Sunday 20 May, 2007

OUR COLLEGE WEBSITE .. A DISGRACE!

HOME PAGE :
Lets start off with the Home page... The first thing that hit you as soon as the page loads is how utterly bland the site is. With just two colours (namely blue and black... yea..very colourful and bright!! ), the initial reaction to the site is ... CRAP!!. And what is it with the "Advances In Material Technology" link on the home page right next to the wonderfully obviously fake pic of a non existent college building? And on top of that not only is that link slap bang in the home page where it should never have been, but IT DOESN'T WORK!! IF IT DOESN'T WORK WHY ON EARTH IS IT THERE?????

Now assuming that the visitor hasn't gone to another site as a result of boredom, and is curious to know how badly a site can be made.... lets see the other pages.

CONTACT ADDRESS:
The second page is an ever so important separate page for "Contact Address".The amazing picture of our hypothetical college building sweeps to the right side of the page (As a result of someone not taking enough time to make a good site) and the blandness continues.)

PRINCIPAL:
Next you click on the link that says "Principal" so that you can know who is in charge and can be held accountable for the site... and what do you get ???


Not Found

The requested URL /ec-ravindranath1.html was not found on this server.

Yea ... thats our principal! NOT FOUND!!
Cmon ... he's the head of the institution!! If the college site cant even get a decent pic of profile of him up, then what's the point in having the site?

AFFILIATED UNIVERSITY
Next is the Affiliated University link ...and another page is wasted just givin the address of the Kerala University.

GOVERNANCE
The GOVERNANCE link .. .the first decent page I found on the site. It serves its purpose sufficiently and effectively. And the background keeps with the central theme of amazing blandness.

PROGRAMMES
Ahh .. here comes the important stuff ... a student seeking admissions will be looking into this with great interest.. and this is the chance for the college to project its best and show its strength where it matters...
So you click "Programs" (It should have been programmes but hey ...who cares right?) and there in all its glory is

"List of Programs acredited by AICTE

Nil "

Apparently we are proud of that fact that we need to advertise it all over our web page...
The cut off rank is probably one of the few good ideas that the site designer came up with. Why on earth is there a "fee" link in here if there is a separate page dedicated to that????
And probably one of the most, if not THE most important section PLACEMENTS is pushed into a nice corner within the Programmes section whereas other VERY IMPORTANT (Please note extreme levels of sarcasm) things such as "AFFILIATED UNIVERSITY" and "GOVERNANCE" and CONTACT ADDRESS are given separate pages.

And not leaving the topic of placements, please people!! This is where we need to project our college positively. Say exactly which all companies came, say how many they recruited. Show them a graph of a growin placement record.Not a drab page.

FACULTY:
Ok.So hmmm ... this section is done pretty decently.. again background sucks.And maybe we can avoid having a separate section for "Faculty - student Ratio" for one single statement by just having that statement in the opening page of that section.

FEE:
Now we dont really need this link do we? Because we've already covered this under another section!!!!!!!

APPLICATION FORM, ADMISSION,ADMISSION PROCEDURE,ADMISSION CRITERIA:
Cmon now people ... do we need four separate pages for this? It doesnt really take a rocket scientist to figure out that it would be much more simple and convenient to have it all under one page called "ADMISSIONS" because each of the above mentioned sections consists of only one sentence anyways.

LIST OF CANDIDATES:
No real reason to have such a section but what the hell ... if you're havin it, make it properly. Apparently from the site, only the IT branch has 4 years worth of students studyin in it and EC and MECH were started only this year because only the 1st year students(now in 2nd yr) of these two branches are mentioned.

INFRASTRUCTURE: (well here comes our college's strength!!)
1)library:
An acceptable job.
2)laboratories
Apparently the area is the most important part of a lab and and according to the site, the electrical lab and mechanical workshops have either infinite area or zero area ... if someone could please tell me what "...." under "area" indicates....
And instead of having all the details of the labs under this single link, we have seperate links for computing facilities,EC labs, IT labs, ME labs
3)"other facilities"
Let it speak for itself

Games and Sports Facilities

A Physical Education Department, headed by Dr. Monikantan Nair, HCPEd, BPE, MPEd, M Phil, PGDSM, PhD (permanent staff member), is functioning in this college. The Department has adequate facilities for its smooth functioning. Students can also utilize the facilities of the Department of Physical Education, University of Kerala and their stadium which is only half a kilometer from our Campus. Arrangements have been made to practice athletics, football, volleyball and weight training items there. Students can also practice basket ball and handball have at the Central stadium and ball badminton, shuttle badminton and table tennis at Jimmy George stadium, which are also only half a kilometer away from the campus. Mean time, the construction of 2 badminton courts is progressing on our campus. The department also plans to construct a volley ball court and a basket ball court on our campus shortly.

Yes ...we now play in the badminton courts everyday ... QUOTE" The department also plans to construct a volley ball court and a basket ball court on our campus shortly."

For normal people this is what "Shortly" means in GEC ... Shortly - definition: NEVER!!

Example sentence: When we joined this college in 2003, we were told that we would be getting a second bus "shortly".Its been four years. No bus.

And under "CENTRAL EXAMINATION FACILITY" we have ...

Central Examination Facility

The existing class rooms are utilized.


That sure as hell needed a seperate page ... dont you think so???

and finally


ACADEMIC:

Yes... this page has some useful information i do admit. and apparently from this site, one can come to the conclusion that an engineering student has only odd semesters.Because the site gives the timetables of the odd sems. Oops my mistake ... its just that the people who are in charge of running the site are soooooo busy with their own lives to update the site once in a year atleast!!!!

S7 was over months back!!! WAKE UP!!!


FINAL VERDICT : in one word ... our college website SUCKS!

PS: If anyone is planning on commenting some thing along the lines of "If you have such an issue with the college website, why don't you make one instead of complaining.Its easy to sit and blog about it. Only we who actually made it know how hard it is to do it ... sniff sniff boo hoo waah waah" then don't. Because you have no right to.People who were really interested in making a good site approaced the IT HOD with plans for a revamped site and the reply he got from the "respected" HOD "it's a thng tht's bein managed by the IT dept and that the students needn't bother about it! They are keeping it at it's best."
I apologise in advance for what im about to say next but I have to ...KEEPING IT AT ITS BEST MY @$!!!!
If you don't know how to make a good site, let people who do know how to do it do it.The designers and the people who do not allow for change as a result of their stupid ego should be ashamed of their job. Look at www.cet.ac.in. Check that out and see the difference. We have students who know how to use Flash and software that could help in makin it a better site. But can they help?? NO!!! His Highness cannot let the mere mortals that dwell on earth lay their hands on his glorious and mighty web page!

10 comments:

gasmutai said...

How many ITians ar there on this blog? Who can take ownership to revamp it? Count on any help needed to make it happen... but to have it initiated can only come from u guys...

Abhi said...

Well a sad thing that we always wanted to change! The older website had atleast a guest book where we could comment on the site's EFFECTIVENESS . Now many might not have seen that site, but that was a sound design and incorporated all the major links in the main page itself. It used javascript and php. The present site was made in order to give a PROFESSIONAL outlook and here we have the ultimate website! One which even a kid in lower school will be able to replicate.

Placements maynot be the ultimate thing in a Engg college for the people who made the site, but the page never mentions anything about the sizeable number of students who get into the PG programmes in prestigious institutions like the IIT's and IIM's.

Overall the page should not even be given a rating coz it doesn't deserve even that! We are all fedup telling the AUTHORITY CONCERNED how bad it looks, seems the man is so used to criticism that even if we say "Saaar, a site kandaal aarum e collegil recruitmentino, admissiono varilla". Still he faces all these with courage. Hats off to him and the DESIGNER, if it was sum1 els; coz i dn't thnk the gentleman in question will know what HTML means! let go about PHP and other scripting languages!

Finally i will say, we have talented students! If any1 knows a thing or two about hacking, PLEASE HELP AND STOP THIS DISGRACING BEFORE IT DOES ANY FURTHER DAMAGE!

Abhi said...

Also if u have a different opinion about the importance of placements. Please checkout
http://www.cet.ac.in &
http://www.cet.ac.in/cgpu/

http://www.nitc.ac.in/ &
http://www.nitc.ac.in/nitc/T%26P/index.htm

If they feel its important, it will be, coz they still are the best colleges in Kerala.

Abhijith said...

I've had the opportunity to meet the AUTHORITY CONCERNED for some other matters regarding the college as a whole in which we needed his approval or rather we wanted him to know about it atleast ( Abhi- u know about the matter ) . And this very respectable man was criticising us for whatever we were doing saying that students have no right to do these and he knew what to do .
Coming to the topic , we must see to it that a decent site comes up . I have been teased a lot of times by my friends in other colleges telling about the site . Just imagine what the recruiting companies would be thinking and even the students who plan to get into our college . I guess we must directly approach the new principal after he or she takes charge to take proactive steps in this matter cos I'm sure whatever we students do , this man wouldn't budge .

Aparna said...

Adding points to the post...

They could have checked the names of the recruiters and at least spell them properly. To the person who took the pain to type in all the valuable details in the site: man, it's not LARSEN and TURBO!!! it's LARSEN and TOUBRO. and, US Software is now US Technology.
=))

Another joke is that for all the teaching faculty members, there are numerous "Nil" factors, which are not at all of any earthly importance in a college site. They're not posting their resumes here...

One thing to notice is that only IT syllabus has a detailed listing of the subjects, and out of the hell, only "IT" things are better off.

I remember my batch mates approaching the CREATOR AND SUSTAINER of this site, and like what Abhi told, HE told he'd take care of it. this issue was even debated in a CCGP meeting in the presence of the previous Principal. The site is nothing more than a simple HTML page; even better sites were created in S6 lab (Internet Technology), by the IT students.

To all our juniors: Please do something about this. If nothing is working out, please HACK the site

Anonymous said...

jst to add on...

well the title of this post says it all "OUR COLLEGE WEBSITE .. A DISGRACE!"

disgrace indeed!!
and amidst this piece of trash we call our college website ,the MASTERMIND tries to show his " IT-spirit(????)" too.....not only is there a detailed list of IT subjects, the names of IT students of all semesters are also neatly enlisted...as for the rest of the branches only first year students 'have the honours'....
maybe he couldnt get the lists of the rest of the subjects and students....
but we cant question whether HE tried to get those in the first place ,can we ? after all see how hard HE has worked for making this Fantastic Ultra-attractive Comprehensive Krystal-clear and Extremely Delightful website....
ps:- i know crystal starts with a C but i needed an adjective with K to connect the dots ;)

Rohin said...

Abhi ... I was the one who deleted them. Cos vishnu asked me to cos he wanted to modify his comment

Rohin said...

oh yea ... almost forgot ... the site doesnt have any pics of the college...

Unknown said...

I dunno who is in charge of updating the site.. btw if dey let students to edit the design, we could give it a facelift.

moreover I'll be just haPpy to give it a try.. ;)

000 said...

hey people stop grumbling...
its our site... study html & php and renovate the website....... upload into a new server..... and then show the department new website in the server.............
count me in if anyone wants to renovate it...... i am fresher and i knw html...... [:D]

 
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