Options to force SFU to shape up online?

Morro

I am pissed off. Here is a list of the websites that are essential to various courses:

1) http://go.sfu.ca
2) http://webmail.sfu.ca
3) http://my.sfu.ca
4) http://webct.sfu.ca
5) http://loncapa.sfu.ca
6) http://www.masteringphysics.com
7) http://www.isalgorithms.ca
8) http://www.sfu.ca/chemistry/course_websites/index.html
9) http://www.sfu.ca/biology/courses/
10) Prof #1's personal website.
11) Prof #2's personal website
12) Prof #3's personal website.
13) http://www.turnitin.com

And even more. Really? I mean, seriously? We can't just get behind one standard? It would really be WAY too restricting to tell profs that they MUST put their shit up on webct, or mysfu, or just ONE FUCKING SITE? I don't care which one. Pick one. Make a new one. But this is seriously just getting ridiculous. I missed handing in a small assignment this week. Why? Was I slacking off? No, it was because it had been quietly posted on some jackass's personal god damn website with some impenetrable visual design, and no f'ing email, notice, nothing, that it had been posted.

Really, guys. You spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an all new online presence. You're paying to use the webct software. Force the profs to use it. Tell them you will dock their asses a month's pay if they don't put all their files where you tell them to.

Get all my homework, all practice tests, and all marks, all assignments, all announcements, all EVERYTHING for ALL CLASSES in one f'ing site, and then leave it the fuck alone. I am sick and god damn tired of having to check thirteen sites, just to know whether I'm missing a god damn reading assignment or not. Christ.

/vent

IVT

seriously.
there is no way that you have to use ALL of those sites during one semester

Morro

Ban.

imelting

Morro;30253 said:

Ban.

lol winnar!

randomuser

i wish they were forced to standardize course descriptions with consistent information

some departments dont have their courses listed on the main SFU course outline site and on their department site, for a university you'd expect a level of professionalism and a standardization

also IMPORTANT DATES! why cant they make this easier to find and accesible

also what is the point of mySFU besides seeing what books you need for your courses and what books you can sell back, they should just call it bookSFU

primexx

Morro;30251 said:

I am pissed off. Here is a list of the websites that are essential to various courses:

1) http://go.sfu.ca
2) http://webmail.sfu.ca
3) http://my.sfu.ca
4) http://webct.sfu.ca
5) http://loncapa.sfu.ca
6) http://www.masteringphysics.com
7) http://www.isalgorithms.ca
8) http://www.sfu.ca/chemistry/course_websites/index.html
9) http://www.sfu.ca/biology/courses/
10) Prof #1's personal website.
11) Prof #2's personal website
12) Prof #3's personal website.
13) http://www.turnitin.com

And even more. Really? I mean, seriously? We can't just get behind one standard? It would really be WAY too restricting to tell profs that they MUST put their shit up on webct, or mysfu, or just ONE FUCKING SITE? I don't care which one. Pick one. Make a new one. But this is seriously just getting ridiculous. I missed handing in a small assignment this week. Why? Was I slacking off? No, it was because it had been quietly posted on some jackass's personal god damn website with some impenetrable visual design, and no f'ing email, notice, nothing, that it had been posted.

Really, guys. You spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an all new online presence. You're paying to use the webct software. Force the profs to use it. Tell them you will dock their asses a month's pay if they don't put all their files where you tell them to.

Get all my homework, all practice tests, and all marks, all assignments, all announcements, all EVERYTHING for ALL CLASSES in one f'ing site, and then leave it the fuck alone. I am sick and god damn tired of having to check thirteen sites, just to know whether I'm missing a god damn reading assignment or not. Christ.

/vent

Don't forget the Distance ed site.

What sucks even more is that the university is paying for three separate applications which all do the exact same thing. I'm thinking of WebCT, Gradebook, and FirstClass. Redundant waste of money ftw? And the software isn't even good.

Gradebook (cmpt) is basically a waste because the only thing it's ever used for is posting grades. FirstClass phails basic principles of user interface design with its pop-ups for every fucking window, as well as the complete lack of organization of messages, making sure that they're a pile of mess you'll get a headache trying to navigate around. At least WebCT organizes things into threads, but the all-java interface phails basic principles of accessibility, and the single-window restriction is a pain in the arse to deal with.

goSFU suffers from the same sort of scripting infestation that WebCT does, albeit to a lesser extent, and it also suffers from the single-window restriction which has far more impact there when you're trying to figure out what classes to take.

On a related note, none of SFU's websites use proper markup, or makes any attempt to be accessible.

Just about anyone with proper web-development experience/skills could make a better, unified, user friendly, intuitive, and scalable system in a few weeks, and there's quite a few of them in our very own comp sci department.

randomuser;30255 said:

i wish they were forced to standardize course descriptions with consistent information

some departments dont have their courses listed on the main SFU course outline site and on their department site, for a university you'd expect a level of professionalism and a standardization

also IMPORTANT DATES! why cant they make this easier to find and accesible

also what is the point of mySFU besides seeing what books you need for your courses and what books you can sell back, they should just call it bookSFU

just be happy that at least we get our exam dates when enrolling for courses...

mySFU is supposed to be a portal, your one-stop shop for everything you'll ever need for university. Evidently, it failed fairly miserably.


-----

It's stupid, really, large institutions always waste so much money to get large corporate solutions which are almost always inferior to freelance/small firm people who actually know what they're dong. The leaders in this industry are not the big companies, they're the small ones which keep the focus on quality rather than money.

The example that comes right up to mind is IconFactory, which designed the icons for Windows XP, Vista (some), and Xbox 360. It's one of if not the leading icon design company. But none of you (well, maybe a few, since this is a topic complaining about sfu's websites) have ever heard of it because it's a tiny company, their staff page lists 10 people (Alexa says 0-25 employees).

JayDub

This is funny, on the PeopleSoft's (the company that made go.sfu) page on Wikipedia:

In 1997, Cleveland State University licensed PeopleSoft's software for tracking student records. They initially had an implementation partner, Kaludis Consulting Group Inc. After seven years of difficulties, CSU sued - initially naming Kaludis, but later (after Kaludis countersued) naming PeopleSoft as the main defendant and including Kaludis. The suit was for $510 million, claiming breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and four other counts. The university claimed that software developed by PeopleSoft was missing specified features, and as a result caused disruption to their admissions process. PeopleSoft claimed that they had followed industry best practices. Court documents available online show the case was settled in 2005. The settlement agreement mentions a payment from Kaludis to CSU, as part of the settlement. There is no mention of any payment by PeopleSoft.

In December 1999, seven of the eight "Big Ten" Midwestern universities which licensed PeopleSoft's software wrote a joint, open letter to the PeopleSoft CEO complaining about quality and performance issues.

The California State University system adopted PeopleSoft in the early 2000s. The university spent $500 million on this system in a process so deficient that it resulted in an investigation and a rebuke by the state legislature. The Report of the California State Auditor criticized the University, amongst other things, for not having a business case for the implementation. When asked why it never conducted a formal return-on investment analysis on the CMS project, the university explained that the magnitude of potential savings estimated by its consultants, IBM and Pacific Partners Consulting Group (Pacific Partners), led them to believe that such a formal analysis was unnecessary.

randomuser

primexx;30265 said:

just be happy that at least we get our exam dates when enrolling for courses...

at my college we didnt have dates when enrolling and i never had a problem with it, we found out a bit into the semester and if there were any conflicts or they were too close we could talk to someone to change it

i also wish they would list sessional names earlier, or at all...a lot of the time i just go in there not even knowing whos teaching the class

as mentioned before theres been courses that dont list their proper pre reqs, or they do but its on one of the many different places course info is listed

sometimes itll be on gosfu sometimes on the main sfu site, or on the
departments site, sometimes in the catalogue pdf

Ive mailed advisors before asking why i couldnt enroll in a class and
they tell me i dont have the pre reqs to which i say oh it never said
that here, nothing is consistent and then the advisors complain of
being overloaded with student requests, i wonder why

ive said it before and so have many other people but firstclass sucks, and why is there a need for so many applications

and as mentioned before why is it so hard to find basic information like fees and deadlines, there is no link on the front page, why should we have to use the sites search engine, basic things like this people look for all the time

EricJ

Morro;30251 said:

And even more. Really? I mean, seriously? We can't just get behind one standard? It would really be WAY too restricting to tell profs that they MUST put their shit up on webct, or mysfu, or just ONE FUCKING SITE?

It would work, possibly, if WebCT or whatever other fancy system were better-made and slightly less inconvenient to use!

randomuser

i like webct personally besides the forum system they have, i wish it was all inline when you clicked messages instead of having to click display complete thread