arizona daily wildcat • thursday, march 11, 2010 •
Nagata proposes less harsh tuition hikes By Taylor Avery Arizona Daily Wildcat
Valentina Martinelli/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Sudha Ram, a UA Eller College of Management professor, co-authored a paper with Jun Liu, a management information systems graduate student, explaining why some Wikipedia articles can have higher quality than the site is give credit for.
Wiki-problems New research addresses Wikipedia’s credibility by studying contributors By Bethany Barnes Arizona Daily Wildcat Wikipedia articles’ quality may be able to be determined by looking at who contributes to them, according to instructor Sudha Ram and graduate student Jun Liu, who coauthored a paper looking at why some Wikipedia articles are of a higher quality. Ram, a UA Eller College of Management professor, said the research began with her involvement with iPlant, looking at ways for scientists to collaborate through technology. Ram said they wanted to look at Wikipedia because of its success. Despite Wikipedia’s popularity, there is a lot of debate about the credibility of the Web site. “I think it’s interesting how teachers don’t think it’s credible,” said Andre Ospital-Cone, a finance senior. Ospital-Cone said he uses Wikipedia often but was surprised when one of his instructors used it in class because most teachers do not allow the site. “The quality of Wikipedia articles is a serious issue,” Liu said. Liu said he noticed many articles with a similar number of contributors or of similar length, but they varied
in quality. He believes the different collaboration patterns determine the article’s quality. Liu and Ram narrowed the contributors down to seven roles and determined how these roles affected quality. “We found that most articles where people come in as all-around contributors, they are the ones that end up being really high-quality articles,” Ram said. All-around contributors are people that add information more often than the average contributor and are able to make several different types of edits. Previous studies only counted the number of editors and edits lost information, Liu said. “Our research is more practical,” Liu said.“We not only found a way to assess the quality, but (we) propose a method to improve Wikipedia articles.” Liu suggested looking into e-mailing contributors about modifying or adding references to their articles to increase quality. Ram said the paper has generated a lot of discussion and interest. “It’s neat, actually, to do research on how people collaborate in these new environments,” Liu said.
Associated Students of the University of Arizona President Chris Nagata informed students and ASUA senators about the new proposed parameters of the student tuition proposal at yesterday’s meeting. “Tuition is quite possibly one of the most complicated and complex issues that the ASUA and student governments across the country deal with year in and year out,” Nagata said. “It’s no different for our organization.” Nagata submitted the latest student tuition proposal late last week. It was met with support from President Robert Shelton and the Arizona Board of Regents. The university currently has a $60 million deficit to account for, and every $45 increase to tuition yields $1 million, according to Nagata. “In order for the university to recoup the debt and the budget cuts, we need about a $2,700 increase to tuition,” Nagata said. Shelton’s original proposal, which was submitted in late February, laid out a plan to increase the tuition by more than $1,400 and acquire $2,900 over two years. That would mean an increase in tuition for the 2010-11 school year and the 2011-12 school year. Shelton’s proposal also included a $766 surcharge, along with a $306 Campus Health Services and Student Recreation Center fee, a $335 technology fee and a $24 sustainability fee. If approved, students would be asked to pay around $2881 next year. Instead, Nagata said a team of student representatives including students, the Graduate and Professional Student Council and ASUA met to come up with a more manageable amount. His proposal included a clause that ABOR voted on last year which mandated that returning students’ tuition not be increased by more than 5 percent. Other provisions of the student proposal included a $382 increase in tuition for graduate students and a $324 increase for undergraduate students. Nagata acknowledged that this would not make up for the $60 million shortfall. Therefore, the student proposal includes the $776 surcharge and an increased total of $90 for mandatory fees, which amounts to a total of $159 for Campus Health and the Rec Center, $120 for the library and information and $125 for technology. Nagata told senators his proposal was well received by university officials, and Shelton submitted a new counter-proposal this morning. “In my four years, I have never seen ABOR be this invested or this supportive in a student tuition proposal,” Nagata said. The counter-proposal called for a $400 reduction from the initial cost increase along with an endorsement of the student recommended fees. Shelton’s latest proposal did not take into consideration the original mandate not to increase tuition by more than 5 percent
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for returning students. “It doesn’t necessarily make the tuition adjustments that much more palpable but it is a huge improvement from where we initially started,” Nagata said. “We will continue to work with all stakeholders in order to continue this (effort).” ABOR meets tomorrow morning at 9:30 in the Grand Ballroom of the Student Union Memorial Center to review tuition proposals from the three major state universities and vote on the proposed increases. Senators were also given a presentation on the new administrative computer system currently being used to replace Student Link. After spring break, students will no longer use Student Link to register for and otherwise manage their classes. “The current system takes a lot of manpower to manage, but we are changing to a simpler system,”said Tom Bourgeois, student administration system co-director. In addition to being easier to manage, the new system promises to be more efficient and offer more options for class management, according to Bourgeois. Bourgeois said he and his team plan to continue transferring over the university’s student records during Spring Break in order to be ready for priority registration, which opens March 31. During his presentation, Bourgeois encouraged all students to log onto the new system and make sure their records transferred correctly. He also said the new system was “browser neutral” for the most part but might not work with Google Chrome or Safari. The new system will allow students to register for all at once, instead of one at a time. Students will continue using their Net IDs to log in. During Bourgeois’ presentation, he demonstrated how students would be able to load multiple classes into a “shopping cart” and then click to enroll. OSCR lab monitors will be trained to assist students who have trouble with the new system. The new system is similar to the administrative system used by Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University. Bourgeois warned senators and students the new system would “be a big shock,” and take some adjustment. “We’ve done quite a bit so far and we still have quite a bit to do,” Bourgeois said. “It’s going to suck for a little while and then it will be good.”
if you go Arizona Board of Regent’s meeting today at 9:30 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Student Union Memorial Center.
Alpha Chapter of Arizona congratualtes the following students who have been invited to join
Phi Beta Kappa
based on their outstanding scholarship Adamo, Stephen Adams, Alyssa S Adams, Andrew J Adams, Scott M Alkhamisi, Ashkan Alves, Clark Anand, Keshav Badger, Kaleb A Baker, Kathryn C Banks, Kathryn H Baskett, Leah M Befort, Jessica A Benjamin, Melissa Bergendorff, Amy Bergeron, Candice M Berning-o'Neill, Patrick Bilbo, Brian D Binder, Andrew J Bishop, Lindsey M Black, Jonathan C Black, Lauren N Bochnia, Sarah E Borg, Janelle K Bradley, Mieko Brown, Jessie A Brown, Sacha D Bryan, Debra S Bukoski, Elizabeth Buratovich, Nicole K Bushroe, Jennifer Cernik, Frank M Chang, Soo Y Childress, Jessica Chiou, Benjamin Cho, Kyungsang Clayton, Steven Cohen, Chelsea H Conger, Gretchen K Cooper, Ryan D Cota, Zuleima Cox, Kurt J Craven, Timothy G Crow, Diane E Cuen, Damaris Cummings, Ellen Q Davila, Karena M De Sola, Stephanie C Deitering, Sarah J Devlin, Sarah Dirado, Dana A Dodd, Katrina M Dollinger, Jane Domme, Henry W Donovan, Derek M Dorman, Molly E Dukes, Phillip T Echalier, Elizabeth L Eisenbise, David A Eskew, Michael R Euphrat, Daniel J Farcas, Andra M Fay, Callan A
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Feldman, Lindsey N Foree, Margaret M Foust, David A Frantz, William C Freese, Whitney J Furgerson, Carly R Furr, Brita Fynmore, Amy Gamez, Laura P Garnaat, Lynn M Garrett, Sarah L Gibson, Michelle R Gimblett, Jennifer L Glen, Catherine A Gradillas, Miguel A Graham, Daniel Green, Tyler J Gubernick, Jenny Gulati, Abhishek Gunsch, Jesse A Gupta, Neha Hanna, Myriam Hanson, Brent M Hartzell, Andrea L Harvey, Sean P Harvey-maluf, Samantha N Hatton, Ruth O Hedayati, Riaz N Henzler, Jennifer Herrmann, Sarah D Hessick, Rachel Hill, Shelby M Hughes, Lekeisha L Irvine, Casey D Jarvis, Margaret M Johnson, Loree K Jones, Sherika M Kalarn, Sachin P Keating, David M Khalsa, Gurusimran S Kiser, Jeffrey A Kiviat, Kira L Knop, Jennifer L Knotts, Bryanna K Koski, Stefan R Koussa, Mounir A Kumar, Anaga P Kwong, Amelia Lacy, Rachel Laiduc, Giselle A Laipple, Bryan J Leones, Ian J Letofsky, Ashleigh L Lipson, Jana M Littlefield, Catherine L Lobl, Adrienne M Lopez, Amanda A Lopez, Gerard A Lovinger, Alex Y Lukaszewski, Daniel F Mack, Annika S Mahmoudi, Maya
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Maldonado, Dylan Maley, Patrick E Mangelsdorf, Alyssa S Manji, Aneesha B Marcoux, Stephen V Mash, Peter B Mehta, Sukeshi J Mendenhall, E Connor Meyer, Salena A Miller, Danielle L Miller, Katherine C Minot, Tanner E Mitchell, Michael R Moench, Kinsey R Monks, Steven C Moody, Amanda E Mulleneaux, Kristin E Muncaster, Lara D Murphy, Alexis S Narayanan, Harish A Narla, Pavan K Newman, Zachary N Nguyen, Amy Mailan Nicholas, Cameron Nielson, Alec B Nieuwenhuys, Tatiana G Oakden, Christopher Ogley, Scott C Olivares Martinez, Christopher Olson, Kenneth T O'Shea, Michele Pasteur, Nicole M Peters, Sandra K Pham, Duong Phelps, Gregory A Podolsky, Alexander T Pozo-desportes, Angelica R Quijada, Cossetti Raisanen, Astrid L Rand, Emily C Raschke, Bonnie J Rauch, Brenda M Reynolds, Collin M Rice, Jerron Richards, Robert G Rightley, Shane Robertson, Adam Roosa, Kathleen B Rosenbaum, David J Salajko, Victoria M Santos, Alfred Schmid, Kylea M Schmidt, Chelsea R Schrank, Liza Schuldt, Angela K Sekhadia, Nima A Sepulveda, Anthony-ray Shah, Palak P Sheets, Whitney C Shermer, Kristin Sheth, Grishma R Shiffler, Stacy M
PHIL ANTH SOC PSYC/SOC MCB/PSIO ITAL CHEM ECON HLTH/MCB PSYC/LING MCB POL MCB/BMB REG EAS/ECON SLHS/LING/ ANTH ANTH EAS MCB/MATH MCB MATH/COSC BMB/MCB PHYS/MATH JOUR ECON/SPAN EAS/LING BMB CHE/FREN BMB/MCB/LING MCB/IDST SOC BIOL MIS/COSC PHYS/MATH BIOL SPAN MUS AEE/SPAN MCB ECOL SPAN PHYS/COE CRTV/CLAS OSE/MATH PHYS/ASTR COSC/COE FIN/CRTV MCB HIST RUSS/SPAN JOUR ANTH/CLAS PSYC MUS PSYC/MCB PHIL MCB ARH SOC MCB/PSYC PHYS/MATH
Shuta, Andrew J Sidorowicz, Mary L Sim, Ariel Jane Sinha, Natasha Slosky, Lauren M Slosky, Megan M Smarandache, Silviu G Smith, Alexis N Smyers, Kieren M Springer, Stephenie M Springfield, Rose A St John, Devin J Stabler, Amy L Stanfield, David R Steadman, Melanee L Stewart, Jessie A Strakbein, Stephanie A Stuart, Chardon D Sullivan, Tim G Summers, Lindsey M Sy, Andrew Anthony L Talley, Heather N Tang, Jonathan E Thomas, Elizabeth Thomas, Eric D Thompson, Kelly R Thornton, Tolan A Tosta, Jillian M Tremel, Michael C Trujillo, Alexandria C Truong, Huong K Tseng, Andrew S Tuinstra, Meredith A Turner, Maureen C Tyrrell, Dina N Umaretiya, Puja J Unger, Lucy C Vasquez, Monique Vaughan, Kelsey Vega, Jennifer N Vemulapalli, Beena R Vinikoor, Conner R Vinton, Erin J Vogel, Casie S Vorves, Michelle R Vrtiska, Josef M Walton, Alexander R Warner, Nikolos H Weaver, Caleb Wildner, Corinna M Woods, Anna C Woznica, Sarah A Yee, Brandon Yrun-duffy, Kaytlyn Zamora, Danniel Zhang, Wujie Zong, Yue
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