, CSU, and the community colleges on better coordination. …“This report shines an important light on the need to have a central body whose sole focus is guiding the Legislature, governor and our three higher education segments as we plan and build for the future,” (Assembly speaker John Pérez) said. Full story at http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-college-reports-20140123,0,5215408.story Um, does no one remember  CPEC, which still exists in ghostly form as a website…