Skip to My Lunch
So tomorrow I have a lunch date with the person hired by Boalt to revamp the school's website. He's the latest admin to read the blog (always a delight, although nothing can top DE quoting a comment during one of his townhalls). I'm going to make a couple of assumptions: 1) he's powerless to do anything that is remotely connected to the main campus, e.g., telebears, bearfacts, calmail, and all the other horror stories that collectively comprise Berkeley IT; 2) Boalt isn't willing to go on a shopping spree to say for example buy a couple of servers to provide all students with permanent at berkeley.edu e-mail addresses (it would basically work as a permanent e-mail forwarding system, not an actual e-mail system. UCLA students know what I'm talking about).
With that in mind, feel free to offer SF any pearls of wisdom using the comments.
With that in mind, feel free to offer SF any pearls of wisdom using the comments.
Labels: Classes/Professors, DE, Technology Rants
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 11:31 PM
41 Comments:
I have a few:
1. the harvard student portal looks pretty darn cool: http://myhls.law.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do
maybe we could emulate that?
2. also, why is the course schedule and lots of other registrar docs in PDF? can it just be in html?
3. would there be a way to display evaluation numbers not per course on each individual course's page, but in a list - so you can shop for courses like you do books on amazon?
4. can we at least get a logo or something snazzier looking on the mail boalt page? it's so plain as it is.
oh, i a totally support the email forwarding thing - forwarding servers are cheap. ..
i actually don't think the website is too bad, as these things go. two comments, though:
the career/CDO pages are not very intuitively organized. why, for instance, are public interest resources listed individually on the first page, while "law teaching" and "judicial clerkship" resources are organized as links along the bottom of that section? this haphazardness may characterize other parts of the website--this is just the part i've used the most.
also, the seachability of the whole site stinks. sometimes you can find stuff on the site faster by googling the whole internet than by trying various search terms in the seach box on the website.
7:12 is right. boalt's "students" page is just a directory listing. it should be full of active tools, like administrative announcements, lunch programs, student group announcements, weather, and so on. that harvard site is set up that way.
I second the comments about the lack of organization of career services.
Also, and this may be beyond his power, but could he change the course evaluation pages so we can see what people typed in the comments sections? That's usually the most meaningful part of the eval.
I agree with 8:54. Numbers don't say everything. Those comments are much more helpful. I would advocate not having to log in every time I need to go to a separate section of the site that is secure. Perhaps the student portal could help with that.
Make the courses search better--for example, can we search by time, in case we want to see all classes that meet at 11:15, or something like that?
The news highlight and upcoming event feeds are a joke, despite the fact that they eat up almost all of the front page.
What we really need is a student-focused upcoming events feed to take the place of the BBB. This would advertise events more than a week in advance and allow clubs to coordinate by giving advanced notice of other future activities.
Seriously, I'm sick of two clubs having kegs in the courtyard at the same time. We have to spread those over the whole semester, people!
omg, totally, totally agree that the BBB is unreadable and annoying, especially given that it's not emailed out anymore. plain text RSS would be best.
1) Is there any way that the "send" button in calmail could be more intuitively placed on the far left either at the top or the bottom of the email window rather than being hidden among "save draft," "addresses" and other such less frequently used functions?
2) Organization is something that needs to be addressed on just about every page. For example in the "Students" link, why can't all those headings be made into side panel link buttons -- one for Registrar, one for CDO, one for Campus Resources and so forth? The bulleted lists look tacky and aren't in any sort of meaningful order - alphabetic or otherwise.
3) In fact, all the stupid bullets should be removed from the rest of the site too.
4)I f-ing hate bullets. See e.g., Admissions link.
5)Admissions page is a mess. Don't really know where to start, but virtually everything needs to go.
Two pet peeves.
(1) On the course webpage when you want to search for a course taught by a certain professor it's organized by the Professor's FIRST name. That, to quote Johnny Cochran, does not make sense. Why not go professor's last name first, then their first. Really easy to fix and makes the whole search more manageable.
(2) A universal log in. Supppose you're using a computer in the computer lab. You log in. Then you want to check your course web page to see what the reading assignment for the night. You log in. Then suppose you want to go to Bear Facts to check your schedule, or pay a bill, or check grades. You log in. Each is a separate page, with a seperate area where you have to log in, but the information you're entering is the exact same. This one drives me nuts. And, to top it off, your log in to any one, expires after an hour. So you have to do it all over again.
(3) Maybe this one only applies to me, but when using a campus computer, and logging in to calmail, I have to append "@boalthall.berkeley.edu" (as opposed to "@berkeley.edu") which, at least for a bad typist as myself, makes the process of checking my email, how should I say it, more dicey.
Maybe these are small and annoying, but a fix on this couldn't be that bad couldn't.
As long as we're talking about Web-sites and internet matters, it's come to my attention that Boalt professors can choose to veto disclosure of their online evaluations (not individual student evaluations, but aggregate scores for a course). Department heads still get to see all scores and comments but we, the students, do not. I feel cheated by this omission, especially considering no one in the administration has ever advertised it (Hasn't anyone ever wondered why they never see a tanked score on the eval Web site?). Zeb, in addition to calling all professors who hide their evaluations "lame," suggested we begin a student-run evaluation site. Of course, the Boalt computer czar won't touch this topic, but are there any tech-saavy Boaltie individuals or groups willing to tackle this monster?
(I hate throwing up a problem and not offering a solution, but my tech skills barely cover Microsoft Word).
Which professors, in particular, censor posting of student evaluations?
11:43: EXACTLY. The administration is never going to move in this direction. And, anyway, numerical reports are worthless.
Boalt.org or some other enterprising coder could probably put up a website with about six hours of work. You can start of easy -- just list the 10 big courses or so (IP, Civ Pro II, Con Law(s), etc.), allow students to post qualitative comments and evaluations, request a minimum amount of info for context (year, semester, maybe even grade?), and have a few fields to solicit specific comments ("What's the exam like?" "How much reading?" "Cold call or lecture style or hybrid?" etc.)
At my undergrad, student government ran the site, which makes obvious if not blinding sense. But that never works at Boalt -- such a project seems way, way beyond anything BHSA is capable of, seeing as how they're too busy firing people from building committees and enforcing acceptable doctrine. But maybe the Boalt student body (not BHSA) could scrounge up $300 or $400 for an enterprising coder to launch the site? People could set up a table first week next Fall to solicit interest and cash. We could flyer and email to let people know about the site and encourage participation. This blog alone could probably direct 300-400 people to a genuine workable beta site. Let's get it done people!
(After finals.)
As to a permanent Berkeley.edu email address...
There's an easy, and FREE, solution. Google is offering to host any school's email - on their servers, at their expense. We would get a Gmail like interface - but with the University's branding. We would have permanent email addresses at that domain (presumably berkeley.edu, unless boalt wanted to split off and do its own thing). The entire school would be able to Instant Message from the email interface. And Google would also host a calendar system that's actually integrated. All this at a cost SAVINGS to the school.
Here's the link for more info.
To 12:30: You never know for sure if a professor chooses not to disclose scores. But if you search a professor's name and you notice big gaps in his/her record (e.g., you know a professor taught a course, yet there's no evals online), it may be time to get suspicious. Of course, a "missing" course could mean a technical glitch, or that no one filled out any evals for that class, and such possibilities may explain away those cases where a prof is just missing a single evaluation or two, but there's certain people who've taught at Boalt for years and have big-toothed gaps in their eval history, or have none at all.
To 12:56: Right on.
I recall being nonplussed with the website as an admit. At least for me, the Student page was where I went for info. The design is dry and doesn't invoke a sense of the student body. The first link in the upper left corner is "policies." Yuck. In general, the headings under student services (academic support program?) don't seem to merit a top position on the page.
I would like to see more about student clubs--at least a listing. I don't see any promotion of living in Berkeley/Bay Area, which to me is a highlight of the school. Nothing about moot court and all of our clinics. Externships, travel opportunities. These are all hidden (ie: the Harvard exchange is way down under the "registrar" heading). In short, the page appears to do nothing to promote Boalt.
Also, the "curriculum program" makes no effort to distinguish certificate programs from other areas of interest. And what about all of our fabulous research centers? Those seem to be folded into curricular programs even though they are functionally very different things. I happened to notice that the environmental link under the curricular program emphasizes links to the center which is confusing to someone who clicks on it to learn more about the curricular program.
I know some of that information is on the admissions page, but that page lacks promotional qualities as well. Think images. Think maybe even video. Not that hard to do these days. The whole site needs a marketing revamp.
And I second the peeve about multiple sign-ons. Universal log-in, baby. Say it with me. Yeah.
Love the weather suggestion. Also the active calendar/scheduling function. Would be so nice...
At a minimum, BBB should be available in HTML, which could probably be said for many things.
Also would be great to have more of a link to campus-wide activities calendar, something a little more integrated than the current option.
Oy. I could go on. But really, I should be studying...
Interesting about the profs censoring poor student evals. I had a sneaking suspicion about this and hence always assume that a prof without evals (see e.g. Art Law, Denise Alter) is crappy.
Who else are they meeting with besides Armen?
Student orgs should have IT support and their websites should be integrated to look like they are all from the same school.
there needs to be a handbook created so that students can quickly learn how to quickly update webpages.
in addition to alumni forwarding addresses, there needs to be other IT options to build alumni community and connection to campus.
I guess I need a blog.
How come the library's exam webpage doesn't have any recent exams? I can't speak for every professor or course, but all the ones I've seen are from 2003 or earlier. Also, with the course evaluations, I think there's a glitch there because I know some profs haven't censored them and they still don't show anything post-2004.
The past exams section of the website should not only be updated, but also have model answers and/or professor memos. This is common practice at other schools. Now that we have unmitigated access to our answers on our computers (we save them on Word), students can easily share old answers. Those who are lucky enough to know top students who performed well in those classes get access to great sample exam answers. Those who don't know top students don't have such access. Doesn't seem fair. Just put it all online and equalize the competition.
The arguments against posting model answers are silly. Most of those arguments are a variant of the merits of "hiding the ball."
The last poster raised an interesting point that speaks to what appears to be a pretty uncontrolled exam procedure. I was wondering a bit how secure the exam procedure was now that we're not using cruddy exam software. Don't get me wrong--I like the freedom and convenience of the current system. But can people actually go on the web during exams or access other documents with no control other than the honor code? I never used to worry about the potential of honor code violators before, but after the whole Hastings blog fiasco I've begn to wonder if I overestimate my peers. Anyway...I'm sure the web czar isn't all over exam policy, but felt the point needed to be raised.
All that 2:48 PM suggested was that the school post model answers in the Exams database. The fact that students can now share exam answers (legitimately, not violating the Honor Code) AFTER exam period is over was used as a reason to post the best answers online, so as not to disadvantage students who don't know students who HH'd the class they're now taking and would be willing to share their exam answer as a model.
2:48 PM made no comment about Honor Code-violating computer access during an exam.
maybe i'm just lazy, but calmail should have the capability to sort our deleted and sent files BY SIZE, so i can easily erase all the huge files that are clogging up my account without having to erase everything (since I often have to go back and root around in my electronic wastebasket for old emails or lost addresses).
and if there's already a way to do this, please enlighten me.
Understood. The reference to Word was what led to the thoughts on exam procedure.
As for exam answer sharing after the fact, it just strikes me as weird, and I imagine some profs would not be too thrilled with it. Afterall, word might get out (pardon the pun) that exam grading is often arbitrary. Still, sharing answers seems in keeping with Boalt's libertarian tendencies. I guess 1Ls could benefit from it as they learn how to write exams and others might benefit from seeing what kind of styles specific professors prefer. Nonetheless, it strikes me as mostly a tool for masochism. I don't want to be reading your answers any more than I want to watch you floss your teeth. It's just not pretty.
5:25 - I don't know how to do it with CalMail... but if we jettisoned Calmail completely, and ported all our accounts to a Google-hosted berkeley.edu system, they'd give us all 2GB+ of storage free (so you wouldn't need to delete them in the first place), and you could search and sort your emails however you wanted to.
ASUC maybe should take this up, if Boalt can't do anything about it. It's a guaranteed cost savings, for an obvious improvement in interface. What are the objections? Probably an over-protective IT department reluctant to give up ownership of its servers. I agree that there are issues there, but they could be worked out. Other major universities are taking this route - we wouldn't be the first - but sometimes, only after their Student Assembly mandates the move...
As far as Boalt's website goes... I know Boalt IT is woefully understaffed; I can count the tech guys on one hand, and they get requests from conference organizers, profs, centers, and clinics on a daily basis to put together custom pages, often with ridiculously short turnaround time. It may just be a situation where Boalt, being a public school, doesn't have the money to spend on a website (or marketing in general) - and it's probably hard to get donors to contribute to upgrade the site. That's why I'm intrigued that they're bringing in someone to "redo" the site. I hadn't heard that. I'm glad, though!
Stanford's isn't bad looking - but probably because it's almost all straight out of a Dreamweaver template...
The reason some professors don't post their evaluations is that under California employment privacy law, they aren't obliged to do so. Each professor who does post evaluations has chosen to waive that non disclosure right. That said, for full time faculty it is probably safe to infer that non posting means poor evaluations.
I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of students taking over the course evaluations function. It's frustrating that only the raves make it up, and profs beg us to fill them out, but we never get to see it. The website says that state employment law requires the administration to get consent before posting it. If we just refused to fill out the administration's survey, and do ours instead, the problem's solved. As it is, we rely on word of mouth and comments on N&B, pretty unscientific. BHSA is the obvious group to take the lead on this!
Unless the Gmail option will allow POP connections, I'm very much against it.
Considering the level of student-authored nastiness demonstrated on this blog, is it a good idea to create a free-for-all professor evaluation without some sort of accountability? Professors do have feelings, you know (which is why some of them don't post their evaluations!!).
Oh, cry me a river, 7:26. Professors have had ample positive feedback their entire lives. It's outrageous that they can selectively post their evuluations.
Says the anonymous poster...
A non-anonymous poster concurs. Yes, a bad eval or two might scare people away, but we're trained not to take everything we see at face value--especially if we don't know who wrote it. In an analogous context, there's no screening (to my knowledge) of employer evaluations. When trying to figure out what to do during OCIP, I read a non-anonymous, negative review of an employer, spoke to the person who wrote it, and decided not to pursue that route.
Also, I like the idea of students helping to write the questions. E.g., I've never really seen how I'm in a position to judge the professor's knowledge about something I've only just learned about for a few months.
Sharing of past exam answer should, at least until they're made available to all students, be forbidden. Here's why: people who can get these past exams have not just a small advantage, but potentially have the answers to the exam itself. Some professors repeat questions from year to year, or modify them only slightly.
Also, a student could practically copy verbatim an old exam and the professor -- unless she or he has a remarkable memory and could remember past exam answers -- would be none the wiser.
I wish the administration would make a statement about this ASAP.
The professors idea is at least 8 or 9 years old. UCLA's is here. The page I link to shows the top 10 ucla profs by ranking, worst, best, etc. It's REALLY not that hard to do. I had a psych prof who was complaining to the administration that students who didn't get the grade that they wanted wrote nasty things about him, and it affected his relations outside campus (with colleagues at other schools, etc.). But UCLA's counsel felt it was protected. So anyway, there you have, a potential model. I've actually argued for this before on this blog. I'm just too lazy to find it.
Dear Anon 8:26 PM,
If a prof reuses exam questions from the previous years, this is actually a violation of the honor code. Of course this doesn't apply to the true/false questions that say Bundy asks for Civ Pro II, but who remembers those anyway? Besides, he made it very clear that remembering those questions and passing them on was a violation of the honor code. So basically, everything you are worried about already has a policy in place to make sure it doesn't happen. Just read your handy yellow planner.
6:58 -
The Google berkeley.edu Gmail option definitely allows POP access. And mobile access, to boot.
More details are here.
Can anyone see a downside to this?
That explains why there are no reviews for Leti Volpp.
I would support starting a student-run evaluation site just to save future students the misery of ever taking a class with this woman.
Apparently teaching evals are already closed for the semester?? wtf?
I e-mailed the BHSA about the prospect of a student-led eval site. We'll see what it says . . .
Armen, when you get a chance, can you post an update? What are they planning? What might happen, and what won't?
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