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M cG ILL T R IB U N E Tuesday, O c to b e r 2 3 , 2 0 0 1
P u b lish ed by the S tu d e n ts ’ S o c ie ty o f M c G ill U n iv e rs ity since 1 9 8 1
WebCT is tracking you!
Players Theatre President drinks like a fish
Clare McIntyre
Michael Zilberman You can’t go wrong with David Ives. It might be the worst day of your life (you pulled an all-nighter and still failed the exam, then broke up with your girlfriend while your best friend moved away) but if you are reading or listening to David Ives, you are nevertheless convulsed with laughter. So if you are having a bad day you are in luck because Maya Goldenberg has put together five David Ives’ One Acts in a pro duction called All in the Timing, playing at Players Theatre, October 17-20 & 24-27. There are no prevalent plot lines in David Ives’ One Acts. They are all short dialogue scenes driven by quirky ideas that sometimes make witty, sarcastic commentaries about relationships, human interac tion, a historical event, or just about anything. In the Opening Act, “Sure Thing”, starring a fit tingly stoic Bianca Yates as Betty, and a fittingly over-the-top Aaron George as Bill, Ives pokes fun at modern day mating rituals. Bill tries to pick up Betty, but each time a bell rings, he must start over. The interaction is funny, funny cause it’s so true. The timing and rhythm of the piece is demanding, and the actors pull it off brilliantly. They never seem to anticipate the bell ringing. It is always unexpected and hilarious when they suddenly start the dialogue all over again.
Issue 8
The idea for the second play, Variations on the Death of Trotsky, was inspired by an article Ives read in the Times about Trotsky which mentions that after being hit in the head with a mountain climbers axe, Trotsky lived on for thirty-six hours before his death. The play explores what a man does for thirty-six hours with a mountain climber’s axe in his head. The script is amus ing and intellectual, but Sean Michaels, playing Trotsky, was so concentrated on his annoying, high-pitched intonations that many of his words were not understood.
Notably funny was Mitch Dermer’s cameo as Ramon Mercador, the man responsible for killing Trotsky, who enters out of the blue with a sombrero, serape, huaraches and a guitar. “The Philadelphia” was the showstopper and the highlight of the production. Sean Michaels, Aaron George and Cortney Lohnes had perfect chemistry on stage. Lohnes’ subtle facial expressions and saucy reactions as a sour, diner waitress were killer. Michael and Please see ALL, page 16
A little-known tracking compo nent of McGill’s WebCT software that monitors student activity on the Internet is raising privacy concerns on campus. The WebCT program, which is used in over 800 classes at McGill, allows students to access course notes, participate in discussion groups, and stay in contact with their professor and other students. The program’s tracking feature allows professors to view numerical data for the number of times a stu dent has viewed specific parts of the course, the number of discussion postings read and sent in, and the user’s initial and latest login dates. Few students are aware of the exis tence of such a utility as it is hidden by default from their WebCT homepage. Nicole Baerg, an Economics and International Development Studies student in the Faculty of Arts, feels she should have been told about the tracker and its function. “At the very least, students should be notified in advance that there is an electronic surveillance component to the WebCT software,” she said. Gerry Leclerc, manager of the Learning Technologies Resource Section of the Instructional Communications Center (ICC) at McGill, asserted that many students are unaware of the tracking mecha nism simply because their professors are equally uninformed. “Many professors are unaware of it [the tracking system], and the major point of contact we have to students is through the professors,” he said. Issues of electronic privacy are not clearly addressed in McGill’s computing policies. McGill Network and Communications Services’
(NCS) code of conduct provides a brief and vague explanation of users’ rights to privacy. “Users have a right to privacy. The level of privacy does not exceed, however, that of reasonable expecta tions,” it reads. A companion document attempts to quantify this level of pri vacy by pointing to incidents such as repairs or system failures where other users may gain access to a students’ information: “During the diagnosis of problems, repair of hardware, soft ware or data, user data may become visible or need to be accessed by authorized system administrators; system failures may occasionally make otherwise private data accessi ble to other users.” Economics Professor Myron Frankman, a staunch opposent of the tracking feature, commented on the infringement on students’ rights. “One reading of the code of conduct could be interpreted as say ing that this is a violation of [stu dents’] right to privacy,” he stated. Leclerc defended the tracking utility, saying it is intended as a ped agogical tool which allows professors to see which pages are being used most often and most effectively by students. “It’s used by people who may want to improve their teaching. That’s the purpose which WebCT implemented it for,” he said. History Professor Faith Wallis said that she has never actually con sidered using the tracking feature because it would simply be too timeconsuming to interpret all the infor mation. “I can’t imagine actually having enough time to actually use it. I would certainly support a statement in the course guide that says what you’re expected to do in WebCT, and how your use of WebCT may or may not be tracked or evaluated.” Please see WebCT, page 4