Yale Administration Blocks Student Course Selection Apps
Though having been available for the last three semesters, Yale Bluebook+, an application-based website similar to Yale’s current course selection site, was blocked from Yale University servers on the first day of shopping period (the two week, somewhat stressful process when students pick their classes). Designed by seniors Peter Xu and Harry Yu, Yale Bluebook+ emphasizes course rankings, assigning a numerical evaluation to each class based on an arithmetic mean, derived from the current scale of “Poor” to “Excellent.”
The co-developers were contacted by the Registrar’s office via email last Tuesday, citing concerns that course information (including evaluations) could be seen by unauthorized members of the Yale community; though only accessible via a network ID, the authentication device Xu and Yu employed can be used by any Yale employee. A violation of Yale’s trademark and other Yale-copyright materials were also mentioned as possible reasons for disciplinary action. The official response from Information Technology Services (ITS) to those students who filed complaints about being unable to access the site:
The site was using the Yale name, course selection information, and course evaluation information without permission. Also, the design of the site focused on a few ratings never intended to be used for this purpose. Yale takes advising and course selection seriously and has given students digital resources to help them design their schedules, such as syllabi, course descriptions, and thoughtful narrative responses written by students.
The official course selection website for Yale students is clunky and ugly, and its inefficiency was the inspiration for the original Yale Bluebook (no plus) application. Bought by Yale—and now the go-to course-shopping site for most students—the developers of that first Bluebook faced similar problems. Like them, Xu and Yu were also hoping to reach a resolution.
According to a series of email exchanges between the co-developers and University administrators, Xu and Yu offered to comply with the University’s requests and make changes to their website in order to allow Bluebook+ to remain operational through the start of shopping period—including removing the evaluation averages that attracted many students to the site in the first place. They changed the site’s name to Course Table to avoid trademark infringement.
“It seemed like things were taking a turn to the better and becoming more amenable to leave it up,” said Xu.
But an email from University Registrar Gabriel Olszewski to IvyGate points to a “continued violation of university policy” as the reason for the sudden block from servers.
The developers appropriated data from the university without permission, in violation of Yale’e appropriate use policy and they received notice on Friday that they needed to remove that data from their servers by the end of the day. I’m not aware of any compromises or of assurances that the site could be kept open during the course selection period. By Monday, the site was still up, and because the developers were in continued violation of university policy, I referred the matter to the Yale College Dean’s Office.
On Monday afternoon, students found their access blocked by Information Technology Services (ITS). Not to one to discriminate, ITS also blocked “Class Roulette”, another course selection website that generated random search results for classes.
Though University Registrar Gabriel Olszewski contacted Geoffrey Litt Y’14, the developer of Class Roulette, last Friday and arranged a meeting for the following Monday, the website was blocked from the servers sometime over the weekend without notification. During the meeting on Monday, Litt was told to take down the website by 5 p.m. on Thursday to avoid disciplinary action.
Copyright infringement and inappropriate use of data were cited as the reasons for the block. Litt also believes that the random-selection nature of the site turned off professors and administrators. “I think (based on a conversation with Yale admin) that professors and/or the administration were uncomfortable with students finding classes on Classroulette because it promoted a “casual attitude” towards course selection,” he wrote in an email. “I think this is misguided, and that they need to realize that Class Roulette was a serious tool meant for helping students broaden the horizons of their liberal arts education.”
“To their credit, the administration has told me they’re open to having a conversation about the long term future of the site,” Litt added.
Yale undoubtedly has a much smaller tech community when compared to peer institutions. Yale Bluebook’s original developer, Charlie Croom Y’12, believes the current situation is mainly a misunderstanding between ITS and students. “I think this situation is just an instance of unclear or outdated guidelines between ITS and students,” he stated in an email.
Croom also recommended that the university provide Application Program Interfaces (APIs) when possible, which would not only allow students to build more of their own creations, but would also give the University an opportunity to regulate the use of its data more closely.
In an early email to administrators, Yu expressed concern that “immediately shutting down the site would hurt and alarm students,” and “[would] probably provoke student backlash.” As 1,426 undergraduates had active worksheets on the site at the time of the block, his was clearly not an unfounded concern. Xu and Yu have since replaced the contents of coursetable.com with a page listing the timeline of events and a call to sign a petition of support for the website (which has received over 500 signatures at the time of this writing).
Xu maintains that Bluebook+ offers a valuable resource for Yale students choosing courses. “The more transparency students have, the better choices they have.”
UPDATE:
In response to Dean Mary Miller’s open letter to Yale College regarding Course Table, Yale Senior Sean Haufler has created an unblockable Google Chrome extension that tacks on Course Table’s features to the current Yale Bluebook site. “Banned Bluebook,” as it’s called, displays average course and workload ratings and allows students to search for courses based on these specifics.On his blog, Haufler calls Banned Bluebook “100% kosher” as it does not violate any of Yale’s data security rules.
This might be a largely symbolic gesture for now—there’s only one week left in shopping period and many students have already set the majority of their course load—but it’ll be interesting to see what Yale administration does in response to this app. We reached out to Haufler, and he has apparently not been contacted yet. It’s a holiday weekend so it might be a while before Yale officials get around to checking out Banned Bluebook.
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