Assuming that Illinibucks can only be used solely for the purpose of academic related activities and campus services, the primary use of Illinibucks would likely be to get priority in class selection, adviser meeting and fund provision services like SORF. These are what I personally would use Illinibucks for. I had trouble this semester getting a slot in several 400 level classes which was unfortunate since I had a strong interest in them. Adviser meetings were also hard to schedule durign the beginning of the semester which delayed some of my selection processes. Finally since I'm on the board of one of the SORF funded organizations, getting priority in the funding process would have helped greatly in speeding up the planning process.
As for prices, since Illinibucks would be allocated to all students, the services would become somewhat of a commodity. Too low a price would mean that Illinibucks would lose a lot of it's value if everyone is willing to use it. This could result in students essentially having to pay for Illinibucks to select classes that they would previously have gotten under the system without Illinibucks. I'd say this is analogous to the strategy of some airlines that force customers to incur hidden fees. Too high a price would probably result in no one using Illinibucks and heavy complaints from students that this gives an unfair advantage to students from more affluent families.
I had an experience with this during Middle School. Each year the school allows students to choose a location around the world to travel to as a school sponsored outing. Each country group is capped at 20 students with the selection process favoring seniority and order of last name (which rotated each year). Hot spots like Europe would be snatched up during the first round by seniors leaving the less popular destinations like South East Asia for underclassmen. The school decided during my sophomore year to allow students to pay an extra fee to pick earlier which drew huge complaints from parents with several families deciding to simply boycott the school excursion. Needless to say, the policy was quickly reverted.
First a comment about using an acronym in your writing (SORF in this case). You should write out what it stands for the first time. The reader should not have to Google it to find out what it means. Just because you know what it means doesn't say that I know what it means.
ReplyDeleteOn the getting into classes, one of the questions that students writing on this haven't really asked is whether everyone who is currently registered for the class needs the course or strongly wants to take the course. If there are some students who only have a mild preference for the course, and the course is in excess demand, it might make sense for those students to drop. Could Illinibucks be used for that? If so, how?
One of the things that I don't get about students is some learning that there is a peak load problem with demand for many services on campus. You've identified some of them - getting to talk to an adviser at the start of the semester, for example. You might self-insure of getting closed out by expressing your demand off peak. So perhaps you make a campus visit during the summer to talk to the adviser or you do it at the end of the spring semester where you are looking for such a conversation to cover your activities for the following fall. This seems like a possible alternative solution to get access to a resource that is sometimes scarce but not always.
I was surprised by what you said about 400-level classes. Were you talking about economics, in particular, or other disciplines too. I don't think they make data on the number of majors public, but with that sort of information as well as information about course caps, one could calculate whether there is insufficient capacity overall for upper class students or if it is only that a handful of courses are popular so those fill quickly. There is some issue if the latter is the case whether raising the course cap is a good idea or not. Clearly doing so would allow more students into the course. But it might negatively impact the experience for those students who are already enrolled.
I think in the case of preference for the course, Illinibucks could be used as a form of peer to peer payment. Students who strongly need the class will use Illinibucks which will transfer to students who opt to drop out and release their spot. Those who opted to drop out can then use Illinibucks for similar practices for classes that they need.
ReplyDeleteVisiting during summer or end or spring semester is an alternative, but comes at quite a cost for those who wish to go home or leave for vacation.
The 400 level class was indeed in economics. It was the Financial Economics class which went out very fast. Course cap does indeed affect quality of class. From my experience in both political science and economics 400-level classes, small classrooms with 15 or so students strikes the ideal ratio.