What is Formerly Irony?
I can speak for most 3Ls when I say that we read the Registrar's e-mail this morning as comic relief. Here's the e-mail in full:
I collected some previous comments about the grades at Boalt here. I should add the BBB slip up to that list. Feel free to vent if you're an ambitious 2L or a panic stricken 1L.
There is a programming glitch with e-Grades which is preventing law grades from appearing in BearFacts. The problem occurred when the campus posted campus course grades to transcripts yesterday. Programmers are working on a solution, and we will keep you posted.How can this be anything other than hilarious? Three years now, count 'em...three, that something with the system has gone wrong to prevent the posting of grades in a timely manner. For f*ck's sake, we're having better luck building democracies in the Middle East than maintaining a decent IT. But now, instead of just getting the usual delay, we had to endure 4 weeks of suspensful grade checking on BEARFACTS...which is as easy to use as a Russian Fighter Jet with cyrillic instructions. Although this is a marked improvement from the days when grades came out on InfoBears about 9 years before they were posted on BEARFACTS.
I collected some previous comments about the grades at Boalt here. I should add the BBB slip up to that list. Feel free to vent if you're an ambitious 2L or a panic stricken 1L.
Labels: Grades And Other Neurotic Bullshit, Technology Rants
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 9:09 AM
25 Comments:
Personally, 3 of my grades were already posted when the system crashed. If grades are submitted and you just can't view them, you could always email the professor. If she/he has posted them, she/he should have no problem telling you your grade. And if not, the grade wouldn't be posted anyway, so you're not missing anything.
But yeah, pretty pathetic.
I'd say a professor would think you're pretty pathetic if you were sooo eager to get your grade that you couldn't wait a few hours (or a few days) for a glitch to get fixed. If you bothered me for a grade under these circumstances, I would conclude you are a tool and even if you did very well I would not be inclined to help you in the future.
Berkeley needs to outsource its IT. A constrant stream of incomptent graduates filling in their IT department is not the way to do it.
10:46, you forget that most law professors were grade-grubbing tools themselves in law school.
Um, there's a difference between getting good grades and being a grade-grubbing tool. In fact, hard as it may be to believe, it is entirely possible to calmly and non-neurotically do well in every class w/o pestering professors, raising your hand every day, hoarding outlines, obsessingly checking Bearfacts, and generally being someone in need of therapy and/or a sex life.
Let me announce in advance that I'm still finishing up the grades for Law 210. There were a number of causes, including some that are strictly my own (I had to have the MC results re-run due to an error I made that doesn't affect anyone's grades). The exam itself wasn't held until just before Christmas. I apologize in advance and am working away on them.
Now John Steele is definitely not someone who is in need of a sex life but I'll give him a "maybe" on therapy.
I heart John Steele ...
Armen, I find the Russian fighter jet comment offensive to my culture. Now you owe me dinner. Thanks! Love, Ksusha.
Does anyone else find it strange that *Berkeley* doesn't have a good IT department?
12:21,
Not so strange given that it is *UC* Berkeley.
College IT departments are typically filled with graduates from the school who couldn't get a real job.
Think of this whole grade-delay as great practice for waiting FOUR MONTHS for bar results.
mary kelleher-jones blows.
I disagree with 12:35. I applaud her for what I assume is the initiative she took in starting a new policy to at least attempt to get our grades to us before February. I don't think she controls the programming of the central campus system, which is where it seems to me that the problem lies. That said, did anyone really think technology from the school would work perfectly? 2Ls, just wait until you request your class rank and see how long that takes.
We got grades two years ago in January through INFO-BEARS. My recollection is that it was the first or second weekend after we returned to school. So much for the "initiative" of Kelleher-Jones.
I don't blame Kelleher-Jones. She had a vision to improve the speed and efficiency of Boalt's grade reporting. She acted on it.
She nearly succeeded.
UC Berkeley's decrepit, disorganized IT system is to blame. Armen had a brilliant post about the Berkeley (as well as Boalt) online interfaces (BearFacts, InfoBears, TeleBears, Boalt's Online Course Guide) a few years ago.
3:53--in 2005, we received our grades on January 24. How do I know so exactly? I looked the date up in my planner. I had a summer job interview that day, and I remember my grades finally became available that morning. So much for memories of the good old days that never really existed.
Actually grades came out Saturday, January 22, 2005, which was the second weekend of the second semester. You must not have taken the initiative to look on INFO-BEARS. I remember vividly because I was away and a friend logged in for me.
How about an update on the grade situation, Ms. Kelleher-Jones, that goes beyond the opaque pronouncement of trouble that you emailed last week?
I disagree with 12:35. I applaud her for what I assume is the initiative she took in starting a new policy to at least attempt to get our grades to us before February.
you're very generous. i'd argue that there's quite a bit of evidence that kelleher-jones is an incompetent (three straight years of fuckups?). what evidence do you have that she's not?
also, promising "updates" and not a peep a hundred hours later doesn't strike me as even professional, let alone competent.
I got an update from a lady in the registrar's office today. She claimed that the deadline for professors to submit final grades to the Registrar's Office is January 25. I was previously told by someone in the Registrar's Office that the deadline was last Friday, but today the woman said that Friday was the deadline for profs to submit raw scores, and that they then have until January 25 to submit FINAL grades (after re-adjusting for participation, curve, etc).
I've got to give kudos to Prof. Rakowski. The guy had to grade about 90 Tax exams (which included pages and pages of short-answer questions, as well as a long essay). He reported raw grades, set the curve, and submitted final grades by January 5. Not only did he post grades online, he also permitted students to email his assistant for raw scores and grades. I understand he's done it this way for several years.
Rakowski probably realizes that UC Berkeley/Boalt grade-reporting IT is an inefficient, unreliable way of relaying grades to students. He and his assistant, then, actively welcome students to email them for their grades. Sure, you could just email your professor out of the blue for your grade in any class, but you risk something reputationally for your singular impatience (potentially). Rakowski, in contrast, gave students the email grade-reporting option from the get-go.
"Grading tax exams is at best depressing." -- The Big Rakowski
Yes. Kudos to Prof. Rakowski. He's held himself to the same standard that EVERY OTHER professor at UC Berkeley (outside of Boalt). Why do Boalt professors/administrators think it's completely okay to take 9 weeks to release grades. We really aren't any more special. We just keep telling ourselves that we are.
What's so hard about having grades done before the new semester starts?
Post a Comment
<< Home