Since the question is purely hypothetical, the use of Illinibucks could be used for a vast range of different things on campus and could be issued in a variety of different ways. In terms of the different ways that the Illinibucks could be issued, they could be a yearly stipend given at the beginning of the academic year, they could be distributed at the beginning of each semester, or they could be issued more periodically on something like a biweekly basis. An equal amount could be given to all students, it could be different based on academic performance, or it could be based on what school you are in since tuition is higher for those in the engineering and business schools. There are truly an unlimited amount of ways Illinibucks could be distributed, however academic performance would be a good motivator for students if the Illinibucks were used for something students genuinely wanted. The Illinibucks could also be allocated through a first come first serve  or a priority basis as the prompt states. Each type of distribution would have some students complaining, and a fair way would always be debated but that seems to be the case of any policy a school or government has. 
There are multiple candidates for which Illinibucks would be used to get ahead in line as well as occur at a pre-specified price. The first that comes to mind was mentioned in the prompt, which is registering for class. Registering for classes can be an extremely stressful process for students depending on the students major, what year they are in, and what requirements they need to complete by a certain time. If the infrastructure for the distribution of Illinibucks had been set up in a smart way, they could possibly be used by the school to make the students life easier. For example if a student only needed to take 12 credit hours while another student would need to take 18 they would have to be distribute different amounts of Illinibucks or else a student might have an advantage over the other. It might have to account for the fact that a senior may need to get into specific classes in order to graduate while there is a freshman who doesn’t know what they want to major in, and distribute Illinibucks fairly keeping that in mind. The implementation and strategy surrounding the use of Illinibucks for the registration of classes would most likely take extensive effort from the school. 
If I had been given Illinibucks, I would use them sparingly, and I would be careful with them if I hadn’t been given a surplus of them. I would be more strategic than usual in planning my schedule before I register since I have a limited amount of uses. If the administered price was too low, many students would use Illinibucks to their advantage and try to game the system of registering for classes. The price being too low would mean that people could sign up for more classes than they plan on taking as well as plan on dropping the ones they dislike. It would promote a system of “trying out” classes and leave other students unable to sign up for the classes they want. If the price was too high, people would not be able to take all of the classes they need. Students unable to take the course they need would force students to leave the school or stay longer than originally anticipated. Many students would be unhappy at the system, rightly so. Getting both the price and distribution of Illinibucks correct would be difficult and take a lot of calculation, even as far as a per student basis from an advisor. Having academic advisors allocate Illinibucks for each student they look over may be the only feasible option in this hypothetical situation. 

Comments

  1. Professor ArvanOctober 6, 2019 at 6:23 AM

    Since many students did talk about the course registration example, I wonder which courses you have wanted to take but were unable to get into. I also wonder if the situation has persisted for more than one semester. Having some concrete examples of such classes would help to focus the discussion.

    In particular, one wants to know whether the providers of courses in high demand have incentive to increase capacity - teach those courses in large classrooms, offer more sections of the course, move to a blended format, etc. If we were able to get data about such courses over the last several years, would we see adjustments like that being made or not? If not, then why would that be?

    In class on Tuesday I will talk a little about how the tuition money flows and whether it provides such an incentive or not.

    So much for the supply adjustment. Let's talk about the demand side. You should ask yourself whether the current registration scheme is efficient in allocating the right students to a scarce class, or if there are mistakes. If there are mistakes, might the Illinibucks help to remedy those mistakes? To think about this, I want you to imagine a different process for registering. You spend your Illinibucks on one course that is your top priority. You pay that to the department which offers the course and the department, which has superuser status in Banner, registers you for that one course ahead of the normal registration period. For the remaining courses, your registration would be as normal.

    Would that process make for a more efficient allocation of the scarce courses? Would it make for a fairer allocation? Those are the issues you should think through.

    ReplyDelete

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