4 ms·

So, you have a job where you are required to show up for 6-12 hours per week, 8 months per year. For this you are paid between $60k and $200k per year. As par

So, you have a job where you are required to show up for 6-12 hours per week, 8 months per year. For this you are paid between $60k and $200k per year. As part of this job, you are expected to publish papers which document your original work for the benefit of mankind. Any professor who doesn't put any and all work they do while employed by a public university into the public domain (or the closest thing allowed by their university) is the lowest of the low. I can't describe how I feel about such a person without a very large amount of swearing. Suppose someone came to your house and tell you that they want to work on a way to make your electric bill go down, but unless you give them some money up front they won't have enough time to both hold down an outside job and work on your electric bill. Then, after a while, you ask them how it's going. They tell you that you can see the results of their work if you pay them $50. That is exactly what some people do, except they collect less money and collect it from way more people. Dirtbags.

Locke1689 17y ago
Yeah, FUCK professors! Just because they've spent an inordinate amount of time becoming experts in their field, including extensive vetting by their renowned colleagues, they just expect things like "jobs" or "credit." Who the fuck do they think they are?!
- justin_vanw 17y ago
  What do you think about what I said though?
scott_s 17y ago
Most researchers make their work as publicly available as possible. It's in their benefit to do so: the onus is on them to convince their peers their work is good and significant. In order to do so, they want to make it as easy to find as possible. Also, your time breakdown of a professor's week is absurd. They're required to be in class for 6-12 hours per week, but every (good) hour of lecture requires about three hours of prep time. Grading work takes time. And their greatest time sink is research. A young professor trying to attain tenure is putting in 60-70 hour weeks, 12 months of the year. Research continues when classes aren't in session. You're getting upset over the actions of a person who doesn't exist.
- justin_vanw 17y ago
  Where did you get 3 hours? If you know someone who prepares 3 hours for a 1 hour lecture, and it's not their first day or something, they have some kind of anxiety disorder. The best lecturers I know just walk into class and start writing on the board and explaining things. Sometimes they have to ask the class what the material they are supposed to go over that class is. They can do this because they are competent. If you don't know what you are supposed to be teaching well enough to just teach it, you are wasting your student's time. Professors, especially good researchers, don't grade homework themselves unless they feel like it. Professors are compensated research. For them to make money on the side with the intellectual property they were compensated fully to create is just dishonest. Use the logic that professors should get to keep intellectual property they were paid to develop to any other profession. Coal miners should keep the coal they mine? Magazine editors should get to take their work and put it in a separate newsletter?
  - scott_s 17y ago
    I got three hours from my own experience. I'm thinking of young professors who are in their first few years of teaching. You can't just walk into a class and expect to pull a good lesson out of thin air. Knowing material and being able to teach it well to students are two different things. Teaching is a skill that is independent of the knowledge you're trying to impart. Developing that skill takes time and effort. Professors frequently have to grade their own homework. TAs are not in infinite supply. I know my adviser commonly has to grade his own assignments. I said nothing about professors getting money from the IP they created. In fact, what I said was that most professors make every attempt to make their work as freely available as possible. It is in their own best interest to do so. When you do research in academia, your hardest problem is convincing others that your work is good and worthwhile. In the rare circumstance where academic research leads to something that could be sold, the patent is always joint with the university. You're upset with a person who doesn't exist.
    - justin_vanw 17y ago
      You say they get to keep IP jointly with the University. Then you say that that person who keeps IP doesn't exist... You are talking on the general plight and struggles of academics, which is another subject, and a subject I have no comment for. This or that aspect of being a professor really has nothing to do with this topic. I am saying, again, that anything a professor develops, designs, or discovers while collecting a salary or having his research otherwise paid for out of tax revenues should have no ownership of it or financial compensation for it whatsoever (prizes are not compensation), and it should be placed in the public domain, just as the work of a government employee would be. Financial benefit should go to the party taking the financial risk. A professor takes no financial risk when he researches things, as he collects a salary regardless of his success or failure in any course of research. Rather, all financial risk and cost is paid out of tax revenues.

Locke1689 17y ago

Yeah, FUCK professors! Just because they've spent an inordinate amount of time becoming experts in their field, including extensive vetting by their renowned colleagues, they just expect things like "jobs" or "credit." Who the fuck do they think they are?!

justin_vanw 17y ago
What do you think about what I said though?

scott_s 17y ago

Most researchers make their work as publicly available as possible. It's in their benefit to do so: the onus is on them to convince their peers their work is good and significant. In order to do so, they want to make it as easy to find as possible. Also, your time breakdown of a professor's week is absurd. They're required to be in class for 6-12 hours per week, but every (good) hour of lecture requires about three hours of prep time. Grading work takes time. And their greatest time sink is research. A young professor trying to attain tenure is putting in 60-70 hour weeks, 12 months of the year. Research continues when classes aren't in session. You're getting upset over the actions of a person who doesn't exist.

justin_vanw 17y ago
Where did you get 3 hours? If you know someone who prepares 3 hours for a 1 hour lecture, and it's not their first day or something, they have some kind of anxiety disorder. The best lecturers I know just walk into class and start writing on the board and explaining things. Sometimes they have to ask the class what the material they are supposed to go over that class is. They can do this because they are competent. If you don't know what you are supposed to be teaching well enough to just teach it, you are wasting your student's time. Professors, especially good researchers, don't grade homework themselves unless they feel like it. Professors are compensated research. For them to make money on the side with the intellectual property they were compensated fully to create is just dishonest. Use the logic that professors should get to keep intellectual property they were paid to develop to any other profession. Coal miners should keep the coal they mine? Magazine editors should get to take their work and put it in a separate newsletter?
- scott_s 17y ago
  I got three hours from my own experience. I'm thinking of young professors who are in their first few years of teaching. You can't just walk into a class and expect to pull a good lesson out of thin air. Knowing material and being able to teach it well to students are two different things. Teaching is a skill that is independent of the knowledge you're trying to impart. Developing that skill takes time and effort. Professors frequently have to grade their own homework. TAs are not in infinite supply. I know my adviser commonly has to grade his own assignments. I said nothing about professors getting money from the IP they created. In fact, what I said was that most professors make every attempt to make their work as freely available as possible. It is in their own best interest to do so. When you do research in academia, your hardest problem is convincing others that your work is good and worthwhile. In the rare circumstance where academic research leads to something that could be sold, the patent is always joint with the university. You're upset with a person who doesn't exist.
  - justin_vanw 17y ago
    You say they get to keep IP jointly with the University. Then you say that that person who keeps IP doesn't exist... You are talking on the general plight and struggles of academics, which is another subject, and a subject I have no comment for. This or that aspect of being a professor really has nothing to do with this topic. I am saying, again, that anything a professor develops, designs, or discovers while collecting a salary or having his research otherwise paid for out of tax revenues should have no ownership of it or financial compensation for it whatsoever (prizes are not compensation), and it should be placed in the public domain, just as the work of a government employee would be. Financial benefit should go to the party taking the financial risk. A professor takes no financial risk when he researches things, as he collects a salary regardless of his success or failure in any course of research. Rather, all financial risk and cost is paid out of tax revenues.