[net.unix] INFO-UNIX Digest V1#161

TTussing.es@XEROX.ARPA (09/18/85)

>
>  It strikes me the student could do his work in a subdirectory of a
>  directory, owned by the instructor.  The student owns his
subdirectory
>  to prevent other students from looking.  The instructor arranges with
>  root to make all these directories become owned by the instructor and
>  unwritable by others at the cut-off date.  This could be done with
cron
>  or at.
>

How IRRATING that would be.  First of all what if the student had more
the one computer class (which is fairly common, at least were I went to
school).  Also almost everyone I knew used their accounts for a myriad
of other things besides school work.  So should students be given one
more account for personal work.  Now we're up to 3 accounts.  And then
what if the student is taking non-computer classes that use a computer
(like stat or engineering classes) then they get at least 1 more
account.   I'll admit that I had a lot of accounts in school, but at
least I could use them as I saw fit.  I didn't have to sit and think
"well, which account can I write to today?"

					Tara Tussing

hutch@sri-spam.ARPA (Reginald R. Hutcherson) (09/18/85)

   When I was a student at U.C.Berkeley the profs would illiminate the
   problem of a student altering their printout/outputs by basically
   making the programming assignments a small percentage of the students
   overall grade. This way most students who would alter their printouts
   would either not hand in the assignment because it wasn't worth the time
   and effort, or hand it in and have points taken off. At any rate a given
   student couldn't actually pass a given classe by simply altering their
   printouts/outputs, but would have to show some understanding of the sub-
   ject by means of midterms/final exams.

/*

-- hutch

 */

Reginald R. Hutcherson
Software Engineer
Advanced Information Technology
Applications Center
SRI International

tim@cithep.UucP (Tim Smith ) (09/25/85)

What's wrong with multiple accounts?  At Caltech students ( when I was one,
anyway ),  were given one account for each class that required the use of
a computer, plus one account for random use.  The class accounts were paid
for by the department that the class was in.  This is a good way to teach
students about managing temporary resources.  Someone who puts a bunch of
large files on a class account so he will not be over quota on his personal
account gets an interesting lesson at the end of the term...
-- 
					Tim Smith
					ihnp4!cithep!tim

mikel@codas.UUCP (Mikel Manitius) (10/02/85)

> What's wrong with multiple accounts?  At Caltech students ( when I was one,
> anyway ),  were given one account for each class that required the use of
> a computer, plus one account for random use.  The class accounts were paid
> for by the department that the class was in.  This is a good way to teach
> students about managing temporary resources.  Someone who puts a bunch of
> large files on a class account so he will not be over quota on his personal
> account gets an interesting lesson at the end of the term...
> -- 
> 					Tim Smith
> 					ihnp4!cithep!tim

That's fine on large IBM machines, where the operating system is not
robust enough to provide a comfortable enviornemt (such was the case for
me using the Michigan Terminal System at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute),
however, this is not needed on a unix system as you can create directories
for all your needs. If you start creating many accounts, you end up with a
humungous /etc/passwd, which by the way is scanned many many times per
minute on an active system, and you add to the overhead.


Mikel Manitius                AT&T Information Systems
{ihnp4!}codas!mikel           151 Wymore Rd. Rm: 420
(305) 869-2462                Altamonte Springs, FL
AT&T-IS ETN: 755              32714