The old proverb warns, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
As students and products of our generation, we are known for being drawn to each shiny, new gadget of the week, but there is one ground rule to modernizing: Make sure the gadget works first. Perhaps this is something the University should have considered before switching to “Blackboard version 9” (see Page 1), and leaving students and faculty completely lost for the first two weeks of classes.
When the Blackboard Web site loads at all, which it hasn’t done very often over the last week, it is incredibly slow. Many faculty members haven’t been able to sign on for long enough to upload documents necessary for class, leaving students with no way to complete reading assignments and putting classes behind schedule. Tools that used to be easy to access are now hidden where no one can find them. And for those of us who recently petitioned into a class and want to look at the syllabus? Maybe next week.
We are being promised some new perks with the new system. A “Blackboard Sync” option, for example, will allow students to link their accounts with Facebook, something that could potentially be useful. The only catch? It’s not actually operational yet. Just like the rest of the system, it seems.
According to a B-Line sent out Sept. 9 by Vice President for Administration James VanVoorst, the University is aware there have been problems. Their solution is a number of videos and documents available online, as well as a series of nine workshops offered by the University Center for Training and Development from Sept. 10 to 29. It’s better than nothing, but not by much.
Neither faculty nor students have the time to attend yet more classes, and there is no reason why they should be necessary. The University should have had all these glitches sorted through well before the first freshmen stepped into Lecture Hall Aug. 31.
We are a campus of technologically advanced people, and if we can’t figure out a system ourselves with a minimal amount of effort, it’s a pretty good sign that there is something wrong with it.
Take heart, however. The Blackboard Web site says that as of 4:30 p.m. on Wed, Sept. 9, the system was stable for an entire business day. Maybe by October it’ll remain operational for a whole week at a time. If we’re very lucky.