Misconceptions about information technology

These are some of the misconceptions about technology overheard at the university:

• A teacher is hesitant about providing soft copies of her slides thinking that it encourages students to ignore conventions on scholarly citations.

Having notes on paper does not improve chances of proper citation. If students don't bother citing references in the first place, it's not going to matter if they're on paper or in digital form.

• Providing a publicly accessible map of the university makes it more vulnerable to misuse of information on its resources.

Such map (and several versions of it) are already available online anyway. The risk of misuse of information is far outweighed by the potential of its productive use.