Written on March 11, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

Last week, Viacom Inc. confirmed in the Wall Street Journal that over 5,000 MTV employees Personal Private Information (PPI) was stolen via a laptop connection. According to Viacom, employee’s social security numbers and dates of birth was among the information released. Employees have been warned to check their credit reports; Viacom did not release any additional information about the attack.

The latest data breach report from Ponemon Institute indicates that 2007’s average cost per compromised record was at $197/record. Given that metric, this would be a $985,000 loss for MTV. Woops. And all because of a laptop.

R

Written on March 9, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

Written on March 7, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

Written on March 7, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

In a response to one of my Keller Graduate School students… and the quantitative metrics apply only to Keller, but I think the rest is useful to communicate to my once, current, and future students….

Hey there, Torthue -

Suggestions… okay, a couple of pointers, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to share this with the rest of the class, too.

1. Keep up with the online discussion boards. Post frequently and often. The university likes to see 3-4 posts per thread, per week, minimum. The university also likes to see those posts spread throughout the week, like, on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday rather than all posted on one day. And the university likes to see quality in the work – applied concepts and application.

2. Watch my requirements for written deliverables. I often will post some commentary in the Q&A forums each week. Make sure you check that out from time to time. This week, for example, I pushed some ideas on plagiarism and citation… you may want to read this.

3. Read the text and the lecture; apply these concepts whenever you can. The quizzes and exams really tap into the reading and reinforce reading concepts.

4. Apply concepts. The more you can use terms, vocab, and ideas from the curriculum, the most successful you’ll be at demonstrating mastery of concepts to me. Slack answers, terse answers, vague answers, generalist or ambiguous answers aren’t useful in my grading. The best answers and discussion participation comes from a thorough treatment of the problem and strong application of concepts in the context of theory (our text, lecture) or of professional experience. This is graduate school. Application is absolutely required.

I’m probably one of the toughest instructor’s you’ll ever have (grin). I’m a stickler on traditional academic expectations: mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation), thesis (argument), presentation (APA/MLA format and style), application of concepts, and the use of citation (concerns of authority, method, paraphrasing, and plagiarism).

Unlike many of my adjunct peers, I’ve been teaching for over a decade and I teach both onground and online, so I know what good academic work is supposed to look like in a traditional university environment. Therefore, grade inflation is not a problem in my classroom; my final grades are usually “belled” pretty well with the mean scaled up around 82-84 percent in the universities I teach for. I do not grade on a curve nor am I allowed to; I do not tolerate academic dishonesty; I do not reward the slacker – I reward the _attempt_ to meet expectations as much as _achievement_ of expectations. I appreciate effort. I appreciate attention to detail.

It’s simple really. Read the text, honestly and actively participate, give a good effort to apply concepts, engage your peers, turn in your assignments at a college level of presentation and expectation, and be as thorough as possible. It’s the best way that I know to protect the value of your education dollar.

All the best -
R

Written on March 2, 2008  |  by RP Mickler  |  Leave a Comment  | 

Google has taken the next step in cloud computing by offering free visual voicemail.

GrandCentral is a new service that has been acquired by Google. Using GrandCentral allows you to create a voicemail box that can be used to direct telephone calls. The engine records the voicemail and makes it visible through GrandCentral’s interface – an Adobe Flash interface, or, a moble interface for phones.

A lot of features wrapped into GrandCentral:

1. Call screening and blocking features.
2. Notifications via SMS and email.
3. Call records and logging.
4. Selective ringtones.
5. Variable greetings.
6. Webcall button.
7. Online address book.
8. Visual voicemail.

I really like the webcall button. Apparently it screens the number so it can’t be read by spammers, but a button for calling you can be placed as a widget on your website or blog. Then, a VOIP interface is initialized via the web to capture the voice call. I’d probably use it for that purpose, as well as the ability to perhaps direct students from all of the universities I work with to a single inbox.

I don’t think GrandCentral replaces the voicemail functions of the cell phone. I do think that it allows for a centralized inbox and flexible screening tool which would be practical in concentrated web channels; it also offers the consolidation of distributed voicemails which could be a real time-saver. I think GrandCentral could be looked at as a “not quite as functional” Skype variant except the voicemail service is free.

And in Google tradition, GrandCentral is free – and, of course, to the savvy small business, free is a very good price – although they’re currently undergoing a selective registration process, and, availability for GrandCentral is limited to some specific markets. Signed up for it but the number hasn’t been approved yet. Keep your eyes pealed; apparently I can hitch it into the blog relatively easily! We’ll see…

R