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Activity: Drafting an Administrative Policy

Background

Students use the Internet access to use Blackboard, WebCT and other courseware as well as to visit MySpace.com during their ‘down time.’ In the summer of 2006, MySpace surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited domain for US Internet users. MySpace consistently ranks in the top three most visited sites in the United States. During the spring term of 2006, MySpace was filtered (banned) by Del Mar College during the week leading up to finals. (See article.)

Instructions

After discussing the content for this section, divide the class into groups. Ask the groups to discuss the following questions:

• How would they make the decision on filtering websites during crunch times during the semester without the time or resources to add addtional bandwidth?
• Would they forego their personal freedom for quicker access?
• Do students have the right to access all websites all the time?
• Do students have the right to demand that bandwidth be dedicated to academic study?
• Who should define what an appropriate website is?

Finally, ask the group to write an administrative policy on this issue.