DijutalTim (the longer version)

I admit to not being sure what to make of the Quebec university student protest. I was a second year student when tuition started to rise quickly here (not Quebec obviously) and I recall the protests at the time, which were mild at best. I didn’t buy into them as a student as many students marching wore ski jackets that were worth more than a year’s tuition. The investment financially seemed paltry to the future payoff. As it stands, Quebec students’ fees will rise in five years to $3800 a year whereas it’s already at $6200 at my institution. Even still, for a four year degree the total cost is less than a car here. Is it worth it? It’s hard to say but a 2002 US Census bureau study found that the difference between a high school education and a university education over a lifetime represented about $1.3 million in earning potential. But clearly it’s not all about money and that’s certainly not where I’d judge things.

Two of the Quebec student federations have made a counter proposal in response to the tuition hike (via the Globe and Mail) that leaves me scratching my head. Here are the points to the proposal:

• A committee to monitor management of universities
• A limit, to three per cent, of university expenses that are peripheral to education
• An analysis of arrangements between businesses and universities, when it comes to patents
• A two-year moratorium on university funding increases
• A five-year moratorium on construction of new campuses
• An estates-general, or roving consultations, on education
• A freeze on tuition at 2012 level

The first three display a woeful lack of insight into universities, particularly research universities. The fact is that in Canada student tuition represents maybe 25% of the cost of running a university. Universities choose to invest in projects not necessarily based solely on the impact to students’ education but also ability to compete with other research institutions on a global basis both for research funding and top flight researchers. Universities also return to the broader community by providing a place for access to expertise that would be difficult to obtain otherwise and access to information sources too expensive for most individuals and organizations. They act as custodians for cultural objects and provide recreational facilities that support their community. The first three points assume that universities are poorly managed organizations that are distracted from the primary task of educating. The reality is that they are complex environments with multiple competing goals with a number of checks and balances to control excesses and waste. It’s not to say they couldn’t be better managed or more waste eliminated but it’s doubtful that any savings could come close to compensating for the kind of funding the Quebec government wants to recover through increasing tuition.

The fourth point fails to realize that the majority of the costs of a university are tied to its human capital; the researchers and instructors, lab technicians, teaching assistants and support staff. A moratorium on university funding for two years is to ask all of these people to accept wage freezes for two years. Or to see layoffs.

The fifth point is simply a capacity issue. As participation in higher education has increased over time (and ironically participation in higher education increases with economic downturns), there has simply been a need for more and more space which necessitates the construction of more buildings and facilities. The alternative is to cap enrollment which limits participation and trumps the argument about accessibility of education.

The sixth point I’m not sure what to make of. What would the end result of these roving consultations be?

It seems to me that the crux of the argument falls on point seven: In the end, “we” reject all tuition hikes and in addition, we want greater say on every other aspect of higher education in Quebec. I have a suspicion these proposals are a non-starter.

I always hear the phrase “we’re preserving our digital objects for 500 years” in the digital preservation community. I’ve come to the conclusion that it might actually be a bit of a red herring. The biggest problem with it is that it implies we’re building these long-term stores where you can stash digital objects to save; this brings to mind digital Fort Knoxes. It seems to me that this is inherently impractical - institutions are more in flux than they’ve ever been and there is a real concern the organizations that are here might not be here tomorrow. I propose that instead we should talk about generational preservation. By saying generational preservation, it implies the most important aspect of digital preservation: We will have to hand the objects to someone else at some point and they will have to take responsibility for it.

As I get older, I find my ability to remember things with the level of precision I once had greatly diminished. At least that’s what I tell myself.

But more likely, we live in an age where information is the dominant currency and information hoarding is a problem for most of us. Some of us worse than others. For instance, I have borderline autistic personality traits and am one of the worst information hoarders you’ll run into. Apparently (at least according to those willing to admit being friends with me) that makes me no fun in Trivial Pursuits games. Certain things will trigger that tendency. For instance the purchase of a new car; an act that now has me obsessing over fuel economy and travel distances. My commute this morning was 17 km and involved two intermediate stops, dropping off family members along the way. And I did stop as opposed to simply pushing them out of the car. The walk from my car to my office included 113 steps. This triggered a search for average stair step height which by Canadian building code standards is a minimum of 125 mm and a maximum of 200 mm for a public stair step. Assuming an average step rise of 160 mm, my legs pushed me 18 m up. Incidentally, that height has a 50% risk of head injury, 90% risk of chest injury and an 80% chance of abdominal injury if you fell from it (Atanasijevic, Savic, Nikolic and Djokic, 2005). 

This is a lot of information to remember and it’s likely I’ll have forgotten most of it by next week. This makes me wonder about the act of blogging and status updates. Much has been made of it as a form of social interaction and communication. We’ve studied how tribes form around social media, how memes are spread. But what of blogging and status updates as a form of external memory? I’ll likely forget the numbers that I wrote down today because they’re simply not that useful (except when it comes time to tell the insurance company how far I travel in a given workday). But now that I’ve written about it in the context of external memory, I’ll have an additional mnemonic and a place to look for it easily when it comes time to recall it. What are the implications of having this external memory?