In-class test

In-class test time, again. This year the Blackboard^® system behaved quite well (only 6 students out of 140 started their tests only to have them rejected when they'd finished this year ... unlike last year where dozens of problems occurred.) Sadly, this year's class average is much less than last year's :-( Happily one student got 98% <grin> so kudos to her ... sadly she's an outlier in the data!

Approachability

Sadly it seems I've lost the knack of appearing approachable this year :-(

Yesterday a group of students came to see me regarding my Web Tech. module because the chap they liked from last year who taught HTML was unavailable -- the spokesperson confessed that the others were unwilling to talk to me due to being scared(?!) Today there's an anonymous post on a discussion board complaining that the workload is too high this term ... but this 3^rd year is obviously also unwilling to talk to me about it... I don't feel more ferocious this year, perhaps they're more timid and I'd not noticed? Ah well, perhaps I'll reduce the lecture sarcasm next week...

Support procedures: "want, take, have"

2 weeks ago our ICT department informed me (via a roundabout route) that the server I administer seemed to have been infected with a trojan. I worked on removing it for a day or-so and heard nothing further from support so relaxed ... until today, 2 weeks later, I arrive at work to find that ICT have marched in and shut down the server without informing or asking anyone other than the Science tech. staff who have the key to the server room! A bit heavy-handed, in my opinion. So, the web pages hosted on the server, databases (student and mine), student work and lecture material are all gone¹ without so much as a by-your-leave :-( If we want access to their resources we ave to fill-in a form, submit it, wait 3-5 days, and hope. If they want something it's "want-take-have" (to misquote Faith in a certain episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer <grin>)

¹"OK, what about a backup?" you say. Sure ... it's backed-up, but the server is corrupt and the backup is on a system only that server can read (durrrrr...) I've a DAT tape backup too, but no PC-compatible DAT reader whilst our Science tech. is in sick-leave... <sigh>