Re: [seul-edu] ISO Phase 1 evals

[Jim Thomas <jthomas@bittware.com>]

Doug Loss wrote:
>
> Folks, I'd _really_ like to see some phase one evaluations of our
> educational software.

[snip]

Doug,
Here are some theories about why you've not gotten a good response
on this yet.

1) I poked around looking for a way to review an app, but I couldn't
find it.  I could read plenty of reviews - I just couldn't see how
to write one.  Perhaps I'm not alone in this.   Are reviewers
supposed to just mail their reviews to the list or what?

2) You've called for teachers and adminstrators to review the
packages.  I assume that by "administrator" you mean "someone
involved in school government" rather than a sysadmin at a school.
Since I'm the latter and not the former, I took this to mean that
I'm not the right person for the job.  I DID however, wish to review
squid+squidguard,  since I'm responsible for deploying it at my
school.

Actually, this sort of confusion over the meaning of
"administration" has crept into the index itself.  What is being
administered?  The school or the computers?  Two very different
categories of people do these two things.  The "Administrative"
category has both types of apps.  Perhaps it would be better to have
separate "School Administration" and "Computer/Network
Adminstration" categories.

3) You said it'd be better if the reviewer was not a techie.
Perhaps the majority of this list's readers are techies?  We techies
were instructed to ask actual, bona-fide, teachers or
"adminstrators" (see point 2) to review the software, which leads me
to number 4:

4) Since school is out, I rarely see teachers.

Please understand that the reason I wrote this was to be
constructive!  I'm very much looking forward to
seeing/using/promoting the ISO, and helping out when we get to a
"techie" phase (or sooner if I've misunderstood).

--
Jim Thomas            Principal Applications Engineer  Bittware, Inc

jthomas@bittware.com  http://www.bittware.com          (703)
779-7770
I'm a man.  But I can change.  If I have to.  I guess.
 - Red Green