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I wondered just who was receiving email on the various school lists - we were never provided with list of recipients, so it was all just a mystery. At certain times, during certain classes, we were instructed to communicate either via discussion board (with no email component whatsoever). At other times, we were asked to communicate using one of the email distribution aliases. Aside from the logistics of tapping into these disparate sources of information, I really wanted to know...exactly how were our email messages being distributed?

It took me about an hour of searching before I solved the DPSC email mystery. I had been looking for an actual "listserv" reference but realized that, like "kleenex", the word extends beyond its own brand. In fact, the school's system was based on Majordomo, a leading open source alternative. Sending an email to majordomo-at-csis.pace.edu will pass back (or process) a set of list commands, and from there, you can find out which lists are available at Pace's School of Computer Science and Information Systems...and who is using them. Having discovered this, I wonder if I should change my list membership listings to a more disposable email account. I think someone (or something) could easily harvest addresses this way.

This was definitely an eventful weekend, to say the least. If I "twittered" (text-message blogging), I'd have racked up a list of entries already. To start with, we got our take-home midterms back in my Data Telecommunications I class last Saturday morning. I'm not really sure how to describe how that unfolded. I just thought that we'd get back our grades, go over the problems, and move on to new material. After all, the cumulative final is coming up in a few weeks...and the material is quite difficult, with a lot of interweaving formulas and concepts. That's not really how things happened at all, though.

Before our answer sheets were returned, the professor projected a transparency with the first five problems on it. He worked through each one, showing us the correct answer, and then swapped it for one with three wrong answers highlighted. Apparently, there were a few individuals who, in the first five problems, got three answers wrong in exactly the same way. Although nothing else on their midterm was graded, we were told that it was highly suspect and statistically unlikely unless those individuals cheated. Consequently, those papers (we later found out four) would be marked with an "X" and not graded.

I won't be posting any public criticisms other than this one - our final is cumulative, but our professor kept our midterm worksheets. If you did get the answer right, and you didn't scan or copy your worksheets, there's nothing left to study. Aside from that, though, things just kind of fell apart once the answer sheets were distributed. I think everyone would agree that it's not the kind of thing you'd expect in a doctoral-level class. In addition to a public, verbal battle between accuser and accused, we were told that our scheduled take-home final exam (open book, open notes) would now be closed book, closed notes and in-class because we could no longer be trusted.

The room kind of erupted with that last bit of news. Personally, I had to take a vacation day to do my take-home midterm. When I raised my hand to say as much, I was told that if I studied ahead of time, it wouldn't have taken me so long. I don't know how to explain just how much I have to look up - not just which formula to use, but the math behind how to use them (my last pure math class was about 10 years ago). Now we're only allowed one formula sheet, and we'll only have 2% of the time which we had to complete the midterm. The final counts for 50% of our total grade, and my grade affects whether I qualify for tuition reimbursement. Needless to say, I really expect to fail the final exam (they picked an awesome poster girl, huh?).

Anyways, besides this whole mess, we also had a pretty big presentation-and-paper combination due that afternoon. Four groups each presented material on known risks and privacy issues with specific modern technologies (which pretty much took up the rest of the day). Afterwards, while the rest of my classmates were hanging out, I got some quality time with a little dood and his awesome entourage before walking (with the husband) to Uno's for dinner. When we walked back, though, the parking deck attendants were gone and the gates were down! Thankfully, Pace shares the deck with Korman Suites, and they were nice enough to let me and the husband out for free.