Advising Daughter about Professor Issue - Page 11

younghoss · 11-11-2012, 07:28 PM

from 148: "Going forward, if the professor is going to live and die by an exam being taken at a particular time, he can tell the class that the exam is going to be on-line and have them take it during his/her class time. This way everyone is taking the exam at the same time, if there are any programming glitches, s/he knows about them right then and there. "

the trouble with this is the lesson it teaches. Yes it is one way to see how well the student knows the mat'l. But there is SO much more to learning than what's on this quiz while in college. This way would teach nothing about independence, self-reliance, time management, prioritizing, responsibility, and more. Holding a student's hand(figuratively) to see they complete a quiz would be too limiting for college learning. This wasn't a gotcha moment; the student had a full week to do the quiz.

EPTR · 11-11-2012, 07:41 PM

I would almost agree with that, Younghoss, if the technology aspect of schooling wasn't so darn new. What did professors do to teach responsibility, independence, planning, etc, before online testing became available? I'm sure there are lots of ways to teach it even when you are using the antiquated method of testing students in class.

ETA: If you really think about it, a deadline is truly meaningless if you are using technology and disclaiming all technical glitches. What's the point of saying that something needs to be in at a certain time if the unknown has to be factored in? Better to say that the server must show activity or log in by a certain time.

younghoss · 11-11-2012, 08:44 PM

to answer the question posed to ETA in post 152, I suggest you re-read the second paragraph of post 151. It addresses what "the point" is of something having to be in by a certain time. It tests and teaches more than just the mat'l on the quiz.

Longsx3 · 11-11-2012, 09:06 PM

I think if the IT dept. can verify the site was down then the professor should extend the date. If it was the OP's daughter's computer died then no.

As far as not waiting until the last minute, depending on the nature of the quiz I think starting at 6pm is reasonable for a 7pm deadline. I don't see it as "waiting until the last minute" There was no way to plan of a technical issue, she could have started the quiz at 4pm and ran into the same issue.

lookingforward · 11-11-2012, 09:14 PM

Online tests of this sort (log in and take it, then submit) have been around for a long time. DH used it for a distance program he was affiliated with, ages ago- a state school, not a for-profit. I used it in work-related training, oh, more than a decade ago. My kids used it for alcohol.edu before freshman year. They also have requirements to register for classes, online, by a deadline. Housing registration/room choice also is the same. When the clock hits a certain hour, the coach turns back into a pumpkin.

I personally don't think it's a prof's responsibility to teach kids organization or time mgt- we're talking college. I also think we all should be reasonably aware of traffc jams, breakdowns, weather problems and computer glitches. And, plan accordingly.

And,the fact that a tech said it was a known problem does not tell us enough-

oldfort · 11-11-2012, 09:31 PM

lookingforward - do you have deadline for those training you do at work? What if there is a glitch with the software you are using or if the server should go down? Would you tell the employees that they should have planned better or would you extend the deadline?

lookingforward · 11-11-2012, 10:15 PM

OF- a lot of these situations have "it depends" attached. My experence is only mine. Yes, we had deadlines- the system could auto-close at the witching hour. Yes, sometimes, there could be a fudge factor- ie, program it to close 30 minutes later, unannounced, knowing some would wait til last minute. No user can count on this. Same for thinking you can pay a bill within minutes of the deadline, online or by phone. You may get through, you may not.

This year, D1's school made it perfectly clear that, if she did not fill out her family health ins coverage info by midnight on date x, she would be billed for the school ins plan, with no recourse.

Ime, when there was an acces glitch, the deadline came and went. The programming that recognized the deadline did not recognize that some users had been shut out by an access issue. (I was making the point that the technology has been around a long time.) Whether there was some extension allowed depended on the situation.

This is where the computer world and human world butt right up against each other. In your case, someone allowed the wire transfer a few minutes later. In my experience, depending on the situation, a human might find a workaround. Or might not (in the case of the missed proposal deadline, we were shut out.)

We don't know how small or large OP's D's class is, what that teachers history with students missing targets is, how much she needs to cling to the deadline, for what may be solid reasons. We don't know if the acces issue was a LONG known problem or new, whether they thought it was fixed, etc, or if the tech was accurate in what he said.

I think the prof should be willing to offer something. I just don't think she is obliged.

younghoss · 11-11-2012, 11:49 PM

longsx3- re post 154. Not the last minute? seriously? The student had a week to submit the quiz. Approaching the last hour on the last day, the student started the quiz at 6, and was still working on it at 6:45!
I think that counts as what most people call the last minute.

Would have had the same problem at 4 pm? Maybe so, depending on what time she loaned out her computer. But many here feel that if that had happened, the student would have had time to rectify problem and still get the quiz submitted on time. Or, that given an earlier start time, the prof might have been more tolerant. That is what many have been discussing here for pages.

As I understand it, the trouble was only on the student's computer in that a previous borrower of the computer had not logged off, and when the student in question logged on, it lasted only a while then shut down. I do not think it was a system-wide crash.

oldfort · 11-12-2012, 07:33 AM

It was a system-wide malfunction (bug). It allowed OP's D to log in and let her stay on for good 45 min before kicking her off, that to me is a software glitch. It had nothing to do with OP D's computer. Her personal computer was wokring perfectly fine. Again, OP's D did it within the time fram it was given to her. How early is early enough. As pointed out by others, if D had started at 1pm, found this bug, and IT still couldn't unlock her account so she could complete her quiz, would she have been more credible? Where do you draw the line?

In real life, we are all busy. A lot of us do not have the luxury of getting things done days before. The example I gave aboout the fed wire going down, yes, I should have started the transmission few hours earlier, but our internal process didn't allow me to. We worked backward and felt very certain 1 hour was enough, especially since the fed wire didn't normally go down.

D1 was always busy in college, between problem sets, tests, papers, meetings for her ECs and work, she often planned her schedule down to minutes. I don't think she ever turned in her papers days before they were due. In my opinion, it was not usual for OP's D to start her quiz at 6pm.

I hope this will work out in D's favor. As it has been pointed out by many posters here that this should be a lesson learned - don't wait until last minute, always have plan B.

EPTR · 11-12-2012, 08:58 AM

I don't think that its the "job" of a college professor to teach anything but the content of the class. Now if lessons are learned through the use of reasonable expectations, restrictions, etc., then wonderful. That's part of life. But as far as it being the job of the professor, no. Professors need to set up expectations that are reasonable for the student and reasonable for themselves so that everyone gets what they need and can manage the job that they need to do. I have never suggested that having a deadline is unreasonable. It certainly is. My comment about having a deadline when using technology and disclaiming any IT error, to me, is the same as not having a deadline at all. Who's to say that a student who has an IT problem on Tuesday will get it resolved by the Friday deadline? If the professor makes an exception for that student is she breaking her own rule? Part of the issue here is that computers are computers and humans are humans and there should always be some kind of reasoning going on when the two meet.

younghoss · 11-12-2012, 09:42 AM

to post 159-
Not according to the OP! EPtr tells us this, in post 27:
"The glitch has been that the program hasn't been recognizing immediately that two accts are open on the same computer and allows the second acct to open."

So it wasn't system-wide. It had everything to do with students's computer. Had the borrower of the computer been late, for example, the student might have gone to the library to use a school computer. In that example, her quiz would not have been interrupted. I don't give that example to indicate the student should have gone to the library; but to demonstrate according to the Op the problem only occurred on the student's computer.The student could have successfully logged in from any other computer. Op tells us the problem was 2 logged in on the same computer.

Yes, it is true the student was working on it during the time frame. Remember, the quiz had not been completed by 6:45.

glido · 11-12-2012, 09:52 AM

I agree witht he student. If the school can't provide an adequate platform, the professors should be required to provide a paper quiz option. A deadline is a deadline and the professor should not be permitted to shorten it by 15 minutes because of IT issues.

oldfort · 11-12-2012, 09:55 AM

Quote:

So it wasn't system-wide. It had everything to do with students's computer. Had the borrower of the computer been late, for example, the student might have gone to the library to use a school computer

It really depends on how IT implemented their security system. One way to do it is by locking the account, so even if the student had gone to the library to use another computer it would still not worked. Most bugs are not system-wide, it only happens under very specific circumstance, that's why it is hard to catch. I don't think the intend was ever to allow someone to log on for 45 minutes then arbitrary kick the user off. The system should never have allowed D to log on and a proper error message should have appeared.

6:45 is still before 7:00.

younghoss · 11-12-2012, 10:02 AM

The Op has told us 2 accounts cannot log onto the same computer(for long). That is their security system. I agree it could be improved upon.
But, as it is now, had the borrower been logged off, or had the student used a different computer, the quiz would have been uninterrupted.

We do not know if there was an error, or other message. A pop-up might have come up that said: Do you want to log off user? But we can't assume it did, or it didn't based on what Op has told us.

oldfort · 11-12-2012, 10:06 AM

OP is the mother, there is no way she could know how the security system is implemented. All she knows is what her D told her, and all her D knows is what the IT person told her. Sometimes IT doesn't even know for sure until they start to do some investigation themselves. But none of that matters, all it matters is that the system failed.

Someone said that maybe there would be some record of what D has done up to when she was logged off. That also depends on how the system was designed. If it doesn't save every key stroke and only takes the data when someone hits submit then there wouldn't be any history.