On Sun, Oct 31, 2004, Orr Dunkelman wrote about "Re: Students on Linux woes": > There is no way to force lecturers to use anything (I know, as nobody > forces me to use PowerPoint). >..
>From my experience, and that of a few friends and family members, I don't believe the problem is what the lecturers use. Or more accurately, it isn't a problem any more, now that almost any file format, and especially MS Word (including Hebrew) is viewable in Linux. There are two problems that remain: broken centralized systems, and "rules". Let me explain: Some universities use centralized Web sites for the entire university for doing things such as getting information, course registration, getting course material and copies of papers, homework submission, and things like that. These systems are maintained by people who apparently don't have any contact with real students. In fact, sadly, they are often maintained by external companies (I'm saying sadly, because in my opinion the ideal situation would be to employ students and inside staff to do development for the university). Anyway, in some universities, these centralized systems cooperate very poorly with Linux. They use some Microsoft-specific Javascript junk instead of normal links (or even standard Javascript), Microsoft-only formats, Active-X, or who knows what. Individual lecturers or TAs can't do anything to improve the accessibility of these sites - and everyone you try to contact just points fingers on other people, and nothing gets fixed. Unfortunately, not only is this problem not getting any better, it even seems to be getting worse - with perfectly working sites being replaced by supposedly nicer - but in reality broken (and also more annoying even for Windows users) sites. And strangely, this is an Israeli-specific problem. I can't explain it. The second problem are rules set by lectures. If you take a C course and are forced to use a specific compiler, or take an introduction to computers course and forced to use a specific set of tools, you obviously don't have a choice. But it's worse when generic courses having nothing to do with computers give you rules like "you must send a powerpoint slide" or "you must use David font in size 12", and so on. Luckily this problem is all but disappearing as tools appear on Linux which allow you to comply with these sorts of rules. > a) more awareness Having used Linux for over 10 years, I have not seen any improvement in this area, outside the members of this mailing list. Sad, but true. And even if 90% of the people are *aware* of Linux, but only 5% use it, still the external companies who produce the crappy broken sites will continue to create broken sites and they will still get paid and some beurocrat in some university can put a check-mark next to the "develop web site" line, without being questioned by anyone above him. -- Nadav Har'El | Monday, Nov 1 2004, 17 Heshvan 5765 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Cats aren't clean, they're just covered http://nadav.harel.org.il |with cat spit. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
