Author Archives: AshlyUGQCibbe

Too Much Cheating? Shut Down the Whole Internet.

by AshlyUGQCibbe Posted on October 6, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Tim Fernholz reports today that countries around the world have lost billions of dollars in economic output by shutting down the internet for various reasons:

The countries most affected? India, accounting for $968 million in lost output….shut off internet service during school exam periods to deter cheating. To keep students honest, India imposed a ban from 9am to 1pm in certain areas.

Say what? They shut down the whole damn internet for four hours to keep kids from cheating on exams? Yes indeed. And they aren’t the only ones:

India: “Mobile internet services will be blocked from 9 am to 1 pm in Ahmedabad….The Revenue Talatis Recruitment Exam is being conducted by ‘Gaun Seva Pasandgi Mandal’ (Gujarat State Subsidiary Selection Board or GSSSB) across the state….Considering the sensitive nature of the exam for recruitment of talatis, internet service providers have been asked to shut down all internet-based social media services from 9 am to 1 pm to prevent the misuse of mobiles during the exam.”

Uzbekistan: “Uzbek authorities suspended Internet and messaging services across the country on August 1 to prevent cheating at university entrance exams….The restrictions on the additional services have become an annual practice on exam day as authorities fight against corruption and cheating.”

Algeria: “Algerian authorities have temporarily blocked access to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites to try to stop cheats posting high school exam papers online, state media reported on Sunday….’This is to protect students from the publication of false papers for these exams.’ “

Iraq: “Iraq has shut down the entire country’s internet in efforts to prevent students from cheating in exams….Wondering why the Iraqi government chose to take such a drastic step just for sixth grade finals? The reason why preventing sixth graders from cheating is such a high priority to the government is because, according to Iraqi law, education is compulsory only till the 6th grade. As a result, the pressure is fairly high on sixth graders to score well, as those who don’t make the cut are almost definitely pulled out of school.”

As you can see, this practice extends all the way from sixth grade to high school to universities to civil service exams. I guess building Faraday cages at all the test centers was too expensive, while strip searching every test taker was considered a step too far. The only option left was to shut down the internet for everyone.

All this said, the most common reason for shutting down the internet was in response to protests and other forms of civil strife. So I guess everyone is sort of used to it.

Originally posted here: 

Too Much Cheating? Shut Down the Whole Internet.

Posted in Citizen, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Too Much Cheating? Shut Down the Whole Internet.

How to Convince a Republican: Use a Pie Chart!

by AshlyUGQCibbe Posted on July 8, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

These days, perhaps the most hotly debated issue in climate change circles has little to do with science. Rather, it is over how to communicate that science to a public that still does not get it.

The leading communication strategy at present is built on a now famous 2013 paper—whose main result was tweeted out by no less than President Obama—finding that 97 percent of scientific papers (those that took a stand on the matter, anyway) supported the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. This result is often simplified down to the idea that “97 percent of scientists accept the consensus that humans are causing global warming.” Spreading this simple message, say supporters, is a critical way to get people past the wrongheaded idea that climate science is still subject to “debate.”

The strategy has its critics, including Yale science communication researcher Dan Kahan, who contends that the approach will backfire among conservative ideologues. A new study just out in the journal Climatic Change, however, suggests not only that the “97 percent consensus” message can be effective, but that it will work best when expressed in the form of a simple phrase or (eat your heart out, USA Today) a pie chart. Like this one, which is an actual image designed to spread the “97 percent” message:

SkepticalScience.com

The new paper is the latest collaboration by the George Mason and Yale projects on climate change communication, headed up, respectively, by Ed Maibach and Anthony Leiserowitz. They set out to test not only whether the “97 percent consensus” message works, but whether it works best when conveyed in one of three formats: as a simple statement (“97 % of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening”), as a metaphor (for instance, “If 97 percent of doctors concluded that your child is sick, would you believe them? 97 % of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening”), or as a pie chart. The actual pie chart used in the study is pictured at right.

van der Linden et al, July 2014, Climatic Change.

The study had 1104 participants, who were divided up into 11 separate experimental treatments. One group read the simple statement, one group saw the pie chart, eight groups received a variety of different climate communication metaphors, and there was, of course, a control condition. Before and after encountering one of these messages, participants’ were asked their estimate of the current degree of scientific consensus on climate change.

The upshot was that all of the messages worked, to an extent, to improve people’s perception of scientific consensus. However, the simple phrase fared the best—improving the subjects’ perceptions of scientific consensus by 17.88 percentage points—and the pie chart came in second (14.38 percentage points). The various metaphor-based messages (using the doctor metaphor above, a similar engineering metaphor, and so on) were all roughly equal in their effectiveness, but none were as good as the simple image or phrase.

Notably, however, the pie chart proved most effective among one group—Republicans—that is notorious for being the most difficult audience to sway on climate change. The effect was pretty impressive, as this figure shows:

van der Linden et al, July 2014, Climatic Change.

The authors do not speculate on why Republicans, and Republicans alone, seem to respond more strongly to pie charts. However, their bottom line conclusion is this: “presenting information in a way that is short, simple and easy to comprehend and remember seems to offer the highest probability of success for all audiences examined.”

This study probably won’t end the debate over whether telling people that “97 percent of climate scientists” agree on climate change is the best way to save this rock. But it certainly validates something that writers, bloggers, and media outlets have long known:

You keep it simple, and you show pretty pictures.

Excerpt from:

How to Convince a Republican: Use a Pie Chart!

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Ringer, Springer, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Convince a Republican: Use a Pie Chart!