Inability to edit self-authored Discussion Board posts - Was a "teacher only" privilege (Resolved)

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• Feeling frustrated - started emailing teachers for help

• Teachers unable to help - only guesses given that it's required for VU to remain compliant - Proved incorrect!

• Further research revealed VU to be one of the few (if not the only) learning centres that restricted students from editing their own discussion board posts.

• Emailed IT Support and got into a 4-week semi-daily discussion with IT Support, University Higher-Ups, and VU Stakeholders. Initial VU resistance to change their policy on this was eventually overcome after a week of email negotiations.

• A decision was finally reached to change VU policy and change student permissions to enable them to edit their own discussion board posts.

• Victoria University policy finally changed 31st August 2020 after 4 weeks of semi-daily emails.

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Collaborate Interface - Multiple Issues (Ongoing)

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• Clumsy interface

• Discussion Boards not aligned across all subjects depending on where they are accessed from

• Assessment dates not clearly visible as they should be

• Auto Subscribe didn't work for a period of time (buggy) causing missed replies to posts

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Substandard Learning Materials supplied (Ongoing)

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• Supplied PDF learning material was amateurish at best. Pages scanned the wrong way round (sideways or upside down) making it necessary to print all pages in order to be able to comfortably read them if a student did not have access to a PDF editing tool. 

• For a "university" to not be able to create an online readable document is not acceptable and certainly not worth the 5K+ it cost to do this course.

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Teacher Related Issues (Ongoing)

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• Unorganised - no consistency in teaching methods across subjects

• Incomplete Unit Guide for most of Semester 2

• Collaborate online setup is a mess and constantly moving target. Not planned out at all

• Assessment dates often change without any prior notice making it impossible to stick to a study plan

• Teachers getting 3 weeks off and being inaccessible to students. Ridiculous and a partial fee refund for that period should have been offered to students yet was not

• Poor assessment result feedback - no opportunity to discuss included feedback after an assessment has been graded as competent

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More to come...

 

"This is a frequently updated living document"

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