What troubles me is that the homepage policy was made without soliciting
input from some of those most heavily involved in the realities of
homepage publishing, and that there is no record of accountability for
who created the policy.
Last month, Irene Rubin expressed a fear that the University intended to
regulate the content of homepages. I naively assured her (based on
second hand information) that this fear was quite unjustified.
That discussion occured publicly on TOMPAINE. I was wrong, and I
apologize to Irene for what was a stunning error in assuming good faith
of policy makers on my part. Worse, not one of those policy makers,
who presumably read this list, corrected my error. Nor did they
provide information when repeatedly asked for it. Mike Malone, apparently
the chair of the secret homepage committee, apparently had time to
respond to a criticism of a degree award, but had no time to respond to
legitimate questions about important policies of which he is said to be
the spokesperson.
The policy, as worded, is a reprehensible assault on academic freedom.
It is also unworkable. Just a few problems:
1) Homepage publishing should be encouraged. The requirements, as
written, discourage homepages by appearing to regulate content.
This is more than a chilling affect--the requirment for official approval
would restrict faculty, student, and other homepage publishing.
2) Requiring content approval from some "authority," whether a department chair
or university president, creates a system of control that is unenforceable.
It would require monitoring at a level that few chairs are able to handle.
Such monitoring also places the monitor (and the University) at risk in
the event of legal problems, because they become the formal arbitors of
what is ultimately published.
3) Contraining homepages as the requirements do subvert the goal of
homepages--to creatively explore and assemble information resources, or
to develop aesthetically innovative publications. Legislating
content and imposing required items within a set of documents isn't
conducive to exploration and creativity.
Let's hope that the *requirements* apply *only* to official homepages.
Let's hope that the administrating isn't really attempting to control
who may or may not link their page to the NIU document(s). Let's hope
that the new policy is simply an unfortunate bit of wording intended to
apply only to the homepages of University units and not to all other
personnel in the NIU community. If it's not, the invisible tribunal
has chosen to create an adversarial relationship by violating one
of the most cherished of academic values--freedom of expression.
It's sad that while some of us are trying to move into the 21st century,
there appear to be a few who are moving backwards to the days of the
Divine Right monarchs.
jt