
Open letter to the Yale Community from Dean - shaufler
http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/open-letter-yale-community-dean-mary-miller?
======
kgrin
Whenever these cases come up, we tend to look at it with a status-quo bias -
assuming that _of course_ this data exists, and it's a question of whether it
should be "free" (whatever your interpretation of that term). But in reality,
things like YBB+ can impact the existence of the data in the first place - in
this particular case, the evaluations existing in as comprehensive a form as
they do depends on Yale's explicit sponsorship (having professors hand out the
eval forms, etc.)

I'm not sure what the policy implication is - there's no easy rule here. But
it's worthwhile to keep in mind that "information wants to be free, Yale can't
decide how it's used" (an attitude that's a bit of a straw-man, but not too
far from what some have argued here) ignores the reality that the next time
the Yale faculty debate whether or not to collect and collate evaluations (or
whether to have a numeric score component), they may well decide not to.
(Which, of course, is a principle that applies to other cases of data
collection - sometimes it's best not to collect it, just because you don't
know how it'll be [mis-]used...)

~~~
thaumasiotes
You sort of have a point; the letter explicitly calls out that they're
reconsidering providing this data at all.

But... given an adversary's policy of "we will provide this data if and only
if it goes unused", there's no reason to give that policy any weight in
deciding whether to use the data. If you decide to use it, the policy will
kick in and you can't. If you decide not to use it, it's not relevant that it
remains technically "available" for other people to also not use. That's not a
reason to consider what Yale wants, it's a reason to slam them for being
weasels.

~~~
wvenable
If the university no longer provides the data this seems like a good
opportunity for the application developers to manage that data themselves.
They already have the students' course information so they could email them at
the end of term and get their own evaluations -- removing Yale from the
equation entirely.

~~~
andrewfong
Also worth pointing out that it's in Yale's interest to collect and provide
the data. If they collect it, they can ensure a more representative sample
size, even if they can't ensure how that data is ultimately presented. If
students start using a third party service, not only does Yale still not have
control over presentation, the data collected will probably make the faculty
look worse by virtue of the fact that disgruntled students are more likely to
respond than happy students.

~~~
mullingitover
As a wise man once said, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes
around it."

------
tsm
As much as I would love to sit here carrying on about how Information Wants to
be Free, I do appreciate where she's coming from. YBB forced to students to
actually read course evals and apply critical thinking to their class
selection. YBB+ wrongly suggests that the quality of a class can be reduced to
a scalar value.

We've complained about this bitterly going the other way. How many app
developers are frustrated when they get a one-star review that says, "This app
couldn't sync to my online account unless I was connected to the internet.
Changing to five stars when that's fixed"? How many Amazon shoppers have seen
one-star reviews that say, "The package was damaged during shipping. The
return was really easy and I got a replacement in two days, but I wanted it
for an event that happened before the replacement came."?

~~~
agarden
If the performance of the professor in a class cannot be reduced to a scalar
value, then it seems probable that the performance of a student in a class
also cannot be reduced to a scalar value, and professors should be required to
write paragraph evaluations of students instead of just assigning them
something from an A to an F.

In other words, if reduction of complex performance to a scalar value is
invalid, then the entire grading system that defines academic success is
bogus.

Incidentally, I think that likely.

~~~
femto113
My alma mater (UC Santa Cruz) does exactly this, all course were pass/fail and
if you passed you got a narrative evaluation, which ranged from terse
sentences that obviously encoded traditional grades as text ("He did very good
on the midterm, and excellent on the final, and excellent overall.") to some
that were several paragraphs in length and discussed specific merits of the
work done in the course. Amusingly they also had a committee that would
translate your narrative evaluations into numeric grades so you could apply to
grad schools that required a GPA.

------
icambron
> In doing so, the developers violated Yale’s appropriate use policy by taking
> and modifying data without permission, but, more importantly, they
> encouraged students to select courses on the basis of incomplete
> information. To claim that Yale’s effort to ensure that students received
> complete information somehow violated freedom of expression turns that
> principle on its head.

I think she doesn't really know what free expression means. It does not mean,
"you can say what you want as long as we agree with it." That's certainly how
I read "more importantly, they encouraged students to select courses on the
basis of incomplete information". Free expression means that the
administration cannot control the message; people can say what they want. This
is OK; win in the marketplace of ideas ("maybe I should evaluate my courses
with more contextual information"), not by treating your students as children
who can't decide for themselves how to consume information.

Also, this bit about reconsidering whether to provide the data at all is
childish. "You're not interpreting our data the way we want so now you can't
have any! I'm taking my ball and going home!" It's worth remembering (both
here and in the thus-far imprecise and confused discussion of who "owns" the
data) that the students are the ones providing the evaluations being
aggregated here; at the very least, it's unclear why they'd be expected to
continue doing so without getting some quid pro quo benefit from it.

Stop trying to control everything and trust your students to be smart and
thoughtful.

~~~
jsun
Not everyone acts as rational machines, professors' egos have to be stroked
too. They'd like to think that they can't just be reduced to a number between
1 and 5.

Besides which, I think exposing rating systems for courses creates perverse
incentives. It's been well studied that students who get better grades rate
courses higher. Is that really what we want to be measuring professors
against?

~~~
icambron
> Not everyone acts as rational machines

OK, but now you're arguing that Yale students shouldn't be exposed to free
expression because they're incapable of handling its consequences. I think
that's silly, but fine: it's a real argument. But let's stop pretending this
kind of paternalism is consistent with even a modest notion of free
expression, because it's very clearly not. It says "you can only say things we
approve of, because we know best." Being right about knowing best doesn't make
it not a limitation on free expression. Free expression as a principle
_necessarily_ doesn't hinge on whether you think the individual expressions
are right. That's, like, the whole point of it. [1]

You're also arguing that 1-5 rating systems are silly and Yale shouldn't
bother collecting them, but that has nothing to do with the YBB+ website or
how students will interpret it. For example, wouldn't those perverse
incentives you mention be in place already, given that providing feedback to
professors was the whole point? Ratings don't magically transform from useful
evaluation tools to misguided oversimplifications just because students have
convenient access to them. Either they carry useful information or they don't.

[1] I'm not taking a free expression absolutist position here. (I'm tempted
to, but it's totally unnecessary for this discussion.) The point is that to
the degree to which you make rules about what kind of thing people can express
is, well, trivially the degree to which you limit free expression. And
limiting the ability of students to transmit truthful data about the courses
they're taking is a very strong limitation, and it would be hard to formulate
a consistent, principled policy that permits this kind of restriction and
doesn't just say, "you can't say things we don't like".

~~~
jsun
Why is this a free expression issue? Yale is simply saying you can use the
data we collected, but in order to do so you must show ALL of it, including
comments. If Yelp changed their open API rules and said you can display the
star ratings for a restaurant, but you have to display the text of the reviews
as well, would everyone be up in arms about it?

~~~
JangoSteve
They're not talking about "free expression" in the generic sense. They're
specifically talking about Yale's Freedom of Expression Policy [1]. Comparing
this to Yelp doesn't make sense, because the Dean of Yelp never said, "I
disagree that Yale violated its policies on free expression in this
situation." The policy in question specifically states that Yale values "the
need to be able to 'think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and
challenge the unchallengeable.'" and acknowledges that "such freedom may
sometimes make life uncomfortable in a small society such as a college. But it
also asserts that 'because no other institution combines the discovery and
dissemination of basic knowledge with teaching, few need assign such high
priority to it.'"

I don't really have a bone in this fight, so to speak, but I do find it
interesting that the Dean of Yale has such a problem with the way their
students are using their data to express an idea, when their very own Freedom
of Expression Policy says:

 _Yale 's commitment to freedom of expression means that when you agree to
matriculate, you join a community where "the provocative, the disturbing, and
the unorthodox" must be tolerated. When you encounter people who think
differently than you do, you will be expected to honor their free expression,
even when what they have to say seems wrong or offensive to you._

Although, if we're being pedantic, their policy technically states that they
expect their students and graduates to honor others' free expression, not that
they agree to honor their students' free expression.

[1] [http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-
expression](http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-expression)

------
deathanatos
> Yale dean […] apologizes

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I do not see an apology behind that link. A
detail of Yale's reasoning, but not an apology.

> However, I disagree that Yale violated its policies on free expression in
> this situation.

I'm not sure what "[Yale's] policies on free expression" are, but my
understanding here is that Yale blocked the IP address of a site because it
was using some data that Yale published, and modifying it in a way Yale
disagreed with. There might be an argument to be had under copyright, but I
don't think it's important at the moment. Yale states this:

> the developers violated Yale’s appropriate use policy by taking and
> modifying data without permission, but, more importantly, they encouraged
> students to select courses on the basis of incomplete information.

Abusing the fact that you have power over the students' access of information
to prevent access to information you disagree with is what people have a
problem with; this is especially true when you label something like this
"malicious activity". These concerns are not addressed by the dean's letter.

~~~
JangoSteve
> I'm not sure what "[Yale's] policies on free expression" are...

I would guess that they are referring to Yale's Freedom of Expression Policy:
[http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-
expression](http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-expression)

EDIT: While I'm at it, here's what I came up with when I googled "Yale
appropriate use policy":

[http://its.yale.edu/forms-policies/appropriate-
use](http://its.yale.edu/forms-policies/appropriate-use)

------
mrt0mat0
I think this is a great example of both compromise and overreaction. In the
end, they are clearly trying to give students the tools they want, but this
should have been the first response, not the second. I can't find it now but
the other yale student that wrote the chrome extension was the main catalyst.
He took the complaints of Yale and removed them therefore forcing them to find
new logic, which they did. Hats off to him.

~~~
Fuxy
That logic was bs from the beginning they just taught they could strong-arm
the students into submitting.

It's the typical shoot first ask questions later philosophy that intelligent
well educated teachers should never have used.

If they would have addressed their concerns from the beginning to the students
i'm certain they would have complied.

------
mwexler
I did get a chuckle at this backhanded positioning in the very first paragraph
(which I highlight in _ _ below). Kind of set the tone of what I expected in
the note, but was disappointed to see:

"In retrospect, I agree that we could have been more patient in asking the
developers to take down _information they had appropriated without
permission_, before taking the actions that we did."

The entire note has an odd, arrogant read to it. If the new tool in fact
provided complete comments as well as numeric scores, Yale would have cheered
and saluted them ... but because they didn't, Yale shuts it down? Is that
really the issue?

~~~
davidgerard
Yes, I couldn't see the bit that actually constituted an apology.

------
reubenswartz
If by "apologizes" you mean "does not apologize", I guess so. ;-)

Universities tend to move very slowly, and I get that these situations can be
hard for them, but the whole letter is disingenuous, at best. AFAIK, the
students aren't guilty of "modifying data without permission", nor did they
"encourage[d] students to select courses on the basis of incomplete
information." That's like saying no one should use a course catalog because it
doesn't have complete information. Of course scalar averages don't capture the
entirety of the feedback on courses. But I bet there's a meaningful difference
between 4 stars and 2 stars, or whatever the rating system is, and I'd like to
think that Yale students are clever enough o understand this, and to be able
to go through more detailed evaluations when it makes sense to them.

If the Dean had just said "holy crap, we didn't realize how easy it is to do
this and we're freaked out about it, we need you to close this down for now,
but please help us build the next generation system", people would have a very
different reaction.

------
ilamont
_To that end, the Teaching, Learning, and Advising Committee, which originally
brought teaching evaluations online, will take up the question of how to
respond to these developments, and the appropriate members of the IT staff,
along with the University Registrar, will review our responses to violations
of University policy._

In other words, death by committee.

------
akavi
Did no one else feel that the biggest issue with the original ip block was not
the motivation for the block but rather Yale's blocking of a website on
copyright grounds in the first place?

Maybe Yale is indeed in the right to try to control use of this data. But Yale
most certainly is _not_ in the right to unilaterally block access, regardless
of the reasoning.

(NB., my concern is not with legal rights, but rather a higher standard of
moral or ethical rights that Yale, as a purportedly high-minded institution,
should hold itself to.)

------
synctext
"we need to review our policies and practices"

Welcome to the 21st century. That single minor incident now escalated into a
news item of several days. Lot of lost PR points. All because they feel the
need to control the course selection process. Sad.

~~~
saraid216
> All because they feel the need to control the course selection process.

It's almost as if the entire purpose of their institution was controlling the
course selection process. You know. By _offering courses in the first place_.

------
shaufler
Original post for context: [http://haufler.org/2014/01/19/i-hope-i-dont-get-
kicked-out-o...](http://haufler.org/2014/01/19/i-hope-i-dont-get-kicked-out-
of-yale-for-this/)

~~~
gojomo
Indeed, I think that's what Miller is referring to when she writes in the 2nd-
to-last paragraph:

 _Just this weekend, we learned of a tool that replicates YBB+ 's efforts
without violating Yale’s appropriate use policy, and that leapfrogs over the
hardest questions before us._

------
JangoSteve
I've mentioned these in a couple responses in this thread, but if anyone is
curious, here is Yale's Freedom of Expression Policy:

[http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-
expression](http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/freedom-expression)

And here is their Appropriate Use Policy:

[http://its.yale.edu/forms-policies/appropriate-
use](http://its.yale.edu/forms-policies/appropriate-use)

The most interesting thing to me about these policies is that the Freedom of
Expression Policy explicitly states how crucial it is to be tolerant and
accepting of people's ability to express ideas that are "provocative, the
disturbing, and the unorthodox," and that this means they value the ability to
"think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the
unchallengeable." And yet, they are having a rough time because some students
used their data to express an idea in a way they hadn't intended or thought
was possible.

At the same time, I actually couldn't find a single clause in their
Appropriate Use Policy that had been violated. The only restrictions I saw in
the policy were that their data be used only for non-commercial and academic
purposes (which it was). I didn't see anything about only being able to use
data in its intended manner. But maybe I'm missing something (for example,
maybe the actual YBB site has its own Appropriate Use Policy separate from
their IT policy).

EDIT: I also just realized I was looking at the Quick Reference for their
Appropriate Use Policy, so maybe there's something else in the full text that
was violated:

[http://policy.yale.edu/policy/1607-information-technology-
ap...](http://policy.yale.edu/policy/1607-information-technology-appropriate-
use-policy)

------
joeframbach
I can't find the apology in that letter. I see stifling:

* "we need to review our policies and practices" \-- We're going to make it policy that these ratings are gone.

* "We will also state more clearly the requirement/expectation for student software developers" \-- The requirements will become more burdensome and bureaucratic, and we will be able to better cover our asses.

* "and we will create an easy means for them to do so" \-- (I don't buy this one.)

------
davmar
_Han Solo: I must have hit her pretty close to the mark to get her all riled
up like that, huh, kid?_

Yale is going to end up on the wrong side of history in this one. And the
irony is that the dean is a professor of history.

------
97s
So it sounds like to me that they are going to eventually take down the
detailed evaluations and end it all. Did anyone else get that feeling?

~~~
girvo
Yep. And it's not over for the people who made this either, I'd wager... This
was certainly not much of an apology.

~~~
97s
Yea I felt like this was sort of a: Hey we acted too quickly, but we
understand you like this. It's still not what we want you doing, and you found
away around our policies. So we are probably just gonna take it all down and
not give you any information.

------
ghshephard
It's almost certain that Yale will no longer make any course/instructor review
information available online as a result of all this. The Dean as much as
telegraphed this in his missive.

~~~
sunir
her.

Mary Miller, Dean of Yale College.
[http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/officedetail/454](http://yalecollege.yale.edu/content/officedetail/454)

------
zackbloom
Censorship is not a valid tool for an educational institution to use. They are
free to promote their version of the information, ask people to not use the
other, etc. but however much they dislike it, blocking it should not even be
considered.

~~~
grecy
Which brings up an interesting question. Does Yale exist because it's an
educational institution, or does it exist because it's a money-making
enterprise?

Can it be both?

Coming from a country where higher-education is covered by the government, I
think it's a conflict of interest for an educational institute to be in the
money-making game

------
meGetEducated
If the dean is suggesting that there are limits on the value of single-measure
evaluation, I look forward to hearing about what she has in mind for student
evaluations. I hope and expect that she will devote the same amount of energy
to our long-outdated grading system as she devotes to hiding information about
professor evaluations.

------
excellence24
It probably has to do with how the YBB+ portrayed some teacher in a bad light.
The integrity of those 'excellent' professors and tenured careers has to be
protected.

I wish my university even had all those reviews we do at the end of the year
available for all to see. They don't do sh*t with it. I once wasted my time by
suggesting my university create an API for students to easily get any data
about the school. B/c then we would all see how 'great' some of our professors
are and what we each think about them.

Sure 3rd party website like 'ratemyprofessor' are good, but they don't have
the ease of acquiring rating data like schools do that pass out reviews to
each student at the end of a semester. They have to protect the 'wizard of oz'
lest we all see who really is behind the curtain.

------
metaphorm
entrenched bureaucratic culture and a wide gap between the students and the
faculty.

a post facto weak-sauce apology is about what I expected here. I get the
distinct impression that what the Dean regrets most is that the story was
widely publicized, rather than that her initial reaction was "heavy handed".

------
Mustafabei
Well, they should have contacted the developer of the interface beforehand. If
that was not plausible, they should have given all the students a heads-up a
suitable time before blocking.

If they had done all the above, then I don't know what the fuss is all about.

------
pkprosol
This is a pretty big setback for Yale in terms of refocusing more on STEM. But
they're in good company. I'm sure 10-15 years ago music company executives
were similarly pissed off.

~~~
Fomite
I am pretty sure this isn't going to set Yale back in the slightest.

~~~
chc
What makes you so sure? You think the sort of students who could get into Yale
don't have other options?

~~~
Fomite
I think that, in considering their options, "Yale's stance on a fly-by-night
improvement to the course catalog" has a very low weight, and will be
forgotten by next admissions season.

Because Yale has options too - if a few students decide to make a principled
stand, there are others waiting in line just as good who care slightly less.

------
malandrew
I'm gonna bet that the advisory committee is going to be made up only or at
least largely faculty and administration. If they want to do things right, any
such advisory committee on the matter should be approximately 50/50 students
and faculty with administrative people there to listen and figure out how to
overcome and legal issues that may exist that would inhibit the solution that
faculty and students come up with together.

------
tessierashpool
Locking down data and requiring that students get approval before working with
it fundamentally violates the freedom of intellectual inquiry that any healthy
university requires to function.

------
nickflees
modify(data) != summarize(data)

~~~
billyhoffman
Indeed. There seems to be a big disconnect here from Yale. They collected this
data and made it available. However the Dean and Yale's main problem seems to
be [1] that YBB+ wasn't showing all of the data. That the numerical ratings
are some how strongly linked by spooky action to the detailed reviews and that
you cannot show one without the other.

This is, of course, crazy.

From simply a UI/design position, you can't easily display/sort on X different
professors/courses each of which has 1..N detailed reviews that are blobs of
text.

From a broader perspective sometimes you need to decouple data to be able to
better process it. In fact, given so many students used YBB+ it is reasonable
to conclude that YBB+'s presentation of the data is doing a job informing
students than Yale's own systems.

Everything is a remix

[1] From the article: "The tool created by YBB+ set aside the richer body of
information available on the Yale website, including student comments, and
focused on simple numerical ratings. In doing so, the developers violated
Yale’s appropriate use policy by taking and modifying data without permission,
but, more importantly, they encouraged students to select courses on the basis
of incomplete information."

~~~
sjburt
The problem is whether it was doing a good job. Sure, students may have felt
they were making good decisions by looking at 1-5 average ranking, and yes,
the UI was very pretty and made it look like it was providing you lots of
information, but the fact is, a simple average of a single metric is not a
good way to pick a course.

There are always hard, scary courses, and those classes are going to end up
ranked lower because the material is harder or the professor isn't as "cool"
or because a 20-year-old doesn't see the point in learning how to do proofs.
Letting that become the dominant factor in course selection is not good for
education (or intellectual freedom--what happens when a professor with
unpopular views is ranked poorly and his/her classes become sparsely
attended?)

------
aioprisan
so will they allow the app now?

~~~
thaumasiotes
As I read the letter, first they're going to stop providing faculty
evaluations, and then they're going to set up a bureaucracy overseeing
student-developer use of university resources. After that, they may or may not
reallow the app, but as the letter points out:

> Just this weekend, we learned of a tool that replicates YBB+'s efforts
> without violating Yale’s appropriate use policy, and that leapfrogs over the
> hardest questions before us.

Not a huge victory for the students here. :/

~~~
Einstalbert
Setting up bureaucracies = we're going to take a long time to figure this out,
hopefully long enough for everyone to forget this. Then our crappy committee
will get nothing accomplished, except this smokescreen act of course.

------
sevkih
So that's what you do with an art degree

