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Unintended Consequences Can Follow IT Policy Implementation
1/26/2005
So, he g'es to a computer lab, determined to log in and access the course from there, only to find that his access to all university online resources is invalid--but he d'esn't even know why. And it's still the weekend. Imagine trying to find someone on campus on a Saturday evening to make complicated decisions about whether or not to turn on a student's authentication due to automatically detected improper network usage.
Since Student A can't reach his professor on the weekend, and it's a large class in which he was relatively anonymous and d'esn't know any of the other students, he stresses all weekend without access to study materials and blows the final exam. Ouch! That's not the kind of thing we're supposed to do to our students.
In many respects, this type of "punishment" is a lot like suspension for a K-12 student. And there are many respected authorities who will agree that "punishing" a student by removing his access to learning isn't exactly appropriate. (Protecting other students is another story, and in this case the dis-authentication was for network protection, but the result was the same.) In earlier days that removal from learning was to ban the student from the classroom or the school. Nowadays, with so many parts of so many classes on campus located on the network, it may just be an automated shutdown of network access, like what happened to Student A.
Poor Student A. He may not get accepted to the law school of his choice in two years due to a 'C' grade instead of a 'B' grade in that class. If he's got good lawyers, your institution may be hearing about that some day.
What's the point? Policies have consequences, not all of which may be intended. Creation and implementation of IT policy, even if well thought-out, may lead to unintended consequences that are detrimental not only to individual students but to the university's mission. Just as what the IT staff intentionally d'es should support the mission of the institution, even if it makes their jobs tougher sometimes, what they (or their software programs) do unintentionally matters, too. Something to think about, eh?
About the author: Terry Calhoun is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society
for College and University Planning (SCUP). You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here. View more articles by Terry Calhoun.
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