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On a related note, I've seen multiple posts online about technical difficulties with online AP tests like videos from students trying to press the submit button
by goda90 6y ago
On a related note, I've seen multiple posts online about technical difficulties with online AP tests like videos from students trying to press the submit button as the countdown timer is almost to zero and nothing happening. Some claimed they contacted College Board and were told they'd have to troubleshoot their computers during the makeup exam. That seems unreasonable for such an expensive test.
- MattGaiser 6y agoThey should have Amazon run the exams. They are the one tech company committed to their services actually working when needed.
- schoolornot 6y agoThey outsource their certification exams to Pearson and PSI. Both platforms are riddled with bugs.
- MattGaiser 6y agoOh, the education giants are horrible.
- applecrazy 6y agoAs a college student, don’t even get me started on Pearson/Cengage. Terrible UX, horrible glitches, and the “access codes” which only exist to shake down students for money and undermine the used textbook market.
- MattGaiser 6y agoWas you just a couple of years ago...
- HarryHirsch 6y agoComplain to your university. We outsource grading the weekly portion of homework to Pearson because there is no money for TA's. The alternative would be a fulltime position to administer a LONCAPA instance for the institution, but in the current financial climate that's an impossibility.
- DangitBobby 6y agoAccess codes that cannot be purchased independent of a textbook. The fact that these companies structure their "products" that way bothers me less than the fact that universities allow their students to be exploited by it. Learning that they don't actually care about my personal or financial wellbeing really disillusioned me to the whole college education system.
- lonelappde 6y agoUsing a Pearson-controlled compu-text is a very simple sign that the professor or administration (whoever has decision making power) is terrible and not worth attending.
- saagarjha 6y agoThat’s all well and good until you realize that the class is a graduation requirement and it’s not going to improve anytime soon.
- bransonf 6y agoNearly every single one. In college, I probably used close to a dozen different web applications for assignments. Math, chemistry, engineering, biology, Spanish. I can't remember the name of the web app for my calculus homework, but this was the only one I kind of liked, and ironically it was free. I think it might have been webwork. And in a CS class we used Perusal, which I liked as well, but the grading was an awful black box. The others cost several hundred dollars, sometimes per semester. I remember the immense frustration of my Spanish professor, who sent an email to their support at least once a week. Their answer was always "We only support Firefox" That did not stop dozens of students from using Chrome and Safari, myself included. I remember once getting frustrated with the homework, so I wrote a little JavaScript to brute force a question. The security was generally awful. My fondest memory was using Github to submit assignments, and later as a TA to grade these assignments. Much less friction. Obviously, I think college professors are looking for a way to reduce their burden of creating assignments and grading, but these education giants put out poor quality apps, knowing they'll generate revenue regardless. Frankly, I think there needs to be a widespread effort to open source education. Both content and assignments. There is no justification to charge tens of thousands in tuition and top this off with a few more thousand in jank software.
- MattGaiser 6y agoOpen source is never going to be good enough for non-technicals in institutions. They want the support contracts, nice installers, and good UIs. They want an answered RFP which proves that it meets some 200 requirements. They want someone they can just pass a support issue off to.
- dylz 6y agomymathlab is the antithesis of good UI
- MattGaiser 6y agoYou have to compare it to GIMP.
- 6y ago
- vulcan01 6y agoFunnily enough, I think that they are running on AWS Lambda.
- zackbloom 6y agoThey actually did, many of the errors students have been experienced are with Amazon’s Lambda product.
- joncrane 6y agoThey mean "Amazon should run" the exams, not "they should have built their exam submission infrastructure using AWS." Lambda is part of Amazon's Cloud Computing subsidiary Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is a utility like DigitalOcean or any hosting provider. It's not some kind of guaranteed success strategy.
- artificial 6y agoThis made me smile. AWS is now the new Microsoft in the sense that "nobody got fired for picking AWS" or like the gold plated cables at Big Box Store to the less informed. MoAr BeTtAR.
- MattGaiser 6y agoAmazon Lambda is basically like a part though. I mean contracting Amazon to build the system and operate it. Wasn't the Lambda error a resource limit one?