As Dean, I would standardize the format and delivery of electronic readings across all courses.
I have been a post-secondary student off and on for the past ten years. In that time, institutions have gradually shifted from a predominately physical (i.e., coursepacks) to a predominately electronic mode of delivering edited collections of primary and secondary materials. Costly printed coursepacks of materials freely available online through institutional subscriptions and CanLII have long been a source of grumbling amongst students. So, like many of my colleagues, I laud the curation of digital links and PDF files of journals, cases and other materials.
But when we envisioned a future free of physical coursepacks, we never foresaw the multi-format, unedited overabundance of files, subfolders and changing content we see in course websites and syllabi today. With the transition to digital, we were promised jetpacks, but are stuck driving rattly old trucks.
Every course has its own set of multiple PDFs, .docs, links to journals, instructions on accessing journals, policy manuals, and links to unedited hundred-page long SCC cases. Every course website has its own file scheme and naming conventions for readings — or maybe none at all. In the halcyon days of coursepacks, these materials would have been edited, stable and accessible.
From the student point of view, downloading, organizing and reading these multiple files is proving increasingly unwieldy. It’s often unclear when materials have been added or changed, and virtually impossible to tell what is properly “part of the course” and what is obiter. How does one properly review this disarray of changing materials before an exam? For those (like myself) who read and learn most effectively by underlining and writing comments directly on materials, the multiplicity of file formats makes it extremely difficult to have any consistent digital strategy for note-making. Instead, we’re left printing out individual articles and building ad-hoc coursepacks.
In short, in the transition from physical to digital, institutions have quietly and transferred a significant burden of work and time around the preparation, organization and editing of course materials from professors / administrators to students. Over the past ten years, the basic organizational work I’ve had to do just to get to my readings has increased dramatically. For schools, this is a customer service failing and a disincentive for student reading.
But it’s a relatively simple problem to solve! As Dean, I would support standardizing the delivery of digital readings to maximize accessibility. This means (i) creating a single collated PDF file of all readings for each topic/week of class; and/or (ii) creating a single collated PDF file of all course readings — in effect, a complete digital coursepack. Indeed, to the relief of students, some professors (eg, Rehaag) are already practicing this method of delivery. Standardizing and collating readings would greatly increase the accessibility and manageability of course materials. It would stabilize the increasingly nebulous record of what is actually being covered in courses and would drastically cut down student time dedicated to administration of readings.
Kind regards,
Clifford McCarten
2L Osgoode