And it will be in 8 minutes. In fact it will be over before I finish this post. I feel a long, long rant coming on about University IT. University bureaucracy? Well, it is what it’s always been and that is fine. I know how to work my way around that and find out what I need to know, when I need to know it. But now they’re all high tech, it’s a monster.
It was bad enough that the other day in the computer lab on campus I had to enter my password at least 8 times within the space of half an hour, all to do the most simple things. Could they not have a system that, you know, functions? Nooooo. You have to sign in for the computer, for the library, for the timetables, for the online studies units, for your enrolments, for your email… And so on and so on.
It. is. totally. fucked.
In better news, I am actually able to do a full time study load this semester. (Did I tell you that already?) I didn’t think that I would be able to, because of time considerations and Cas, but I can do a unit wholly online and I think that rocks. In fact, it’s a course requirement that I complete at least one unit online before I graduate. Just so they know I can use a computer.
So I’m signed up for a 2nd year history subject (I guess IT doesn’t care that I’m a freshman), Great Debates: Unfinished Business of The Past. Woo-hoo! Except…
The software they are using would have to be the most obstructive, inefficient, unintelligent software I have ever seen: Blackboard
It. is. totally. fucked.
It has modules and reading materials and links to other reading materials and it has discussion forums to take the place of tutorials.
Let’s just take a look at the wonderful user interface it has for the “forums”.
To read a post/thread you click. That’s fine. But it then opens up in a fucking popup window. Um, why? Now, I think the popup is senseless enough to call it bad design (and no, you cannot centre or right click to force it to open in a tab instead) but just to make it even more ridiculous, once you have closed the tiny box you have laboriously scrolled though (and no, it does not “remember” that you have adjusted the popup size), the page you are returning to refreshes!
WTF? If you’re going to use a popup or lightbox, isn’t the whole point so that you can view the detail without navigating away from or reloading the main page?
Now, I understand that they want to keep the unread/read up to date. They have, of course, gone about that in an entirely stupid way but perhaps they had good intentions. However, there is a little green star in my sidebar menu (which, incidentally, doesn’t resize or scroll well enough for me to see the full tree-directory) that is supposed to tell me when there is something new to see. And it does. All the time. Even when there is nothing new to see.
Oh, this post could go on and on and on… You get the picture. Just envisage the most basic functions taking a least 4 extra processes to achieve and you’ve got Blackboard.
I’m going to stop, because that is just one microscopic portion of what is wrong with this program and I could write a thesis. But before I do… My favourite fucked function?
There’s a button that says “accessibility”. I thought I’d give that a try, hoping they had something more functional for users with disabilities. Wanna know where that took me? To the Blackboard site and a page that says how considerate they’ve been about colour contrast. In a teeny weeny font.
It. is. totally. Blackboard.
(Btw, I’m going to be managing all my study notes etc on WordPress so my subdomain is now running a separate blog for that, Plato’s Sandbox. If you’re bored…)
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