Student’s app violates policy

"UCF has also stated only they can decide what is "normal, authorized" operation." This absolute policy strengthens the argument that the system is closed to alternative ideas or improvements. The school needs to weigh protecting its IT system with an openness to student suggestions on how to maximize that system to meet their users' needs.

"Why would they try to contact the person whose service is attacking their system as the first option?" Perhaps not as a first option, but why not do so after they blocked access? It looks like every effort was focused on punishing the student, rather than evaluating what was behind the "misuse". The continued description of the service as "attacking" is inflammatory language. Obviously the intent was not to damage or disrupt, but to repackage publicly accessible class information into a much desired wait list notification system. Many would cheer the student's effort & ingenuity, if only the school & he could have pursued this in a collaborative way.

As far as outcome of the hearing, there were obviously many agendas at play. A student in such situations is often treated as guilty & must proof otherwise. Level of punishment is open to discretion. There are consequences and in this case an involved, passionate, creative student is barred from leadership & honors opportunities. "This wouldn't be an issue if he wasn't in a leadership role, he wouldn't have lost anything. This just happened to be the fall out." I hope University officials have a better understanding of this student's value & are far less callous.

"As as pointed out, Tim can easily explain to any job why he has the mark on his record. I am sure with his marketing degree he will be able to market himself just fine." If this is the official view, the University needs to reevaluate its reason for existence. UCF may want to consider what else this student will take away from the experience & feel inclined "to market".

"Saying Arnold's service "attacked" the system is strong language for something that is open to speculation as no actual data or evidence of damage was provided by his accusers."

Tim has provided no counter evidence, and has stated he doesn't know how UCF's internal system works. So he can not be sure what kind of burden he put on UCF, just that the bandwidth requirement was low. UCF has never stated the bandwidth was an issue. UCF has also stated only they can decide what is "normal, authorized" operation.

"..it is surprising they went that route without first contacting & discussing their concerns with the student."

Why would they try to contact the person whose service is attacking their system as the first option? Tim might not have meant for it to appear as an attack, but clearly that is why they blocked it when an unusually high request count came from his server. UCF is put in a position of blocking the attack, or emailing and hoping whoever was behind it would cooperate with their request. They chose the most logical decision, end the attack, and then deal with the person behind it.

"They sanctioned him (a permanent mark of dishonor on his records) and took away leadership positions, both of which damage his prospects for acceptance or participation in future academic or honors programs."

They did not take away his leaderships roles. The ruling by the panel was that he go on academic probation. The result of that ruling cost him his leadership positions. This is SGA's policy, I believe, that students can not hold leadership positions while on academic probation. This wouldn't be an issue if he wasn't in a leadership role, he wouldn't have lost anything. This just happened to be the fall out. They didn't particularly target him, or his role, again just the side effect of the decision.

Again, this was in front of a panel. He didn't convince them. This wasn't one guy that was angry, this was a group of students, staff, and faculty that felt he was in violation of the policies and punished him accordingly to what they thought was fair as a group. The punishment is pretty light, he has to write two essays, and pay 15 dollars to take a one day course. It is a lot cheaper than a UCF parking ticket.

As as pointed out, Tim can easily explain to any job why he has the mark on his record. I am sure with his marketing degree he will be able to market himself just fine.

"Just as they accuse him of blindly pursuing a goal, the same certainly can be said of them."

What did they do "blindly"? UCF took action to protect its system, and handed the matter off to student conduct to see if the student was at fault. A panel found him to be in violation of the policies. Where was the misstep on UCF's part there? Are you going to tell me they shouldn't have blocked his service until they got into contact with him, so that the whole system would run slow for everyone else while the matter was straightened out? Come on now.

His service attacked their system. They shut him down, and handled it off to student conduct to review. In front of a panel he wasn't able to prove that his intentions were good/noble or whatever he might claim. The panel decided he should sit down and consider his actions.

"Has the University explored the same with it's own response?"

What exactly did they do wrong? They stopped his service from negatively impacting the student body as a whole. Then gave him a chance to explain himself and his actions, which it appears he did, but obviously they thought his decisions were poor, hence the essays and class about decision making.

ROFL. He broke policy, he has admitted in this article that he broke it, but maintains he never knew. What part of knowing the Golden Rule is confusing to you? As a student you should know the rules. I can't drink and drive and say "well I didn't know, we should let this one slide". You make me laugh.

" However, Gilmartin's statement did recognize a myUCF issue and said that UCF is working on making changes to the website. "UCF is in the process of creating a function that would automatically enroll students in selected classes in which space becomes available," Gilmartin said. "Discussions are in the early stages, and no timeframe for implementation has been set." "

In short they are describing a wait list system, filling a seat with the next person in line.

"Anon is incensed that a business major would hire a 3rd party to help develop something outside his area of knowledge"

My point was he didn't know how the program worked entirely. He has recently posted that he modified it some, and did some improvements himself, but that doesn't show he knows exactly how it worked. In his position, since he doesn't know how the UCF system works, he can't truly understand the load it put on UCF. He is trying to simplify his argument and how computers work without really understanding it himself. I have no issue he outsourced it, but he hasn't supplied a single piece of documentation showing that the numbers UCF supplied were wrong.

"recoup costs" I have no issue with him recouping costs. Read the article "Arnold said he essentially gave the program away for free". He is marketing that he wasn't making money. Of course not, he was still recouping the costs, but his long term goal was to make money. It wasn't profitable yet, but again tell me who would put a thousand dollars into a service if they didn't expect to get that money back and to make some off of it?

"unofficial comments posted anonymously on a forum site" Not sure what your point is here. Whether the comments were anonymous or not, they cited UCF policy. Tim Arnold as a UCF student has to follow UCF policy, no matter who cites it. This wasn't hearsay or rumor, or suggestions, it was "look at this rule, you are breaking this rule, you should verify with UCF to make sure you don't get in trouble". Tim's only action was to say the rules were vague. His opinion on the clarity of the rules, does not change the policies intent.

"It sounds like a major concern was that demand for the app would run so high that it would slow UCF's servers, although that is based on conjecture at this point." UCF has stated it impacted their system. We can't exactly quantify how much, since that information was not released. Tim has stated only 50~60 students were using it when it was shutdown. So if 50~60 put a noticeable burden on the system, I don't think it is conjecture to think that more students would put even a greater load on UCF's system.

"The true question is why are so many students unable to get into required classes & desperately seeking apps, bribes or other means to secure a seat?" The demand is high for courses. Everyone wants to decide their own schedule. An example would be a student wanting to take say Calculus in the Fall. There might be plenty of seats in Spring, but the students might want to get the course out of the way early, or they might be taking other difficult courses in the Spring and doesn't want to take them all together. Either way, there are plenty of personal reasons people fight to get into classes, it doesn't mean there aren't enough courses or seats, it just means it doesn't fit everyone's personal agenda.