One large part of University that I don’t agreed with: Exams.
My main beef is due to the fact that they are really unlike anything you will ever do in the real world. I know I have only worked in “the real world” to a total of 2 years, but at each job, I have yet to EVER be placed in a traditional exam situation. Please comment if you have ever been stuck in a room with 100+ people, all solving the exact same problem, without the aid of a calculator, a textbook or the internet and told not to talk or make any noise, and doing it all in an extreme time crunch. It’s just not realist. I have thought up a few solutions, but that’s not the point to this post.
On Monday I did something more ridiculous then writing exams. I handed in my proposal for my design plan. This 20 page report detailed everything my partner and I will do to complete our 8 month project (I will post details on it soon). The funny part comes with HOW I handed it in.
Try to follow this,
The prof who was marking us (our awesome supervisor) was at a conference, to ensure we had it completed on time, she was emailed a copy. Then according to course requirements, 2 copies were left in her mailbox. This was so she could read, mark and return one copy to us and kept the 2nd copy for future reference. Now a 3rd hard copy was given to the prof running the course so he could also make sure everyone’s projects were approximately similar (since we all have different supervisors).
So, 60 pages of printing, 3 cover pages, 3 backing pages, 3 bindings and one email later we handed in our report. A report that will be read by exactly 2 people (until I post it on this blog). Does anyone else see the problem with this? Actually some people do, I read another blog about this a few weeks ago, but can’t seem to find the link.
Imagine if instead of hard copies the report was posted on website. Each prof (and anyone else) could give their feedback in the form of comments. Students would have a higher sense of accountability since the viewing audience would be higher. If the report was any good, other people could learn from it. Students wouldn’t spend all morning in printing labs and a few less trees would die. The report, in all it’s glory, could be accessible from anywhere. New media (like videos and links) could be added to actually enhance the report. Referencing would be so much easier and so much more accurate and verifiable. The list of benefits goes on and on.
Their are some drawbacks that need to be worked out. Sometimes inline comments are nice on reports and that’s not really supported with traditional comments. Also, I don’t really know how many profs would want to read hours and hours of reports online, some user research is required there.
How does this relate to design? Earlier in the term, when I was trying to think up something fun to research and redesign, a friend of mine (who is actually redesigning a tattoo gun) said to me “think of something that hasn’t changed for many years”. Likely, due to new improvements in technology, their is something that can be improved and enhanced that hasn’t been designed, exams and report submissions both fall into this category. This reminded me of the idea about TV viewing (a task that has reminded pretty static since its inception) and realized that it would be a fun topic to explore.
Please comment if you have used an alternative method to submit reports that is more efficient then my adventure on Monday. I am using Google sites for 2 of my courses as a method of content submission, but only in addition to, traditional methods. Also, our school has an online course distribution tool that allows us to submit electronic copies of papers, but is not used by all profs. So their has been some movement in the right direction.
