We are now in the third consecutive week of Blackboard being effectively unusable, that is, unless you’re willing to sit at your computer for an hour to open one page. Apparently, there was a solution … which didn’t work. Then there was another, and another, and though it’s working now, campus collectively holds its breath until the service goes down again.
I never liked Blackboard. It is poorly organized and unclear, assignment calendars are incoherent and the home page has an overwhelming number of information boxes, of which approximately two have helpful information.
Blackboard’s whole purpose — to centralize and ease transmission of class information — works only partially, as professors use it haphazardly and sporadically, leaving information missing or inaccessible. The result is a tangled web of information, a labyrinth where you might find the assignment you want, but then again, you might not.
But there aren’t really any online alternatives to Blackboard, seeing as it has essentially eaten up all its competitors, leaving only one hulking, clunky behemoth that can rebut any complaint by asking, “What else are you going to do?”
So we’re stuck with Blackboard. It’s confusing, poorly utilized and now it’s also broken. The site’s sluggishness, while independent of any on-campus technical failures, points to another problem that is in fact tied to campus. It is one we can expect to worsen with each semester, too.
That problem is the Internet. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s been slow. Very slow. And not just here in Newing College, where I live. Whether you’re in the Glenn G. Bartle Library, Hinman College or the New University Union, web pages open much, much slower than they did last year. Or really anytime or anywhere I’ve seen — sometimes I’ll try to load a page, go to class, come back and it’ll still be just a blank white screen.
Granted, it is not all the time that the Wi-Fi moves this slowly. There are plenty of times it works just fine. But during the times it doesn’t function properly — and they are not few or far between — nothing is accessible. And forget about using Netflix or Xbox Live in these slumps — they are above the threshold of what our woefully overwhelmed Internet can handle.
The problem, from my limited understanding, stems simply from overuse. Binghamton’s student population has been swelling for the past few years, while the number of routers has not grown proportionately.
If a city’s population grew by 100,000 in a year and was expected to keep growing, action would be taken to accommodate that growth. Particularly, roads and highways would be widened. Otherwise, all those extra people would jam the highway to a standstill.
Internet access is analogous to highway access. Too many on too small a system means slowdowns, overload and no fun for anyone.
For the 21st century college student, having easy access to the Web is vital. Whether accessing homework, doing research or doing any of a number of daily tasks, our lives are enabled by wireless Internet.
Yet here we are, unable to rely on either the ability to access Blackboard, or to get online at all. And it’s a problem that will only get worse. There will be more students here next semester, and more the semester after that. Most of them will have computers, and will expect to have functioning Internet. It’s not that much to ask.
Regardless of the costs for upgrading or increasing available memory and wireless capability, it needs to happen. There is no reason we should be restrained from something as simple as Facebook or Google simply because someone in tech or the administration decided it was too much trouble to accommodate that need.