Senate proposes downloading quiz for incoming students

In developing an interactive online quiz, Sophomore Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator Jos‚ Vazquez hopes to keep students from incurring the punishment he received last year.

The planned online quiz will question students on the terms of agreement for using the Tufts online system. It will especially target issues such as uploading and downloading in hopes to halt illegal student file-sharing. Students will have to pass the quiz to setup their Tufts e-mail accounts.

Last year Vazquez found himself under disciplinary action because of his illegal file sharing.

"I downloaded music and later began to download movies," Vazquez said. "I forgot to turn off my file sharing option on Kazaa, so a lot of people downloaded Austin Powers: Goldmember from me."

TCCS and Tufts Online, the campus entities charged with monitoring student connections, saw a great rise in Vazquez's bandwidth as a result of the people uploading the movie off his computer.

"Since I was a first offense, they kicked me off the network for a week," Vazquez said. "It was basically a slap on the wrist. [They said,] 'Don't do it again or you'll face serious legal action.'"

"What people really don't know is what happens with second and third offenses," Vazquez said.

Tufts bans students caught a second time from the online network for a year and requires them to take a class with Supervisor of Tufts Online Judi Rennie. Third time offenders are expelled from the University.

Vazquez was surprised to learn his online actions were against Tufts policies. He said many students are similarly unaware of the rules. "A large portion of the problem comes from ignorant students. But that's not to say there aren't people doing explicitly illegal sharing," he said.

"With the quiz, no one can really say they don't know the policies," sophomore TCU Senator Dave Baumwoll said. "[Senate] Administration and Budgeting is really psyched about that."

The Administration and Budgeting Committee within the Senate is still in the developmental stages of the quiz. It is still in the air whether Tufts will administer the test to all students or solely incoming freshmen.

The committee plans to have the quiz developed by April, in hopes of administrating the survey in the fall.

* by Danny Lutz