This post is specifically about addressing a syllabus submission problem but it’s worth thinking about more broadly. It should be pretty applicable to any structured data entry problem you have. These are often administrative chores (like this one) but could also be about cataloging grave markers or indexing resources or Collecting the syllabi for their department is one of those miserable things department chairs often have to do. They then need to store and reference those syllabi for a few years.I feel like I already wrote this post . . . but since I can’t find it . . . The normal pattern is to ask people to email the syllabus and there is usually some desperate plea for a common naming convention.Start with your last name, then underscore . . . This plea is followed by ~2 people. People are bad at directions (giving and following). Email makes this basic flaw 20 times worse.You can then square the chance of error because everyone hates turning in stuff like this. This particular pattern for misery incarnate is repeated over and over at VCU and across universities everywhere. I recently met with a faculty member who’d at least been asked to submit the syllabus to a shared Google Drive folder but he was having issues because of directions and Google’s interface […]