Campus Tech
Western hacker apologizes on YouTube
Police will criminally charge Keith Horwood
From keithwilliamh on YouTube
Keith Horwood, a Western University alumnus, admitted to being behind the hacking of the student union’s elections website earlier this week.
Shortly after online voting began Tuesday, students noticed references to Justin Bieber’s haircut, Selena Gomez and the “university erection.”
Horwood will be charged criminally, a campus police official told the Western Gazette.
Police said they had suspected Horwood before he released this video apology on YouTube.
Teens who launched LEGO-man into space talk university
Think they’ll both take engineering? Wrong.
When Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad play with LEGO, they don’t build the usual castles, battleships, or Star Wars X-wings.
The two grade 12 students from Toronto constructed a helium-filled weather balloon and launched a LEGO man holding a Canadian flag into space, more than 24 kilometers up.
The LEGO man’s space adventure was recorded and a GPS device allowed Ho and Muhammad to relocate their plastic astronaut.
In fact, you probably already know this. Their video has more than 2.6 million views on YouTube.
Continue reading Teens who launched LEGO-man into space talk university
Western University elections sabotaged
Voters asked to choose Justin Bieber’s haircut in “erection”
A hacker at Western University has sabotaged the University Student Council elections by asking voters to pick Justin Bieber’s haircut, suggesting “Selena Gomez is wonderful” and by renaming the process the “University erection,” reports the Western Gazette. It was noticed on Valentine’s Day and online voting was shut down. The vote tallies weren’t hacked, say USC officials, but the two days of polls will be thrown out and a new vote is forthcoming, writes the London Free Press.
Quick Memes: the new campus obsession
Students at Nipissing U. early to embrace trend
Students have a new online obsession. Quickmemes.com allows anyone to add their own funny captions to photos of familiar Internet stars, like Rebecca Black, before sharing them on Facebook.
The trend is starting to spread, but one community’s Facebook walls are already littered with Quick Memes. There are more than 1,300 “likes” on the unofficial Nipissing University Memes Facebook page. That’s a lot for a school with just 4,500 students. The page for the North Bay, Ontario school has become a place to share both points of pride (the fries at campus pub The Wall) and common complaints (transportation to the hilltop campus). Here are just a few of the dozens of memes from the Nipissing page that will make you laugh and then share, just like that Rebecca Black video.
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- Fry from Futurama
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- One Does Not Simply…
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- Most Interesting Man in the World
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- Ghosthunter Rage
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- Lazy College Senior
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- Too Damn High
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- Success Kid
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- Scumbag Steve
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- Annoying Facebook Girl
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- Good Guy Greg
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- Rebecca Black of Friday fame
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- First World Problems
Share your Quick Memes with us in the comments section!
Follow @JoshDehaas and @maconcampus on Twitter.
Analysts: 90,000 have downloaded iBooks Author since Thursday
Apple plans higher education revolution
Screenshot of iBooks Author from Apple
Steve Jobs’ plans to take on the textbook market appear to be working. In the three days after the Thursday launch of Apple iBooks Author software for iPads, more than 90,000 users downloaded it.
On top of that, more than 350,000 textbooks were downloaded from its new textbook category in iBooks, which started selling textbooks from major publishers priced at $14.99 or less.
Apple hasn’t revealed any official numbers yet, so Mashable warns that the figures, from Global Equities Research, are unconfirmed.
Still, the iBooks Author software represents the biggest opportunity for a shakeup in the textbook market long dominated by expensive publishers.
Continue reading Analysts: 90,000 have downloaded iBooks Author since Thursday
Is a fraudster recording what you’re typing?
Identity thieves target campus computer labs
Photo by Official GDC on Flickr
Simon Fraser University students were shocked to learn last week that a Chinese couple stole 500 pages of information on 150 students from a computer or computers in a campus lab. The couple used it to make fake student cards, which they then used to steal transit passes.
The fraudsters were caught and deported. But Jim Garnett from B.C. Transit Police says the crime should serve as a warning to students that public machines on campus aren’t always safe.
The information that was stolen appeared to have been lifted using keystroke loggers, devices the size of a small USB key that are hidden on or inside computers to record everything that’s typed.
Continue reading Is a fraudster recording what you’re typing?
There’s a new social media obsession on campus
And it’s a haven for racist, sexist trolls
Facebook. Twitter. MSN. Google Plus. There’s no shortage of places for students to chat, opine, or procrastinate during finals. Yet there’s a new digital obsession spreading across Canadian campuses. It’s called OMG and it’s simple. Students submit short “Oh My Gods” about anything. Then, they’re posted to the site.
As a Waterloo student who found myself distracted by OMGUW far too often in December, I got thinking about what makes it so hard to look away. I wanted to know what makes it so enticing that it has spread from Waterloo to Guelph, Saskatchewan and Toronto, with tens of thousands of views.
Continue reading There’s a new social media obsession on campus
Here’s a free course that could get you hired
Nearly 300,000 have signed up so far
Photo by hackNY on Flickr
On Monday nearly 300,000 people received an e-mail containing their first free lesson in computer coding from New York based Codeacademy.
The course is part of their “Code Year” initiative where anybody and everybody is encouraged to make their New Year’s resolution to learn computer programming in 2012. By the end of it, students will be able to build their own apps.
Coding is a valuable skill in today’s economy. The federal government reports that Computer Programmers and Interactive Media Developers are in high demand in some Canadian cities, such as Montreal, where their average wage is $34.50 per hour, and Winnipeg where their average wage is $25.47.
Continue reading Here’s a free course that could get you hired
MIT announces free, open source courses
Certificates for a “modest fee”
Photo by liquene on Flickr
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) plans a spring launch of its ambitious new program, MITx, which includes a freely accessible suite of online courses that’s expected to attract millions of learners from around the world. MITx will allow students to learn at their own pace, participate in online labs and interact with fellow students online.
But most exciting is that MITx courses will come with a certificate of completion for students who have proven they’ve mastered the subject materials and paid “a modest fee.”
Open learning courses that come with credentials have proven enormously popular. When Stanford University professors offered an online course in Artificial Intelligence this fall with a “statement of accomplishment” and the possibility of interaction with professors through crowd-sourcing, 58,000 signed up by August. A similar Stanford course in machine learning drew nearly 100,000.
Scientific journal is a lot like YouTube
Meet JoVE. It’s peer-reviewed. It’s indexed. And it’s fun.
Capture from JoVE promotional video.
Are you tired of reading textbooks and journal articles? Imagine if you could research your lab report or learn an experimental technique by watching a YouTube video.
I just learned that you basically can, thanks to the Journal of Visualized Experiments. It’s like YouTube, except you’re not watching videos of kittens playing patty cake or people doing stupid stuff with trampolines. JoVE publishes peer-reviewed research just like any other academic journal, but in video format. It’s even indexed in PubMed Central, which is the Google of biochemical and life sciences research. At five-years old, JoVE may be the only journal of its kind. But one can imagine there will soon be more like it.
How to justify purchasing a smartphone
Eight apps that can help students save money
Smartphone photo by leyla.a on Flickr.
From the Maclean’s University Rankings. For more university advice, get your copy today!
Let’s face it: university is expensive. Between tuition, textbooks and having a social life, the cost adds up quickly. Luckily, smartphones can cut costs with a range of apps designed to manage money and track expenses. Forget bank tellers. Since the first mobile banking application became available in Canada in early 2010, the number of Canadians using daily mobile banking has climbed to more than 2.5 million, according to a July report by the Toronto-based Solutions Research Group.
Not surprisingly, the number of apps has also exploded. Here, in no particular order, are the top eight for saving money via your smartphone.
1. Mobile banking apps
Cost: Free
Available for: iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry or any Internet-enabled device
Standing in line at the bank is as exciting as a library tour. Luckily, Canada’s “Big Five”—the Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce—all offer a full suite of mobile apps for everyday banking transactions such as checking account balances, paying bills, and transferring money. Plus, you can use your bank’s ATM locator to avoid wallet-gouging fees from machines outside your bank’s network.
Should you friend your prof?
Prof. Pettigrew’s unofficial rules for social networking
Photo by luc legay on Flickr
Considering how ubiquitous social media sites are, it’s surprising that few universities in Canada seem to have policies providing guidance for how faculty members, or students for that matter, should use them in the university setting.
Some universities do have guidelines, like these at Brock, but they seem to be mainly interested in protecting the university’s brand and keeping the school out of lawsuits. Those kinds of guidelines don’t hurt, but they don’t help professors know what’s acceptable and appropriate.
I know some professors where I work wish there was a policy—my student is trying to friend me, what do I do? And my own observation reveals a wide range of attitudes as to what’s okay and what’s not. Some treat their student friends on Facebook just like everyone else; others never connect with their students and regard those who do with scorn.
Can you blame Facebook for your bad grades? Maybe.
Some activities may lead to lower marks
Photo by Spencer E Holtaway on Flickr
It’s common to use Facebook as a scapegoat for poor academic performance. That’s because a few small studies have shown that grades are lower among students who spend more time on the social media site. The assumption has always been that more time spent on Facebook translates to less time spent studying, which leads to lower grades.
But a newer, bigger U.S. study has found that Facebook time and study time are only weakly related. It takes many extra hours of posting and chatting before grades start to slip. What’s more, although the new study found negative relationships between grades and certain types of Facebook activities, other types of activities appear to be a associated with higher grades.
Continue reading Can you blame Facebook for your bad grades? Maybe.
School uses app to keep freshmen out of parties
Students worry about privacy
Photo by Brian Lane Winfield Moore on Flickr
An American university has gone to great lengths to enforce its new rule that first-semester students may not attend fraternity or sorority events.
Cornell University is releasing an ID scanning application for Apple devices. Fraternity and sorority party organizers will be required to borrowan iPod with the application installed from the school, which they’ll use at the doors of their social events. The app allows them to check student’s names, class years and whether they’ve reached 21, the legal drinking age in the U.S.
The information scanned is accessible “to a limited few in our office… and stored on a secure server with no plans to share further,” Travis Apgar, associate dean of students for fraternity and sorority affairs, told The Sun. “The use of the scanners will improve [the Greek community’s] management of risk by properly identifying the class year of attendees,” he said.
Continue reading School uses app to keep freshmen out of parties
Concordia library to start lending out iPads
But is it a good use of tuition money?
Photo by Rego - d4u.hu on Flickr
Concordia University’s library will lend out iPads to students starting this month. OpenFile Montreal reports that the library has acquired 25 of the tablet computers and they’re almost ready to go.
Concordia, like many schools, lends out laptops. That’s undoubtedly a useful service for students who want to do research in the library instead of carting home a pile of books. And not everyone can afford a laptop, so this improves access.
But while a number of American university libraries lend out iPads to students, Concordia is the first university in Quebec to do so. Some universities, including nearby McGill, offer e-readers, but iPad lending appears to be rare in Canada. The only other example I can find, using an (albeit non-exhaustive) Google search, is at York University’s Steacie Science and Engineering Library. They have a single solitary iPad to lend.
Continue reading Concordia library to start lending out iPads
Five more apps for students
Improve your finances, romantic life, grades, research…
Photo by miss karen on Flickr
Scott Dobson-Mitchell has sifted through dozens of apps for students. Earlier this month, he reviewed five of his favourites. Here are five more.
Tired of your parents nagging you about wasting money? Now there’s a website that can do that for them! Mint offers tools for budgeting, tracking investments (like you have any) and managing your money. When it’s time to pay a bill, it sends a reminder via e-mail or text message. The website also categorizes all the money you make and spend and then gives you ‘personalized recommendations.’ Can you still afford pizza night after buying textbooks? Mint can tell you. Free for Android and iPhone.
Want free pizza? Hazy about last night? Try these apps.
Scott Dobson-Mitchell reviews five apps for students
Photo courtesy of Alla_G on Flickr
1) FoodBot [mobile site]
Nevermind medical diagnoses or space exploration. Artificial intelligence has found a more important calling — locating free food on campus! FoodBot combs the web for events where free food has been advertised, such as fundraisers, job fairs and council meetings. It puts them on a calendar that details quality, quantity, time commitment, and — importantly — awkwardness. Too bad it’s only available at a few schools so far.
Continue reading Want free pizza? Hazy about last night? Try these apps.
Dalhousie abandons anti-plagiarism software
Victory for student groups
A majority of university presidents in the U.S. (55 per cent of them) say that plagiarism has increased in the past 10 years. Of those, 89 per cent blame the Internet, says a new study by Pew.
Many universities have fought back by using software like Turnitin, which forces students to upload their papers to be scanned against a database of published works, before their professors grade them. If passages appear to have been copied, the professor is informed and may investigate.
But profs at Dalhousie University learned this week that they no longer have access to the software, in part because papers were being stored on U.S. servers against the school’s wishes, Dwight Fischer, the school’s Chief Information Officer told the Toronto Star.
“We’re moving quickly to replace that system with something else,” said Fischer. “We’re not bailing on our academic integrity strategy. Students should not think that this is a retreat on what we hold dear and valuable here.”
Dalhousie University’s Student Union has long opposed Turnitin, partly because it presumes students are guilty before proven innocent. Some students were concerned that their intellectual property was being stored in the U.S. or copied and stored against their will.
McGill University student Jesse Rosenfeld won the right to submit his paper in person, instead of through Turnitin, after the university punished him for refusing to use the software in 2003.
Ryerson University uses Turnitin, but students can opt out if they make alternate arrangements.
Seven students at the University of King’s College were found guilty of plagiarism in December after fifteen papers had been flagged by Turnitin.
Five websites all students should bookmark
Study, research and procrastinate like never before!
Photo courtesy of kennymatic on Flickr
1) AbeBooks
There’s nothing worse than paying $100 for a book that’s going to make your life miserable (I’m thinking of you, Organic Chemistry). In some cases, you might think that you’re actually finding it interesting, but it’s probably Stockholm Syndrome. Once rescued from your hostage takers by the sweet December holiday break, you won’t want to see that book ever again.
That’s where sites like AbeBooks come in. You can buy used copies for a fraction of the regular price, or older editions that are even cheaper. In most cases, older editions are practically identical to new ones, except for a few diagrams. When you’re finished, sell the books back to the site.
Stanford virtual course attracts 58,000
Professors want to help students in developing world
Photo courtesy of Abode of Chaos on Flickr
How much demand is there for free online education? When the topic is Artificial Intelligence and the teachers are star Stanford University professors, the answer is 58,000 people from 175 different countries, reports The New York Times. That’s how many have expressed interest in an experimental course that will offer no credits, but will instead consist of virtual lectures, assignments, a ranking in comparison to other students and a “statement of accomplishment.”
The instructors are Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. Thrun is well-known for his robotic cars. Norvig is Google’s director of research. News of the course went viral after an e-mail was sent out to members of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence earlier this summer.
