HONI SOIT SEMESTER 2 • WEEK 4
6
NEWS SENATE ELECTIONS
BLACKBORED
Politics and religion face off in race for University Senate
‘Old-fashioned’ Blackboard to be phased out in favour of Uni-wide system
Nine undergraduates and ten postgraduates will contest the online ballot for students fellows of the Uni's highest student office
Eden Faithfull
Andrew Bell
Nominations for the University of Sydney Senate election have officially closed, and the confirmed pool of candidates will likely see traditional political factions pitted against, and cooperate with, certain religious groups on campus. The Senate is the peak statutory governing body of the University, which means the successful candidates will have a voice at the broadest level over University policy. There is one spot reserved for an undergraduate student, and one reserved for a postgraduate. Contesting the undergraduate position is a pool of candidates, which seem to span the full gamut of campus groups. These are George Bishop (Economics/Law), Caitlin Gauci (Media and Communications), Finn Keogh (Arts), Dimitry Palmer (Arts/Law), Alexi Polden (Arts/Law), Andrew Sekhar (Engineering/Science), Francis Tamer (IT), Georg Tamm (Business/Commerce) and finally Colin Whitchurch (Economics). The candidates sit along a large spread of the political spectrum, presenting a much greater clash between left and right than the average SRC election.
George Bishop seems wellplaced to leverage a very strong base of support in evangelical organisations across campus. He is the current President of the Sydney University Evangelical Union (EU). He told Honi, “I’m running as an independent candidate with broad support from a number of groups at the university.” Bishop declined to identify these groups by name, beyond “religious groups” other than the EU. The EU proved decisive in the election of previous fellow Simon Hill. A candidate who will draw support from conservative bases is Liberal student Dimitry Palmer. Palmer is a current SRC Councilor, and is contesting the executive of the Sydney University Liberal Club (SULC). Palmer told Honi, “Everyone wants to fight and undermine university management, which isn’t a successful approach when working in a Senate atmosphere. The previous Senator [referring to Dalton Fogarty] neglected his opportunity to front up to the SRC, and I think that has caused quite a bit of distrust and frustration on both ends, I’d like to be an active Senate fellow that
fulfils this core duty.” He claimed to have solicited support from “A broad coalition of Labor Right, Liberal-Aligned, Grassroots and any independent students” but said “[m]y attempts to speak with SAlt (Socialist Alternative) haven’t been successful so I won’t be looking for their support, nor would I want their votes,” he said. Honi has already reported on candidates Alexi Polden, Georg Tamm and Finn Keogh. It now seems that Polden will be well positioned to gain support from many members of the broad left. The postgraduate candidate pool, however, seems largely divorced from student politics. It is composed of Attila Balogh (PhD), Savva Dobrinsky (Juris Doctor), Gemma Dyer (PhD), Ceren Guler (Medicine), Nathan Ide (Master of Business Administration), David Jordan (Master of Business Administration), Alistair Robson (Graduate Diploma of Commerce), Imogen Thomson (Medicine), Tamara Voninski (PhD) and current interim fellow, Joshua Preece (Medicine). The election will run from Friday 2 September until Thursday 22 September.
The Blackboard tool will soon be phased out entirely in favour of a single, institution-wide system after the need to update the “old-fashioned” learning management software was flagged during a meeting of the University’s Senior Executive Group. While it’s yet undecided which new system the University will choose, it would be administered across all faculties and schools with the aim to address usability issues that have plagued its predecessor. A satisfaction survey conducted in 2014 indicated high level of dissatisfaction with the Blackboard platform across both academic and administrative staff and students, with one third of these demographics expressing disappointment. The survey results highlighted concerns with the platform’s ease of use, outdated interface and limitations in collaborative and interactive learning designs. A University spokesperson said no decision had yet been made on Blackboard’s replacement, and it was currently undergoing a tender process. “The University will be actively looking at a range of learning management systems over the coming months. The
evaluation process will involve the whole University community, including academic and professional staff and students,” the spokesperson said. Blackboard itself is currently rebuilding its own software ‘Blackboard Ultra’, which promises a wider use of mobile devices and a considerable increase in the number of educational tools available. Blackboard is the most commonly used Learning Management System platform worldwide, though its market share has begun to steadily decline with alternative systems emerging. Luke Anderson, a lecturer in the School of Information Technologies, said the main issues were around staff and student interaction with the Blackboard system. “When selecting a Learning Management System, you can usually only have two of three things: usability, learning tools, and cost,” he said. “With the Blackboard system, you have a whole heap of learning tools at a reasonable cost, however this means there is a compromise for usability, which is the main issue currently facing the university”. The issue is expected to be discussed further at the next meeting of the Senior Executive Group.
ANALYSIS INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
StudyNSW fails sanity test In a perhaps indicative quirk, the NSW government’s slick new website for international students lacks any foreign language support. Nick Bonyhady reports ‘Innovative and agile’ is a federal slogan, but Mike Baird seems to be making a play for it with the launch of their new NSW Government website for international students. It uses the new ‘.sydney’ domain and features a slick video trumpeting “Sydney hosts world’s largest English lesson”. One hopes the lesson was both colossal and comprehensive, because the website itself lacks any option for the content to be displayed in a language other than English. While that will be no problem for many
international students, particularly those from Anglophone countries, for others, it is a serious oversight. “It feels like the NSW government either has too much confidence about international students’ English skills or too little respect for those who don’t speak English well,” said Poppy Wang, vice-president of the Sydney University Chinese Students’ Association. One of the groups most likely to be disadvantaged are the thousands of international students who enter Australia every year to undertake an English Language Intensive Course for Overseas Students (ELICOS) before they start their tertiary study. These courses often last between 10 and 20 weeks. By providing rapid language training, ELICOS ‘boosts’ the scores of students whose initial English test results were too low to study courses delivered in English here. For those students, the Study Sydney website resembles a final exam delivered before semester begins.
Visit Australia's second most broken government website at study.sydney
There is a more troubling case though. For international students who visit the site hoping to find information about their rights at work, information is available, but tough to find. An external link takes users to the Fair Work website and from there, another link provides access to language support – hardly an intuitive process. Wang described the information on the Study.Sydney as “not clear enough” from an international students’ perspective. Especially in light of the need for accessible information demonstrated by the widespread wage abuse against international students by 7/11, this is a serious failing. The government should be commended for trying to help international students. However, the lack of language support remains both perplexing, given that other Service NSW websites targeted at the general population have an automatic translation function, and disappointing.