Comments on: the failure of digital course catalogues

By: Al

Al — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 02:51:44 +0000

The beauty of a physical catalogue is that it forces a nexus, a point in time where the infinite possibilities describing a class collapse into the concreate reality of whatever is printed in the catalogue (albiet representing changing and possibly outdated, untrue or unflattering information).
This is what we don’t get with a fluid, open ended live method of presenting course information linked with book lists, urls or other media.
There’s no reason we can’t “treat” the web catalogue with same respect and urgency that we give to a print deadline 6 months in advance of semester. But we don’t as a rule. Why? Are our IT people too accomodating? Does this reflect the perception of malleability, and immediacy of web resources, perhaps even devaluation?

By: Nancy

Nancy — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 07:54:03 +0000

I used to do the bookstore thing, too, not just for classes to know about but things to read, topics to find out about, faculty to know about. But the university bookstore requires faculty to order books early in the *preceding* semester, and students can get books quickly online — so the university bookstore is rapidly becoming an incomplete and probably biased view of what’s offered.

By: zephoria

zephoria — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 19:17:56 +0000

Rayne – am i supposed to be 100% consistent about my quirks? I sure hope not! ::wink::

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 18:05:57 +0000

As someone who’s partly responsible for managing all that content, I can tell you it’s a dream we all wish for. The catalogue content is in Quark, the registrar info is in PeopleSoft and the web is PHP and MySQL based. Oh, and the bookstore has its own proprietary system. It’s not exactly easy to move data around. Unfortunately 10-15 years ago, no one was thinking about the kinds of interrelation of data that you’re talking about. It makes a lot of sense, though, and we talk about it all the time.

By: Rayne

Rayne — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:29:24 +0000

Oops, sorry, dueling browser burp!

By: Rayne

Rayne — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:28:26 +0000

It always struck me as odd that materials management methodology wasn’t applied to courses, materials and texts. A student browses for a class or materials no differently than a customer browses an on-line store. Or looking for documents related to coursework; why aren’t they managed in the same way that law firms manage document production for cases? Lawyers have to browse for the right document, after all, let alone the right legal text.

There’s plenty of technology already out there to help students and teachers get where they want to be, get what they need, but there’s a big disconnect in seeing the parallel between a campus bookstore and managing inventory or legal casework for some reason…

Of course being efficient wouldn’t be as much fun as the tactile experience of browsing through bookshelves. (This is rather disonant though, for someone who’s not fond of libraries – ?)

By: Rayne

Rayne — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:12:30 +0000

It always struck me as odd that materials management methodology wasn’t applied to courses, materials and texts. A student browses for a class or materials no differently than a customer browses an on-line store. Or looking for documents related to coursework; why are they managed in the same way that law firms manage document production for cases?

Plenty of technology already out there to help students and teachers get where they want to be, get what they need, but there’s a big disconnect in seeing the parallel between a campus bookstore and managing inventory or legal casework for some reason…

Of course being efficient wouldn’t be as much fun as the tactile experience of browsing through bookshelves. (This is rather disonant though, for someone who’s not fond of libraries – ?)

By: coturnix

coturnix — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:49:29 +0000

Oh, yeah – the bookstore. That’s exactly how I did it every semsester. Also, I would sign up for double load, go to all classes during the first week to get a ‘feel’ for each course/instructor, then drop the half I don’t like. Never made any mistakes that way, never missed a good class, either.

By: Irina

Irina — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:29:21 +0000

Can I just say “amen”? I have spent several years at a university where I felt I coudn’t find the classes I really wanted to take. It took me over a YEAR to figure out that I should look at unrelated departments, go through the bookstore the way danah did and look for books I’d like to read, email people incessantly and, generally, be a pain in the ass until I figure out exactly what I want to take. I still missed the classes I really should have taken for this reason or that, but mainly because there were no books in the bookstore, or the class was offered in a completely random department. If schedules of classes are going to go digital, they should be as anal about getting it together as they were for the paper version. When I helped make one at USC one year, we harped professors until they gave us class descriptions. For the digital version, however, there is nothing like that, so we get incomplete or missing descriptions and half-assed websites. My university is supposed to be one of the most wired places with a top HCI department… Seems to be wired for all the wrong things though…

By: Ryan Shaw

Ryan Shaw — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:49:20 +0000

i agree that digital course catalogs could be improved (and i miss the paperback stanford bulletin) but most of the problems at berkeley have to do with lazy professors who don’t upload their shit.