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Darrin L Rogers<a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> is still a massively overpriced, barely-functional, heavily-enshittified prototype of the principal-agent problem, in case anyone was wondering.<a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem</a><a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/educorporate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#educorporate</a>

Still Mad About CD PricesReason 237 I fucking hate <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a>: they lock all conversation about their product behind a soft paywall (e.g. I get stupid emails like this where I can't just see what Yi Yan.L.782 said). Every fucking interaction has to be on their platform, under their control. Much of the content is hidden from search engines. Of course, once you get into their little walled garden you discover that searching for unfixed bugs or unmet feature requests is only possible on a one-term-at-a-time search basis. There's almost no way to see if related issues exist.No surprise: when I dove into this last year and spent a couple of hours trying to answer some questions about basic, industry-standard functionality (spoiler: the answer to all of them was "No"), I figured out that they have hundreds or thousands of unresolved issues going back 20 years.This company is worth a billion dollars.Edit: I clicked the link. I did. The message was "We have also had this question. Does anyone else know..."Holy fuck this is stupid.<a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/monopoly" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#monopoly</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/shittydesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#shittydesign</a>

Brendan HalpinDelete/Replace is 100% necessary for <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/BrightSpace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BrightSpace</a>'s odd webdav implementation. Replacing the file is not enough. Even with different size and timestamp it is not recognised as changed.

Brendan HalpinOK, if the file is open locally it won't update. Not ideal but not insane.And a tip: delete then replace on the remote location, rather than just update. (Since I'm using a Makefile to update the remote file(s) that's easy to automate. It's a trick that also works with <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/webdav" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#webdav</a>, eg on <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/BrightSpace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BrightSpace</a>.) <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/oneDrive" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#oneDrive</a>

Still Mad About CD PricesThis post might seem like it's about <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> (the <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> the <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/suny" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#suny</a> system is forcing us all to use), but it's actually about having bosses who hold you in such contempt that they can't even be bothered to explain why they paid millions of dollars for a product that doesn't work while telling you to use it or else.Today's Brightspace issue: hundreds of questions with images (trapped within BS's little walled garden of impenetrable database locations) that appear only as placeholders, but might or might not render when placed into a student quiz. The odds seem so far to be about 50/50.There is no way to know which items are affected *even when I edit each of the hundreds of items by hand*, because I see this placeholder for MOST of the questions but then the students sometimes see the image. Sometimes not.It's silent failure. No flags, no checks, no indications of what's wrong. No way to know if any changes will fix things.Other silent failures: BS will cheerfully tell you it has imported your 5,000 or so items (painstakingly created over the past decade) from your previous LMS--which was also mandated--and then just *won't tell you* that hundreds or thousands of them did not import because BS simply choked and pooped or because BS doesn't even have the functionality to use those question types.I fucking hate this LMS, but I really hate the fact that the people in charge think so little of me and 30,000 of my colleagues that they shove shit like this at us and tell us to pretend it works.<a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/professor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#professor</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/rant" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#rant</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/broken" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#broken</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/shittydesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#shittydesign</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/baddesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#baddesign</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/badsoftware" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#badsoftware</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/capturedmarket" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#capturedmarket</a>

Darrin L Rogers<a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/Brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Brightspace</a> is a series of missed opportunities and profit-based shortcuts masquerading as an <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/LMS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LMS</a>. Its gradebook has significant, inexplicable (in light of 20 years of web development) shortcomings. Naturally, many people want to just use <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/Excel" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Excel</a>.Well... good luck.<a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/educorporate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#educorporate</a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/teaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#teaching</a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/professor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#professor</a> <a href="https://fediscience.org/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a>

Still Mad About CD PricesEvery time I'm forced to use <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> (so about every day) I have the urge to find whoever is responsible for its shitty, substandard, user-hating state of existence and lock them in a room while I give them a 3-hour lecture on how shitty, substandard, and user-hating this trash <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/software" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#software</a> is. <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/ui" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ui</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/ux" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ux</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/baddesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#baddesign</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/professor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#professor</a>

guyjantic has moved!<a href="https://c.im/tags/Brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Brightspace</a> has to be a prime example of <a href="https://c.im/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a>

guyjantic has moved!Student looking at "D2L" in big letters on LMS page: "My class is down to... luck?"(probably)<a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/branding" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#branding</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/baddesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#baddesign</a>

guyjantic has moved!More things <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> can't do: negative numbers.The formula editor in the gradebook is already a horrorshow of bad 1990s web design. And now this.There's probably a workaround.OK, I just realized that I said "there's probably a workaround" for the problem of a software system used by education systems all over the world that can't handle negative numbers.<a href="https://c.im/tags/billiondollarcompany" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#billiondollarcompany</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/math" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#math</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/mathishard" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#mathishard</a>

guyjantic has moved!More things <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> can't do: change a quiz question grading in a way that allows all attempts of that question to be regraded. Apparently, it can only change future attempts. If you want to fix (or update or give more credit for) a particular question after the quiz has started, you can go fuck yourself and then go edit a few dozen individual quiz responses.<a href="https://c.im/tags/badDesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#badDesign</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/badCoding" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#badCoding</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/capitalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#capitalism</a>

guyjantic has moved!More <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/badDesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#badDesign</a> so I can have a record of it:When grading items like this, you can't get a keystroke or even clicky rhythm going. You're grading 60 exams/quizzes and you enter an adjusted grade in the box, then hit Tab-Tab <enter>... great. It saves your work, UNLESS you're on the last student record for that question, in which case Tab-Tab <enter> clicks "Go back to questions" and DOES NOT save your work. As with so many other things in this software embodiment of complacency and missed opportunities, there is no flag that this has happened, no warning. You just notice... someday... maybe... that you didn't regrade that item.<a href="https://c.im/tags/frustration" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#frustration</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/ActorAgentProblem" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ActorAgentProblem</a>

guyjantic has moved!Just a quick <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/hatepost" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hatepost</a>: 1. In at least a couple of multiple-select dialogs, choices down the page FUCKING RESET all choices previously made up-page. With no flag, no warning, etc.e.g., for accommodation overrides for students on a quiz, you choose dates, extra time, other conditions, etc. Then at the bottom of the page (actually a 20-line window within a page, so what you already did scrolls up and out of sight) you choose the subset of students this applies to.And as soon as you do, everything else you have done resets to default values--that is, Very Wrong Values, without any indication this has happened. There you are, looking at the "save" button, unaware that brightspace just fundamentally fucked something up that will take back-and-forth emails, frustration, and crying/angry students to notice or fix.While I'm at it...2. Half the "enter URL" fields when adding links to external content are pre-populated (hard version) with "https://" and the other half aren't. If you get into the wrong habit when creating your content, you get broken links. 3. Half the "insert an image" fields for content (e.g., for quiz questions, handouts, etc.) accept drag-drop from a desktop file manager. The other half don't, requiring a sequence of 3-5 button hunts and clicks, then (in a subset of these) searching through your computer's filesystem.Is it so wrong to want my job not to be made harder because a billion-dollar company can't be bothered to do basic shit?<a href="https://c.im/tags/badCoding" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#badCoding</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/badDesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#badDesign</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/UserAntagonistic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#UserAntagonistic</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/basic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#basic</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/frustration" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#frustration</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/fuck" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#fuck</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/capitalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#capitalism</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/educorporate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#educorporate</a>

guyjantic has moved!Oh My Fucking Heck. <a href="https://c.im/tags/Brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Brightspace</a>'s gradebook apparently gives no errors, warnings, or alarms when you name a grade item the same thing another is already named. It just does whatever it does without telling you it's fucked-up.Every time I think I've seen the bottom with Brightspace, the pit goes deeper.

guyjantic has moved!Come on, <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a>, you've been around for 25 years, you're worth billions of dollars, you've got yourself embedded in the required educational paths of tens or hundreds of millions of students...A normal distribution probability function for quiz questions isn't that hard. But nothing you refuse to innovate is actually particularly difficult; you just don't do it.Stans: don't tell me to file a feature request until you've looked over their backlog (or tried to; searching is heavily nerfed for that).<a href="https://c.im/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/disappointment" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#disappointment</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/professor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#professor</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/unfundedMandate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#unfundedMandate</a>

guyjantic has moved!Maybe I should just make this a Brightspace Kind of Sucks account. Gah.<a href="https://c.im/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/fail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#fail</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/baddesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#baddesign</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#enshittification</a>

guyjantic has moved!I think <a href="https://c.im/tags/Brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Brightspace</a> must appeal to uni administrators whose philosophy is "I'll make this university pretty and consistent no matter how much <a href="https://c.im/tags/education" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#education</a> I have to destroy in the process."<a href="https://c.im/tags/ShittyDesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ShittyDesign</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/BadDesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#BadDesign</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/MissedOpportunities" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MissedOpportunities</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/Enshittification" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Enshittification</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/HigherEd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HigherEd</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/LMS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#LMS</a>

guyjantic has moved!Things <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> can't do: peer-reviewed assignments. I got spoiled by moodle (I'm shocked to hear myself say that after how much hair and time I lost on that platform), which has some great plugins/features for this. I started doing peer-reviewed assignments using a website built with (I think) an NSF grant, back in maybe 2007?Not possible any more, due to SUNY's mandate that we all use Brightspace, and my university's mandate that no other learning platforms are allowed.<a href="https://c.im/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/design" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#design</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/ux" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ux</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/teaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#teaching</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/edtech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#edtech</a>

guyjantic has moved!Reply from <a href="https://c.im/tags/brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#brightspace</a> person: "Feel free to do your clunky workaround, though! And submit a feature request to be reviewed with the 10,300 others!"(not kidding about the number)

guyjantic has moved!Sobering moment: diving into the <a href="https://c.im/tags/Brightspace" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Brightspace</a> "community" site. Figured out the odd little workaround to get into the place where feature requests can be made.Over 10,000 feature requests. One directly related to a post I recently made was first submitted in 2013. It's been over a decade.You can search through these by status and some broad categories but not by "number of upvotes" and not by "date submitted." No way for me (right now?) to know how quickly BS gets critical issues fixed, which would be useful to gauge whether I want to spend my time on their community portal.Right now I'm going to do a bit of upvoting/requesting but mostly try to restructure my teaching so I don't need Brightspace. <a href="https://c.im/tags/lms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#lms</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/highered" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#highered</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/teaching" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#teaching</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/edtech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#edtech</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/futility" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#futility</a> <a href="https://c.im/tags/hopelessness" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#hopelessness</a>

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