I have been an ESS volunteer for almost two decades now. Back when I started, it was Emergency Social Services. Recently they changed the name to Emergency Support Services.
I have taken, over the years, all kinds of training in all kinds of courses, related to emergency services and emergency management. I have had courses taught by JIBC (the Justice Institute of British Columbia), the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, St John Ambulance, and various other groups and agencies. Starting up again here in Port Alberni, I have to take a bunch of the basic courses all over again. And these, the most basic courses, are taught through JIBC, online via their website.
I don't really mind retaking the basic courses. It's always good to remind yourself of the basics. It's always good to get a refresher. (When I took them to begin with, they were pretty much review, since I have been teaching business continuity and disaster recovery planning, internationally, for several years longer than I've been in ESS.) But taking the courses online through JIBC has been really, incredibly painful.
First of all, there is the registration process itself. I can't say that it doesn't work, but it didn't work for quite a while. Apparently, at some point in the dim and distant past, before JIBC set up their online training website, I must have given them an email address at some point. Therefore, when I went to sign up and register as a new student on their website (which I had never done before, because the last time that I was taking courses from JIBC it was all paper-based), I couldn't get registered. For anything. I was told (by the Website), every time I attempted to register, that they would be sending me a confirmation email. I never got any email.
The support staff at JIBC are terrific. They are patient, and helpful. They have to be. They are dealing, everyday, with people who are unable to register for the courses that they need, or, unable, for various reasons related to the design of the courses, to complete the materials. (Although, given the importance of the Website, it is intriguing that, when you *do* find the "Contacts" page [which is oddly rather hidden], there is no listing for technical support.)
So, when I dealt with an actual person, on the JIBC support staff, she was able to identify the fact that this additional email address was in my account. Unfortunately, this doesn't really explain what happened. The old email address is one that I still use, and, indeed, check every single day. The JIBC did not send any messages either registering me, or indicating any kind of error, to either address. The website said it was sending an email message, but no email message was ever sent to either address. (Yes, I did check. I have checked both email addresses, and I have checked the spam filters on both email addresses. Of all the messages that JIBC said that they sent in that time period, none went to either address in any way, shape, or form.)
At any rate, once the support agent was able to remove the old email address, I did start to receive email messages from the JIBC. I was able to register for, and to start to take, the first couple of courses. Which only demonstrated exactly how poor JIBC's Web-based educational materials are.
Those who pride themselves on educational design note that having an online course is not just putting text-based materials up on a Web page. As an educator, for more than fifty years, who has taught in a variety of situations, including online, and as a sometime Web designer myself, I know that this is true. Unfortunately, in the case of JIBC, this is basically what they do.
Actually, if they stuck to just putting the text materials up on the Web page, it might be better. Instead, someone has convinced them to put all kinds of Web-based tricks up on the page. Instead of a bulleted list of items, which someone could read fairly easily and quickly, the Web page relies on the little "plus" symbols to open the contents of the bullets in a list. So, you, as the student, need to know about that form of web interface design, and click on the items to get the content, and then click on the next one to the next few sentences of content, and so forth, instead of just simply reading several sentences of materials which would take much less time, and would be much clearer.
In addition, the JIBC, in the course content, makes some pages available as PDFs. When you click on these PDFs, the PDF content does not come up in a separate window, or in a tab, or in a sub window of the window that you're currently in. No, for some reason, even if you ask for the material to be opened in a separate window, it will open up a separate window, but then, for some reason, close your original window. So, wherever you were in the course, is basically lost.
And some of these supporting resources, the documents that contain extra details, or even full details of the material, simply aren't there. And, in many cases, if you click on those resources, and the content isn't there, you can't get back to your course again. You would have to shut down everything, and then go back, open a new window, login again, and proceed through the course to the point at which you tried to access a resource. And then remember not to try to access that particular resource, or otherwise you need to go through the whole process all over again.
There are more problems with registration. Going through various programs, some courses require prerequisites. This is fairly normal in any kind of curriculum. However, in the case of the Web-based materials, JIBC enforces the prerequisite requirements, by not allowing you to register for a course if you don't have the prerequisites on your account. Unfortunately, JIBC, even though it has this computer-based system, which should have access to course marks pretty much instantly, can take an unreasonably long time to credit you the marks for your course. So, in many cases, you will be unable to register for a subsequent course, even after you have successfully completed one course as a prerequisite, if the system still doesn't recognize that you have, in fact, completed, and passed, the course.
And there are all kinds of reasons why it won't register you for a course. And the registration process requires, for some reason, multiple screens for you to go through for a simple registration or checkout process. All of these screens are very busy, with very tiny print and very small fonts, in multiple forms, with boxes and bars and grade areas, and it's hard enough to fill them out in the first place. If the system coughs on something that you have entered, it will, actually, present you with a new screen with the error on it. Unfortunately, the new screen is pretty much identical to the old with the addition (again, in a very small font) of some kind of error message buried in amongst the other verbiage on the screen. It is therefore extremely difficult to figure out from this new screen that is presented to you, what the problem is, or, indeed, that there is in fact a problem and that this is a new screen rather than simply a non-responsive original screen.
And the site isn't even consistent with itself. Different screens will tell you different things. About the same course. I can't tell what I am registered for, and what I have passed. My "report card" (and don't ask me how to get at it, because most stuff I just come across by accident, and can't ever find again) doesn't show any mark for either the first course that I took (and passed), or a subsequent course (which I also passed). The last time I tried to register for a third course, it said I couldn't because I didn't have the second. (That was after I had passed the second.) But somewhere, I came across a page that shows me registered for the third! So I have no idea whether I will be able to do the next course next month.
I enjoy helping. I enjoy volunteering. I like the fact that I am an important part of helping people at the worst time in their lives. I very much enjoy being an ESS volunteer. But JIBC is driving me nuts!
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