5 ms·

Could someone please explain to me -- why do people actually use this software enough to hate it? I am a math professor at a university which uses it, and so I

Could someone please explain to me -- why do people actually use this software enough to hate it? I am a math professor at a university which uses it, and so I use it to mass e-mail my students and to record grades. And for nothing else. I can see it has a billion other features but can't fathom wanting to use them. It looks like it is designed to make simple tasks tedious and clunky, and the article confirms this impression. Is it that professors don't want to learn HTML and maintain simple course webpages? Are faculty trying to do some kind of automatic grading? Do administrations require profs to use the obscure features? Are ... ?

protomyth 13y ago
Often, the people who are required to use this software are not the people who purchase this software for an institution.
- wheaties 13y ago
  This is true in industry as well as education. In fact, it's why the enterprise sales cycle and pitch deck is so much different from what you might think sales is like.
- supercanuck 13y ago
  Agreed. SAP wouldn't be in business if that were the case.
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
My college 'wants' to standardize on BB. Any attempt by faculty to use anything else are met with hostility (when noticed).
- gcb0 13y ago
  because the bean counter making the purchase will get 10% in gifts. and he want those gifts. so you better don't bad mount bb. and now going to be downvoted by the blissful ignorant of how large universities works in the daily grinding of the gears.
  - secabeen 13y ago
    The amount of corruption and back-scratching that goes on in enterprise IT sales always saddens me. One of the appeals of Open Source is that you can more easily avoid the salesguys who want to compromise you morally for the sale.
rimbo789 13y ago
"Is it that professors don't want to learn HTML and maintain simple course webpages?" Here is your answer. In particular in the humanities. I had many professors who while they hated the software, were bad at using it and used it basically as a shared folder for powerpoint presentations, couldn't figure out a better solution. They felt that they were not skilled enough at technology to solve their problem on their own. Unable (and or unwilling) to create their own solution they bashed through with the software.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
cubo 13y ago
It is the official software of many universities. Because of this, there is a large amount of hostility by the administration to use anything else. Schools administrators keep using it because "it is the standard". Blackboard is a well known company so it makes schools feel more at ease. There is a great disconnect between the needs of students and teachers and the sales pitch
freehunter 13y ago
From a student's point of view: I hated professors who made their own webpage just about as much as I hated Blackboard. A big downside to Blackboard was that every professor had their own way of using the tool, but it was worse with professors who made their own sites. At least on Blackboard some things were standard, and everything could be standard if the professor wasn't an ass. On their own websites, nothing was the same across classes. I'd have to learn how to use the site again every time I took a new class. Doubly true on both accounts for online classes. Blackboard sucks, but at least it takes some work out of being a professor. Making your own site takes extra work, and extra work on top of that to make it friendly for students. They both still win out over the atrocity that is the Respondus LockDown browser, which my school required for some tests. Google it. It's bad.
- Smegger 13y ago
  In my college experience it depends on the teacher that wrote the page. I had several professors that had formerly been developers, their course pages were lightyears ahead of the blackboard pages used by the rest of the faculty.
- gedrap 13y ago
  In my school, probably 90% of professors create their own course web sites (I came across only 2 who use blackboard in 2.5 years). We don't have any problems you mentioned, really, most the web sites are very minimal (even without CSS, usually). It does it's job, everyone's happy. Problem solved :) for example: http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/COMP36111/ http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/COMP36111/
  - M2Ys4U 13y ago
    There were a few CS courses at UoM that required Blackboard... and I hated it. It became a running joke between my tutorial group and my tutor (who was, at the time, the director of undergraduate studies in the school) and sometimes they mentioned Blackboard just to make me rant. That said, you're absolutely right. The system works perfectly well, but we are talking about a computer science department here and not a humanities department. PS is Dr Latham still teaching and, more importantly, wearing those hideous shirts?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

protomyth 13y ago

Often, the people who are required to use this software are not the people who purchase this software for an institution.

wheaties 13y ago
This is true in industry as well as education. In fact, it's why the enterprise sales cycle and pitch deck is so much different from what you might think sales is like.
supercanuck 13y ago
Agreed. SAP wouldn't be in business if that were the case.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

My college 'wants' to standardize on BB. Any attempt by faculty to use anything else are met with hostility (when noticed).

gcb0 13y ago
because the bean counter making the purchase will get 10% in gifts. and he want those gifts. so you better don't bad mount bb. and now going to be downvoted by the blissful ignorant of how large universities works in the daily grinding of the gears.
- secabeen 13y ago
  The amount of corruption and back-scratching that goes on in enterprise IT sales always saddens me. One of the appeals of Open Source is that you can more easily avoid the salesguys who want to compromise you morally for the sale.

rimbo789 13y ago

"Is it that professors don't want to learn HTML and maintain simple course webpages?" Here is your answer. In particular in the humanities. I had many professors who while they hated the software, were bad at using it and used it basically as a shared folder for powerpoint presentations, couldn't figure out a better solution. They felt that they were not skilled enough at technology to solve their problem on their own. Unable (and or unwilling) to create their own solution they bashed through with the software.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

cubo 13y ago

It is the official software of many universities. Because of this, there is a large amount of hostility by the administration to use anything else. Schools administrators keep using it because "it is the standard". Blackboard is a well known company so it makes schools feel more at ease. There is a great disconnect between the needs of students and teachers and the sales pitch

freehunter 13y ago

From a student's point of view: I hated professors who made their own webpage just about as much as I hated Blackboard. A big downside to Blackboard was that every professor had their own way of using the tool, but it was worse with professors who made their own sites. At least on Blackboard some things were standard, and everything could be standard if the professor wasn't an ass. On their own websites, nothing was the same across classes. I'd have to learn how to use the site again every time I took a new class. Doubly true on both accounts for online classes. Blackboard sucks, but at least it takes some work out of being a professor. Making your own site takes extra work, and extra work on top of that to make it friendly for students. They both still win out over the atrocity that is the Respondus LockDown browser, which my school required for some tests. Google it. It's bad.

Smegger 13y ago
In my college experience it depends on the teacher that wrote the page. I had several professors that had formerly been developers, their course pages were lightyears ahead of the blackboard pages used by the rest of the faculty.
gedrap 13y ago
In my school, probably 90% of professors create their own course web sites (I came across only 2 who use blackboard in 2.5 years). We don't have any problems you mentioned, really, most the web sites are very minimal (even without CSS, usually). It does it's job, everyone's happy. Problem solved :) for example: http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/COMP36111/ http://studentnet.cs.manchester.ac.uk/ugt/2013/COMP36111/
- M2Ys4U 13y ago
  There were a few CS courses at UoM that required Blackboard... and I hated it. It became a running joke between my tutorial group and my tutor (who was, at the time, the director of undergraduate studies in the school) and sometimes they mentioned Blackboard just to make me rant. That said, you're absolutely right. The system works perfectly well, but we are talking about a computer science department here and not a humanities department. PS is Dr Latham still teaching and, more importantly, wearing those hideous shirts?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]