For a service that’s meant to be such a cornerstone of our education, a service relied on by so many professors to teach and students to learn, Blackboard has grown increasingly unreliable.
The upkeep of Blackboard has been poor. For the past two weeks, the popular teaching supplement has been down intermittently, leaving teachers and students scrambling. It is unacceptable that a service so necessary to the academic livelihoods of so many students appears to be entirely unreliable.
We understand that recent kinks aside, not all professors prefer to use Blackboard. Perhaps it’s because they’re preemptively wary of its reliability issues, or perhaps it’s just because they prefer a more “old-school” method of teaching. Likewise, not all students enjoy using Blackboard either — should they be presented with such an option.
But at one point or another, every student will have to use Blackboard software, textbook hardware. And what if all of a sudden, every textbook and notebook of every Binghamton student just disappeared for days at a time? Laws of physics aside, there would be uproarious pandemonium. How would students read? Write papers? Study for exams?
Well, enter our current problem. As educators gravitate more toward cyber-teaching, Binghamton University needs to step up its game if it wants to keep its teachers and students at ease. In times of tech crisis, such as the prolonged dysfunction of Blackboard, BU needs a contingency plan, an academic policy in place to compensate. Information Technology Services told Pipe Dream they’re in the process of creating alternatives, though we’re not sure yet exactly what they’ll be.
Communication is also an issue. Aside from yesterday’s supplemental B-Line that alerted students that the Blackboard issue was resolved, the only other instance in which we were notified of any Blackboard issues was embedded deep in the Oct. 4 B-Line — claiming Blackboard was up and running, but that its response time was “extremely slow.”
When it snows — or floods — and classes are cancelled, forcing educators to change their lesson plans, we receive an alert. Blackboard going down doesn’t excuse us from class, but the end game is the same — educators are forced to change their lesson plans. A system should be in place to give students and professors a blanket notification for when Blackboard is down — perhaps a supplemental B-Line — allowing educators to change their plans in an orderly fashion.
With such a system, students would rarely be in the dark as to how to go about completing assignments, and professors would have ample time to shift their plans accordingly. And, importantly, students would have a valid excuse if they are screwed out of being able to complete assignments on time.
Educators need to be aware of the risk that comes with over-reliance on such an undependable service. Professors curtailing the way they use Blackboard is the most logical solution. Using it as a teaching supplement, not a primary tool by which students live and die, could be a start.