Published on May 28, 2009, it sums up the project's status very well. Here's the first paragraph:
"Expensive textbooks put the brakes on higher education for many students in developing nations. But a project aiming to make such books available for free via the internet could change all that, writes Jon Marcus".
It's called "Breaking the book barrier". I'll let you take it from here.
Sherry Allison does a nice job of summing it up in her story which ran in the May 31 issue of the Denver Post, entitled "Glitch drains aid to needy". I'll just quote from it, although I'm inclined to call a system that has not worked since it was installed almost five years ago something more than a glitch.
"For five years, CBMS — a database that processes applications for help, including Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamps — has been problematic.
"At first, the system chucked some applicants out while overpaying others. State officials remedied that but had to reimburse the federal government more than $9 million in December for the mistakes.
"Counties also complained that CBMS is nonintuitive, that it takes 45 minutes to enter data for one application and that, when moving from one screen to the other, things like names and addresses have to be re-entered.
"Then the recession spawned a demand for help that state and county officials have never seen before. Applications became backlogged in the metro area and Colorado Springs. Advocacy groups warned that people were going hungry. Food pantries were inundated.
"Last year, Colorado ranked 52nd in the nation and its territories — just above Guam — for food-stamp application timeliness, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In some counties — including Jefferson, Denver and Adams — between 20 percent and 40 percent of applicants waited longer than 30 days to get a food-stamp card this spring".
Ms. Allison has another story in the June 6 issue of the Denver Post entitled "State seeks foundations' aid" in which she discusses a meeting State officials held with a group of Denver Foundations which are bearing additional burdens in meeting the needs of the poor while they wait for CBMS to do what it is supposed to do. Here's one quote: "They (i.e. the foundations) say they're responding to a dramatic increase in need around the city: People are showing up at churches, shelters and senior centers hungry and desperate".
Not to worry, everything will be fine in 12 to 18 months. As you saw in the previous post, the State is taking a thoughtful approach to solving the problem.
An editorial in the Denver post on May 16 called attention to the weirdness of the way a solution to the CBMS fiasco is being pursued.
“Call us mystified by a report from The Denver Post's Allison Sherry that details a rejection by state officials and Colorado's Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) of a plan by several stressed county offices to use the Web-based application solutions.
"We were moving ahead in a manner that was prudent locally," Frank Alexander, who directs housing and human services in Boulder County, told Sherry. "We'd love to have a solution in place right now."
“Instead, state and HCPF officials are sticking with Deloitte Consulting, with whom they recently signed a four-year, $44 million contract to help rein in the state's expensive and clunky Colorado Benefits Management System”.
“Deloitte consultants say it will take them 12 to 18 months more to make enhancements counties want. But it wasn't until counties started asking for Web-based application solutions that officials added a $4.6 million amendment to that $44 million contract to create a Web-based application program”.
In her story of May 14, 2009, reporter Sherry Allison pointed out that in the meantime, “the current system takes 45 minutes to input information after an applicant has filled out a paper form. It requires people to come down to county offices and wait in line, or pick up applications and mail them in”.
In the same story, John Conley, deputy state chief information officer, said, "Our process has been viewed as lethargic, but I believe it's allowed us to be thoughtful."
Ah, yes. Thoughtful indeed.
Ta Da.
Deloitte Consulting is riding to the rescue of CBMS (for only $44 million more than who knows how much has been spent already on this incredible fiasco).
Here's the story from the front page of today's Denver Post. Please note that today is May 7, 2009, and that CBMS was converted on September 1 2004. This has gotta been some sort of record.
Here's a link to the story under reporter Allison Sherry's byline.
Delays in food stamps tackled.
We have assurance from State officials that CBMS will be fixed once and for all. Don't hold your breath.
Amazon announced its new version of the Kindle today. Bigger screen (9.7 inches). More expensive ($489). Touted to be the salvation of newspapers and textbooks. Maybe newspapers (but doubtful). And textbooks? I don't think so.
Amazon wants to sell students textbooks for the Kindle, but has not yet disclosed the pricing. If they are going to be priced in line with current online versions, they'll be half the price of a new hard-cover, or around $80 or so. Not as attractive as a free textbook downloaded from the Global Text library to a Sony Reader, a pdf on the student's laptop, or a printed copy for around $15 from Lulu Press.
Here's the story from today's WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124162110396691937.html
Sorry, Jeff.
Today's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article by Peter King, entitled "A Textbook Case of Renting Books". I'd heard of similar schemes before, but most were offered by some of the major textbook publishers. This article compares four independent sites where university students can rent textbooks for the amount of time they need them and return them to the company when they're finished. The savings can be high. For example, the third edition of an advanced accounting text, "Fraud Accounting", costs $177.95 new, but can be rented for as little as $52.54 for 55 days, or $41.12 for 90 days from one the sites which employs a guaranteed buy-back model.
The four sites analyzed in the article are:
http://chegg.com, and
The last one is the site employing a guaranteed buy-back model.
Progress, but still, free is better: http://globaltext.org
In the what will they think of next category:
Here's the headline:
Cellphones ring up a quick
way for fliers to check in
Travelers receive a special bar
code that acts as a boarding pass
Here's the link to the article. I don't think this is all that new. I seem to remember running across it awhile ago. Anyway, here it is, and it's interesting:
Well, at least one of them.
Maria Bartiromo interviewed US Congressman Barney Frank in the December 10 issue of Business Week. See Barney Frank on Detroit, Housing, and Executive Pay . One of their exchanges was this one:
Maria's question: "Who would be on your short list for czar"?
And Barney's answer: I don't have a list because nobody's asking me to appoint a czar, and I have this rule: I don't think about things where nobody cares what I think.
"I don't think about things where nobody cares what I think". I like it, but I'm going to modify it a bit for me:
"I don't express my opinion about things where nobody cares what I think".
This should make for a happier New Year.
Sorry for the unusually long hiatus. Guess I haven't had much to say. But, the Colorado Benefits Management System never lets me down (although it seems I'm the only one it does not let down).
Let me quote from a story in the Rocky Mountain News of December 1, 2008. As you may know, this is four years and three months after CBMS went live. Here's the link to the entire story, under the byline of Daniel J. Chacon: State agency sees spike in numbers using food stamps . Here's the quote:
"An awful lot of people right now have had their work hours reduced, have been laid off, are unemployed with no work, or are unable to work," said Mark Tandberg, social services director for Adams County.
"Folks are struggling to keep food on the table," he said.
Sometimes, they struggle to get food stamps, too.
Some of Colorado's social services agencies have come under fire in recent years for taking too long to process applicants' paperwork, violating federal protocols.
"We're still not where we need to be, but we are doing better," said Liz McDonough, a spokeswoman for the state's Department of Human Services.
"Part of the reason is counties are now doing interviews over the phone, and that's helping with the processing time," she said.
Ed Kahn, special counsel for the Colorado Center on Law & Policy, sued the state DHS more than four years ago for taking too long to process food stamp applications. He said human service agencies have done a slightly better job this year, but roughly 2,000 people a month are still not getting their benefits approved within the required 30-day period ordered by a judge last December. He said he's considering whether to take the state back to court.
Given the economic troubles and growing need for aid, "It's unconscionable that they haven't made enough improvement in this problem," said Kahn.
Thanks, Ed. Keep at it. Hopefully, it will end sometime soon.
There were three publications on Global text and/or the high cost of textbooks at the University of Denver in the past three weeks. One was on DU Today, a University web-based news channel, and the other two were articles in the student newspaper, The Clarion. Take a look. The reporters and editors did a nice job. The photographer did a nice job too, especially considering what he had to work with. Here they are:
Enjoy!
I usually have a topic in my courses on competitive intelligence and how the Internet can be used as a tool for environmental scanning. Imagine my embarrassment when, shortly after I had the thought of hosting a conference on open education/open textbooks, I found out that there has been such conference for the last TEN YEARS! Cathy and Vic from the Hewlett Foundation were the source of that nugget of information and I thank them for that.
So, I attended the conference and it was absolutely wonderful. Most of the players in the Open Educational Resources (OER) space were there. The sessions were terrific and everyone was friendly. I got to meet and talk with some interesting folks from all over the world, some of who I'd already chatted with over the phone. The website for the conference has more information and, sooner or later will have presentations, etc from the conference available. There were lots of takeaways, but three of the most important were:
The Higher Education Act was passed in both houses of the US Congress and is expected to be signed into law today. It includes several provisions related to help reduce the cost of textbooks. They are covered in an analysis on the maketextbooksaffordable site and are similar in many respects to state laws we have discussed in previous posts. Here's a summary from maketextbooksaffordable:
"The textbooks section has three main provisions:
1. Requires publishers to disclose textbook pricing and revision information to faculty
2. Requires publishers to offer textbooks and supplemental materials “unbundled” (separately)
3. Asks colleges to provide the list of assigned textbooks (incl. ISBNs and prices) for each
course when students are registering for classes".
Each of the three provisions are analyzed in detail in the document. Have a look. It's worth a read. Progress!
USA Today published an article on Friday, July 11, entitled "Online "open" textbooks save students cash". Written by Svetlana Shkolnikova, it's a pretty good overview of the problem and some of the ways it's being addressed. For example, the article says: "Textbook prices have outpaced inflation 2-to-1 in the past two decades, says a 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office. They account for 26% of tuition and fees at four-year public universities and nearly three-quarters of costs at community colleges, the GAO says". It goes on to discuss a few initiatives in the open education space, some of whom we've had contacts with, like Foothill Community College and maketextbooksaffordable.com
Two authors who contributed books to the Global Text library are mentioned: Bob Beezer and Rob Stewart. It's a good overview and another indication that the problem of ever-more-costly textbooks is getting more attention and that solutions like Global Text can make a real contribution.
- Don
That's the title of an article in the Wall Street Journal on July 10th. Here's the way the article, by John Hechinger, begins:
"College students, already struggling with soaring tuition bills and expenses, are encountering yet another financial hit: Publishers and schools are working together to produce "custom" textbooks that can limit students' use of the money-saving trade in used books. And in a controversial twist, some academic departments are sharing in the profits from these texts.
"The University of Alabama, for instance, requires freshman composition students at its main campus to buy a $59.35 writing textbook titled "A Writer's Reference," by Diana Hacker.
"The spiral-bound book is nearly identical to the same "A Writer's Reference" that goes for $30 in the used-book market and costs about $54 new. The only difference in the Alabama version: a 32-page section describing the school's writing program -- which is available for free on the university's Web site. This version also has the University of Alabama's name printed across the top of the front cover, and a notice on the back that reads: "This book may not be bought or sold used."
"Custom textbooks like this one are proliferating on U.S. college campuses, guaranteeing hefty sales for publishers -- and payments to colleges that are generally undisclosed to students."
The entire article is worth a read. The writer is well-informed on the issues, including legislative actions being taken by some 34 states in the US to reduce the cost of textbooks. He also questions the ethics of this growing cozy accommodation between universities and publishers by noting that "The book-royalty arrangements resemble a practice exposed during last year's student-loan scandal, when some universities steered students to particular lending firms and received a secret cut of the loans.
Gotta shake your head.
Well, folks, the news is not good, at least for CBMS, but maybe it could be. Someday. Maybe.
Ann Imse's story in today's Rocky Mountain News, "Data systems get some glue", discusses the additional responsibilities that Mike Locatis assumes today givng him, by law, oversight of the State of Colorado's 1200 IS personnel and $265 million IS budget. It includes, of course, fixing the Colorado Benefits Management Systems (CBMS), among several others. CBMS, as I'm sure you know by now, has been limping along since it's premature conversion on September 1, 2004.
In response to a query from Ann, Jon Conley, Mike's Deputy, said that "CBMS is fully operational and all major bugs have been worked out". Ed Kahn, the attorney who has done yeoman work on behalf of the aid recipients supposed to be helped by CBMS, "said it would be "outrageous" to consider CBMS fixed."
Ann quoted me in the story too. "Don McCubbrey ......... uses the CBMS mess as a case study of how not to replace a computer system. He said he is "surprised and disappointed" that it still has not been fixed, 16 months into the new governor's term.
"What would the president of Coors have done if EDS (the computer manufacturer) had installed a manufacturing control system and the beer production line shut down?" McCubbrey said. "He would have called the president of EDS and said, 'Hop in your jet and be in my office. You're going to fix this, fast.'
"That should have been done long ago, the professor said. "Ritter has to reset Mike's priorities. Let's get this behind us."
When we discuss the CBMS case in the classroom, my students are astonished that a system so important to the welfare of so many citizens could be dysfunctional for so long. I don't understand it either. Read the story. While you're at it, read Ann's accompanying story: "Glitches take toll on real people".
Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 73 into law on Tuesday, April 8. Sponsored by Senator Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, and Representative John Kefalas, D-Fort Collins, it is patterned after similar laws either enacted or under consideration in several other states. According to an item on the Denver Business Journal website, "Senate Bill 73 requires textbook publishers doing business with Colorado public colleges to provide faculty members with book-price information.
"It also forces them to reveal the extent of any revisions in updated text editions so professors can decide whether it's worth ordering the update. Keeping an older edition in use can make it easier for students to buy cheaper, used copies" As you may already know, publishers often do not do this. This can result in a student paying $145 for a textbook in September and selling it back to the bookstore for $5 in November. (See my post of November 29, 2006). New editions are often not really necessary, but are published to undercut the used book market, a market in which publishers do not participate. They make their money by selling new books, and new book sales drop when students can buy used books at much lower costs. Also, according to the article, "The measure also makes it harder for publishers to require students to buy textbooks bundled with other items, such as multimedia discs or supplementary workbooks". What the article failed to note is that in many cases, the profs don't use the extra materials.
You've gotta try these two personalization sites. They are amazing, particularly Pandora.com, which personalizes music to your tastes once you give it a couple of hints. I'm a big fan of soft Brazilian Jazz and Pandora is really hitting my sweet spot. The wonderful thing about it is that it plays artists I'm not familiar with too. Love it!!
Pandora was suggested by one of my students, Nate Levy, in response to a post I made on our class discussion board about Jester.com, a personalized joke site. It works fine too, but right now, I wish I had Pandora in my car. Maybe somebody will do it, someday.
The February 19th issue of Inside Higher Education has an article that will give you more insight into what's going on. It lists a number of techniques that faculty can take to help reduce the porices students pay for textbooks and makes reference to pending legislation at the Federal and State levels. You can access the article at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/19/textbooks.
One of the more interesting bits in the article is the experiments that universities like the University of Virginia and Notre Dame are taking in making textbook rental programs available to their students. One proposal at the Federal level would create a a competitive grant pool of $50 million for up to ten colleges to set up textbook rental programs. More conversation about issues we've discussed before: greater transparency in pricing, making faculty aware of when new editions are scheduled to be released, unbundling texts from electronic media, etc.
This issue is not going away. To the contrary, it's gathering momentum.
Got an email today from a group that is planning to march on the State Capitol on Sunday, April 6th. Here's what they say on their flyer:
JOIN US AS WE MARCH ON THE
STATE CAPITOL
(from the
DENVER SUNDAY, APRIL 6TH, 2008
AT
The
The
database is malfunctioning and there are many negative outcomes including poor
customer service, long delays in processing, inaccurate notifications to
clients regarding their status, high turnover amongst county staff and denial
of access to basic goods such as food and health care.
The
primary focus of the CBMS Coalition is to remove barriers of access as we
promote the timely processing of applications for households in need. Our
secondary focus is to address the overall culture regarding the delivery of
services to these same families.
We support good customer service—for the internal customers who work within human services and the external customers who find themselves in need of support.
The flyer was signed "Organizer-CBMS Coalition and asked readers to email fixitorditchit@live.com for more information. Coming up on four years since CBMS converted on September 1, 2004. Hard to believe.
This morning's Rocky had a story by John C. Ensslin entitled "Settlement reached over state's benefits management program." You may recall that shortly after the Colorado Benefits Management Systems (CBMS) took a nose dive after a premature conversion back in September 2004, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy (CCLP) filed a lawsuit on behalf of clients in an attempt to hold the State accountable for its performance. The action was led by Denver attorneys Ed Kahn and Mike Cook, working on a pro bono basis. Others working on the case locally included Elisabeth Arenales of CCLP. and nationally, a group from the National Center for Law and Economic Justice based in NY City, led by Marc Cohan.
The article states that according to the terms of agreement:
"* The Department of Human Services will be required to deliver ongoing food stamps to eligible clients within 30 days after their applications are filed. Families eligible for expedited food stamps must receive them within seven days.
* The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing will be required to process applications for Children's Basic Health Plan benefits within 45 days.
* Three times during the 36- month review period, HCPF also will be required to provide a random sample of cases so an independent auditor can review whether or not benefits were correctly approved or denied."
Here is Ed Kahn's comment taken from the article: ""Some problems have been solved," he said. "But the system remains, in many ways, very bad."
I have to wonder why it took three years and a lawsuit to get State managers to set performance benchmarks for service to CBMS clients. Thanks go to Ed, Mike, and the others for getting at least get this much accomplished on behalf of aid recipients. Obviously, there is much remaining to be done. Here's hoping.
In my July 23 post I showed some optimism about the State of Colorado finally making the problems with our infamous Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) go away like a bad dream. Sorry, it looks like I was wrong. The Rocky had an article in the December 15 issue, with Myung Oak Kim's byline entitled "Food stamp applications mired in bureaucracy". A glance at the article will tell you that "more than 1,000 local residents (have) been waiting for months because of bureaucratic snags". The principle bureaucratic snagger? You guessed it: the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS), which was converted on September 1, 2004 (yup, 2004) and still does not work properly.
Here's more from the story:
"County welfare agencies continue to violate federal protocols - a problem that dates back almost two years - because of funding shortages and staffing problems, including high caseloads, high turnover and workers' resistance to changing procedures.
"The state's notorious computer system - the Colorado Benefits Management System - compounds the problems because of errors and a complex network of screens that take a long time to navigate.
"CBMS also is sending out erroneous rejection letters to food stamp applicants, causing unnecessary panic.
"It's sending out scores of letters saying applicants are denied food stamps because their cases weren't processed within 60 days. In fact, the cases are still being worked.
"It's a huge problem involving thousands of people," said Ed Kahn, a lawyer with the Colorado Center on Law & Policy who sued the state in 2004 because CBMS was restricting public benefits for low-income residents."
The Rocky even wrote an editorial about it in today's paper, entitled "Food stamp food fight." Please read it. It starts out by saying: "We imagine one of the last things Gov. Bill Ritter wants to hear about is more trouble with the Colorado Benefits Management System - the much-maligned $223 million computer system that was supposed to streamline public benefit programs when it was introduced by the Owens administration in 2004.
"Unfortunately, the bad news keeps coming. CBMS remains a headache for county welfare officials who say that its complicated data-entry requirements needlessly delay benefits to qualified recipients" and finishes with: "As for CBMS, well, poker players warn against "throwing good money after bad". CBMS may be beyond redemption, and further attempts to rehabilitate it could simply divert resources and energy from the low-income Coloradans that public welfare programs are designed to serve.
"As for CBMS, well, poker players warn against "throwing good money after bad." CBMS may be beyond redemption, and further attempts to rehabilitate it could simply divert resources and energy from the low-income Coloradans that public welfare programs are designed to serve".
How long do you think a large company in the private sector, Molson-Coors, for example, would put up with a $200 million mission-critical system that was installed 3 years ago and still does not work properly? It would have been fixed in days, weeks at the most. Not years. What's going on here?
Just wondering if this business model will spread. The rock band, "Radiohead" is selling its latest album from its website asking buyers to pay whatever they want for an MP3 download. Really. Heres a couple of quotes from the New York Times article of December 9, 2007:
“‘Why don’t you pay us what you think it’s worth?’”
"Those are the exact terms on which the band is selling the down-loadable version of “In Rainbows”: Buyers can pay zero or whatever they please up to £99.99 (about $212) for the album in MP3 form. Sixteen years and seven albums into the career that has made Radiohead the most widely pondered band in rock, it is taking chances with its commerce as well as its art. For the beleaguered recording business Radiohead has put in motion the most audacious experiment in years". Apparently they got the idea from London's street musicians, or "Buskers" who perform with a hat on the walk in front of them and accept whatever contributions passersby are willing to toss into the hat... nothing. a lot, or something in between. Just what the digital download business needed. Another business model to worry them.
Here's a link to the article, courtesy of the New York Times: "Pay What You Want For This Article".
A while ago I posted an item about some folks who established a rent a dog business. It's designed to let dog lovers walk a dog of their choice every now and then....whenever they need a dog fix. I thought it was a creative idea, even thought it was a bit expensive.
Now here's a business idea I really like. A Cat Cafe. Briefly, an entrepreneur in Tokyo opened a cafe for cat lovers. Go in, have a cup of coffee, leave your laptop in the trunk of your car, and pet cats instead. I have been a cat lover all of my life, but have not owned a cat in over 35 years. For the first fifteen years or so I was unmarried and traveling a lot. In 1986, when I re-married, I married a woman who is allergic to cats. I love my wife, but I sure miss having a cat or two around. Here's the story: Cat cafe soothes Tokyo's busy feline lovers. I would appreciate it if someone who reads this blog would open a Cat Cafe in Denver. I'll be a regular customer.
As those of you who have been following this blog for awhile know, the two overriding themes have been the Global Text Project and IT systems foul-ups by the State of Colorado. The Global Text Project is focused on the cost of textbooks in developing economies where the problem is much more acute than it is in the US. We recently had some great publicity in the Chronicle of Higher Education. (If you go to the In the News page on the site, you'll find a link to the article. There's also a link on the November 18 post here, right below this post).
Still, the cost of textbooks in the US is of increasing concern to many students and some faculty. For examples of comments here in the past, please see posts dated October 18, 2007, September 27, 2007, September 24, 2007, and July 5, 2007 as examples. There are more. There's another article in the Denver Post this morning, entitled "Collegians' book, tuition concerns on same page" with Allison Sherry's byline. While there has been a lot of activity around this issue for quite awhile (e.g. maketextbooksaffordable), it looks like the issue is gathering some momentum.
So, with the new administration in the State of Colorado looking like they're getting serious about cleaning up the messes that arose during the previous administration and avoiding more messes in the future, I think I'll focus more on the Global text Project and related issues as well as "who knows what else" topics.
The Chronicle of Higher Education had an article on the Global Text Project, written by Andrea Foster, in its November 16th edition. If you're a subscriber to the Chronicle. you can access the article at the following link: Software Group Gets Online Textbooks to the Developing World. If you're not a subscriber, try this link for some excerpts from Open Access News. As a subscriber, I can email copies of the entire article to individuals, so if you'd like to see it, send me an email at dmccubbr@du.edu. It's a good article and we've received expressions of interest from a number of people who would like to get involved.
According to an article by Erika Gonzalez in this morning's Rocky Mountain news, the concern about textbook inflation has finally reached Colorado. Maybe it's been here for awhile, but under my radar screen. Anyway, more than a thousand students on the Auraria campus (Metro State College, CU-Denver, and Community College of Denver) rallied to protest textbook cost inflation. As you've been reading on this blog for awhile, there is concern about the issue and students want something done. Andrew Bateman, the student government leader at Metro State was quoted in the article as saying "It would be nice to know how long they're keeping a book in circulation, because if the next book is coming out in five months, it's essentially worthless because a student can't sell it back". Here's the link to the article: "Hundreds protest textbook prices".
Eye-opening article in yesterday's Boston Globe re: student concerns
over the textbook cost issue at Harvard,with a headline that reads: "
In Harvard Square, a war over words". The first paragraph says that "A
battle over book prices is raging in Harvard Square between student
leaders and the Harvard Coop, the book store created by students 125
years ago to cut down on costs." Take a look.
For me, one of
the most interesting parts of the article was the number of states that
are introducing legislation in attempts to give students some relief: "Prices
of college texts have spiked so severely across the country that since
January, 86 bills to make them more affordable have been filed in 27
states, including Massachusetts, according to a national college
bookstore group. College students on average spend $700 to $1,000 a
year on textbooks, according to a May 2007 report by a congressional
advisory committee, which also recommended various solutions to reduce
prices, including creating online book databases easily accessible to
students".
Is this a sea change or what?
The September 24 edition of Inside Higher Education had the following story on two bills wending their way to Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger's desk:
"Competing bills to deal with student complaints about textbook prices have arrived on the governor’s desk in California, the Los Angeles Times reported. Both bills would require more disclosure about changes made from one edition to another, but one bill (backed by student groups) would require more than the other (backed by publishers)". If you click on the LA Times link you'll get the entire story. The Guv is to make his decision on whether or not to sign either bill by October 12.
This letter to the editor was in today's Rocky Mountain News......one person's reaction to Ann Imse's story of July 23 (see my July 23 post below):
Computer woes reflect on Owens
The article about Gov. Bill Ritter’s plans to end the state’s track record of buying computer systems that don’t work was welcome reading (“Governor seeks to bring order to computer chaos,” July 23). My compliments for the in-depth reporting.
This article shows that Ritter is systematically dealing with chronic issues that have plagued the state for years, and that is encouraging. But, it also speaks volumes to the poor management and lack of accountability of the Owens administration. If it had been just one failed system, that would merely tarnish his legacy; instead, it reveals the Holy Grail was made of tin.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Owens administration was a dog that couldn’t hunt. As a lifelong Republican, I am disgusted with the tendency of officials to get elected and then act like a confederacy of dunces.I am convinced the Republican Party is not long for this world. It will go the way of the Whigs and the Know-Nothings. I am declaring myself an independent.
Francis M. Miller, Parker
This should really be in the "what's next" category. It's creative and I like it. It was posted on Yahoo Finance this morning.
"Americans spend $41 billion on their pets each year -- more than the GDP of most countries -- and that amount is expected to rise by $11 billion in the next two years. (BusinessWeek.com) And now animal lovers don't have to own a pet to join in the spending. A dog-ownership time-share service, FlexPetz, is expanding from Southern California to San Francisco, New York, and London. For $99.95 a year, plus $49.95 a month and about $40 for each day's visit, FlexPetz clients get to take care of one of the company's animals. "It's funny," says member Jenny Goddard. "He is so friendly and immediately playful with us, people are surprised he is a rental dog."
My wife, Jan, and I took a walk in Denver's Washington Park yesterday. Part of the fun of Wash Park is seeing all the dog-owners exercising their pets, and seeing the wide variety of breeds. FlexPetz sounds a bit expensive, though, ($99.95/year membership, $49.95/month dues, and $39.95 for a weekend day or $24.95 for a weekday). Maybe we'll just dog-watch other people's dogs for awhile.
There's hope for Colorado, folks. It looks like our newly-elected Governor, Bill Ritter, wants to make sure no more computer system fiascoes occur on his watch. A very encouraging story appeared in this morning's Rocky Mountain News: Governor seeks to bring order to computer chaos. Written by Ann Imse and Alan Gathright, it discusses the hiring of Mike Locatis as CIO for the State, and the powers given him under an executive order signed by the governor to exercise the proper management control over all IT development and operations in State government. I am encouraged by this long overdue move, and think that you will be too. Read the story. I may have to quit whining about this topic and focus on the Global Text Project.
Speaking of Global Text, please take a look at our new website, www.globaltext.org , developed by up2speedsolutions.com. Joshua Ross, a former student of mine, is the company's president. He and his team did a great job for us.
Just in case you missed it, I thought the recent news story about the CEO of Whole Foods writing a blog using a pseudonym was interesting. Not only not a good idea, but probably a wee bit unethical as well. As reported in this July 12 article from the International Herald Tribune:
"John Mackey, a co-founder of Whole Foods Market, has never lacked for
personality.
"He is a self-described vegan and libertarian who pays himself $1 a year as chairman and chief executive and maintains a blog on the company Web site where the posts are occasionally barbed.
"As it turns out, that was only the half of it. For seven years, Mackey had an online alter ego.
"Using the pseudonym Rahodeb, a variation of Deborah, his wife's name, Mackey typed out more than 1,100 entries on Yahoo Finance's bulletin board over a seven-year period, championing his company's stock and occasionally blasting a rival, Wild Oats Markets. The story was first disclosed on The Wall Street Journal Web site Wednesday night".
Unfortunately, the story came out while Whole Foods' attempted buyout of rival organic grocer Wild Oats was undergoing scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission. Bad timing. Bad idea.
I live in the foothills west of Denver, Colorado. Not far from where we live is another foothills community, Evergreen. The gross per capita income in Evergreen is $36,654 (remember the gross per capita income in Uganda is $280). This morning's local paper had an item describing how a local foundation raised money to buy textbooks and technology for Evergreen High School (EHS) that could not be met by the school's budget. Here's a couple of quotes:
"For the first time since 1993, EHS will have new chemistry textbooks. In addition the foundation has purchased advanced Spanish textbooks and books for 11th grade literature".
"Foundation board member Mark Carter was especially enthusiastic about the new chemistry books". "In a world where students need to have math and science skills, I couldn't believe we were going to use chemistry books in 2007 that were as old as our incoming freshman class."
If it's like that in Evergreen, what do you suppose it's like in poor school districts in the richest country in the world (not to mention in Uganda)?
I don't have a link to the full story yet. I'll post it when the newspaper's webmaster catches up.
Many students try to deal with the high cost of textbooks by buying international editions from offshore Internet sites, or from entities that buy offshore editions in bulk for resale in the US. In general, international editions are paperback editions of the US edition and cost about half as much.
Now the publishers have struck back. Saw this in today's edition of Higher Education News:
"Two suits by publishers against entities that were importing to the
Sort of reminds you of the problems senior citizens have in trying to import prescription drugs from Canada, doesn't it?
"Make Textbooks
Affordable" is one of several initiatives of The Student
Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG). The Make Textbooks Affordable site
contains a rich source of news, resources, and even possible solutions to the
high cost of textbooks. Dave Rosenfeld is the campaign coordinator. Dave's analysis of a May 2007 report by the Advisory
Committee on Student Financial Assistance, sponsored by US Department of
Education, is worth a read. (The report's title is "Turn the Page - Making Textbooks More Affordable" and
contains a total of 95 pages).
Quoting from the section of Dave's analysis most related to the Global text
Project:
"There are many 21st Century
Technologies that are dramatically less expensive and more flexible than
traditionally licensed books. The report correctly
identifies many of the alternatives to high-priced textbooks. It is our view
that many of these options represent the single greatest path to real
competition in the textbooks market, a view recently endorsed by the New York Times and examined in more depth in
our recent report, Textbooks for the 21st Century.
"We believe
that in the Internet age, there’s little reason for the cost of a textbook to
be so high. There are hundreds of thousands of professors able and willing to
create learning content and the argument that royalties are needed is a myth;
very few professors who publish ever see royalties; the incentive to publish is
predominantly for reputation building, not financial enhancement.
"There are
a few models for providing this content, we believe that the most
viable have two key principles:
"This is
not just about “online” vs. “paper” textbooks. The content that most of these
repositories offer can be used in both digital and print only formats,
depending on the proclivities of the faculty and students who use them. What is
unique is that the offerings are much less expensive than traditional
textbooks".
Please take a
look when you have some time
But, by now you know me. I'm fascinated by the creative ideas and new business models that seem to bubble up when innovative spirits connect with what technology makes possible. The latest one I came across is MediaPredict. Check it out at www.mediapredict.com . Basically, it's on online marketplace designed to predict the success of new media artifacts, books, music, etc. You bet on the probability of success with "play money" but you can win real cash if the proposal you bet on is picked up by a publisher. Neat idea, and sounds like fun. In addition to the website, you can read about it in this article from the May 21 International Herald Tribune: Publisher puts book proposals on an online betting exchange.
Ann Imse of the Rocky Mountain News does a great job of summarizing the five failed computer systems over the past few years in several of Colorado's State Government departments. In her story in today's Rocky, "Doesn't compute: 'It's like you were having a baby, and it turned out ugly" she focuses on CSTARS, the troubled system at the Department of Motor Vehicles. She does a great job of putting CSTARS in context with the string of failed systems at the State, most of which have been well covered in earlier blog postings here: CBMS, Department of Labor, Colorado Registration and Election System, and the Department of Transportation. An ugly family indeed.
If you've ever looked at my vita, which is on my personal portfolio site, you'll notice that my PhD is from the University of Maribor in Slovenia. It's a long story of how that came to be, but suffice it to say that I was the first American to get a PhD from the University of Maribor and, as far as I know, I'm still the only American who has done so. I've had a long association with the country going back twenty years, and I met many of my long-time colleagues in electronic commerce (Milt Jenkins, Roger Clarke, Paul and Paula Swatman, Doug Vogel, and many others) at the wonderful EC conference my friend Joze Gricar sponsors in Bled, Slovenia, this year. Naturally, I follow what goes in this small country with a lot of talented people because, in a way, I consider myself to be an honorary Slovene.
That's why this story caught my eye. Martin Strel, a marathon swimmer and a Slovene, swam down the Amazon river from Atalaya (Peru) to the Atlantic Ocean at Belém (Brazil), 3,274 miles, in 66 days. Made me proud. Read about it on his website at www.amazonswim.com
In an earlier post, I mentioned that the State was in litigation with the Feds over alleged overpayments to clients made by the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS). Well, the State lost its federal appeal and, as a result, has to repay the Feds $11.2 million. You can read more in Lynn Bartel's story, "State on hook for $11.2 million bill from the feds". It's from the May 12th issue of the Rocky Mountain News.
This morning's Rocky Mountain News had a story under Ann Imse's byline entitled "Vehicle registration meltdown" Here's the first two paragraphs. You can read the rest for yourself, and it's not pretty:
"Colorado pulled the plug Monday on its new computer for licensing motor vehicles - the fifth computer system dating to the Owens administration to have major problems.
Gov. Bill Ritter's administration halted use of the CSTARS system after reports of four cases in which police officers checking license plates were informed, incorrectly, that the registration was for a different car".
Recall from a much earlier post that the State's Information Management Commission, in their 2004 annual report issued in March of 2005, called the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) one of their success stories of 2004. It's still broken. Wonder what they'll say about this one. (And the other three failed systems). Hard to believe.
I suppose this should be under the category of "Some People Never Learn", but it is related to CBMS inasmuch as it is one more failed computer system at the State of Colorado. This one is at CDOT, the Colorado Department of Transportation, but it's only $30 million. Well, to be more precise, we don't know if it's really a failed system. What was reported in the Rocky Mountain News on March 13, in a story with the headline: "CDOT pay system blasted" is that a new computer system didn't pay highway workers for overtime which they earned cleaning up the unusually high piles of snow we had in December and January. Well, OK, systems fail, but like CBMS, apparently project managers on this one failed to heed warnings that it wasn't going to work. According to the article, Bill Cron, a CDOT information technology specialist, "said that when he repeatedly warned supervisors about the "horrible nature of the failure" that was looming, they kicked him off the SAP implementation team in May". Well, that's one way to handle bad news.
My thanks to fellow "old IT warrior" Bill Gillette for calling this one to my attantion.
Concern over the cost of textbooks in the US is heating up and is an issue that is not going to go away. Good evidence of this is the story that came over the AP wires this morning, entitled "Tough Problem: High textbook Costs". Here's a couple of quotes from the article, by Brian Bakst:
"In Minnesota, legislators are considering more tightly regulating the textbook publishing industry and requiring professors to be more cost-conscious in choosing course materials. At least a dozen other statehouses, from California to Connecticut, are taking up the issue.
"This is the hidden cost to higher education," said Democratic Rep. Frank Moe, the Minnesota's bill sponsor, who also teaches at Bemidji State University. "Reasonable profit makes sense. But the margins they are making on these textbooks is just absurd." Another quote I like is:
"The textbook industry pulls in more than $6.5 billion a year at college bookstores, and college books which have tripled in price since 1986. The industry estimates four-year college students spend $644 annually on books; a 2005 government report put the figure at about $900 per year, but that figure includes supplies, too.
At one legislative hearing in Minnesota, student leaders displayed a shrink-wrapped bundle of materials for a single Spanish course. The tab: $193".
The whole article is worth a read. Initiatives like the Global Text Project can help solve this "tough problem".
The check-in kiosks of US Airways failed at several airports over the weekend. As of this writing they're still down, resulting in long lines at several airports, including Charlotte, Philadelphia, Boston and Las Vegas, as reported in this story from CNN.Com. According to airline spokeswoman, Elise Eberwein, the system is a consolidation of the reservation systems of US Airways and America West Airlines, which combined in 2005. "In a conversion of this type, there are so many different platforms, and systems that talk to others systems that talk to other systems," Eberwein said.
It would also help to test a conversion of this type thoroughly before going live with it. That would have avoided the long lines at the check-in counters and the inconvenience experienced by thousnads of passengers.
According to an article in today's Rocky Mountain News, the State of Colorado might have to refund some $11million to the Federal Government because of errors in beneficiary payments generated by our old friend, the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS). An appeals court in Alexandria Virginia is hearing arguments in the case now. Quoting from the article, "The Food and Nutrition Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture points to design flaws in the system, and an analysis done on information extracted from the system led the agency to conclude that $11,162,598 of food stamp benefits were issued incorrectly". Later, the article states that "A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services said the agency has acknowledged problems with CBMS but added that the federal government's analysis that led to the claim of $11.2 million of overpayments also had flaws". Wonder if anyone, anywhere, has ever added up the total cost of CBMS which, as far as I know, is still broken.
April Washington's had a follow-up article on January 19 to her January 18 piece on the CBMS hearings (see previous post) entitled "Benefits Glitches Blasted". Colorado legislators, justifiably critical of the $223 million welfare-benefits computer's problems which went live on September 1, 2004, "blasted state officials Thursday for launching the computer two years ago when they knew it had flaws". As one example, the article stated that "Needy people are getting, in some cases, 10-page notices daily telling them that they have been overpaid by $900 and that their next month's food stamps payment will be cut by at least 10 percent, according to a letter handed to lawmakers by Linda Olson, an attorney with Colorado Legal Services." There's more in the article.
Looking at the bright side, Ron Houston, a spokesman for the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) was quoted as saying "Once you build a system, you never walk away from it," "It needs maintenance, just like a car." The only problem is that CBMS was never really built, was it? Kind of like buying a car that was never completely assembled; never test-driven and missing a few parts here and there. An even brighter perspective was offered by Alden Schoctner, regional director of government relations for EDS, the outside contractor for CBMS, whom the article quoted as saying "the state will need to spend millions more to get CBMS to work as it was envisioned." Wonder who gets those millions more. The article, which is worth reading in its entirety, didn't say.
BTW, there are a couple of good comments from readers on CBMS on my August 27 2006 Blog post. Just scroll on down.
Recall that the CBMS (Colorado Benefits Management Systems) was converted before it was ready for prime time on September 1, 2004 and has been a mess ever since. Now that there is a new legislature in Colorado, the spotlight is finally being focused on what went wrong and why, and how this thing is going to get fixed. April Washington's article in the January 18 edition of the Rocky Mountain News, "Hearing eyes benefits woes" reports on hearings conducted by a legislative committee. Take a look. Here are some excerpts:
"Officials in some of Colorado's largest counties say that former Gov. Bill Owens' administration was in "a defiant state of denial" regarding problems with the state's welfare computer system, and that it could leave counties on the hook for millions of dollars in benefits overpayments.
"The system is ineffective, and it's not working. It's as simple as that," Gilpin County Commissioner Jeanne Nicholson said. "The state has stayed in a defiant state of denial."
Counties worry that they'll have to reimburse the federal government millions of dollars in overpayments to the needy, and some lawmakers are so concerned they called a hearing on the matter today.
The $223-million system was designed to replace the 25-year-old Legacy system and streamline food stamps, Medicaid and Temporary Aid to Needy Families.
But it has denied benefits to thousands of qualified clients, and has been maddeningly slow, hard to operate and labor-intensive".
And later:
"More than two years after its rollout, the Colorado Benefits Management System still is causing major headaches, say counties. Among them:
• It's generating over 11,000 notices of overpayments to clients every month.
• Training for county human services workers has been inadequate.
• The time needed to enter a case into the system has doubled to more than an hour.
• Workers must plow through an excessive number of error-prone, complex screens and decision tables to determine a client's eligibility. To work around the faulty system, they must thumb through seven thick manuals that contain more than 6,000 guidelines and procedures.
Counties have been forced to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to hire additional workers. The state has kicked in more than $9 million.
Owens did not respond to a request for comment.
Dan Hopkins, a former Owens spokesman, said he will not get into "the business of commenting every time someone brings up Owens, positively or negatively."
"To do so only invites a continuing and unproductive dialog," he said".
Right. Let's not talk about it. Why talk about unpleasant topics?
Yup. That's the headline on an article by April Washington in today's Rocky Mountain News. Click on the link to read it. In summary, it says that two lawmakers called for an inquiry in the upcoming session of the Colorado State Legislature. According to the article, "They will push for an independent audit to determine why the Colorado Benefits Management System (CBMS) is still riddled with problems, leaving some needy Coloradans without public assistance and counties potentially on the hook for millions of accidental overpayments. About time. Hope they do it. Hope it works.
In the meantime, my colleague, Cindi Fukami, and I just published a follow-on teaching case on CBMS in Communications of the Association of Information Systems. It chronicles the efforts to right the system up through June 30, 2006. (Still broken). The title of the new case is "The Colorado Benefits Management System (B): The Emperor's New System." As of December 27, 2006, the Emperor (and his subjects) still have no system.
Despite all the negative publicity about the failed (and still failing CBMS) system, apparently Denver's Election Commission officials don't read the papers. According to this morning's Rocky Mountain News story by Ann Imse, the $85,000 worth of software that caused three hour lines on November 7th, and caused 18,000 voters to give it up and go home before that, was purchased without a contract. Doing so was "foolhardy," "because there are no consequences spelled out in case of failure", said Denis Berckefeldt, spokesman for Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher. Gallagher has been asking the commission for a copy of any such contract since spring, without getting one. It gets worse. Apparently the project was undertaken by low level support personnel who took it upon themselves to develop the software unbeknownst to top officals of their employer, Sequoia Voting Systems. And here Sequoia thought the reasons these guys weren't being productive on their real jobs is that they were day-trading or playing on-line games.
Here's the essence of a question from the final exam I gave my undergraduate IS students last weeK:
The City of Denver had problems with a new computer system in the election held on November 7th,
as discussed in class. Basically, the City consolidated many small precincts into around 50 voting centers. The only problem is that before voters could touch the voting machines (another story) they had to have their registration verified by clerks using laptops to access a central database. Since this could take as long as twenty minutes (the system was a wee bit slow) lines quickly grew to the point where voters were in line for hours. The ramifications were so bad that the City received nationwide attention in the media. Here's an example from the Rocky Mountain News. Please describe the principal problem with the new computer system. (5
points) Please describe, with
hindsight, what actions should have been taken by IT professionals and Election
Commission managers to assure that the new system performed properly. (5
points). Here's an example of an answer from one of the students' exam paper:
"The principal problem with the computer system was that it couldn’t handle all the mass amount of people trying to use it at the same time. This in turn caused the system to crash and freeze since it was overwhelmed with all the processing. The system was not ready to handle such an event as Election Day and certain things should have been in place before the system was used. IT professionals and Election Commission managers should have performed a variety of tests to make sure the system was ready for the public. They should have tested each aspect of the system and made sure it did not have any problems. Just as with the CBMS case, there were certain things that should have been worked on to allow the system to run without problems. The development should have consisted of an in depth systems life cycle analysis which would have allowed for these problems to never have happened, since it would have been developed properly. Unfortunately, the
IT and other managers responsible did not look into the possible ramifications of releasing the system without all this testing and analysis, in turn allowing for a terrible election day for Denver".
OK. Here's a question for you: How come an 18 or 19 yearold freshman gets it and the IT folks and managers at the Election Commision didn't? (10 points).
Pearson is spearheading a project to create business textbooks with MIT and Wharton as its lead partners. There was a story in the WSJ a couple of weeks ago on the project, but this one from NPR is free. Named "We are Smarter than Me" it's reminiscent of the title of our panel at the August AMCIS Conference, "No one is as Smart as Everyone". They plan to recruit authors globally and create texts that will sell for $25.99. This is a good thing, $25.99 is better than $140 and will make Lenny happy (see previous post). But, for developing countries, $25.99 is still steep and certainly not as good as free. "Profits" will be donated to charities of the authors' choice so that is also a good thing, but wonder what the profit will be on a $25.99 book. Also can't help but wonder how this will play with Pearson's stable of authors used to getting royalty checks. Sounds like they will eventually be disintermediated, just like travel agents were.
