Most educated professionals would agree that the statement, “the next frontier is for more colleges to get comfortable releasing their information […] in uniform formats,” as stated in the article “Student-Built Apps Teach Colleges a Thing or Two” by Ariel Kaminer is a dangerous thought. Colleges do not need to allow any sort of third-party into the lives of their students without their consent. A release of data would be an inappropriate on the school’s behalf and could lead to devastating results.
Kaminer begins the article by looking at the story of Vaibhav Verma, a student at Rutgers University who developed an app to check course availability when he was not able to get into classes he wanted. The app exponentially increased in popularity. …show more content…
What is it? What does it consist of? A.P.I stands for application programming interface, a way for schools to release their data to everyone without it being a decision based upon the person who requests it. From the article it is plain to see that students request differing amounts and kinds of information for different purposes. This requested data could include (but is most certainly not limited to) enrollment numbers for classes, times that classes will be scheduled, demographic information, contact information and information of individuals. An A.P.I. would give the holder a great amount of access to the workings of any given school, and that is a lot of power. Millennial students particularly are incredibly intelligent, and can take the A.P.I.s and go do so …show more content…
It could set a dangerous precedent, to set up a “college database” that simply anyone could use. For starters, this could cause an expectation for compensation by students for their incredible programs. According to Kaminer’s article, U.C. Berkeley paid some students for the invention of their website, Ninja Courses, which has helped a great number of people in the University of California system. This could be viewed as a precedent for a different case, in which a student creates what they deem to be a massively beneficial program and feels entitled to be paid for it by the school, when all they did was take available information. Student software may become harmful to the school not just financially, but also socially. With programs such as Furman University student Zach Hall’s website, incredible content is provided, but along with that the school is slightly compromised. In Hall’s case, he had links to professor rating sites which could be degrading or disparaging to professors who are not being judged by an objective party. But even beyond the school reputation, what about the privacy of students? Ravi Pendse of Brown University expressed his concern over the laws that protect student privacy and how “the easiest answer is to say no” (Kaminer par. 24) when it comes to releasing school information. The idea of sharing data and
Kaminer begins the article by looking at the story of Vaibhav Verma, a student at Rutgers University who developed an app to check course availability when he was not able to get into classes he wanted. The app exponentially increased in popularity. …show more content…
What is it? What does it consist of? A.P.I stands for application programming interface, a way for schools to release their data to everyone without it being a decision based upon the person who requests it. From the article it is plain to see that students request differing amounts and kinds of information for different purposes. This requested data could include (but is most certainly not limited to) enrollment numbers for classes, times that classes will be scheduled, demographic information, contact information and information of individuals. An A.P.I. would give the holder a great amount of access to the workings of any given school, and that is a lot of power. Millennial students particularly are incredibly intelligent, and can take the A.P.I.s and go do so …show more content…
It could set a dangerous precedent, to set up a “college database” that simply anyone could use. For starters, this could cause an expectation for compensation by students for their incredible programs. According to Kaminer’s article, U.C. Berkeley paid some students for the invention of their website, Ninja Courses, which has helped a great number of people in the University of California system. This could be viewed as a precedent for a different case, in which a student creates what they deem to be a massively beneficial program and feels entitled to be paid for it by the school, when all they did was take available information. Student software may become harmful to the school not just financially, but also socially. With programs such as Furman University student Zach Hall’s website, incredible content is provided, but along with that the school is slightly compromised. In Hall’s case, he had links to professor rating sites which could be degrading or disparaging to professors who are not being judged by an objective party. But even beyond the school reputation, what about the privacy of students? Ravi Pendse of Brown University expressed his concern over the laws that protect student privacy and how “the easiest answer is to say no” (Kaminer par. 24) when it comes to releasing school information. The idea of sharing data and