• wavebeam@lemmy.world
      2·
      21 minutes ago

      Pearson, HMH, and all the major for-profit educational resource providers (and much of the not-for-profits, too) are literally actually evil.

  • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 hour ago

    That’s fine, I don’t know what Pearson’s course is and I’m not really interested. So, ah, “Remind me later”, I guess…

    • Lumelore (She/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      14·
      4 hours ago

      I used a Windows VM when I was in college. Even if you are pursuing a computer science degree, yes, some professors assume/expect that everyone will be using Windows. Using a VM also has the added benefit of you being easily able to get rid of all the programs they made you install as well once the semester is over.

    • underscores@lemmy.zipEnglish
      13·
      5 hours ago

      They can force you to use Windows.

      What you can do is ask if using a virtual machine is fine. or don’t ask at all and have a virtual machine image of windows ready.

      • pogmommy@lemmy.mlEnglish
        14·
        5 hours ago

        As someone who’s worked for several years in higher ed IT and used Linux during my studies, this’ll only get you most of the way there. Unfortunately some proctoring software (Respondus Lockdown Browser comes to mind) can be incredibly invasive, and to my knowledge will refuses to run in a VM.

        Instructors also have a tendency of not disclosing during registration whether or not they use these proctoring softwares.

        I’m lucky enough that by the time I was all-in on Linux, I wasn’t taking courses that used that exam model, but it’s why I make sure that the helpdesk at my current institution offers loaner devices to students who either have computers incapable of running the proctoring software, or who simply don’t want that kind of software on their own machine. It’s a pain in the ass to work with, but apparently it’s enshrined in our faculty’s union contract.

  • Johanno@feddit.org
    92·
    11 hours ago

    Some websites do this.

    Change the user agent to windows and it works.

    Fuxk you piece of shit!

    Amazon does this too. After you bought a movie you can’t watch it in full hd on Linux. User agent doesn’t help.

    However if you tell their api that you are an smart tv running Linux it works…

      • Johanno@feddit.org
        2·
        3 hours ago

        Drm was not the issue they just refused to run high quality on Linux.

        Linux Browsers Support drm too.

    • HouseWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
      33·
      8 hours ago

      Same goes if you’re running Firefox.

      I once had Hotmail take forever to get past the loading screen, then actually navigating my mail was hellishly slow. Switched my user agent to Edge and “magically” it loaded instantly and everything was snappy…

      Had a few other sites do similar slowdowns but that and Youtube were the most unashamedly blatant.

  • Flax@feddit.ukEnglish
    24·
    10 hours ago

    “Upgrade?”

    Also I remember these Pearson pricks downgraded everyone’s BTEC results for an assignment on “the future of the media industry” as they got some boomer to mark it who didn’t do any research himself

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    31·
    12 hours ago

    Seems to be that learning sites in general are assholes. I once attended a language course, and while their “solution” was web based, it was focused on IE. I had serious issues attending the course under Firefox.

    I logged a lot of errors on their site, but their tech support could only manage accounts, the web site had been built by an external company ages ago, and they had no fingers into that.

    • mmmm@sopuli.xyz
      4·
      8 hours ago

      At my uni they go to the extreme where not only one gets around 20-30 mails DAILY but now to go check your email, which is gmail-based, it hops first into a Cloudflare human verification page that you can never pass in Falkon because it keeps looping after you check the human verification

    • Phoenix3875@lemmy.world
      6·
      10 hours ago

      A key difference is that for learning sites, those who hold the purse strings are usually not those who actually use the website. They only need to convince the school administry or corporate procurement, but care little about the actual users.

      • Newsteinleo@midwest.socialEnglish
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Ha ha, that’s cute, you think there is are admins and procurement teams involved. The book publishers sell this shit directly to the professors, and usually the university can’t get involved because of the way the profs contracts are setup. Pearson builds their platform for making the profs job easier, not for any benefit to the students.