Aug

31

Priorities

Filed Under Humor / Weird | 2 Comments

It said, “Univ offering cheaper software”. I saw, “Unix offering cheaper software”.

Freud was such a tool.

Aug

30

Amy’s Orchid Close Up

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Amy’s Orchid Close UP II, originally uploaded by Ezra F.

Aug

30

links for 2007-08-30

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Aug

29

links for 2007-08-29

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Aug

28

Its 10:34 Do You Know Where Your Tracking Files Are?

Filed Under Blackboard Vista, Work | 1 Comment

One of my co-workers says about tracking, “One of the big selling points to [Blackboard] Vista is the wealth of tracking data for auditing, grade challenges, and catching cheaters.” Certainly, Reports and Tracking in Blackboard’s Vista 3 is one of the more favorite tools. So making sure the data gets there is critically important.

The tracking data is not immediately written to the database. Instead, its staged on each node and applied to the database on the schedule provided by the UI’s System Administrator role. The schedule can be hourly or daily. We normally have these set to upload daily at 5am which is a slow part of the day. Though, going into splitting our data sets, we had temporarily set them to hourly to ensure the data would be uploaded. Coming out the split, we lost 3 nodes in 3 hours for the first day of classes due to Java issues. Going back to daily upload of the tracking data brought down the rate to about 2-3 nodes a day. Much better!

This data is staged in the form of files on each node. In the domain directory, locate the tracking directory. In it should be files with the date and hour and hour in the name. Each is rolled at the top of the hour. A file called .active-log contains the name of the file being written to and which the node not to upload the data. The data in these files is a little difficult to interpret. However, you can get the timestamp (Java epoch), learning context id, node, role, action, location, and person id in these logs. Working against the reporting interface or tracking data in the database would yield better results as this information is matched against more useful information like the WebCT ID, names, etc.

So, its possible for these files not to get written to the database for one reason or another. One error causes the rejection of the whole file (not just the offending entry). However, attempting to process the same file again does not result in duplicate entries. A short list of problems:

  • Database can only accept entries of a certain length.
  • Improper use of doublequotes.
  • Special characters.
  • Sudden node failure.

Database can only accept entries of a certain length. When an event’s length is too long, the database encounters an error and cannot place the entry into the tracking data. Problems is Vista 3’s SP7 caused the problem length to drop to about 590 characters. An update in hotfix 2 increased the event length to 1151.

Improper use of doublequotes. Designers using doublequotes in object names (even properly paired) cause issues. Its possible a hotfix intercepts these as I have not seen a case of this in a really long time.

Special characters. The usual special characters work fine. So your amperstands and colons are fine. Its the  which bother me. Monday, Amy got a report a tracking file had not uploaded. It had one event with a length of 1154 which failed (lines of 1151 length did not have an error). The 1154 length one had a text block that looked like “   ” but when I copy that text locally to Windows, it looks like “”. I think the extra spaces bumped the length from 1151 (just under the fail point) to 1154 (just over) and caused the error.

Sudden node failure. As well as we manage things, unexpected problems happen. We had once incident where we lost 6 nodes at once. One of the aftermaths of that even was a tracking file would not get written to the database for two of the six. It turns out an error was written to the end of the current tracking file at the time. Once the error was removed, the files were processed correctly.

The last two always make me think, “Weird.”

Aug

27

Vista’s Third Life?

Filed Under Interweb | Leave a Comment

Scott Schamp is teaching at UGA using Second Life. This is from his blog.

But last Friday, I found myself saying things I never thought I would have to say. “Please don’t sit on the fountain during class. Don’t forget that everyone needs to wear clothes the next time we meet. And, please, try and remember not to fly during class time.”
I Can’t Believe I Just Said That!

Its funny. Years ago, some enterprising faculty members latched onto email for use in conducting class without an actual classroom. Then the web sites become the new online classroom platform. Gee, if that had not happened, then I would have a different career.

Schamp has thoughts along the same lines for use of the web.

SL is a place for minds. It is going to take a while to figure out how we should use it. Frankly, now virtual worlds seem like a powerful creative solution. We just need to find the right problems for virtual worlds to solve. Back in 1994 I felt the same way about the web. It is going to take a lot of patient experimentation to find the best way to harness its potential.

Maybe it will take less than 5 years to see where this technology will take us.

Aug

27

links for 2007-08-27

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Aug

24

links for 2007-08-24

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Aug

23

Misleading CNN Information

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Yesterday, CNN’s Erica Hill was following a story about 2 pit bulls who got loose and killed a woman in while she slept. My first complaint is citing statistics without saying from where they originated. Only because the of rebuttal guest pointing out the study was based on media reporting incidents rather than police reporting am I able to guess this CDC study (PDF may require additional software) is the one.

The numbers cited by CNN sounded outrageous. Out of 238 deaths, pit bulls were supposedly responsible for 105 (over a 20 year period). It was so outrageous because german shepards, the next highest, were responsible for only 17. Well… the actual study says pit bulls were responsible for 66 deaths and rottweilers for 39 deaths and german shepards for 17 deaths.

Interestingly the authors of the study have these points about legislation for laws restricting the ownership of violent breeds:

  1. fatal attacks have been relatively stable over time (inconsistent with Erica’s question “Why have these attacks increased lately?”, funny given the study is based in large part on media coverage).
  2. different breeds were the dangerous dogs at different points of their study.

At least the mistake got me to read and understand the issue a little better.

Aug

22

Joke: Security Via JavaScript

Filed Under Blackboard Vista | Leave a Comment

So, you are a teaching an online class. Students cheating naturally is a concern. How does one prevent them from stealing answers?

  • Code in the online class system? Unfortunately, the makers of the learning management systems lag behind the creativity of cheaters. Plus, they can only control their systems. How do they enforce security in the web browser, desktop / laptop, cell phone, classroom, or any other environment?
  • JavaScript? This is the most laughable solution. I’ve known how to disable JavaScript in browsers I use since 1999. I’ve never met a JS security solution I could not beat by simply turning off JavaScript. With Firefox and the Web Developer toolbar it literally takes two clicks. People like it because its cheap. I guess you get what you pay for in this case.
  • Code in the operating system? Dozens of software applications are designed to prevent cheating by controlling what can be done with the desktop or laptop. Certainly this appears to be the most comprehensive solution. However, it often means students go to a proctored environment. What’s the point of taking a class online if I have to go to a classroom?
  • Cameras? The only solution that deals with the possibility of face-to-face or cell phone type collusions. These operate by the students exhibiting suspicious behavior. Students will have to figure out how to act naturally.

The better the solution, the more expensive and less likely to be purchased. Instead, we’ll use cheesy JavaScripts because students are dumb. They’ll never figure it out. Unless by never you mean with a simple Google search.

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