Call Me Quebecois
Before I rant once more about the crappy IT here, I want to congratulate Tom. His post on Boalt faculty is garnering a lot of attention (see, e.g., here, here, and here. Although I'm perplexed a bit at Leiter's reaction given his obsession with needless data by which to sort law school faculty). I assume Tom will have a response in short order.
Alright here's my rant. I want the law school to declare its independence from the campus...in an IT sense. This isn't a UC issue. Plenty of other UCs have centralized websites where you can access all important information. You can browse their "My" pages with guest logins. (UCD, UCLA [with an online forum], UCSD [no guest access], and Stanford for good measure). So why can't we break from the main campus and set one up on our own? Any former Boalties out there who want to donate to a worthy cause...do you hear me? We REALLY could use an updated centralized website.
I've ranted about this before (only to have older Boalties complain that we have it too easy because the various "Bears" now all use the same password). Now I realize that main campus has no intention of changing anything. They can't even maintain what little there is. "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..."
Alright here's my rant. I want the law school to declare its independence from the campus...in an IT sense. This isn't a UC issue. Plenty of other UCs have centralized websites where you can access all important information. You can browse their "My" pages with guest logins. (UCD, UCLA [with an online forum], UCSD [no guest access], and Stanford for good measure). So why can't we break from the main campus and set one up on our own? Any former Boalties out there who want to donate to a worthy cause...do you hear me? We REALLY could use an updated centralized website.
I've ranted about this before (only to have older Boalties complain that we have it too easy because the various "Bears" now all use the same password). Now I realize that main campus has no intention of changing anything. They can't even maintain what little there is. "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another..."
Labels: Classes/Professors, Law School, Legal Culture, The Red Menace
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 7:48 PM
17 Comments:
Smart-assed skeptic: Monkey Man will MAKE you believe!
Brilliant post. I agree wholeheartedly. Also, I get tired of hearing people say things like "well you shouldn't complain because my group had it so much worse." Well, guess none of us should ever complain if there is a power failure because a long time ago, people had no electricity! It's progress, people. Let's go with it (for the most part).
I'm not so sure that it's the central campus as I suspect its our own school. I went to UCB for undergrad and my master's and NOT ONCE did I have a problem with grades, paying bills, registering for classes...
Maybe "Central Campus" is just a great scapegoat.
With all due respect 11:34, I don't think you know what you're talking about. I'm not trying to be snide or anything, but my complaints go beyond delay in grades. The thing with Berkeley natives is that they really don't know what else is out there with respect to online resources at universities. This is why I posted those links. Please browse and see for yourself.
Fear not, everyone! According to this week's BBB, "You should be able to see your Fall 2005 grades on Bearfacts as faculty enter submit them," which would be helpful if I hadn't already gotten Fall 2005 grades a year ago. Actually, that was a good semester for me...can I just have those grades again? Maybe this system ain't so bad after all.
Actually, what I continue to be most amazed about -- though it's a minor tic -- is this: At Stanford in 1999, every student downloaded a little program that they could then use to log onto the campus network once and receive a 24-hour "authentication" ticket -- good for all email, grades, class websites, proxy access to journals, admin systems, etc. Here, you're practically typing your user name 25 times a day. Amazing that what was ubiquitous technology on the Stanford campus 8 years ago hasn't managed to migrate to Berkeley.
Mad JD 11:59, no offense, but you don't know what you're talking about either. At least you don't read N & B religiously. On a previous thread, a commenter wrote:
"Incidentally, there's a great Freudian slip in the new BBB: 'You should be able to see your Fall 2005 grades on BEARFACTS as faculty submit them.' Isn't that the God's honest truth?"
Please don't post any Vegas pictures.
Please post some Vegas pictures.
I think the Daily Cal should report on Boalt student dissatisfaction with the UC Berkeley/Boalt IT. Perhaps other students throughout the UC Berkeley campus have similar frustrations. Armen raises some excellent points that a broader audience should hear. The student newspaper, which serves as a watchdog, should highlight the inefficiencies and breakdowns of the UC Berkeley IT infrastructure. The Daily Cal should follow the links Armen provides to other law schools and universities with streamlined, intuitive, and well-designed IT interfaces.
An intrepid reporter should grill the IT people who designed and perpetuate the scatter-shot system that we are forced to use (InfoBears, TeleBears, BearFacts, Boalt's password protected sites, etc.) Student reporters should score interviews with the registrars of the law school and the broader campus, asking them how come the system sucks so badly. The article should be full of plenty of finger-wagging, theories, the denial of bureaucrats, and student dreams of a better-run campus.
This seems like a fine story idea for a campus newspaper. Campus newspapers are more than training grounds for young people who want to dabble in journalism. The campus newspaper, run by students and independent from any administration, can foment valuable change in our university community.
So, if anyone knows anyone at the Daily Cal, forward them links to this blog and cut-and-paste some relevant background.
Armen- I think you misunderstood me. I totally agree with you, but I think that many Boalt students are not able to get the services that Berkeley IT provides because of our school. That is, I am aware that Bearfacts and all of those Bears do a LOT more and work VERY efficiently, and we're not seeing it. It's just Boalt that doesn't work well with them, and I feel that it's a very *friendly* office on campus that uses Bearfacts as a scapegoat to all their problems (I'm not talking just about grades, either).
I get what you're saying. It's just even in an optimal sense, anything that is IT at Berkeley sucks by any objective standard. To grossly mischaracterize your point and overly generalize in a mysoginistic way, what you're saying is "Berkeley women in general look better than Boalt women specifically." But again, that's not saying much.
I'm completely kidding with this last one, but I just couldn't resist. I do love the smart, stunning women here. Moving on.
We both agree that Boalt and IT don't get along. What I'm adding to that is even if they worked flawlessly together, it would be depressing at best. That's why I want the school to dump the central campus's IT for its own thing. Maybe we can call it BoaltBears.
We still have no word from the Registrar on the reason for the grade delay and when Boalt/UC is planning to fix it. We're her customers, but she doesn't communicate with us.
Armen, sorry, I guess all the pictures I was taking this past weekend must have distracted me from going over the backlog of comments.
I am truly humbled.
Re: Tom Fletcher's study, it looks like other bloggers don't think too much of it. They either think he has too much time on his hands or his study was a nice try but should be done better next time by someone who actually knows something about legal academia.
Doesn't it seem like grades could have been entered manually by now? If a computerized system is going to be both more expensive and slower than a paper based alternative, then why even have it?
I agree with 11:34. I was also an undergraduate here. It never took more than 3 weeks for me to get all my grades. The IT issue wouldn't even be a problem if law professors were held to the same standards as every other professor at this university.
Honestly, I suspect that this "delay" is once again just a cover for Boalt's own incompetence.
I agree with 11:34. I was also an undergraduate here. It never took more than 3 weeks for me to get all my grades. The IT issue wouldn't even be a problem if law professors were held to the same standards as every other professor at this university.
Honestly, I suspect that this "delay" is once again just a cover for Boalt's own incompetence.
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