Building
the Virtual Department: A Case Study of Online Teaching and ResearchBuilding
the Virtual Department: A Case Study of Online Teaching and ResearchIRC (Internet Relay Chat) has been a particularly difficult issue for the computer center. IRC is a realtime (synchronous) communication media which is a client-server application that is often used almost entirely for entertainment purposes.
As a result, the computer center -- which does supply an IRC client in all UNIX accounts including those on ICARUS, the student UNIX machine -- felt a need to balance the desires of those users who wish to communicate with friends across the world with the needs of those users who wish to use the other applications available on the university workstations.
Their solution -- not a perfect one by any means -- was to shut off the IRC client during the two weeks that surround midterms and the two weeks that surround finals, periods of heavy activity and use of the labs.
At the time of the debate over use of ADN resources vs. use of in-house resources, it should be noted that very few teachers were using IRC for educational purposes. That has since changed, but at the time, IRC was primarily seen as entertainment, not a tool that had any pedagogical use whatsover. Though it was still supplied by the computer center, it was seen as a technology that could not be allowed to take precedence over what was then seen as legitimate educational work.
Copyright © 1996-1998 by Keith Dorwick
