Exam support

The exam for the Patent Law and Patent Policy course, of which I am the course manager, was last week. The lectures are taught pro bono by a patent attorney and a patent lawyer. Because they do not have a UTQ, the rules state that they cannot be entrusted with managing the course. That’s why I’m doing it, even though I don’t have a UTQ either. But I do have an exemption.

A few days before the exam, I received an email from Exam Support stating ‘Please use the link below to go directly to the Osiris page on the Teaching Support website for the 7-step overview to generate the participant list’. Why do I have to work my way through a seven step menu to get a list of the 13 students who have registered for the exam? Why doesn’t Exam Support simply send me that list? Are my expectations about the word ‘Support’ unrealistic?

These are the seven steps I had to go through:

1. Log in to Osiris Begeleider.
2. Click on Menu and select Reports.
3. Click on report 9.2.67 – Test participants per room to open it.
4. Fill your Course code and exam date (format dd-mm-yyyy). Both are required!
5. Select which type of Rapport [sic!] you would like to generate.
6. Select the Format in which you would like the report.
7. Click on Run.

The instructions for launching a SpaceX rocket are shorter. After about 10 minutes I managed to generate a PDF, but it contained just one blank page. The problem turned out to be the Course code, which had an extra ‘A’ at the end. Why doesn’t the system inform me that the course code I entered was incorrect/incomplete? And why does it stubbornly generate a blank document? It reminded me of that shirt factory where the machine that attaches the buttons was broken. For days, shirts without buttons rolled off the production line.

It is a worrying trend that support services are telling us how to do the very things we want them to do for us

Once I discovered and corrected the error, 15 minutes of my precious time had passed. If I had to do this every month, I’d probably become quite proficient at it. But I only do it once a year, and each year, something in the procedure changes. That’s why it takes me a disproportionate amount of time. It is a worrying trend that support services are telling us how to do the very things we want them to do for us. I say ‘trend’, but it has really become the norm.

For the record, the people who work at Exam Support are very friendly and helpful. They did not come up with this system, but they have to deal with it. Were we ever asked how we would like it to be organised? Of course not. Some Captain Clueless high up in the organisation came up with this procedure with no concern for the needs of the users. ‘They probably want to do everything themselves.’

It’s almost time for my seasonal tyre swop. I sure hope my car repair garage does not give me a seven-step guide on how to do it myself.