A student emails me to ask if I can disenrol her for my course, because she enrolled by mistake. Now she can’t enrol for the course she does want to take. The next day, I get emails from the teacher of that course and from her study advisor: please could I disenrol her quickly? Smart of the student to mobilize two teachers and a study advisor to undo her mistake, but since the advent of Osiris, I can’t disenrol students anymore. Why on earth not?
To believe that Osiris is there to help us is a misunderstanding
It would be so helpful if I could just rectify this straightaway. Instead of which, all teachers have to forward all requests to enrol or disenrol to the secretaries, who are the only ones who are allowed to do it. It must be driving them crazy.
Another thing: some students have the right to take their exams in quiet rooms. The timetabling department arranges rooms and invigilators for them. It’s a guessing game, as they don’t know how many students to expect. Because that information is only accessible for teachers, in Osiris. So every teacher has to email the timetabling department for every exam. This must entail hundreds of emails. Wouldn’t it be handier if the timetabling department could simply look up the number of students involved in Osiris? With an automated search, you can get those numbers in no time. The timetablers don’t even have to know who the students are. But that’s not possible, because Osiris was designed without this question in mind.
And while we’re at it: the stages of writing a Master’s thesis (research proposal, learning goals, progress report, etc) now have to be recorded in Osiris. Students have to take the initiative for each stage, otherwise I can’t even see them in the system. Then I get assigned a task, but as soon as I’ve ticked that box, the student disappears from my screen and I can’t find him or her anywhere. And actually, it would be nice to see an overview of all the Master’s students I am currently supervising. Apparently it’s possible, but nobody knows how.
To believe that Osiris is there to help us is a misunderstanding. Osiris was designed to support certain processes in the interests of quality control. A design based on supporting the staff and making smart use of available information would be quite a different matter.
Sjoukje Osinga (56) is assistant professor of Information Technology. She sings alto in the Wageningen chamber choir Musica Vocale, has three student sons and enjoys birdwatching with her husband in the Binnenveldse Hooilanden.
