Moonshadow said:
I agree. When I heard last year that we were going to have WebCT Vista this year, I had nightmares imagining that it had something to do with Windows Vista
(thankfully not the case, though it may as well be)
What was wrong with the old WebCT? It was far easier to use, and it looked a lot nicer too (at least for CSCI subjects). But WebCT Vista (aka WebCTFS) on the other hand... Well, I'm not going to get started on that, I'd be ranting for a while (I'd like to vent my anger too, but I don't think anyone needs to hear it)
But why did they feel the need to change WebCT? I really don't think there was any problems with the old one... I suppose I should consider myself lucky that this session only 2 of my 3 subjects have WebCT sites, and one of those two has its own site anyway and hence doesn't really use WebCT
So yes. WebCTFS is born
There were some problems that bothered me with the old one, but none to really warrant all the changes (Especially seeing as the changes don't even always correspond to problems).
Some things I've noticed:
* My posts on WebCT not being marked as new ones that I should read. This is good, as I don't really need to be alerted on the front page that I've made a post.
* The plethora of sample quizzes to make sure that I know how online quizzes work. This is bad, yes I fucking get it already. On that note, lecturers who have set the dates wrong on quizzes are also annoying. One of my subjects has quizzes which open in September last year, and as such will sit there till I get around to doing them (Which I intend to leave till after I've learnt the material), so the alert is effectively useless for that subject, gg.
* The forum seems a bit better organised (I'm finding it easier to check new posts, etc, but it's difficult to really judge at this stage as the real test is towards the end when it's packed full of crap)
* We've been informed that there are a lot of new collaborative opportunities built in to this system, which were not implemented in the earlier one. While I'm yet to use these, I expect that they will be somewhat useful (Though in a somewhat broken, not quite on the money way, as usual). Filesharing among groups and whatnot using this could be quite useful, and I'm all for that if it means that group work is simplified for all the people who can't manage to check their email, or whatever else. Maybe having it all in one central place will work better (That said, of course I'm not holding my breath).
* Yes, it's ugly. I was hoping that the layout, colour and so on options available would help with this, but they don't. I'm also bothered by the fact that if you turn off the extra shit on the main page the main box in the middle can not be expanded to fill the empty columns. Also, I'm bothered by the fact that I can't turn off campus links and campus announcements, not that they really bother me on their own, but if the best UoW can manage for each is "Here's a help site for WebCT" and "lol we need to restart WebCT once a week because it's shit", then I really don't need to see them every time I log in.
* Popup checking, alerts, whatever, all these give me the shits. I also dislike it complaining about my browser. There should be a "Yes, yes, I know, fuck off" option. I'm sure if there is a malfunction due to the browser I'm using then I'll know about it and will change browser accordingly. I don't need to be nagged every single time I log in.
* Its amazing session detection gives me the shits. I never used to have to manually log out, but now I do or it logs me out automatically as soon as I log in next time (Assuming I haven't closed and re-opened my browser since the previous time, which I often don't).
* I can see the scheduling of the weekly restart being inconvenient, though that's not really anyone's fault but my own.
All in all though I think it's a good update, helps keep the content delivery tools in line with University standards and all that. On top of that, I'm mighty impressed with the fact that this comes at a time where most the staff I dealt with almost had a grasp on the old system, so now there'll be all the hassles again where they struggle to perform the most basic of functions with the new system. Ahhh, these are the days indeed, eh?
