Re: [ARSCLIST] Certification

[Karl Miller <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004, Don Cox wrote:

> The problem with practical professional skills such as those mentioned
> is that it is impossible to organise practical classes or assessment.
>
> Where would you find a steady supply of faulty tapes of no value for
> classes of 15-20 students? How would you assess their skills?

Indeed, assessing skills is a very difficult problem. Many aspects of the
technical side of things can be quantified, however, it has seemed to me
that there can be a substantive amount of subjectivity on judging the end
product. I try to teach not only reformatting, but try to provide some
introduction to restoration. When I work with the students on restoration,
I am reminded of the days when I taught music composition. I would teach
each student an individual lesson for an hour. We would go over the work
in progress. If they were working on a computer composition, we would sit
in the lab and go over the process of the piece. While some may disagree,
for me, there is art in both restoration and reformatting and teaching art
can be difficult. I am reminded of one former student who admonished me
for suggesting some changes to his composition by stating his "music
came from God!"

While there have been student projects that have presented what could be
considered objective flaws, there is much that is subjective. Last
Spring I spent a class session on comparing the work of Ward Marston and
Mark Obert-Thorn. We compared Mark and Ward's approaches by listening
to their transfers of the same recordings. While they were working from
different copies of the same recording, it seemed clear that they brought
some of their own "ear" to the process. After a few listens it was
possible to determine which one was done by Ward and which was done by
Mark. Which one is right? It seemed to me, they both were.

Not something that is easy to grade objectively.

Karl