you must be joking me

[smileyeagle1021]

OK, SLCC at it's finest... I come into the library to do 3 things... first check my email, second check on what's new here, then work on an excel assignment, that must be done using excel2007... want to guess what the library computers DON"T have on them... yup, despite the fact that every computer class requires students use office2007 none of the library computers have it yet.

Who's genius idea was that, and can I get there job, I can make stupid decisions like that no problem... and I'm sure it pays better than my job where I have to at least pretend to try not to make stupid decisions.

Ugh, this means that I have to try to get the codeweaver on my MacBook working properly so I can do the assignment on my MacBook... oh how I loathe using a codeweaver

[One-Fang]

Ahem.

Coming from an IT support in an educational institution background, I can probably offer some light on this particular enigma.

The facility's IT team are probably not investing in Office 2007 yet. They will have made it clear to all on the lecturing staff that they are not, and that Office 2003 is the standard again this year. There may be no budget for it yet.

Many of the academic staff will have completely ignored the information coming from IT about this, probably even blissfully unaware that those emails from IT actually had something relevant to THEM in it. They planned their material for 2007, advertised and filled the class, and on the day before the first class probably went to IT and asked why 2007 wasn't in the Library yet.

That's when the blowup occurred between this self-important staff member and the IT department, wherein many heads were dragged into high level meetings. Eventually, the higher ups were made to realise that you can't simply advertise and fill a course for which you do not have the facilities required to teach it, but by then you were already enrolled and had done three classes.

So they're stuck.

The teaching staff blame IT for not having the equipment they "need" to teach. IT blame the teaching staff for not checking the equipment they needed for teaching subject XYZ was available yet, and ignoring the specific instruction that it actually wasn't and not to use it.

The students get stuck in the middle.

And ... mostly they blame IT too.

Everyone blames IT. It's a computer, after all. Even though the IT department did everything they could to ensure teaching staff used and taught 2003.

Do I sound bitter? Oh sorry. You hit my CS nerve I guess. This story is in my particular area of experience and as jaded and bitter as some of our retail slaves here sound, is as jaded and bitter being an IT grunt can make you, too.

[MMATM]

Seconded. Lists are available at just about every accredited university and college in the USA, outlining the programs available to students for free on school computers or via free download from the school. Not all professors pay attention to these lists.

In defense of the professor, however, Office 2007 is the new standard for university material, since most businesses are still using 2003 for the sake of sameness, but will be (and in large part already are) moving toward 2007.
[OT]
College grads are expected to be up-to-date on 2007 so they can assimilate more readily into the corporate world and be familiar with the programs before they have to use them in a corporate setting. Plus, this gives students a leg up in some cases where they're competing for jobs with people who have been using 2003 and are either fighting the change or are stuck and unable or unwilling to learn to use 2007.
[/OT]

[Kogarashi]

I don't know how much this means to you, One-Fang, but I can name at least two (former) University students (myself and my former roommate) who didn't blame IT for "required" programs not being on the lab computers. We usually blamed either the teachers who didn't bother to check up on product availability before setting requirements for the class, and the University higher-ups who wouldn't spring for the necessary budget for licenses and such to get said products on the computers.

No, we blamed IT for the things we could actually pinpoint as their problem. Like the one IT guy who got very confused when my roommate mentioned Windows Explorer, and wondered if she meant Internet Explorer (he had no clue what Windows Explorer was, even).

I sympathize, SmileyEagle. I took a Web Design-based English class (try sorting that one out) where the teacher had four program requirements, two of wich hadn't yet been imaged onto the computer lab's machines yet, so we had to start with the other two while we waited. This was the same teacher who was telling us that we'd have to shell out the full price for Adobe CS2 if we wanted to do professional for-sale work on it, because you couldn't do that with the student licensed stuff. This, at least at the time, was incorrect, as the Student License agreement specifically said you could do anything with the SL version as you could with the full-price version. It essentially said that Adobe understood we were poor college students, and thus were giving us a break on price and witholding maybe a few clipart or photo galleries or something, but otherwise "Here's the full package. Have fun!" I'll have to go track down the info again.

[smileyeagle1021]

If I may point out... I never said I was blaming IT...other than that they must take blame for their half of not communicating... because if every teacher thinks that there is no problem using 2007 and IT thinks that there is no problem leaving it as 2003, both sides have clearly failed somewhere in the chain of communication.

[CorDarei]

You can commincate all you want with someone, but if they don't listen, it's not your fault. More than likely it is the scenario Fang described, so I don't think any it staff should be blamed. Now if it isn't..... then yah go ahead and blame them, but I would give the it grunts the benefit of the doubt.

[Evil Queen]

OpenOffice.org is your friend.

MicrosoftOffice sucks old man ass.

[Kogarashi]

Ah, but there are a few things I don't like about OpenOffice.org, EvilQueen. Namely the Track Changes feature. It seems very counter-intuitive, and I much prefer the system Microsoft Word uses.

[PepperElf]

i use iwork on my mac. it's not bad

[Bandit]

The problem with Office 2007 is that M$ totally borked the file formats. Have had to ask many of my vendors to send their quotes in something I can actually read without having to worry farking up my system.

From what I have seen, there's nothing more useful in the 2007 version than in 2003.....unless you own M$ shares.

That said, I know the pain Smiliy is going through - it does sound like one prof (or executive) managed to figure out how to turn on his personal machine with Vista and the trial version of the M$ suite on it, and decided that it should be standard. Can't have a prof dealing with the real world now, can we?

B
(Have many examples of suits who want something, but don't want to pay for it)

[smileyeagle1021]

From what I have seen, there's nothing more useful in the 2007 version than in 2003.....unless you own M$ shares.

well, it does have one thing more useful... the file extension that I need to have on the end of every assignment I turn in for that class.

Yes EQ, openoffice is my friend... and on non school stuff that is what I use... sadly it doesn't have the right extension... seriously the CIS department has gone insane with their assignments and having the proper extension... like you don't know how to make an excel spreadsheet if you don't turn it in you don't have a file ending .xlsx

[Fenrus]

I thought openoffice could do .xlsx already....

*quick search* The site says

Derrière la décor, OpenOffice.org 3.0 supportera le futur standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 et est capable d'ouvrir des fichiers créés avec MS-Office 2007 ou MS-Office 2008 pour Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx,.pptx, etc.) En plus bien sûr de la lecture et de l'écrture pour les formats de fichiers binaires MS-Office (.doc, .xls .ppt, etc.).

or roughly translated (babelfish is my friend)

Behind the decoration, OpenOffice.org 3.0 will support the future standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 and is able d' to open files created with Ms-Office 2007 or Ms-Office 2008 for Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc) In of course of the reading and l' écrture for the binary formats of files Ms-Office (.doc, .xls .ppt, etc).

So I believe it can create the .xlsx... least the 3.0 can...

[One-Fang]

I don't know how much this means to you, One-Fang, but I can name at least two (former) University students (myself and my former roommate) who didn't blame IT for "required" programs not being on the lab computers.

It does mean something, yes. Thank you.

If I may point out... I never said I was blaming IT...

Yeah sorry, didn't mean to imply that you in particular were. Just generically ranting. I did not read IT-blame into your original post.

You can commincate all you want with someone, but if they don't listen, it's not your fault.

Yes and no. In practicality in real life there is only so much you can do to communicate a piece of information to a vast amount of people. However, typically, communication failure is the sender's fault. In one-on-one communication, anyway, if a person hasn't understood what you've told them, then you've failed to tell them correctly. The information sender must always check with feedback that the message was correctly understood.

Naturally, one-on-one theory doesn't always apply to mass information situations like this. But that statement above is not always correct, either.