FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler this week announced the appointment of Scott Jordan as the FCC Chief Technology Officer.
Chairman Wheeler said, “Scott’s engineering and technical expertise, particularly with respect to the Internet, will provide great assistance to the Commission as we consider decisions that will affect America’s communications platforms. We are delighted that he is joining us.”
Jordan is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. The Information Technology and Information Foundation (ITIF) has a profile of Scott Jordan, in which it notes, “His research interests include communications policy, pricing and differentiated services in the Internet, and resource allocation in wireless multimedia networks. In the communications policy area, he is working on network neutrality and traffic management. He is developing moderate network neutrality policies founded on network architecture that encourage development of network management for multimedia applications while prohibiting anti-competitive behavior. In the networks technology area, he is working on the integration of voice, data, and video on the Internet and on wireless networks.”
This expertise will be useful as popular content moves from over-the-air broadcast and cable networks to the Internet.
The FCC News Release announcing the appointment said, “In his role as Chief Technology Officer, Jordan will serve as the senior advisor on technical matters across the agency. Jordan will engage with technology experts outside the agency and promote technical excellence among agency staff. Jordan will be based in the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis.”
Since Jordan is a professor, I looked up his rating on RateMyProfessors.com. His highest rating was 2.7 for “Overall Quality” followed by a 2.6 for “Helpfulness”, but ranked only a 1.0 for “Easiness.” There were only 11 comments covering a span of 10 years, and they were all over the scale, explaining average score. Many of the negative comments focused on his “amazingly difficult” tests and grading criteria. One commenter gave him a “Good” rating and wrote, “Great at explaining things at a high and low level. There are some annoying things about the class like notes with info you can only get in class/non-transparent grading scheme, but he's here to teach you, that's for sure. Be ready for LOTS of work, hah!”
