Don McCubbrey's Blog

New Hope for Colorado's Computer Systems

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.

Blogs and Pseudonyms - Not a Good Idea

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.

Textbook Costs: This one is hard to fathom

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.

The Empire Strikes Back

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 United States versions of textbooks not planned for sale in the United States have been settled, the publishers announced Wednesday. One suit was brought by Pearson Education, John Wiley & Sons and Thomson Learning. The other was brought by those three plus McGraw-Hill. The settlements include damage payments to the publishers and pledges to stop the sales".

Sort of reminds you of the  problems senior citizens have in trying to import prescription drugs from Canada, doesn't it?

And Even More on the Cost of Traditional Textbooks

 
"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 21^st 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:   

• The content is peer-reviewed or otherwise      evaluated by faculty and housed on a university or faculty-sanctioned      site. This is the model for Rice      University      Press, Connexions, California          State University’s MERLOT program, and the Global          Text Project.    

• Second, that the content          is Creative      Commons licensed or equivalent. This is an alternative licensing      system that content providers may use to allow their work to be more      openly utilized by others with less restriction. This licensing program      retains many of the most powerful publishing incentives (recognition and      attribution among peers).

"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

Wow! I like this idea!

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.

CSTARS and other failed Colorado systems

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.

Now for Something Completely Different

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

CBMS: It Just Won't Go Away

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.

Make it Five Failed Colorado Computer Systems

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.