Pros:
-The main tabs are easily accessible and lead you to a page encompassing everything under that heading.
-Course Pages are a great addition to create an online class community. Message boards, files, and links allow teachers and students to compile and put out all class information. Message boards, especially, allow class discussions to continue outside the classroom.
-Tons of resources at your disposal. Jobs, opportunities, library access, and much more.
-Events calendar is easy to find and easy to understand.
-Student artwork!
-Weather!----->Convenient!
Cons:
-It is absolutely ridiculous to have to check off a tiny box, that you usually forget is even there, to have a copy of your email saved to your sent mail folder! Unacceptable in my eyes. An email history should be built into all email systems.
-Overall, I never trust the SAIC email system, I often feel like when I send emails to people, they just float out into cyberspace as if they never were written. I send follow up emails all the time, out of fear that the initial email never reached its destination.
-Too much, too much, too much! The pages are much too cluttered. In each tab, you have to look all over the page to find what you are looking for.
-Personal announcements! Nice concept, but really they should be in tandem with an email that contains the same announcement. Often, I forget to check announcements all together.
-Course Pages, an announcement/email would be nice to let students know when something new is posted on their class pages.
-Course pages vs. Consolidated Course pages----> Confusing!!
-Getting logged out too quickly.
-Ugly design. Bland and too busy with text.
To simply describe what I think of the portal, I use the three C's: Confusing, Convoluted, and Complicated.
Wouldn't it be great if a web resource at an art school was helpful, clear, innovative, and exciting to look at? alas, we have to settle for one that does have a ton of info, but doesn't do a good job of making things easy on us. it often feels like they had several really good ideas, and rather than paring them down or organizing them, they instead just sort of threw it all into the mixer and whatever popped out is what they stuck with. any other specific suggestions you have for the school? if you were to design the site, what would your top three priorities be?
ReplyDeleteIt seems like there is a lot to work out with the portal, and I'm not really sure where to go with it because I greatly value it's wealth of information and tools, but at the same time I am very overwhelmed by the link heavy, text heavy, tab heavy pages. Top three priotities?? 1. Efficient and Usable Email 2. Readily available program, events, and resource information 3. Easily navigated course information and enrollment
ReplyDeleteI guess for me it is really about wanting efficiency and usability. And maybe better navigation and organization.
FYI: A former undergrad professor of mine was shocked that SAIC is not using this software.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.blackboard.com/
Is Blackboard the standard at many universities and colleges? Is there a reason we use 1996-cutting-edge software instead?
I think Blackboard offers the efficiency and usability we all seek.
I have used blackboard at 2 of my previous colleges and I know many others who do too. It seems quite common.
ReplyDelete