Speakeasy Update

After emailing Jim Hardwick, Carroll’s Vice President for Student Life, he sent me this nice reply:

Quote from Jim Hardwick:

Paul:

Thanks for your email. As you have probably noticed, the Carroll website is going through a major upgrade. With the upgrade, the college is going to be able to offer more features and capabilities than we have in the past. The challenge is that there is going to be a transition time before everything can be operational.

As far as the Speakeasy, we are going to be able to consider different ways to operate that part of the Boards. However, we need to involve the campus in discussion as to what features we want to see with the Speakeasy. For example, one of the choices we now have with this upgrade is whether the Speakeasy should be limited to users with a Carroll log-in. Or whether or not the Speakeasy should allow anonymous postings. The capabilities we now have with the upgrade means we need to revisit how the Speakeasy functions and that is best going to happen with a campus-wide dialogue.

It is my understanding that the upgrade is also going to take time to install all of the features and options—as well as update all of the new pages in the system—and that part of the delay with the Speakeasy was that the infrastructure for the whole system and individual projects needed to get done before the Speakeasy will be reinstalled. IT Services is doing a tremendous job in upgrading all of our web capabilities. It is important to note that there is an incredible amount of work to do and yet to be done.

I know the question was asked at a meeting earlier this week as to what alternative can be offered to students between now and the completion of the discussion of the Speakeasy. I do not know if that question has been answered yet.

I hope you find this information to further explain what is going on with the Speakeasy. I will check the message on the website to see if more clarity can be added there.

Enjoy your week!

Jim

Well… A nice reply. Better than what is on the website. I guess he doesn’t know that I might be the person who ends up implmenting those ‘new’ features. Oh Well. I still don’t understand why they had to be taken down now instead of waiting for the new system to be completed. They have been up for 4 years, why shut them down now for a semester?