The Paperless (Digital) Office

I just dropped off the paperwork for my Winter term coursepacks. Yes, already. They’ve got to go through copyright clearance before they can be copied, and that deadline is coming up October 1. I don’t want to be late...er, like I was with my Fall term coursepack.

The strange thing about this paperwork is that it actually was paper. Yeah, I did submit a copyright clearance spreadsheet via email, but I also had to lug paper copies of all the forms that SUBPrint needs, the table of contents, and hardcopies of every single reading in the coursepack. It strikes me as odd, because I’ve been working hard toward a “paperless office,” converting as much paper-based stuff to e-formats as I can.

Back in 2000, I was probably one of the first (if not the first) instructor to email my exams to SSDS (Specialized Support and Disability Services). (This is the office that handles, among other things, exam proctoring for students with disabilities.) I had a blind student in my perception class (yeah, that was a challenge to teach), and SSDS needed my exams in a format that could be read out loud by JAWS. I’ve been submitting my exams in PDF format via email ever since--saves me from walking over there to drop off every exam.

With the recent budget cutbacks, I’ve had to reduce hard copies of the syllabus in almost all of my courses. The exception is PSYCO 104: I want students to have something in their hands to read. Those classes are large, so copying is still a big expense. Funny, though, I’ve got nearly a hundred copies left--I guess a lot of students got theirs in PDF format from my website. Maybe I won’t need any hardcopy handouts soon.

My office is still filled with lots and lots of paper. One bookshelf has textbooks. But even there, things are moving digital. I can get online access to almost any textbook I need (yes, for free) from CourseSmart.com, a company set up by five of the largest textbook publishers as a platform for delivering ebooks. I do still like hardcopies, though. The tangible feeling of a book is something I’d miss.

Another shelf has print copies of the journals I subscribe to. It’s nicer to read long texts on paper, but for quick reference, I’ll go to an e-version. Plus, if I’m at home, I’m not about to go back to my office just to look something up in a hardcopy journal. And that brings me back to my coursepack situation.

Due to the UofA’s new copyright agreement, I have to submit hardcopies of my coursepack to the Copyright Office. They clear each work to make sure that it’s legally OK to make copies, and then they send everything to SUBPrint printing, and SUBPrint ships everything to the Bookstore. Even though I now have PDF copies of all coursepack materials, I’m not allowed to submit electronic copies. Why? That’s not exactly clear.

Otherwise, this new copyright scheme is great. A coursepack that used to cost $63.43 under the old agreement in Winter, 2012 costs just $25.50 in Fall, 2012 term--a savings of $37.93! Of course, under the new agreement, the UofA has to pay Access Copyright $26 for each full-time equivalent student. I doubt the UofA will just eat that; they’re going to pass that cost along to students, right? So maybe the savings aren’t so great.

Aside from going from paper to e-formats, I’m also converting everything else analog to digital. I’ve got a set of VHS tapes of a series called Discovering Psychology that I’ve finally converted to DVD because a lot of the newer classrooms no longer have VHS players. (By the way, I bought a licence to make a copies. It's all legit.) In this case, DVDs won’t be the final step. It won’t be long before the computers in classrooms no longer have built-in DVD players. By then, though, we’ll all have bionic implants, so that won’t matter. I’ll just beam the lectures from my cyborg brain-chip to yours.

Why aren’t you studying?

Don't Call Me Professor

Don’t call me professor. I mean, if you’re going to be calling me by titles that I do not hold, I’d prefer “Mr. President,” “Commander, Air Group,” or “Your Highness.”

Technically speaking, I am not a professor. “Professor” is a title that must be earned; the term generally refers to someone who is tenured or on the tenure track.  “Tenure” is often mistaken to mean “having a job for life,” but really means that an academic cannot have their job terminated without just cause (thanks Wikipedia!). The reason this is important is because academics should have free inquiry into facts, “the truth,” and so on, without fear of losing their job. So it really ties into academic freedom.

At the UofA, there are different levels of “professor”.

• Adjunct Professor: Anyone can apply for this title that you can have for a 5-year term, but you have to provide justification why the University (and a specific Department) would give this to you. Are you a clinical psychologist who wants to teach at the UofA and collaborate with others on research? To apply for research grants, you usually have to hold a position at a university that lasts for a certain number of years. That’s where this title comes in. You get $0 for being an Adjunct Professor.

• Assistant Professor: No, you’re not the secretary for someone else. It’s just the starting level in the tenure-track stream.

• Associate Professor: Have you ever worked retail and been a “sales associate”? Yeah, this is nothing like that. It’s the next level up in the tenure track. Salaries are higher than for assistant professors.

• Professor: Also known as “Full Professor.” This is it: tenure at last. Salaries are again higher. As with the other levels, there are different pay steps within this category, depending on research/teaching/etc. accomplishments. It’s not a “job for life.” Professors still teach, do research, and so on. And they can be fired (although this is really rare).

There are also some individuals who hold the prestigious title of “University Professor,” (or even “Distinguished University Professor”) which, although it sounds generic, is actually bestowed upon those in recognition of superlative accomplishments. Like Dr Thomas M. Nelson, a former chair of the Department of Psychology, who was on my Master’s and Ph.D. advisory committees.

Finally, there are also “Professors Emeritus,” which means that they have retired.

I once held the title of Adjunct Professor, but that was a few years ago. Right now, I’m a Faculty Lecturer, which means I work full-time and get benefits. That’s means I’m a “sessional” (preferred term: Contract Academic Staff: Teaching), not a professor. I do not have job security or a job for life. Some institutions, like the University of Toronto have teaching-only academic positions, called “Professors of Practice.” I like the sound of that, but we don’t have that at the UofA (yet--there’s some talk of establishing a similar kind of position).

So don’t call me “prof” or “professor” because that’s not a title I presently hold, OK? Here are some other titles that I don’t have: Judge, Sergeant, Pope, Your Majesty, Mrs., The Right Honourable, The Left Honourable, First Officer, Ayatollah, Chief, Prince, Pharaoh, Swami, Darth, Grand Moff, or Grand Poobah. So don’t call me any of those, either.

(You can use the title "Doctor" or even "Mister", I guess. But "Mr Loepelmann" is my dad. And using my first name a bit awkward--it's what my friends call me.)

Why aren’t you studying?

What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2012 edition)

Things were a little different for us this summer, mostly because there are a lot of strange people in our basement. Don’t get me wrong: I want them to be there. After all, they’re working to develop our basement (I’m not exactly handy with a hammer; I don’t know which end is which). To get ready for this, we had to move everything out of our basement into the garage. If that doesn’t sound too hard, well, see, the garage is smaller than the basement...

Anyway, all of this activity affected our vacationing, so we didn’t do all of the usual. Yeah, we still went to Sylvan Lake, but only for one day. The beach is now almost totally covered by the lake, making it a lot less fun for the kids. (Note to the mayor: If you don’t do something about that, we may skip the beach entirely next year; the kids like the fake beach a lot better anyhow.) And we had to see the new Penguin Plunge at the Calgary Zoo. And, of course, Capital Ex and Calaway Park.

But we skipped the local festivals this year--too many mosquitos. My girls don’t get little mosquito bites, they get huge toonie-sized welts. And Canada Day was rained out.

So, with apologies to Harper’s Index, this time I present some data from the past four months. (Yes, I did teach in the summer. And even if I wasn’t teaching, I was working...)

• Department of Psychology admin staff who were laid off, reassigned, or quit: 5
• Remaining admin staff: 4
• New admin staff: 3 and counting...
• Secret projects I’m involved in: 1
• Number of times I’ve been named to the Department of Psychology’s Teaching Honour Roll with Distinction (modestly): 101
• McDonald’s iced coffees consumed: only 3
• Homemade iced coffees consumer: way too many to count
• Plates of food I ate at Big T’s BBQ and Smokehouse: 3 (see, it was too spicy/too different/too much for my daughters, so I had to eat their meals, too, OK?)
  


• Number of times my youngest daughter slept through the night, uninterrupted: 16
• Number of times I did: 16
• Win-loss-tie record of my oldest daughter’s soccer team: 16-2-1
• Field trips I went on with my youngest daughter’s daycare: 1, to the TWoS (got my tickets to Star Wars: Identities already, woot!)
• Kilometres travelled to the cottage of our friends (approx.): 209
• Kilometres travelled back home from the cottage of our friends (approx.): 210 (due to emergency pee-pee break)
  


• Total number of anniversaries my parents have had so far: 50
• Uncles who visited from Germany: 1
• Colds I had: 2
• Litres of homemade cherry juice I made: 10
• Litres of homemade cherry juice I had to throw out because somebody put a Pyrex dish on the stovetop, which exploded, sending shards of glass all over the kitchen, including into the cherry juice: 10 (sob)
• Litres of homemade cherry juice I made in my second batch, far away from glass-exploding spouses: 10 (our tree grows a lot of cherries; I still had enough cherries to make tarts and a pie)
  


• Updates, additions, deletions, tweaks, fixes, corrections, and changes to my courses/lecture notes/websites: 834
• Percentage of statistics that are made up: 47.3%

Why aren't you studying?

Where are they now? Part 2

I previously wrote a post about what some former students of mine are up to. Here's another one. (If you, too, are a former student, let me know what you're up to in the comments. Thanks!)

• Colin got his full registration; passed his “EPPP and orals on the first try. I am done my hours and awaiting CAPs snail mail. I am counselling at a private practice” (Translation: Colin is now a genuine professional psychologist!)
• SL is in da big house--voluntarily (working, not incarcerated).
• AK got into Lib&Info grad studies. (Hey, not everyone wants to become a psychologist. Sob.)
• TO was accepted into OT (er, that means “occupational therapy”).
• OB is still working on getting into a graduate program in clinical psychology. (Good luck!)
• KL is an amateur blogger and still teaching psychology. (Oops, that's me.)

Why aren't you studying?

The 1987 Tornado

On July 31, 1987, Edmonton was struck by a tornado. It killed 27 people and injured hundreds. I am thankful that neither I--nor anyone I knew--was directly affected. Like many Edmontonians, I have vivid memories of that day (whether they are accurate is another matter).

At the time, I was a typical university student, working during the summer. It had been a hot few days, and thundershowers were in the forecast. I noticed the storm clouds brewing that afternoon. It was hard not to notice them.They were an ugly, greenish-gray. More eloquent people than me have described them as looking like the colour of a bruise. That dark, sickening colour was what attracted my attention in the first place, and then I noticed something even stranger. The clouds were...turning.

Maybe clouds rotate sometimes, but if they did, I never noticed. Not only were they turning, but they were turning pretty quickly. It was mesmerizing to watch--but in the back of my mind, I had a prickling sensation of this can't be good. Then the rain started.

Pelting, hammering waves of rain pounded the the house; the rain turned to hail, and I was sure a window would break. We had guests visiting from Germany; they weren't familiar with prairie storms, and sought shelter in the basement. Soon my parents and I joined them, but we could still hear the howling wind, rain, and hail. And then, it stopped.

Emerging blinking out into the day, we saw the yard covered with an icy layer of hail. I went outside and found one as big as a baseball. I put it into the freezer, where it eventually sublimated away to half its size. I should have taken a picture of it.

There were bits of pink insulation strewn around the neighbourhood, hanging from power lines, and there were bits of what looked like construction materials scattered around. We didn't know it then, but we were seeing the detritus of destroyed houses from miles away. There were choirs of sirens wailing in the distance. And I had to go to work at Superstore (customer service agent, first class!). I took my mom's Chevette, which didn't have a tape player, so I had to make do with the radio. That's how I first learned that there had been a tornado.

The roads were relatively devoid of the normal late-Friday-afternoon traffic, and the store wasn't busy at all. I wasn't at work long before there was an unexpected glitch: the power went out. This had never happened before, and no one had prepared us for this. The managers told us to get the customers out--they had to leave their carts and just get out. But then word spread that another funnel cloud had been spotted. (Likely this was misinformation--some news reports said there were two tornados, one on the south side, one on the north side.)

No one wanted to leave the store. The customers were milling around, looking dubiously at the sky. I was awfully nervous standing at the front of the store, where there were a lot of huge windows. And going into the store didn't seem like a good idea, either. I imagined a maelstrom of flying cans, bottles, and, for some reason, nectarines. But there was no second tornado. And the managers eventually let us all go home. So I sat glued to the radio, and then the TV as the news coverage started.

The strongest emotion I felt was shock. A tornado? Edmonton doesn't get tornadoes. No hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms, or tornadoes. But we found out that tornadoes are actually not uncommon on the prairies after all. So when there are hot summer days, and the forecast says there are severe thunderstorms with a risk of tornadoes developing, many of us are going to be watching the skies for clouds that turn around.

Why aren't you studying?

The Awards: 7

I (humbly) note that I've been placed on the Department of Psychology's Honour Roll with Distinction (HRD) for the three courses I taught in Winter, 2012. Plus, I was also placed on the HRD based on the evaluations of the PSYCO 496/498 Individual Research/Individual Study students I supervised over the past three years. That means I've been awarded HRD a grand total of 101 times. Thanks!

Now, by popular request, here are some of the best comments on my evaluations from Winter, 2012. As always, sarcasm filters are off. Beware!

From PSYCO 365:
Dr Loepelmen (?) was a good prof overall. However, explanation of concepts boils down to stating studies that didn’t work, then those that did. I know it’s important to study all aspects of theories, but spending such an excessive amount of time on weak theories feels like a total waste of time.

(But, see, it’s not all about getting the “right” answer or the “correct” theory, but about the process of science--the weighing and evaluating evidence. This may be a shift from 200-level courses, but that’s what I’m trying to do in my higher-level courses.)

Loepelmann is a sweetheart, but his teaching is kind of strange. He randomly starts a new section, making all the lectures blend together. Personally, this makes it difficult to really learn the topics.

(I do try to make things flow, but that’s often very difficult to do.)

Dr. Loepelmann sometimes says things in a way that make it seem like he’s trying to make himself look better in light of other profs ex. “no other prof tell you when the evaluation day is” or “no other 300-level course has Advanced in the title.” He is an excellent prof and I love taking his classes but sometimes phrases like that put people off.

(The way I remember it was, I asked if any other profs put the course evaluation on their syllabus. At the undergraduate level, there are also: PSYCO 414: Advanced Methods: Monte Carlo Techniques, and PSYCO 423: Advanced Topics in Developmental Psychology. My point was that there are very few courses with "advanced" in the name.)

Although exams were tough, I felt adequately warned.
Exams were tough, but fair since it is a 300-level course.

(I did warn you. True dat.)

Professor Lopelmann made this course worth going to every day. I really appreciate the humour perfectly slotted into an enthusiastic lecture every day. I wish I could always be so excited to go to every class.

(It’s fun for me to go to class every day, too.)

Being so stressed about your written exams turns this course into absolute hell.
I feel the fact that the tests are all written is unfair to those students that get stressed by written exams.

(Sorry about that, but I do want to challenge students, and written exams are appropriate for a 300-level course.)

Fuck you for constantly making fun of my accent. I’m from rural Alberta. This is how I talk. Go to hell you prick.

(You’re from rural Alberta--hey, me too: Lacombe, Alberta!--but you have a Southern U.S. accent? Because that’s what I’m going for. You must really have a hate on for Larry the Cable Guy, whose accent is an imitation. By the way, I actually wasn’t making fun of you, personally.)

Loepelmann as a prof is annoying in general -- his anecdotes aren’t funny (although he seems to think they are).

(I get that a lot.)

I thought the quizzes were a great way to make sure I kept up with the material…It’s really easy to fall behind in post-secondary courses and this helped me stay on top of everything.

(I’m glad that helped.)

It’s very sad that you perception courses are ending as I have really enjoyed taking them.
I am very disappointed that this class is being cancelled. I believe the study of perception is very valid and should be offered in this format.

(If I’m not allowed to teach advanced perception as a special topics (PSYCO 403) course--then I’ll be really disappointed. But if I can, having a smaller class will allow me to do things like have students write papers, for example.)

I would have enjoyed having an essay assignment to pursue the current research about a specific topic in greater depth.

(That’s what I’m talking about!)

One of my favourite profs at UofA =) The course material can be dry at times but Loepelmann makes learning it enjoyable…he’s the only prof in my 3 years that I can honestly say that about.

(Thanks.)

From PSYCO 104:
He talks to us as if we were babies with a sarcastic tone in order to be funny. He has a great collection of jokes; however, it the Tone of voice he has when explaining concepts which pisses me off.

(Aww, widdle bitty sad because big bad instwuctor has a tone of voice? That’s an example of sarcastic baby talk. Seriously, what tone of voice?)

Making students read the textbook is very time consuming.

(Yeah, and making you take all of these courses for your degree is, too. Sheesh!)

Instead of making us read the whole text, could you make life easier and tell us specifically what we need to read?

(Oh all right: Every second word.)

Exams should be more on lecture content, and less on textbook. If we don’t cover the content in class, it shouldn’t be on the exam.

(Oh all right. Lectures will now go from 3 hours/week to 30 hours/week so I can cover everything in the textbook. You’re welcome.)

You know when you make jokes and maybe one person laughed? It was probably always me.

(Thanks, mom.)

Information was so simplified, that at times it was incorrect, and I felt unsure if I could trust the validity of a lot of the information.

(I do my best to strive for accuracy. If there’s something incorrect, please let me know and I’ll do my best to correct it, and let everyone know.)

I am disappointed with how the instructor chose to portray Freud. He made a valuable contribution to psychology, and his underlying thesis that ‘Dreams have meaning’ is a concept that is not disproven. The teaching clearly biased this material by inappropriately portraying Freud as the ‘butt of a joke’. Showing pictures of action-figure Freud + making fun of dream symbols was unnecessary. And I felt personally insulted when the instructor insinuated Freud was a homosexual, as if that was the cause of his ‘ridiculous’ claims.

(You are correct: Freud’s thesis has not been disproven--but that’s because it’s not falsifiable. That makes it more of a...philosophy than a scientific theory. Those dream symbols we went through in class? Those are from Freud’s writing. I didn’t make those up. And I did NOT mean to imply anything about Freud’s sexuality. Yes, Freud was fond of smoking cigars, but “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”)

• I object to the fact Arts students need to take Science courses. The style of teaching, learning and assesment is not compatible with the Liberal arts education I am trying to get.
• If the faculty, the province and the university provided proper funding, this class could be smaller then the massive size it currently is.
• M.C. testing is NOT a good method of evaluating a wide range of students, it rewards those who can ‘Bark on demand.’

(1. Wikipedia seems to think that liberal arts includes social sciences, psychology, and science. I guess the UofA does, too. 2. I agree. 3. See #2.)

I liked his jokes + when he brought his daughters to class. I’ll babysit =)

(I only brought them because school/daycare won’t take them if they’re vomiting. Er, still want to babysit?)

From PSYCO 267:
So cute and short! With his little drinking cup! Guess you’re going to get the teaching award for the 9371th time?

(My...little...drinking cup? I’ll have you know it’s a full-sized mug. You can buy it at the Bookstore. And I’ve only won the Honour Roll (with Distinction) 101 times.)

The NOTE’S NEVER Matched the textbook!

(Never? At all? Maybe you’re just focusing on the differences. Or you bought the wrong textbook.)

Excellent instructor. I did not use the textbook the entire course.

(Um, OK. Are you bragging?)

The book was basically all I needed to read.

(Um, OK. Are you bragging?)

Terrific, knowledgeable professor, but his lecture notes were lacking “substance.” His notes were often just a glimpse and taste of what would be on the exam.
Karsten went too in depth during class on topics, when on the exams the questions were rather general.

(*Sigh* So this is the kind of problem I face: my notes are insubstantial to some people, but too substantial to others.)

I found I could not leave to go to the washroom during class because I would miss a word in my notes.

(If you gotta go, you gotta go. If you do miss a fill-in word, I encourage you to come up at the end of class and I will help you out. Or you can try asking someone else in class.)

Loepelmann makes a very difficult course interesting to learn. The only reason I took this course is because I knew he was teaching it. His enthusiasm encouraged me to work harder and I did way better than I expected to. Best prof I have had a the U of A in my 3 years here.

(Thanks for the kind words.)

The Virtual Labs rarely worked, had great difficulties with them as they did not print. I could only get the labs to work in Google Chrome.

(I, too, am not impressed with them, and I’ve talked to the published about that. I am evaluating other options. Thanks for the info about Chrome.)

My one complaint is the labs. It took me failing 3-4 different labs to understand how to answer questions. Neither our prof or TA would help answer questions which was very frustrating from a students’ perspective.

(My TA this term was a very strict marker; I tried to encourage her to be more lenient on labs later in the term. I’m sorry that my feedback on questions was limited. I do that on purpose, because I frequently email along the lines of “Here’s my answer. Is it right?” I can’t answer emails like that; it’s not fair to the rest of the class if I pre-mark your answers. So that’s why I and the TA are ambiguous. But it seems like you were able to adjust and improve your marks over the duration of the term, and that’s great to see.)

The prof knows his stuff, but makes very annoying clicking sounds when he talks, and lecture in a very strange way.

(I don’t *tic* know what *tic* clicking sounds you’re *tic* talking about. I apologized a bunch of times for the stupid microphone in that classroom, which kept making annoying clicking sounds. Sorry if you missed that.)

Mic would break up a lot in class - so it was a little hard at times to hear him thoroughly.
One setback would be the microphone cutting in and out throughout the class. Hopefully that can be resolved for future classes.

(Sorry about that. See, it was the mic and not me.)

Awesome prof!

(That doesn’t help me at all! But thanks!)

I am going to write a collection of words that pop into my head. Maybe this will reveal something about my inner psyche.
peanuts  searing  Nike  snow  cayenne pepper
uncanny  trivial  Steve Jobs  sprinkles  annoying
happy  magikarp  hawaii  wishes  shut up
toaster  futile  halo  dolphin  por favor
beard  Don Cheadle

(I was eating peanuts while searing my Nike shoes with snow and cayenne pepper.
It was uncanny how trivial Steve Jobs-shaped sprinkles can be--and annoying.
My happy Magikarp comes from Hawaii (it wishes!). Shut up!
My toaster made a futile attempt to play Halo, but my dolphin did say por favor.
Who has a beard--Don Cheadle?)

Why aren't you studying?

The Cuts

As you’ve probably heard, the Faculty of Arts, like all other Faculties, has had to chop 2% from its budget. The Department of Psychology, which receives its operational funding from Arts (despite offering courses in both Arts and Science), has been directly affected by this AdPReP (Administrative Process Review Project).

It is with great sadness that I report two long-time administrative staff in the Department of Psychology general office have been laid off. Bev has been working in the office for 28 years, and Jan for 23. Their layoffs necessitated a reorganization, which prompted resignations from Kathy (an admin assistant for the past 29 years), Sharon (who has been coordinating research participation for 14 years), and my assistant, Chris, who has been bailing me out for 17 years.

These five ladies have made up the core of the Department’s administrative staff. They, and their collective knowledge, will be missed terribly. If there was anything anyone wanted to know about the Department, among the five of them, they knew. Where are the scantron sheets? When’s the deadline for submitting my indents? What was the name of that grad student who worked with Alan Kingstone in the mid-90’s?

Chris, in particular, has saved my backside more times than I can remember. See, I have this frequent habit of very carefully slamming my office door shut, thus safely locking my office keys inside. Chris has a spare that she’s loaned me so I can retrieve my keys and return them to her with a sheepish “thanks--again.” She’s always had all of my paperwork ready for me in advance, booked rooms for me, and even went to my class in 2004 to tell them I wouldn’t be coming, as I was still at the hospital after the birth of my first daughter.

I’m going to miss all of these great people. I want to thank Bev, Jan, Kathy, Sharon, and Chris for the years of hard work they’ve contributed to the Department of Psychology. And I would like to wish all of them the best in their future work and personal lives. I’m going to miss all of you.

My job (and that of others, too) is going to be a bit harder to do. If I’m a bit late to class, or arrive sweating, out of breath, and stressed out, you’ll know why. (Don’t ask me, “Did you lock your keys in your office again?” please.)

Why aren’t you studying?

The Awards: 6

Although I was nominated, I didn’t win the Kathleen W. Klawe Prize for Excellence in Teaching of Large Classes this year. Oh, well. Congrats to the winner in the Department of Chemistry.

I did, however, receive two TUTAs: one for "The Fine Print" in my syllabus, and the other was shared by everyone who taught in Spring, 2011 term (the award was: we were all named to the Teaching Honour Roll--every single instructor).  Oh, and I also made the Teaching Honour Roll with Distinction for all of my Fall, 2011 courses. Let’s see what kind of feedback I got in PSYCO 104.

(***Warning! Snarkiness filters are now disengaged! Proceed at your own risk!***)

“...the pacing of classes was too slow. As a result, I found it difficult to focus in class & often times drifted into Stage 1 sleep. If anything, I prefer Dr. L’s blog to the class - sorry.”

(Good application of knowledge about sleep stages there. However, blog material will not be on the exam.)

“Class is to slow. Move faster through material during class in order to cover all topics in text. Then students do not have to learn a majority of exam material on their own.”

(So...in university...you don’t want to learn material on your own? Really?)

“Very biased towards evolution. did not know textbook information was needed for midterm 1. Would be nice if turned speakers louder.”

(1. It is a science course, right? 2. I told you in class that most questions would come from the textbook, and that information is also on the syllabus. 3. Please let me know this before the course is over. Thanks.)

“Dr Loepelmann, here’s a haiku for you.
     Dr. Loepelmann
     You are the ray of sunshine
     Of my gloomy life.
Best prof evarrrrr!!”

(Nice! Thanks! Um, sorry about your life, though.)

“I believe that examining on questions in the textbook NOT covered in class is [not] fair to students. Important aspects of the course which is tested on exams should all be covered in class.”
“I would recommend if he could just base his exam on his notes or specifically tell us which page or information from the text his exam will be on.”
“The amount of information included in the course are not all tested so should therefore not be used.”
“I didn’t purchase a textbook and there was nothing on them that wasn’t discussed in class or was in the notes.”
“...liked how the textbook made up the majority of the test questions, yet the lecture notes expanded on the ideas of gave a different viewpoint instead of simply rehashing what we’ve already seen in the textbook.”
 “The textbook was boring and too long. The instructor’s exams were TOO HARD for a 100 level course. We have to study both the textbook and his notes for the exams. Are you kidding me? The information from the two sources doesn’t at all relate. I will never recommend this instructor to anyone, in fact I will tell them to avoid him. I hate Dr. Loepelmann.” [f-bomb deleted from comment]

(Thanks for spelling my name right.)

“LOVE THE FUTURAMA REFERENCES, HOPE TO SEE ONE ON THE FINAL.”

(“Good news, everyone! There was!” Also, STOP SHOUTING.)

“Dr. Loepelmann is a top class teacher. Entertaining, fun, friendly, open, are words I would use to describe him. I have a certain phobia of questions. I was taught as a child that ‘there is no such things as a stupid question’ but I never believed that. Dr. Loepelmann is someone I feel comfortable bringing my questions to.”

(Thank you. And you’re welcome.)

“We should go for a Beer!”

(Only if you can find beer with caffeine in it.)

“Learned much about my future desired profession.”

(Good luck to you, future psychologist.)

“Dr. Loepelmann always had jokes up his sleeve in every lecture. I would like to know if he comes up with them before the lecture, or on the spot.”

(Yes.)

“Karsten Loepelmann is the bomb. So fun and funny and intelligent.”

(You have no proof of that.)

“Dress up everyday!!! In Jedi uniforms!!!”

(No!!!)

“I really appreciate the ‘For Further Reading’ section. It shows the dedication of the teacher and allows those who are interested to pursue more info. Thank you.”
“I found myself researching what we learned outside of class -- a very good sign.”

(Keep on learning...!)

Here are some comments from my PSYCO 267: Perception class:

“To the Department: Why would you cancel this course? It was so refreshing to take a course that emphasized understanding and not just simply memorizing...Perception is a worthwhile subject!”
“I am disappointed that this class will no longer.”
“This class shouldn’t be cancelled. What were they thinking.”
“So sad it’s being cancelled.”
“Don’t get rid of PSYCO 267! It’s an interesting & valuable addition to any aspiring psychologist’s repertoire.”
“[heart] perception”
“The loss of PSYCH 267 as a course is a travesty!”

(Just to be clear: PSYCO 267 will be renamed PSYCO 367. It is PSYCO 365: Advanced Perception that will be killed. However, I plan to teach it as a special topics course. So it’s not dead, just a zombie.)

“Multiply choice was designed to trick students and not reflect their knowledge. It is also not fair that the tests were more heavily weighted on text.”

(I don’t understand. How is that not fair? I did tell you about the weighting.)

“Dr. Loepelmann spoke VERY quietly and was always very hard to hear.”

(PLEASE let me know this before the course is over. My time machine is in the shop.)

“Instructor was overall not helpful when it came to notes for missed classes. Offers no assistance - Insists students find help from other students - Not him.”
“Thanks for emailing me the notes when I needed them!”

(Er, um...right. Sorry. And you're welcome.)

“Wonderful to see lots of recent research applied into the course...”

(Thanks.)

“Excellent instructor, deserving of a raise.”

(Aw. Thanks, mom!)

“Stay funny.”

(I wish.)

“...the instructor seemed like he would fit in on The Big Bang Theory. That was awesome.”

(But they already have a short, handsome nerd with glasses.)

“The amount of animal abuse talked about in this course bothered me and affected my learning as an intelligent, compassionate human being. Other research options are available and should be used in modern research. Animals are not ours to use for research, entertainment, or personal gain. The intelligence of humans can be measured by their compassion and understanding for the suffering of others.”

(No animals were harmed in the making of this blog.)

“Nice prof; attempted to make dry material interesting. Give him A for effort =)”

(Sorry, there are no grades for effort in university. Oh, and I’m not a prof, technically.)

“I wish you posted more on your blog through the term. You have some serious nerd credibility. Although you responded to every comment but mine on one post so I was kind of pissed at you for a week. Now I feel sad. Sorry...Live long and prosper.”

(May the force be with you.)

Why aren’t you studying?

The Sigmund Freud Action Figure

In my last post, I mentioned waiting anxiously for my Sigmund Freud action figure to come in the mail. I'm pleased to report that it has arrived. Say hello to my little friend!

I am, however, now faced with a dilemma. Do I take him (it?) out of the package? Because then he won't be MIP anymore.

On the other hand, he is a toy, and toys should be played with (as "The Transporter Malfunction" taught us). But, as that Big Bang Theory episode also taught us, toys can get broken.

Out of the package (with the great big "SIGMUND FREUD" label), however, he just looks like an old white guy in a suit--doesn't even look like Viggo Mortensen. Heck, he could be mistaken for Wilhelm Wundt if you don't look too closely.

So in the box he stays. You can see him (it?) if you visit me during my office hours. But no playing with him. Anyway, that would be...weird.

(Yes, you can buy one of your very own.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Lost & Found

Ever felt like you were losing your mind? I sure did. I had a bad week: I lost my mailbox key. Argh! My wife had long ago misplaced the spare one. When that happens, you have to notify Canada Post and they’ll re-key your mailbox. That costs $29. In the meantime, you can’t access your mail. My Sigmund Freud action figure is going to arrive any day now!

Then, I misplaced my office keys. Argh! I can still get into my office--I just have to sheepishly ask my admin assistant for a spare key, and end up looking like some absentminded professor. How embarrassing!

Luckily, I found my office keys, right on the floor at home where I, er, dropped them. And my younger daughter found my mail key, right on the floor at home where I, er, dropped it. Then I noticed I lost my USB flash drives. D’oh!

This wasn’t as extreme an event as you might imagine. No, there was no “sensitive information” on them, just all of my lectures and some backups. Anything important was encrypted with TrueCrypt. I thought for sure I had left the drives in their little wallet in my intro psych classroom, but they weren’t there. Well, no big loss. I had already ordered a new 32 GB USB 3.0 flash drive anyway. More than anything else, it was just further proof that I was losing my mind.

So the next day, I went to my perception class, and a student came up to me and asked me if I had lost my wallet. Whaaaaat? No, not my wallet-wallet, my USB drive wallet. Turns out he gave a presentation in my intro psych classroom and found it where I, er, dropped it. It had some of my business cards in it, so that’s how he knew it was mine (thanks!).

So it turns out that I’m not actually losing my mind, I’m just losing a lot of stuff, and then getting it back.

I’ve found a lot of things in classrooms over the years, and have had a lot of things turned in to me by honest students. Things like wallets and phones I usually bring to the Psychology Department Office, and have the admin staff open it up and contact the owner. Other items without ID in them, like flash drives, MP3 players, and calculators, are usually left in the classroom, in the lockable drawer at the front, or sometimes are given to Campus 5-0. They have a lost & found service; their office is 11390-87 Avenue (Education Carpark). Finally, mitts, sweaters, water bottles, etc. are usually just left in the classroom, until the end of term. After that, I don’t know where they go.

There’s usually a lot of lost stuff that accumulates. Please, people, try to hang on to your stuff.

Why aren’t you studying?

The New Chairs

Check out my fancy new ergonomic office chairs. Woot!

A few weeks ago, we in the department were asked if we wanted new office chairs. It's probably surprising that, in this climate of budget shortfalls, such an extravagant expenditure would be possible. Well, there's "hard money" and "soft money." Hard money funds things that are required, like the salaries of staff and faculty, but soft money comes and goes. The recent (and ongoing) budget cuts affect hard money. (Alarmingly, because I am not a professor, I am apparently paid out of soft money. Eek! Keeping fingers crossed!) Anyway, these chairs are funded out of soft money.

I had the option to decline these new chairs and just keep my old ones. If I had done that, I would have saved the university some money. So why did I opt to get new chairs?

Getting new chairs is not a common thing. In fact, it's become a once-in-a-generation event. Literally. The old chairs I had in my office were around since before my time--they were new before I was an undergraduate. Yup, they're around 30 years old. If I had chosen to stick with my old chairs, new chairs might not come around again for another 30 years. If my contract is not renewed, wouldn't the person who inherits my office like to have chairs from this century?
In case you think I'm a spendthrift, I did turn down the offers of new filing cabinets and new desks. (And I'm still going to use my old gray-and-beige chair--I brought this one from home. It was a birthday present that I used at home, but as a spent more and more time in my office, it just made sense to move it to campus permanently.)

On the other hand, I did accept the offer of a box of paper and some "Department of Psychology"-branded pens. Oh, and then there's my iPad 2 that the university... But that's another post.

Why aren't you studying?

UPDATE #1: My fellow Faculty Lecturer, Dr Jennifer Passey, also decided to get a new desk for her office. That is, she wanted to have a desk--period. Since she was hired, she's only had a table to serve as her desk!

UPDATE #2: Almost forgot to mention--I also got a foam rubber brain with "Department of Psychology" on it. Mmm, brains.

UPDATE #3: It's like Christmas! Today in my mailbox, there was a box of pencils, a roll of tape, a staples, a box of staples, a staple remover, paper clips. sticky notes, a highlighter, a ruler, and two red pens. My desk drawer is stuffed!

The Academic Dishonesty

I spent a whole lot of time this weekend writing a letter to the Dean about a case of “academic dishonesty” (i.e., cheating) in one of my classes. This is not fun for me--I do not cackle with glee, exclaiming, “I’ve got you now!” in a Darth Vader-like voice. (I only do that when I’m marking exams--kidding!)

My TA in the course--who is very sharp--noticed that some answers on a written assignment were, um, identical to those on a website you might have heard of: Wikipedia. Now, there’s nothing wrong with going to the Internet to look for answers to a question--I’m googling and wikipedia-ing (?) all the time. What is important is making the right use of your sources.

First of all, this means deciding, is it a credible source? Is the information presented credible? Is it correct? Does it apply to what I’m even looking for?

If you decide to use that information, it is essential (required, OK?) that you make it clear and explicit that the ideas you are presenting are not your own. You cannot just cut-and-paste your answers. No, no, no. At the very least, you must (again, this is required) paraphrase from the original source. That means that you have to put it in your own words. How do you do that? The UofA Libraries have great information on what to do, and how to do it. Student handouts are available at the Guide to Plagiarism and Cyber-Plagiarism.

Here are examples of good and bad paraphrasing, from the Purdue Online Writing Lab:

The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.

A plagiarized version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

See the differences? And look how the legitimate version includes a reference to the source of the information. All those names and dates in my courses? Those are citations to who did the research--I certainly didn’t do that study or make up that theory. It would be ridiculous for me to claim that I did.

You also shouldn't, say, hand in another student's work and pass it off as your own. Students may think that's harder to catch, but you'd be surprised. (Sorry, but I'm not going to explain how that works, but it is possible.)

The bottom line for all of this is: Do your own work. There is value in doing that--you’re getting an education. If all you do is cut-‘n-paste (and get away with it), what are you going to do when you’re in a job and have to do work for real? When there’s nowhere to cut from? That’s when you’ll be in real trouble.

Plus, if no one plagiarizes, I won’t have to spend time on the weekend writing letters to the Dean.

Why aren’t you studying?

Suicide Prevention - Getting Help

There were a lot of absences from my most recent exams. Mostly people were sick, although someone did admit to sleeping in (although that was a result of a different problem). So I had to deal with a lot of emails, explaining over and over again exactly what the procedure is when you miss an exam--even though the syllabus has all of that information there. It got to the point where, out of frustration, I just stopped checking my email over the weekend.

When I went back to my email, there were almost two dozen more messages to slog through. One of them, however, was different. It was from the parent of one of my students, explaining how their child had tried to commit suicide. It was quite a sinking feeling to read this email, even though the person didn't succeed. I want to raise awareness about the issue, and the resources that are available to help.

• I Need Help Right Now -- call 780-492-HELP (780-492-4357)
  
  
• SU Peer Support Centre -- "Peer support services for students, or anyone who needs someone to talk to, in-person or over-the-phone"
  
  
• University Wellness Services - Mental Health Centre -- has psychological and psychiatric services available
  
  
• Suicide Awareness & Prevention -- includes risk factors, warning signs, and how you can help

The Electronic Grades

Last term, I submitted my final grades on paper, just like I've done since the first class I taught in 1994. Some things have changed (we're using letter grades now, not the 9-point system, and the format of the forms changed in the 2000s, wooo!), but the process is still the same: I have to take the grades from my spreadsheet file and write them down, one by one, on pieces of paper which I have to physically hand in. It's bizarre to consider that, for courses that have multiple choice exams, the marks live in a digital world from the point that they're scanned onwards. Well, up until the time I have to write them down on paper.

Finally, at long last, we're moving into the 21st century. Starting March 12, instructors can (must!) enter final grades electronically. No more paper forms, no more writing things down. And no more transcription errors. There was this one time that I mis-copied a grade over. From that person's grade down, almost everyone was assigned an incorrect grade. There is a way to fix that--Change of Grade forms--but it was a nightmare for everyone involved. (I was told that this happens often, but that didn't make me feel any better.)

That's not to say that errors won't happen--not all UofA computer systems sort student names the same way. Test scoring, for example, puts Da Silva before D'Allaird, for example. This is opposite to how Microsoft Excel (and the rest of the universe) works. Some advice: if your name has a space, an apostrophe, or a hyphen in it, check your marks very carefully. Even capitals in the middle of the name can throw off the sort.

From the information given so far, it looks like I can click to enter each individual mark or, thankfully, upload a spreadsheet file. The system even allows marks to be imported from Moodle's gradebook. Unfortunately, I think we're still not allowed to post final grades on Moodle. Still, students should notice that final grades will be available on Bear Tracks sooner than before. It's nice to be in the 21st century.

Why aren't you studying?

The BitLocker

On January 5, 2012, the UofA announced new information security policies for the campus in order to comply with Alberta Government requirements that all organizations adopt standard information security controls. As noted on the UofA’s Colloquy Blog, staff are legally required to secure sensitive information. (Yes, I have “sensitive information:” spreadsheets with students’ ID numbers and marks. Potentially, emails are also sensitive information.)

Importantly, this policy is not limited to University-owned laptops (from the memo sent out by the Vice-Provost, Information Technology):

Personally owned and other external laptops storing University personal and/or sensitive information must also undergo disk encryption according to the standard.

That’s right--by UofA policy, I must not only secure, but encrypt my own laptop. This fact has royally pissed off a lot of faculty.

The “disk encryption standard,” according to the Laptop Security and Encryption Standard and Guidelines on the VPIT’s website says:

a) Laptops and other mobile computing devices must run a current, fully patched, and modern operating system at all times.
b) Users must store documents on laptops in a single specific area only (such as a home folder or directory).
c) The contents of the disk storage area specified in b) must be securely encrypted.
d) Laptops and other mobile computing devices must be configured to ask for a password after any period of inactivity, including after resuming from suspend/standby/sleep/hibernate status and on operating system start-up.

Let’s see, a) check, b) check, c) um, no, d) check. Sigh, I guess I have to encrypt my laptop.

The University Encryption Standards and Instructions on the VPIT’s website states:

The University advises that BitLocker must be configured to use the “TPM + PIN” authentication method.

Unfortunately, BitLocker is only available in Windows 7 Enterprise and Ultimate--and I’m only running Professional. Because it’s a personal laptop, I can’t buy Win7 Enterprise, so I had to upgrade to Ultimate. Naturally, the Bookstore was out of copies of the Win7 Ultimate upgrade disks when the policy came out. Once again, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Eventually, they got copies in, so I was good to go.

Encrypting my 500 GB drive took a while; I let the process run while I marked exams. It finally finished, so I rebooted and...error messages everywhere, apps crashing, WTF? My system runs the OS off an SSD and all my data is on a separate, larger hard drive. BitLocker was supposed to pop up a password request during the boot process, but it didn’t because my system--a high-end Dell XPS, only about a year old--doesn’t have a TPM chip. For that, you have to buy Dell’s business-oriented (and very expensive) Latitude line.

It was possible to “unlock” my data drive, but only after bootup was complete, which is too late to get all my apps running properly--they already started up and crashed. Nothing in Microsoft’s documentation makes this clear. Grr!!

I removed BitLocker’s encryption. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to downgrade to Win7Pro, so I’m stuck with Win7Ultimate. I wasted hours of time and a hundred bucks and still don’t have anything encrypted. I'm still going to encrypt my computer, but with some other disk encryption software. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft. Nice job, UofA policy.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Open Comments: 4

It's that time of term again: I'm marking midterms. So I'm going to open this post up to your comments. Can you hear me okay in class? I SAID, CAN YOU HEAR ME OKAY IN CLASS!?

What about those double screens in the classrooms? Are they driving you crazy? (Do you try to concentrate on one, but then keep sneaking a look at the other one, just to see if you missed something?)

Why aren't you studying?

The Green and Gold Week

With the actual Winter Term Reading Week coming up, here's an update on the proposed Fall Term Reading Week. It now has the name "Green and Gold Week" attached (or, maybe, "Co-curricular Week"). The final documentation was supposed to go to University Governance last month. A recent email was sent around listing some of the main points in the proposal:

The break will take place in conjunction with Remembrance Day (November 11th).

To achieve the break, two instructional days will be dropped and classes will begin one day earlier (normally on the Tuesday after Labour Day).

Winter Term will also drop two instructional days, to ensure consistency between the terms. The timing of these days is subject to discussions with the Office of the Registrar.

The break will [...] be filled with academic and non-academic programming.

The exam schedule and date of the end of classes should not change.

I'm not crazy about losing instructional days. That will mean cutting out lecture material, which is always agonizingly hard to do.

During Reading Week, I'm not usually around--not even for office hours. (I'm not going to spend more time commuting than I am helping students. Oh, and also: no students show up to office hours during Reading Week.)

What would you do during a Green and Gold Week? Attend some of the academic and/or non-academic programming? Catch up on studying? Catch up on sleep?

Why aren't you studying?

The Bookstore

I've had some problems with the Bookstore in the past, but those were issues with the price of textbooks. This year, I had a whole new set of problems.

As you may have read, the UofA changed how it deals with copyright; the deadline for the old regime expiring was August 31, 2011. This change has meant a great upheaval in how instructors prepare coursepacks. Previously, we'd submit a list of readings to SUBPrint, and they would handle the copyright side of things via the UofA's agreement with the licensing agency Access Copyright. But as of September 1, 2011, that agreement no longer holds; SUBPrint now has to contact each individual rightsholder and negotiate an agreement with them. This is probably just as much fun as it sounds. Yeesh!

I submitted my PSYCO 494 coursepacks for Fall, 2011 in early August, and I was warned by SUBPrint that they couldn't simply print off more coursepacks if more students were allowed into my class in September. OK, fine. I asked if it would be a good idea if I also submitted my PSYCO 365 coursepacks for Winter, 2012 before the August 31 deadline. The response was a very desperate, pleading, "YES!" I'd used this coursepack before and hadn't planned on making any major changes to it, so I submitted it, feeling very pleased with myself for being so darn clever. How many coursepacks did I need? Well, the class is capped at 125, so that's exactly how many copies SUBPrint made, and sent them off to the Bookstore.

September came and I ended up with 29 students in PSYCO 494, just one shy of the cap of 30. Whew. Fast forward to January, 2012. The Department bumped enrollment in PSYCO 365 from 125 to 130, but I was confident there would be enough coursepacks; I knew there would be at least 5 students from last year selling their old coursepacks. So I was a bit concerned to hear from an increasing chorus of students that they could not find the coursepack at the Bookstore.

As I was off campus, I called the Bookstore and asked how many copies they had. The nice person who answered the phone went type-type-type and answered "there are 65 left." What the...? Why can't anyone find them? "Hmm," I hmmed to the nice person, "would you mind seeing how many there are actually out on the shelf?" She went away and I waited and waited. And waited. On hold, I killed time by checking my email. She finally came back, sheepishly admitting that there were no coursepacks to be found. As I was waiting, I'd gotten an email from a student who was told by a Bookstore manager that they had "run out" and that the instructor should "get more copies printed." What the...? That's exactly what I couldn't do. And what happened to the ones that were printed off over the summer?

Dialling the phone like a mad-phone-dialling person, I left messages for the SUBPrint manager and Bookstore manager. An agonizing few hours later I got a response: the coursepacks had been located. Where were they? In a box. On the floor. Outside the manager's office.

This ridiculous episode has shaken my confidence in the Bookstore--to the point of me really not trusting them at all any more. There are consistent problems every term getting enough copies of textbooks in (most recently, it happened once in Fall, 2011 term and again this Winter, 2012 term); they usually blame the publisher for shorting their orders. Although I suppose that might happen, I don't know why the Bookstore isn't wising up to this, if it keeps happening.

There apparently is a new director at the Bookstore. Maybe things will improve. I've been told by one of the Bookstore managers that:

"Under our new director, the Bookstore is working on several course material improvements including an enhanced web-based ordering service."

Oh yeah, the crappy web-based ordering service. Don't even get me started on that. My confidence is at a low ebb already.

What problems have you had with the Bookstore?

Why aren't you studying?

Loepelmann's Law

It's one of those weeks. I've been clobbered by a nasty cold, my car had a near-death experience (good-bye old clutch, I'll miss you--good times!), and all this talk of budget cuts has me anxiously looking over my shoulder even though my current contract goes until 2013.

*sigh*

I talk about a number of scientific laws in my classes (oy, there are some crappy web pages out there that fail spectacularly at differentiating between a law and a theory--sorry, Wikipedia, no love for you this time). These include Weber's Law, Fechner's Law, and Stevens's Law. (Haven't gotten around to adding Fitts's Law but that's another show.) These ones stick out in my mind because they're so, well...memorable. That's because they've got the names of the people who discovered them in the name of the law itself.

It seems that people who discover new things get those things named after them. I call this "Loepelmann's Law."

Thank you and good night.

(BTW, if you want to have a mathematical theorem named after you--only £15--check out TheoryMine.)

Why aren't you studying?

The Lecture Notes

If you're not already aware (thanks for joining us), I do put my lecture notes online. (Yes, the ones with blanks in them. But this is not about that.) At the bottom of every webpage of lecture notes, there's a little blurb:

This document copyright © 1995-2012 Karsten A. Loepelmann. All rights reserved. Viewing this page is taken as acceptance of the copyright agreement.

Yup, that's right: my notes are copyright, and they are free--free as in free beer, not free as in free speech. I have control over the content, which, actually, is taken from sources that are themselves copyrighted (e.g., journal articles, books, magazine articles, and so on). I am allowed to do this under the provision of "fair dealing" in copyright law; because these resources are being used for educational purposes. But I don't want anyone to "steal" my lecture notes, which are the product of many, many hours of work.

I also don't want anyone to profit from my lecture notes. Every so often, someone gets the bright idea of opening a "notes exchange" or registry of some kind. It's been done on campus at least twice before. You give them the lecture notes you've taken in class, and they pay you. They make money by selling those lecture notes to other students. I don't want students in my class to have to pay to get my lecture notes, and I certainly don't want anyone to have old, outdated lecture notes from a previous term. Now, however, there are several notes-exchange websites on the Internet.

Unfortunately, last term some students uploaded my lecture notes to one of these notes-exchange websites and shared them with others in the class. This was a violation of the terms of service of the notes-exchange website, the terms of use for the online storage site used by the notes-exchange website, the Code of Student Behaviour, and a violation of the copyright of my lecture notes.

Oops.

The students who did this, said that they did it to be helpful, assisting students who had posted messages on the course eClass message board asking for notes they missed. That is altruistic and commendable. Except for, you know, all of those violations. They could have just posted the fill-ins words on the message board itself, which would not violate anything. Heck, I'm completely OK with that.

If you miss class, you should try and get the notes from someone else in class. That way, you get not only the "fill-in" words you missed, but any annotations or side-notes that the other person has made (look for someone who scribbles coherent notes all over their printouts). For now, though, I've turned off the message boards on eClass/Moodle, sorry.

Why aren't you studying?

The Grad School

At this time of year, graduate school applications are on my mind, because I'm up to my ears writing letters of reference. Yikes, deadlines!

Students often ask me for inside advice on what graduate committees are looking for--how high their GPS needs to be, who to get letters of reference from, that kind of thing. My answer is: I don't know. I've never been on an admissions committee, and things are different (old man voice) from when I applied to grad school back in the day. Ahem.

So, I asked the Department of Psychology's Graduate Program Assistant, Anita Mueller, for some insight into the process--at least, in this department. Here's what she wrote me [I've added the information in brackets]:

It's not GPA alone that determines admissibility. It's true, we do look for the best and the brightest (the closer to a 4.0 the better) and those are the students who typically are offered recruitment scholarships. The minimum to be accepted into FGSR [Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research] is 3.0. In order to be eligible for recruitment scholarships, you need to have a GPA of greater than 3.7 in the last 2 years (~60 credits) of your undergraduate education. The other things we look at is your GRE [Graduate Records Exam], STATS courses and research experience. Research experience is included in our Honours program under [PSYCO] 498 Individual Study. If you are in the regular stream, you can also get research experience, and it would be listed under the PSYCO 496 individual research. You would however have to find your own supervisor to complete the PSYCO 496. Students who are in their final year of their Bachelor’s degree can apply for scholarships (NSERC [Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada], etc). It looks good on the application of you are coming in with a scholarship.

The Graduate program is very competitive, last year we had 65 applications and admitted 8 students. This year, we have 72 applications and our admissions would be about the same percentage. We also look to ensure that there is a supervisor who is willing to supervise the student. There would have to be fit with supervisor/research and physical space available to accommodate new students. With all that being said, we encourage those students who want to continue into Grad School to get their applications in early as our deadline is January 15 for fall admission.

I hope that somewhat answers your question.

AM
Anita Mueller
Graduate Program Assistant

Thanks, Anita, for that information. (Yes, I know that the application deadline has passed. You should be looking ahead to next year.) Here are some other things you should know. The Department of Psychology does not offer a graduate program in professional psychology. That is, you can't train to become a clinical or counseling psychologist. (At the UofA, the Department of Educational Psychology has a program in counseling psychology and school psychology, for example. But I've been told that it's now more competitive to get into professional psychology programs than it is to get into medical school. Eep! Psychiatry anyone?)

Why aren't you studying?

What I Did on my Winter Vacation (2011 edition)

I took my family to Hawaii. I know, right? It’s awesome. Palm trees, warm breezes, sunset dinners overlooking the ocean.

Our hotel, the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, had a lot of family-friendly activities. Kids can help feed the koi fish, make leis, and ego to a free pineapple tasting. The chefs built an enormous German-themed gingerbread village, complete with two model trains. And there’s free outdoor music and hula dancing every night.

Shopping? We were right next to the International Marketplace, so: check. Took a trip to a “swap meet” (read: flea market) which has 700+ vendors located in the Aloha Stadium parking lot, check. Ala Moana shopping centre? Check. And yawn.

Trinkets and T-shirts are as exciting to me as an Internet outage. Me, I love just going to a grocery store to see what’s interesting. A huge pile of papayas! Key lime pie gum! Haupia yogurt! Macadamia nuts! And of course, that delicious Kona coffee--the only coffee grown in North America.

We saw to the zoo, the aquarium, we even went swimming with the dolphins. Well, we tried to, anyway. Turns out some kids get really freaked out when they are within touching distance of 7-foot aquatic mammals, and have to get out of the water immediately. This brings me to...

The bad news. Before you start to both hate me and envy me, let me tell you that this vacation was not all mai tais and hibiscus. Oh, no my friend. There were downsides.

The cost: Hawaii is expensive. From the flight to the hotel to the meals, everything is pricey--even though the CAD-USD exchange rate was holding steady around $0.98.

The beach: I’m not a toss-my-beach-towel-on-the-sand-and-flop-down-on-it-for-the-day person. I’m more of a sit-in-the-shade-and-read-a-book-while-sipping-an-iced-coffee person. I don’t enjoy spraying sticky sunblock all over me; it makes me feel like a licked lollypop that fell onto the floor. And the sand. It gets everywhere. Just...everywhere. But my kids like the beach, so off I go. Oh, and it rained almost every day.

The catamaran ride from hell: It was pretty windy that day (there was a wind advisory, actually) but I didn’t expect our 1-hour tour to hit 8-foot swells. There were free drinks, but when you’re holding on to a railing for dear life with one hand and holding on to one of your children for dear life with the other hand, it’s kinda hard to sip your drink. Plus, seawater splashed into mine. Yuck.

The hotel: I love to sleep--I really do--whenever I get the opportunity. And what better opportunity than a tropical getaway? Alas, Waikiki is not a quiet place. It’s a tradeoff: if you want to be close to a lot of activities, you’ve got to be in the city, with all of its sirens and car horns and trucks beep-beep-beep backing up. Unfortunately, the lanai doors at our hotel were only single-pane glass, which offers no soundproofing. So when the street performers (including, but not limited to, drummers, singers, and what apparently was a troupe of synchronized shouters) started their night shift, we were forced to listen to them, even with 29-dB NRR earplugs. Hilariously, every night, they started just as we were trying, in vain, to put the kids to sleep.

The kids: Think you’re a seasoned world traveler who can handle anything? You haven’t traveled until you’ve traveled with kids. Well, with my kids, anyway. For example, try having the two-year-old decide to start ignoring you, run away, scream at her 129 dB max volume (yes, I measured that; I’m a scientist), and vomit all over her shirt. And this was in the departure lounge before we even got on the plane. Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids. Showing them the diversity of the world is a blast. But it’s not easy. I’m seriously reconsidering Disneyland in 2012, girls.

Finally, I missed Christmas. No matter how much you decorate a palm tree, it ain’t a Christmas tree. I actually started to miss snow. (Really!) And not just that; Christmas is about friends and family. There’s something a bit...hollow about sharing your Christmas dinner with dozens of strangers in a hotel restaurant. Yeah, I’m glad to be back. (Also: the U of Hawaii Department of Psychology has no Faculty Lecturer positions open.)

How was your holiday break?

Why aren’t you studying?