Work

A couple of weeks ago i blogged about itisdown.com – a new website i’m working on. Since then i’ve been busy working on smemon.com but itisdown.com is now ready to go live next week.

So what is it?

It will basically be an unofficial community driven feedback system for (to start off) my own college.

How does it work?

You can sign up, submit a problem and that problem will not only appear on the site itself, it will also auto update a facebook page and the dkitdown twitter account. Other users will also be able to thumbs up or thumbs down a problem & comment on them or get a list of problems delivered daily via rss / email if they want

What good is it?

It’s public, it’s community driven, it helps speed up the transfer of information. Let’s say there’s a bulb blown in a room – how quickly will it be fixed? I don’t know, but i know it will be known about much quicker using my system.

What about something more useful… a timetable change? How often will students come in expecting to have class only to be told they don’t? More than you might think… Or what about a PC that doesn’t work? Has a virus? A smashed window? A leak? A broken projector? A printer out of ink? A web service down?

These are all problems. These are all things that (in fairness) will be fixed at some stage. However one person might know about them as they happen, others may not. I might know about a timetable change before somebody else who might be absent… so the transfer of information to that person gets lost or delayed or might not take place at all.

Maybe i can’t get on to the internet… but is it just me? Well, i don’t know… i have to literally ask other people around me if it’s just me… there is no status update or forum to check. But with my system, people can leave a comment and say “yes, i too can’t get online” or “no, it’s just you”. Bread and butter online communication but it can’t be done as things stand.

With this set up, things are rated, discussed and thrown out in to social networks for all to see. All in real time. The way it should be. I’m not quite sure how this will evolve (it could be used for a more general feedback system), but it will evolve so long as i’m involved and that’s the important thing.