Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kimchimcgee]

Love your teaching job? Not so much? Here's your chance to share your thoughts! Survey results will be presented on a community map of Busan as part of the waygook maps project.



http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NYCQ7RJ

[PatrickGHBusan]

waygook maps project?

[kimchimcgee]

Yep, waygook maps project --> http://tinyurl.com/br8upqg .

I am building a community map of Busan and collecting data on hagwon conditions, expat population stats, neighborhood satisfaction, special amenities and services for expats, points of interest, etc to help job applicants select the best job offers.

[schwa]

I understand what you're trying to do but foresee problems.

There is no assurance of objectivity. Hagwons typically have few teachers, some only one. One person with an ax to grind checks poor, poor, & poor. Doesnt even have to have worked there. Might even be a rival hagwon operator. Korea also has laws against spreading information that can damage a business. Conversely, a small hagwon could upvote itself & check excellent, excellent, & excellent, whatever the facts.

Hagwons arent like bars or restaurants where multiple reviewers can balance opinion. With a very limited pool of contributors & no fact-checking, how can people realistically trust an anonymous hagwon review?

[kimchimcgee]

Thanks for your observations, but I'm not trying to develop a 1-5 star rating system for hagwons like one might find for bars and restaurants. This is a mapping project. The most important survey questions should be pretty obvious if you think about it. Anyway, there are ways to minimize mischief when collecting survey data--for example, survey monkey will not allow repeat responses from the same IP address. So, you could still ruin my project by submitting false responses again and again, but you would have to be a complete lunatic and visit a new PC bang for each response. Survey data aren't perfect but likely more representative of the population than forum posts, which seem overwhelming to focus on the negatives. When's the last time you read a forum post about getting screwed by a hagwon that also happened to mention that the school provided a great health plan and solid housing? I'm not familiar with the Korean laws you mentioned but find it hard to believe they apply to truthful answers submitted to an online opinion survey--positive or negative. However, submitting false answers and repeating the survey multiple times with the intent to harm a business, yeah, I can see that being illegal. Lesson learned? Just take the survey and be honest.

[valkerie]

I wouldn't say it matters at all what the housing is like if a school is screwing you on basic stuff like salary.

The law referred to is well used. It exists to protect a business from comments, either verbal or written, that could harm them. It doesn't matter at all whether or not something is true. (The opposite to any other libel/slander laws I have known about.) Having said that, it would be hard (and likely too expensive) for a business to track down who wrote a survey response.

[PatrickGHBusan]