Bureaucracy frustration

In my university days, information was something that you found on pieces of paper stuck to a noticeboard. But things have, obviously, changed. And they keep changing.

The main information about our teaching is spread out over several platforms. Every module has its own module website, and it has some concise but crucial information (like deadlines) on something called my Bangor. We the teaching staff have full authorisation to make any change we want the module websites (although there are people keeping an eye on whether everything is clear and logical). On my Bangor, there is barely anything we can change. And nowadays, the information that my Bangor shows is imported directly from a platform called Worktribe. 

It is compulsory for us to update the Worktribe information every year, but we can't just go in and make edits. We have to request permission to do that. When we have made our changes, we can submit them for approval, and then people who don't have time for any of this have to OK them. This is all very laborious! I always get very grumpy if there is an email from higher up telling us we need to have updated our work details by a certain date, but when I then go onto the system, I can't make these changes they demand I make. If they tell us we must do it, can't they just toggle on blanket permission to do it?

Last semester it got extra complicated; there was a mismatch between Worktribe and something else. And that stopped all the processing of the students’ grades. And for some reason, even after we had acquired permission to rectify the problem, we didn't seem to be able to make the necessary change. In the end it was an administrator with higher powers who did it for us. So we thought. But then the exams happened.

When the exam was marked the grades couldn't be processed, because there was a mismatch between Worktribe and something else. What! But after some head scratching we realised the administrator had accidentally changed the information of the wrong assessment. So instead of correcting one error, she created a new one. So there we went again; asking for permission to change it. Then changing it. Then hoping that all the levels of higher authority above us would indeed OK that edit. 

Technology can be lovely and in many instances, it is a godsend. But I somehow have the feeling that this system could really do with an improvement! Can we really not be trusted to make these edits without someone giving us specific permission? And why does it have to be the busiest people in the university who have to OK all of it? I think someone should bang some heads together. But for now, at least all our grades have been processed…