I think that the best places to use “illinibucks” are places where demand is always greater than the supply. From my past experience on campus, I would use “illinibucks” in class registration, booking study rooms, and also for high-demanding performances at Krannert Center.
There are a lot of classes that have a high demand and always fully registered, making it difficult for many people to take these classes. Some of them are interesting courses that have a very good reputation, some of these classes are mandatory major or minor requirements. I have a minor in statistics, and STAT420 Methods for Applied Statistics (mandatory for several different major and minor) is well known for its registration difficulty. Stat majors have priority for this class, but minor students do not. The department does not provide sufficient support for students to register for classes, and instructors cannot provide override. So I wasn’t able to add this course for 2 semesters. If “illinibucks” could be used here, I would be willing to invest. Because otherwise I won’t be able to complete my minor.
Study rooms are difficult to book during busy times in the semester, using “illinibucks” to book study rooms would help better allocate study room resources. People does not need study rooms that much would study somewhere else instead, making study rooms available for those that really need it (e.g. ones that need a space for group discussions/group projects).
Performances at the Kranner Center would also be a good candidate for “illinibucks”. Tickets for some good performances are extremely difficult to get, so priority could be given to the ones that are willing to pay more “illinibucks”. Lang Lang’s (famous Chinese concert pianist) piano performance (Performance Link) last week at Krannert Center was one of those hot performances. A lot of my friends started to buy tickets when it was first released, and tickets sold out very soon. The ticket price for UI students is just $10, but the resale price was raised to $50 and even $100 a few days before the performance.
It is very interesting that my previous university did have something similar with “illinibucks”. Before I transferred to the U of I, I studied Media in Hong Kong. We needed production and media equipment (cameras, tripods, lighting equipment, dolly tracks, etc.) from time to time for our classes and projects. The college offers eCash to students to rent these devices from the rental center. Students taking senior courses will be granted more eCash. Better devices are more expensive, so for example if we choose to rent a very good camera, we won’t have enough eCash to rent a very good set of lighting equipment. So it was actually pretty fun to plan and try to utilize our eCash in hand to reach the best outcome for our projects. It becomes even more interesting when it comes to group projects, because we could aggregate our eCash together and make better investments. I think the purpose of eCash is to better balance resources, so that no one will be occupying too much resources while others do not have enough resources. No matter “illinibucks” or “eCash”, it’s all because of higher demand with insufficient supply, if resources are sufficient, these eMoney will become useless.
If the prices are set too high, “illinibucks” would become useless because no one will want to put all their investments in one basket. At least for me, I would prefer to save some “illinibucks” in case I need them in the future. So if something is too expensive, I would prefer not to spend my “illinibucks”, only if that “product” is necessary and extremely important for me at that point. People like me might end up still having their “illinibucks” in hand at the end of the semester. This makes them miss the opportunity of utilizing certain resources they otherwise could have used. If the price is too low, “illinibucks” won’t be able to achieve its purpose of allocating resources. There won’t be much difference if you have “illinibucks” or not, people will spend “illinibucks” on all the “products” they want. The effect of “illinibucks” on allocating resources to people that need them the most would be poor. Therefore, if the university decides to implement an “illinibucks” system, they will need to do a thorough study to find out the best balance that reaches equilibrium.
It would be even more interesting if the university could grant extra “illinibucks” to students at certain circumstances to promote certain kinds of behavior (e.g. campus service feedback surveys, some of these surveys have a low participation rate and I saw in the past many of them use luck draw and prizes to increase participation) or encourage students to attend certain kinds of events.
Many students have written about using Illinibucks to gain access to courses during registration, but you are the first one to point out that the issue is an upper level courses that a required for a minor. The way you described the situation for Stat 420, it sounds like there is chronic excess demand for this course. So, let me make some observations that might explain this.
ReplyDeleteIn the old budget model (we will be talking about budgeting in class on Tuesday) having majors counted in the RCM formula. (RCM stands for Responsibility Centered Management. It aims to allocate revenues based on university sanctioned activities and how intensive a unit does in providing those.) So departments do strive to have lots of majors. But minors didn't enter into the budgeting formula. So there is a lot less incentive for a department to cater to students in minors.
In addition, there aren't good data on how severe the excess demand actually is. One thing the Illinibucks approach would do is to get at the "shadow price" of the capacity constraint for an over subscribed course. If the university did have resources to address the issue, it would make sense to add capacity where it did the most good, which would be in those courses that carry the highest shadow price.
On the purchasing tickets from Krannert, I haven't done that in a while. Can you do it online now? I suppose there could be an early purchase period available only to students who pay for that privilege with Illinibucks. But as you suggested since there is great excess demand for some concerts, the price of access in Illinibucks would have to be quite high or otherwise every student would go that route.
Thank you Prof. Arvan for your comment.
DeleteFor the tickets from Krennert Center, yes, it could be done online. I think almost all students buy tickets through their website, since it's the most convenient way. I'm not sure if there are early purchase period available for students, but I think that certain amount of tickets are reserved for students. And Kranner Center will also release some last minute ticket at the day of the performance, and people could purchase it at regular price. It would be a good choice to use "illinibucks" for early purchase period access.
I like the idea you mention about awarding more Illinibucks for community engagement, especially as it pertains to surveys and things like that. That could be a way to add incentive for providing feedback, but without regulation, students could just write anything. It would have to be someone's job to evaluate feedback.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea you mention about awarding more Illinibucks for community engagement, especially as it pertains to surveys and things like that. That could be a way to add incentive for providing feedback, but without regulation, students could just write anything. It would have to be someone's job to evaluate feedback.
ReplyDeleteI thought your explanation of eBucks at your previous University was really interesting! I didn't really understand the concept of Illinibucks until reading about a context in which a similar system was actually used. I see how it makes sense to give seniors more bucks and to allocate the resources according to bucks. I imagine that if we implemented Illinibucks here at UIUC, the first few years would be a bit of trial-and-error, then once we figure out the demand and supply of certain things, we can adjust to find better equilibria.
ReplyDeleteI also think that giving students extra illinibucks for things like surveys/community engagement would increase responses dramatically, as well as give students a better position to use their Illinibucks.