INFO 5306 HR + Finance @UNT

From time to time I take courses. It seems that University Graduate-level courses on HR issues are rare to come by. However, I have opinions on how courses ought to be structured and graded.

This course at UNT has the following issues:

  1. Due dates (times)When an asynchronous course is offered online, and it has assignments which are due before the end of the course, these dates and times should be end of day anywhere on earth.
  2. Instructions are outdated:That is, as far as courses go they often get recycled though Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, etc. Multiple times. That is, they get re-used, sometimes from a shell course. The re-use in this case is obvious in the instructions as some things stated in the instructions to be in the assignments tab do not appear in the assignments tab, but elsewhere.
  3. Content is outdated: That is, there are a ton of links in the course. The content at one of those links was taken off-line 6 years ago. From an accessibility standpoint this should be illegal. From a consumer protections perspective the University is offering a sub-par product which discriminates against individuals with certain educational support needs.
  4. Objective and subjective grading: Use of rubrics and the difference between 3,2, and .5
  5. Hidden assignments: The final project is hidden till after over half of the term has passed. This is unacceptable. As a student I have already paid for the project (the course) and am responsible for my best performance. If I feel I need more time to perform the tasks required in the assignment then it should be available for me to review.
  6. Technology use in assignment delivery: some assignments required submission of a .doc file whereas a .pdf should be equally optional. The technology use is not in focus, rather the content is being graded.
  7. Material accessibility: I have difficulty reading and writing. People, including professors who teach reading and literacy, have told me this. This course has no oral lectures. The content must be read in Canvas. This may be good for screen readers, but is not good for humans. Canvas makes the content flow according to screen width. Some students need static written materials as is seen on paper or PDFs. I am one of these students. I find material access in this course challenging.