No, not the planet. It’s cool. Mercury is the name for McGill’s online student course evaluation system. For most of my career as a teacher, there has been a day at the end of the term when students have filled out course evaluation forms, commenting on the instruction, their impressions of the course, and other …
Category Archives: Caveat User
Some Suggested Directions for Canadian Copyright Law
Israel recently reformed its copyright code, and given that it shares many of the same intellectual property issues as Canada, its path is instructive. Although there is much talk that Canada must adopt DMCA-like anti-circumvention measures (a provision that even authors of the DMCA now disown), it appears that small countries with big knowledge economies …
Continue reading “Some Suggested Directions for Canadian Copyright Law”
Why I Hate WebCT, Part II
My initial post on the subject has actually made the rounds at McGill and some people are talking about ways to fix things. I appreciate that. In followup correspondence, I listed some other things I hate about WebCT, and since the first post was a hit at least three people, I thought I’d post these …
Warning
When I logged into vdeck to upload my photo, I was informed by ipowerweb (my hosting service) that my account was being “migrated” to a new server and that it was in the “quality assurance stage.” This can only mean one thing: something will go totally haywire with my website in the next few days …
Why I Hate WebCT, Part I
This may or may not become a series depending on how much bile I have left over after the term ends. If you’re lucky, it won’t be a series. I do really hate WebCT. It being 2007 and everything, I figured there must be an easier way to manage multiple choice exams than to put …
Denounced by the Lawyer for Rush
Now that doesn’t happen every day. Yesterday I was part of a panel on sampling and copyright called “Cramping My Sampling” at the Pop and Policy Conference. The panel was set up for each person to give a 5-7 minute spiel and then the panelists talked with one another, after which the floor was opened …
Collapsing Bridges
Since last year’s collapse in Laval, there have been ongoing public inquiries in Quebec. Now that it’s happened in my other home state, I’m inclined to think that maybe North America’s aging infrastructure is hitting a tipping point.