There has got to be a better way

[hatton]

As more than a few of you folks know I teach Web Scripting & Authoring at a local technical university. As a part of my course I require my students sign up for a hosting account through my reseller service here at Jodohost. I then credit their accounts the equivalent amout for six month's service... the amount of time they have left until they graduate.

This lets me grade their work and submit their sites for survey results to get feedback from the web community at large. It's also starting to cost me money.

I am not required by my school to provide this hosting service. I provide it in an attempt to let the students get a glimpse of what they will be working with in the real world if they start doing web design. I *could* tell them to sign up for free hosting elsewhere but I would not have the level of control over the accounts that I do this way.

I want my students to have the experience of working with at least some web control panel but this last quarter shows me that I'm going to be shelling out $15 for the next three months (I had 31 students this quarter and it's $0.50 for each CP user beyond the initial allotment). In return I'm closing about 8 accounts from students two quarters ago but giving out another 10.

All my students are using is a basic web hosting service, no scripting and not a lot of space. They are always using third-level domain hosting. I'm wondering if it would make more sense for me to dedicate all of my VPS resources to a single account and create an installation with Apache and a some free CP running to let them gain their experience without worry about the extra cost per user. Upgrading my JH account wouldn't make sense, the only thing I'm going over on is users.

Thoughts, ideas? Thanks!

 

[bro]

Presumably the university is making money from these students. If it were me, I'd claim it back in expenses and argue with the principal later...
Or you could charge the student. Students could team up to share an account if they want to save a couple of bucks.

Don't know about where you live, but around here $3 wouldn't buy you a pint of watery beer.

 

[hatton]

Presumably the university is making money from these students. If it were me, I'd claim it back in expenses and argue with the principal later...

The school does make money, and lots of it. I've told my dean that I'm going to be submitting reimburment for the student accounts but am afraid to and here's why:

One of the other classes I teach is on telecommunications and there are a few other that talk about PBX technology. I've brought in Asterisk (an open source Linux PBX) as a sample service and wanted to get some hard phones (cheapy grandstream 101's). 5 phones were $258, the school's director almost didn't approve it.

They can be very tight with the money, no matter how much/little there is.

 

[bro]

I deal with a few US universities myself, and they're very keen on getting things for nothing. I've heard the poor-us story a few too many times to fall for it, especially when you can see thousands of dollars being wasted elsewhere. It is a trivial amount compared to almost every other expense they'll have for the course, after all, but if it's not budgeted for they'll make it sound like you're asking for some moon rocks to hand out.

So what you really need to do is get it written into the budget for next year. Don't penny-pinch, either. School managers will break their hearts over a few dollars here or there but if it's been written into, and stays within, the budget they're happy as pigs in shit. I'd even add a few hours for setup time, then reluctantly offer to do it free if they quibble...

 

[hatton]

I deal with a few US universities myself, and they're very keen on getting things for nothing. I've heard the poor-us story a few too many times to fall for it, especially when you can see thousands of dollars being wasted elsewhere. It is a trivial amount compared to almost every other expense they'll have for the course, after all, but if it's not budgeted for they'll make it sound like you're asking for some moon rocks to hand out.

So what you really need to do is get it written into the budget for next year. Don't penny-pinch, either. School managers will break their hearts over a few dollars here or there but if it's been written into, and stays within, the budget they're happy as pigs in shit. I'd even add a few hours for setup time, then reluctantly offer to do it free if they quibble...

If this were a public university I'd agree with you. Even better, if this were a place where I had more than a requesting say on funding I could do something along those lines. What I was told when I suggested having the school invest in a reseller account for this course was that it wasn't in the syllabus, it wasn't something that they wanted to maintain after I left and the cost was not enough to fit the capital budget.

Well, that and the fact that corporate would never officialy approve it.