| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| rmb |
Posted - 11/04/2004 : 06:16:57
Some of you have expressed a frustration with entering your audit results. Some characters are not accepted; some have experienced a time out period. As soon as we knew of these experiences, we addressed both.
A timeout on any page gathering data is standard and particularly important for a site where people may be sharing computers. If someone has to leave an audit part way though, or gets interrupted somehow, the next person to use the PC will be less likely to make entries that corrupt the data, etc. The time out per page was extended from 20 minutes to 45 minutes.
A number of comments mentioned the audit process is a long one. We will investigate an option that allows people to save audits and return to them.
The inability to enter certain characters that are used commonly (like the comma, hyphen, etc.) can be particularly annoying for educators. The most important thing when designing systems (like the EC audit) is to consider the user experience (both the user of the audit and of the final data). However, anytime you’re working in the internet you’re exposing yourself and your data to any number of threats. Sometimes user experience is affected in an effort to protect the data being gathered and the system it is attached to. There is no saving in cost in having an audit not accept certain characters; the matter is strictly related to security and ability to analyze data collected.
We have reinstated some 'outlawed' characters. The characters that are not allowed include *|\\\<>[]{}/
I apologize for your frustrations. Everything we’re doing with the online audit is for the benefit of the EC program and not motivated by saving money at the cost of user experience.
Rose-Marie Batley
|
|
|
