Monday, September 28, 2009

Ignorant rules (thing #5)




Recently I was amazed to read the current set of rules displayed in computer labs at Monash University's Faculty of Business and Economics. Included in the list is the following: "No downloading, exchanging and streaming of audio and video files".

I await the day when our IT administrators accept the fact that "audio" and "video" are valid media for teaching and learning. The ignorant assumption that "multimedia equals illegal file sharing" has to be changed - quickly!

4 comments:

Tapp said...

WOW!
If they chose to enforce that then nearly everyone would lose IT access (plus the rest of the consequences)

creative and meaningful said...

we wouldn't be able to hear teh vice-chancellor's podcasts either. I wouldn't worry about the silly rule though, any nong can put up a stupid sign, indeed I wonder if you have to have an IQ of below 100 to be allowed to do so in the first place - eg the "greening up our act" signs that were dug in to one of the last few remaining patches of green grass on the caulfield campus, and the "no Bicycles" sign that I ride past daily on my bike on my way in to S block. Now if there was an official policy banning bikes or downloading audio files we should get worried, but in the mean time the manufactuire and installation of signs is a reasnably harmelss way of Monash doing its bit for society and making up for the closure of Kew Cottages

Wags said...

@creative&meaningful: But there ARE rules that are excessively restrictive. How about a rule which prohibits us from "providing on a University website, links to other websites that directly offer copyright infringing material or direct users to copyright infringing material, including audio files such as MP3 recordings, video files, software or commercial photographs"?

Have you EVER linked to a YouTube video, even if that actual video isn't in breach?

creative and meaningful said...

That's so silly it simply would not be enforced, can you just imagine the reputational risk to the university if some nit tried?