Luddites

Yesterday, I was browsing my University email account for various amusing bits, of which there are always plenty, for example;

Main Building Front Doors

I am sure you will have noticed that these doors are not operating properly at all times. Unfortunately over the past weekend all 3 new doors failed.

Classic. Almost as good as all the 'Oh no! I saved all my final year coursework onto just one USB stick and now I've lost it! It's silver and nondescript! HELP!' emails which fly around. Oh yes employers - if you want quality, Aston's the place to go.

Hilariously inept though the above is though, that's not what's got me annoyed at the University this time. You see, one of my emails contained information about something I wished to apply for. As I can't apply in person, for obvious reasons, I asked if I could do so online, and was sent a Word document.

Yes, a Microsoft Word document, a proprietary format which only^* paying users can access. Good start no? Fortunately, I happen to have a copy of Office, so I was fine this time. At the top of this document was the brand new logo:


_{At the top, the logo in picture form. Below, some text. Note this is a full colour document.}

You can only actually see which bit is the picture because I selected it in Word. Originally I thought it was just someone trying badly to impersonate it with some normal font and an Autoshape from the Word drawing toolbar. No, this is our offical, professionally designed, £65,000 new brand. Prospective students: think children with MS Paint - think Aston.

I still haven't actually gotten to what's annoyed me though. At the bottom of the Digital Document which was Emailed to me came this instruction.

If you are a placement student and are applying whilst away from the University, you should post your application to:
...
You will be sent a receipt as proof of the applications’ arrival.

Now, at what point, does someone sitting at a computer, with an internet connection, decide to type that? Did the monetary, environmental and time costs of:

• Printing the form out


• Posting it


• Waiting for it to arrive


• Waiting for the relevant details to be typed in from the form


• Printing a receipt


• Posting a receipt and


• Waiting for the receipt to arrive

simply not occur?

When you log on to your online banking, are you presented with a form to fill out and post to your branch before you can get your balance? Does Facebook ask you to fly them your acceptance of a friend request by carrier pigeon? Would you walk fifteen miles in the freezing cold to bid on an eBay item? Of course not.

In a world where digital signatures are perfectly legally valid, there is absolutely no need for this kind of thing, and every time I see it, I feel a mixture of nausea and rage. This, however, is perhaps explained by the fact that every time I see it, it comes from Aston University. I've had a good long think, and that last sentence is definitely true, at least for the past year or so, and surely longer.

By the way, I'd love to say this kind of thing is a severe problem in the Computer Science department of Aston University too - but I received a call from the head of the course censoring me from publicly stating the problems with that bit of the University - so in no way do I say that the most technologically able part of the University is guilty of this too. Clear?

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_{* Yes, I know there are some exceptions here}