On the Theory Behind Workplace Web Filtering

Many modernly equipped firms in today's world, especially large and old-fashioned ones, follow a policy of website filtering, by which the employee is restricted from browsing to websites deemed to be either unsafe or not conducive to a productive work environment. Thus, popular social media and entertainment websites such as YouTube and Facebook are blocked, as well as more standard email websites, such as Gmail and Yahoo Mail.

The logic behind the policy is simple enough to speculate about. A firm believes that by limiting the access to these websites, an employee will begin to consider that, since he can't procrastinate in an enjoyable matter, he may as well perform his work duties. In essence, the idea is to make the work duty the most entertaining thing the employee could do on the job.

However, the logic against such a policy is just as simple, and perhaps even more convincing. Who is to say that, if an employee can't procrastinate a certain way, he won't simply substitute it with another? Also, the reasoning that work will automatically become the most fun thing to do at work after such a policy becomes a bit more suspect when we examine it closely. An employee still has the options of communicating with other employees, taking a walk, getting a coffee, etc., once his favorite websites are taken away. In my opinion, there is no shortage of the number of things that an employee would be able to come up with in order to avoid his duties, if he was really so inclined.

Another factor that I believe deserves consideration is the mental fatigue aspect of being expected to work continuously for many hours a day. It is possible that, at least for some people, the break associated with browsing to certain sites for small periods of time is not only a desired, but a necessary break. Here is an example of such a situation: Suppose an employee's job is to type as many pages as possible per day. An employee taking no breaks may waste no time doing other things, but his average number of pages per hour may begin to decline as a function of time because of mental fatigue. Suppose there is another employee that takes periodic breaks on entertainment websites. While this employee does lose all the time that he spends on those websites, it is feasible that, following one of these breaks, the worker's mind is refreshed and his average number of pages per hour increases substantially (if temporarily). This example could also be easily adapted to include quality of work, for which one may see similar results as with quantity. Thus, it is also conceivable that, at the end of the day, the total number of pages completed by the procrastinating worker could be greater than that by the diligent worker.

Another interpretation of the mental refreshment aspect is to think of it also as a possible relaxant. An individual may be worried about a certain email he is expected to receive or send out, or some other quick business he must attend to on a restricted website. The stress that comes from this anxiety will obviously be a hindrance to one's productivity. By simply allowing this individual to quickly take care of this business, he will be able to stop thinking about it and get back to work with a renewed sense of vigor.

One more point I'd like to consider is the force of habit. Before finding employment, most people have spent countless years developing the habits that allow them to be the most comfortable and to work the most efficiently that they can. Some people listen to music, some people keep a chat window open, some people check the news. From the very fact that these habits have remained with this person to this day, and from the fact that this person was able to secure the job in the first place, there is the direct implication that the person's working habits are of sufficient quality for him to be employed at that particular workplace. Why then, would it make sense to throw off a worker's habits by restricting certain websites? Even if it is assumed that the employee can quickly adapt to new work habits, there will be a learning curve of variable length during which productivity will naturally be stunted.

I’d like to make it amply clear that I am not advocating procrastination in the workplace. In fact, I am advocating quite the opposite, as I hypothesize that disabling workplace web filtering will ultimately improve employee performance.

Improving Professorial Quality

Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time as a student in academia has no doubt had the displeasure of taking a class with a sub-par professor. What this article seeks to propose is a methodology by which universities can systematically improve the quality of their professors and help minimize the probability of this happening to anyone else.

Before we begin, it would be helpful to examine why this problem of poor professors arises even in the top universities. One reason, I believe, is a lack of incentive, most often as a result of the granting of tenure. Tenure is essentially a lifetime appointment until retirement, with dismissal only possible in the case of "due cause". The interpretation of this "due cause" is naturally very variable, as most such legal terms are, but it is probably safe to say that it would take quite a bit for a tenured professor to be forcibly removed from the job.

The fear of under-performance resulting from the privileged position of tenure is hardly a new topic of discussion, though it remains a very powerful argument. How can one expect a faculty member to retain a desire for providing quality teaching when his job doesn't depend on it, except in the most egregious cases? This problem is exacerbated even further when the professor is particularly famous, making his status even more unquestionable. It is only to be expected that a professor's yearning to teach will eventually fall victim to entropy under such an environment. For example, many students can attest to the fact that some professors use the same slides, homeworks, tests, etc. for literally decades, sometimes not even bothering to change the date at the top of the handouts. While this is not a problem in and of itself, and can actually be logical when the teaching program in question is successful and pleases the students, more often than not it is the terrible and ineffective programs that get recycled for years and years.

The solution I propose to this phenomenon is quite simple, and focuses on exploiting the same factor of incentive that falls prey to indifference. Most schools already have in place a ratings system by which students can evaluate the performance of their professors (and if they don't, they should). Instead of penalizing poor performance, why does a university not monetarily encourage strong performance? For example, a professor would be granted salary bonuses from the university corresponding to the average rating that he has received from his students. The beauty of this method is that more famous professors can still receive the higher base salary that they likely feel they deserve, nor is the capacity for the professors to do research lessened, since the awards associated with that would remain intact as well. Tenure is also not threatened since good performance is rewarded, but poor performance is not penalized.

One obvious problem to this solution is the lengths that some would go to in order to capitalize on the system. Some professors may believe that the quickest and most reliable way to improve their student ratings would be to simply to give A's to everyone in the class. Although, in my opinion, the connection between grade received and the ratings given to the professor remains tentative (since the ratings are anonymous), I will admit the theory is feasible. Although some grade inflation will probably occur, I believe the normal checks that are in place (or should be in place) to make sure a suspicious amount of A's aren't being doled out should provide enough of a counter-thrust to this snag. Another problem with this system is that its implementation would almost certainly cause tuition to increase, as the potential for very large expenditures due to an over-achieving staff is not necessarily unlikely.

A second reason for the existence of incompetent professors is for the self-evident reason that they simply don't know how to teach. Too often is the mistake made by universities that eminence in one's field implies some sort of natural predisposition for teaching. This makes no more sense than holding the belief that a talented athlete would necessarily make a good coach. A professor may have the most brilliant things in the world to say, but they are worthless to the students if he cannot express himself properly. Furthermore, an often neglected part of being able to teach is having the ability to design reasonable and helpful assignments, tests, and classes in general. I can't count the number of times I have taken exams that are difficult solely for the reason that the test is poorly constructed, or have done assignments that only tangentially have any relationship to the format of those exams.

How could we alleviate this situation? To some degree, the incentive structure I proposed above would help because it would prod the professor to improve his own teaching. However, it is possible that a professor could simply have no idea how to become a better teacher on his own. To combat this, the school could provide some basic courses in education upon the professors introduction to the university. To maintain quality control, refresher courses could be given at certain intervals after that, and officials specializing in teaching inspection could be assigned to sit in at any lecture at random (like is already done in some high schools, although often not randomly). Obviously, these structures are not free and could, as stated before, definitely have the potential to increase tuition. However, all that being said, I see few better investments for an institution than increasing the excellence of its professors. Better professors lead to a better school reputation and better educated students, who will thus later have more capacity to contribute to the university and continue this cycle.

One more topic I'd like to discuss are teaching assistants, or TAs. These are essentially either aspiring professors, or more often simply graduate students, who are required to work for the professor for a certain amount of hours in exchange for the research stipend and facilities that they receive from the university. They are often in charge of grading homeworks/tests, and teaching recitations. Moreover, if there is anyone who can be expected to care less about what a student thinks about his teaching more than a tenured professor, it is most certainly a teaching assistant.

My problems with teaching assistants are multiple. Firstly, since the spotlight on their teaching ability is even less bright (arguably) than that which is on the professors, and since most of them are so busy focusing on their research, the quality of teaching is understandably expected to be rather low. My bigger issue, however, is that teaching assistants are often in charge of almost all the grading in a class. Why is this an issue? In my experience, most teaching assistants do not even bother to attend the professor's lectures. Thus, although by no means guaranteed, one can expect some degree of disconnect between what the professor teaches and how the TA grades. For example, if I attend every single lecture and listen attentively to the professor, and feel it in my best interest to write something on the exam that the professor mentioned in class, it is not unlikely that a TA could disagree with it and dock me some points. What have I to prove to him that the professor did in fact say it? Nothing really, whereas if the professor had graded the test, or if the TA had attended the lecture, the probability of me not losing points would have increased. 


How to resolve this? I understand that professors cannot feasibly grade all the material that they assign, as well as have the time left to perform their research to a respectable degree (or at least I hope this is the case). This, after all, is part of the reason for the existence of teaching assistants in the first place. However, since TAs are also often subject to student ratings, I see no reason why they also cannot be part of the system that I described before, except instead of bonuses, the TA would receive an increased stipend for his performance as a recitation leader. Also, since TAs are not tenured and are sometimes professors in waiting, I see no real reason why there should not be a punishment or warning mechanism in place for TAs with especially bad ratings. They are, after all, potential educators of the future, and it would behoove the university to set some kind of basic standard to help the TA refine his art for years to come.


The professorship is an honorable position, but it is not so honorable as to excuse a gross neglect of duty. Professors are paid to be as much teachers as researchers, and the ultimate nature of the products of the educational system rests in their hands. I do not see a more expedient way of sharply enhancing this educational system than to enhance the efficacy of its distributors and molders.

Buying Textbooks

If you're reading this right now and you're a student, you're most likely getting ripped off when buying your textbooks. This isn't an affront to your intelligence, but simply the conclusion of my belief that the average student buys the majority of his textbooks from the campus bookstore, which more often than not charges exorbitant prices. I understand that universities need to make money too, and that I have no right to judge their pricing decisions, nor will this article do anything to hurt their revenues. It is also true that what I have thus far written will most likely shock no current students, as the steepness of campus book markups is well-known throughout academia. 

So why is it that the majority of students (I have no facts to support that it is indeed the majority; only a strong suspicion) still insist on these inefficient purchasing habits. The most likely answer is also the most logical one: To avoid getting ripped off for textbooks, a certain amount of base knowledge and research is necessary. This is not to say that it is inherently any more difficult than walking over to the college store, but the initial acquisition of know-how that gets one to the point where they can use that know-how with minimal effort can have a high personal cost. This phenomenon is akin to say, changing a bike tire tube. There is nothing impressively complex in the process, but many people still see a professional about it because the cost required to learn how to change the tire proficiently can be uncomfortably high.

Getting back on point, I would like to lessen this cost for the readers by providing a few tips and websites that should make them much thriftier textbook purchasers. First off, I have found that websites which aggregate the costs of a few online bookstore websites and present a list of the lowest prices to be the most effective. A good example of this is CampusBooks. The site will present you with rental, used, international, new, and digital versions of the book you are looking for. Rentals are often the cheapest of the five options (Chegg is the biggest player in the textbook rental market), but remember that you cannot later sell these books back on the market to recoup some of your losses (or even possibly turn a small profit).

Possibly the next cheapest choice would be the digital version, otherwise known as an e-Book. Keep in mind that although they are often inexpensive, they also cannot easily be later sold on a major open online marketplace (more on these later on). There are also more obvious limitations, such as the need to have either a high-end phone, tablet, or computer to view them. Although in this day and age this shouldn't constitute an enormous problem, it can occasionally turn into a nuisance.

Used books are the next best option. Be suspicious of unusually great values found in this section (as well as the new section), as these are most likely international editions. International editions are produced abroad, usually using cheaper materials and shoddier craftsmanship, and while this is usually not a problem, it can become one when the page numbers and the order of practice questions are askew. Nothing stings quite as much as unwittingly doing questions 15 through 20 when your professor requested 1 through 5. There is no easy way to tell which internationals are winners and which are lemons, but I prefer to err on the side of caution and just pay the extra dollars for a regular used edition.

After the semester ends, you have a few options as far as trying to recover some of the cash you dished out. You can obviously sell the books to a fellow student at your university; many schools provide some type of system that helps you connect with potential buyers (you can, by the way, obviously use these same systems to purchase a book as well). Alternatively, you can attempt to sell that book back to your bookstore, although I question the quality of the deal you would receive there. Finally, you can attempt to sell the book through online marketplaces, such as Amazon or Ebay. This takes some initial experience as well to do correctly, but once you get into a groove with it, I feel the best values can usually be found through this method.