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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2006 Adjuncts Turn to Web Department of Education Exposes Loan Data Teen Spammer Sentenced to Curfew ADJUNCTS TURN TO WEB New services are emerging that offer online tutorials for adjunct faculty, a group many say is marginalized and treated poorly by many colleges and universities. Higher education increasingly depends on adjuncts, often to teach night or weekend classes, and many adjunct faculty have little experience teaching. Services such as AdjunctSuccess offer online seminars and other tools to help train these part-time faculty and give them a place to correspond with others in similar situations at other universities. Critics of such programs say they do little to help adjunct faculty while encouraging the trend toward fewer tenure-track instructors in favor of part-time faculty to whom institutions have little obligation. Richard Lyons, cofounder of AdjunctSuccess, defended the company, saying colleges and universities will not be swayed to hire more adjuncts because of this training and that it provides a needed resource for an entire class of faculty who are often left behind. Inside Higher Ed, 22 August 2006 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/08/22/adjunct DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION EXPOSES LOAN DATA The U.S. Department of Education said it is working to fix a computer problem that allowed student borrowers to see loan information for other students. According to the agency, the problem resulted from a routine software upgrade by Affiliated Computers Services Inc., a contractor to the agency. Evidently, that upgrade caused student loan data for borrowers to be accessed by others when using the Education Department's Web site. A spokesperson from the Education Department said that four users of the Web system had notified the agency since last Sunday of the problem. The breach was said to have affected only a "limited number" of the 6.4 million students who borrowed money under the Federal Direct Student Loan program. Those with loans through other lenders are not affected. The agency said it has temporarily turned off the features of the student loan Web site that were leading to the problems and would keep those features off until the problem is resolved. Houston Chronicle, 23 August 2006 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4136336.html TEEN SPAMMER SENTENCED TO CURFEW A British teenager has been sentenced to a two-month curfew for sending millions of e-mails to a former employer, causing its servers to crash. Previously, a judge had ruled that the e-mails did not violate the Computer Misuse Act, under which David Lennon was charged, but an appeals court rejected that ruling. The law, which dates to 1990, is seen by many as outdated and ineffective at addressing cybercrimes today. The law prohibits intentionally damaging or modifying a computer. The judge in the first case said that although the quantity of e-mail Lennon sent indeed crashed the company's servers, sending e-mail is not strictly a violation of the law. The judge in the second case said that Lennon's actions indeed caused considerable harm to the plaintiff. By way of a sentence, the judge ordered Lennon not to leave his home between the hours of 12:30 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. on weekdays and between 12:30 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on weekends. Lennon's curfew will expire just before he begins college in September. CNET, 23 August 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6108625.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. To access resources including articles, books, conference sessions, contracts, effective practices, plans, policies, position descriptions, and blog content, go to http://www.educause.edu/resources ***************************************************** CONFERENCES For information on all EDUCAUSE learning and networking opportunities, see http://www.educause.edu/31 ***************************************************** COPYRIGHT Edupage copyright (c) 2006, EDUCAUSE
