The idea of Illinibucks here at the University of Illinois is a very interesting concept that if implemented, would have a lot of possible issues. It would be a great way to introduce students to a real life application of economics as it relates to scarcity. In a scenario where students are allocated a specified amount of Illinibucks, they would have to manage their capital wisely and plan where and when to use them.
There are not many functions of Illinibucks I can think of. The obvious one is choosing classes. The issue I have with this is that if we give everybody enough Illinibucks to afford whatever cost it is to skip the wait for choosing classes, I personally believe that almost everybody would use it on that. A way to make it more effective may be to allow people who use their Illinibucks for scheduling classes to skip ahead a day or two, making it valuable but not quite as much as skipping to the front of the line, which would surely crash the Enterprise website. Also the University clearly has reasons for why they give some students priority. If people used Illinibucks to cut in front of other people, older students may not be able to take classes they need because an underclassmen who doesn't necessarily need to take the course has a seat since he bought his way to an earlier registration spot.
I know other schools have programs where they are allocated an amount of credits, similar to meal plan credits that people get in the dorms here, but they can use it at restaurants around campus. However, I highly doubt Illinibucks could be used for that purpose since a deal would have to be made with participating restaurants where the University covers all or some of the cost in exchange for the Illinibucks they are receiving from students. I could definitely see that being a program that students here would be very interested, especially if Chipotle and other Green Street restaurants got involved.
I saw in another student's post the idea of spending Illinibucks on scheduling finals. This is something I could see being useful as long as faculty could find a way to prevent cheating between students in the same class with different exam dates. Final weeks is obviously the most stressful period of the semester, and sometimes people just get completely screwed on final exam dates and times. I have friends in Engineering, taking the hardest classes on campus, that have 4 exams in 2 days, but since there aren't conflicting times or there is a small gap in between exam 2 and 3, the University does not allow them to move any exams. In my opinion this is a huge issue and it can really hurt people's grade point averages.
Also, as a quick note on registering for classes and not getting into desired/required courses. This semester I was trying to get into Econ 303 but it was full. Knowing there were students that were just pointlessly holding onto the course and waiting until the deadline to drop, I checked every day hoping to snag a spot. I emailed the professor and she said that she couldn't make any exceptions to the class size limit. Luckily on the last day to register for classes a spot opened up and I got in the course, but I was already weeks behind so I had to catch up on a lot of work and missed out on a handful of graded assignments. I just checked what the current enrollment is and there are 11 spots remaining, which could have gone to students that need it. I think there should be a wait list for classes, because right now it is basically just luck, hoping that you're the first one who checked for an opening since somebody dropped.
Let me take on your lasts comment about late drops after the add date has passed in a class where the capacity is maxed out till after the add date. One way to think about this is to consider who bears the risk. You could go to the lecture without being registered and do whatever homework is assigned (even if you can't submit it for grading) and then if a spot opened up you could register for the class for credit. In this case you are bearing all the risk, for that spot may never open up. But if you actually did this, the 10 day add date is a completely arbitrary thing. (BTW, you can add after that date with permission of the instructor. The problem is that the instructor can't readily verify whether you've kept up with the class or not). In any event, the real issue is whether there should be "overbooking" early in anticipation of some drops later. I can see arguments both ways on that.
ReplyDeleteRegarding scheduling exams at the student's convenience, if there many versions of the final exam where if one version leaked it wouldn't help students with doing the other versions, then this would be possible. In our course, it would be nightmare for me to administer. Truthfully the gaming of when to get out of town at the end of the semester and similar gaming of when to get out of hear before Thanksgiving break will always have people want to move the separation earlier. We used to have classes through Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. They were not heavily attended, but we used to have them. Since they've gotten rid of them (and started the semester earlier in August as an offset) the Thursday and Friday classes of the week before are not well attended. In my opinion, this particular gaming will happen but it is not something the University should encourage, so I would not allow Illinibucks for this purpose.
I do think the semester is too long and and week or two should be chopped off it. But given whatever the semester length is, and given the difficulties in scheduling final exams, its not something we should change so students can get out of town a couple of days earlier.
I hadn't thought about going to a class I was planning on picking up in order to keep up with the material, though I probably should have realized that would be a good idea. I do think overbooking would be a reasonable practice for the university to do given the high drop rate I have observed in courses that I have tried to register for. Teachers could observe over the years how many people drop their class and allow a certain overflow based on that.
ReplyDeleteI completely understand the struggle that would result from allowing students to take the exams whenever they want. Making and grading several different exam forms for every time students take the exam would be too much additional work for professors who already have a lot of work to do.
I never knew Illinois used to have class through Wednesday of Thanksgiving break. I can definitely see why students wouldn't attend those days, but there really isn't any reason to skip Thursday and Friday when class lets out on Friday. It is occasionally beneficial to those of us who do attend, as some professors enjoy providing special incentives to students who do not leave early, so I have no complaints there.