Tuesday, 13 August, 2002

Rant of the Week: Surveillance of students on TWEN


Law professors, have you ever wanted to login into the library system and find out which students have borrowed books or course reserves on your reading list, or how long they borrowed them for? Well, now you can do the equivalent of this and so much more on Westlaw's TWEN!

The days of pesky librarians guarding this information are over. You can just bypass them and those oh so twentieth century library privacy concerns. TWEN easily allows you to find helpful usage statistics about each of your students. Now you can find out how often a student has logged into your TWEN Course, or how many of the documents on your course she has read or how many posts he has made on your discussion board. This information can be very helpful for assigning class participation grades, and help make them more objective.

Does anybody else find this remotely troubling? I don't yet know if LexisNexis Web Courses offers a similar surveillance feature. My advice to all law students would be to log onto each of your TWEN courses every day - ten times a day if you can. And make sure you select all of the documents that your instructor has assigned for you on TWEN, even if you only glance at it for a minute. Finally, increase your "post count" by sending lots of well intentioned "I don't know that one either" and "golly, I never thought of that answer" posts. If your instructor allows anonymous posting, ask dumb questions and have your friends answer your questions and then you can ask dumb follow-up questions and create a nice long thread. This way, your instructor will be most impressed when it comes to giving participation grades. Better yet, if every law student optimizes their TWEN statistics, together you will be able to render the statistics meaningless for everyone!


5:51:34 PM    Comments []  


Morgan Wilson (mentioned in yesterday's Alert as the creator of explodedlibrary.info) authors a two-part article on blogs for the MALL Newsletter. The first part appears now at ExplodedLibrary.info. The second part will follow later. Morgan provides many references to existing library and law-related blogs, reviews the pros and cons about blogging ... [TVC Alert]

Thanks, Genie!


4:57:27 PM    Comments []  

Pseudonymous blogging


Two topics under discussion in the blogosphere today. Two topics under discussion in the blogosphere today: Pseudonymous blogging (see here) and weekend blogging (see here and here). On these two subjects the author of "How Appealing" votes no and yes, respectively. And, although I don't practice pseudonymous blogging, I did write a blog entry just the other day that mentioned pseudo-feces. [How Appealing]

I don't use a pseudonym for this blog, but I also have an anonymous LiveJournal diary. If I couldn't make my LJ pseudonym sufficiently anonymous (I realize there are no more absolutes here), there's no way I would ever, ever use such a thing. I'd have to worry about potential employers googling everything I'd ever written in it. I see the author's point about the perils of pseudonymous blogging, but who's to draw the line between public and private blogs? And what about the moral right of an author to withdraw her or his work from the public? I know that moral rights aren't yet a part of US law (and never will be if the Big Content lobby has its way - for all their talk about ordinary people stealing music, hell would freeze over before record companies would allow individual artists to have unassignable moral rights!). My point is that this is a complex issue where different ideals collide.


4:50:28 PM    Comments []  


Highest courts of Texas split over "do not publish" designation. Highest courts of Texas split over "do not publish" designation: law.com offers this report. You can access here my most recent column on the controversial issue of non-precedential appellate opinions, published in The Legal Intelligencer, Philadelphia's daily newspaper for lawyers, on January 14, 2002. [How Appealing]

Make sure you read Howard's column on this issue - a frustrating issue which I wish would be absolutely resolved one way or the other.


4:20:19 PM    Comments []  


Library Stuff turns 2. - On August 4th, LS officially turned 2 years old. Thanks for your continued support by returning on a daily basis. Cheers!! [Library Stuff]

Happy birthday!


4:14:27 PM    Comments []  


Absolute Control. Absolute control means demolishing the rights we users of copyrighted material have enjoyed for centuries, such as the fair-use right... [LibraryPlanet.com]
4:13:27 PM    Comments []  


Sometimes You Get What You Pay For. Commercial resources and information professionals better serve those seeking business information. [TVC Alert]

More than two-thirds of the publications used most often by knowledge workers either don't have Web sites or don't make their material available on the Web for free, according to a study by Outsell, a global market research firm that focuses on the information industry.  

This sounds right to me. It had better be because some of this information can be so expensive.


4:12:25 PM    Comments []  


Gitalong, Li'l Blawgies. Life is good for the Blawg Patrol this summer. Within the last few weeks, Ernie has established his way-cool law blogs outline, and JCA has set up what is, to my knowledge, the first blawg webring (now up to 18 entries). This was all good news for the agents, who still are managing to squeeze in some investigatory work, but also are realizing the importance of fun in the great outdoors. Thus, after dragging home from the Azores, they all insisted on heading southwest for the Big Summer Blawg Roundup. Here's who they've recently roped:
  • Larry Lessig!! [Thanks, Doc]
  • Garrett Moritz, a Harvard law student with a penchant for handstands, Britney and Harry Potter, and the more than occasional rant. [Via The Volokh Conspiracy]
  • Drumroll please: Agent Altreuter bagged one of the BP's Ten Most Wanted: a blogging legal secretary, Joni Mueller. As added bonuses, Joni does appellate work and is partial to things red. Like Garrett, Joni's blog is part of a larger site ("2 Fools And A Modem"), with much to explore.
  • Broc Romanec blogs for R.R. Donnelly's RealCorporateLawyer.com, primarily about the SEC and securities issues. [Via Genie Tyburski's TVC Alert]
  • Brian Peterson hails from West Virginia and serves up legal news and commentary. He was corralled by Director Svenson, whose blawg-tying skills have earned many awards down on the Ranch.
    Ernie's Outline also yields,
  • Alvin Borromeo, Carey Gage, Dilan Esper, Seth Farber, Michael Fox, Michael Lopez, Damian Penny, Michael Wade, law student Alice W. (very fun site) and "exploded" law librarian Morgan Wilson,
    while the following blawgers are new to me from the Blawg Ring,
  • law students Anthony Santagati III (more here via Ernie) and J.M. Branum.

    Phew, with that I'm bound for some
    grub, stargazin' and blawgy ballads... [Bag and Baggage]

    A very helpful account of new law blogs, which also happens to mention this one.


  • 4:08:02 PM    Comments []  


    Well, it seems there are some librarians who are in favor of both the PATRIOT Act and the TiPS program, wink.
    [
    librarian.net]

    I found this quite hilarious.


    4:05:34 PM    Comments []  


    There's quite a lot of news today - I'll be updating later this afternoon. In the meantime I need to put on my Systems Librarian hat and look into both EZproxy, Obvia, Transparent Proxy and other possible solutions for libraries. Does anybody have any favourites? I don't yet have the comments feature set up on this blog, but I definitely plan to. In the meantime you can just email me.

    Next week our fall semester begins and the fun will begin - and I'll need to work out how I can make this blog sustainable, timewise.


    11:28:47 AM    Comments []