Internet Identities Part I Faculty

According to Inside Higher Ed, Instructor John Hall from the University of Florida was participating in a distance learning course that videotaped lectures and made them available online for students enrolled in the course. Clips from one of the classes were uploaded on websites such as break.com and youtube.com under the title ‘Stoned Professor,’ shortly after the lecture. Since then Prof. Hall has been put on paid administrative leave and the course has been taken over by someone else. Once voted teacher of the year, Hall now has his future employment with the University of Florida, “Under consideration.”

While I think this is a very important topic, I was disappointed in this article. The author never asked why Hall was put on leave. There is a distinct difference between putting an instructor on leave because they were stoned, because an investigation into their drug habits is underway, because the university doesn’t approve of the current teaching method, and because he was the center of too much negative student attention. What the reader is left with is that he was put on leave because some unknown student said online that he was stoned.

Unlike many YouTube.com videos of professors, this one was being filmed intentionally by the University and the instructor was well aware that he was on camera. I wish that this author would have talked about what criteria or assessment the university uses when they decide which course to video tape. Is someone reviewing these lectures before they are put online? Was Belinda (the woman referenced in the clip as in charge of the zooming) concerned with Hall’s 'performance' on this day? Hall’s CV and his presence on the University of Florida online directory are impressive. Even his ratings on ratemyprofessor.com are good (based on the rumor that instructors want an average rating because a good rating is a signal that your classes are too easy).

This all leads to a soapbox that I probably frequent too often about faculty keeping up with the online identity that students are creating for them. Students are posting extensively edited and elaborately planned videos of their professors as a new hobby. When a faculty member's course is being represented online with videos of the students struggling to stay awake during lecture, that faculty member now has a negative online identity. It doesn't matter if it is only two minutes, because it is the only two minutes many people will ever see of that lecture. As Ann Springer said in an article about faculty being filmed with out their knowledge for youtube.com, “Students will always mock professors and there is nothing you can do about that.” However, with students embracing new technologies and mocking professors for an audience of strangers that will never have the opportunity to interact with the instructor or experience one of her lectures, the mocking has become much more powerful. Student mocking is now being electronically published and the lines separating student banter from slander and libel are getting awfully close together.

If a precedent is started that faculty members can loose their jobs based on this internet mocking, it means there could be a scary power shift that gives advantages to those who know how to Google. Lately faculty and mentors have been eager to point out that our future employers will be looking at our facebook accounts and judging us, but there is the possibility that the university is also looking at our facebook, and they are judging the faculty by what we say. I'm not saying that faculty have to become avid facebookers or should be reading the blogs of every student they encounter, but they need to keep in mind that avoiding the internet does not keep them from developing an online identity. Faculty need to be keeping track of where their names and their classes are popping up online. Not only for the CYOA theory, but there is also the possibility that it is some of the most honest feedback you'll ever get.