Dear Colleagues:
I have created problems for myself with regard to the competency
level of my user base and I would like your reflections and suggestions.
One mistake I made was backing off on what I required my users to
endure in terms of training from me. I used to insist that they at
least understand the arm-waving vector explanation of
inversion-recovery before they were allowed to practice on the
instruments and get passwords. Neither the users nor their professors
appreciated this and I felt like I was expending a lot of effort
teaching this material and getting no positive reinforcement in
return, so I relaxed my standards.
Then I got a decent graduate assistant and I turned over to him a lot
of the training load, and he was even less demanding than me.
Competency declined further.
Now, I have VNMRJ and PFGs, which allows users with no competency
whatsoever to obtain decent NMR data. The consequence I find evermore
vexing is that my users are getting progressively more incompetent,
not even taking care to use the walkup "no-brainer" interface
correctly. They cannot be troubled even to make sure the solvent is
set correctly.
First the faculty encouraged me to be lazy about what I required NMR
users to know. Then the software encouraged me to be lazy. Now,
formerly competent users are shifting their brains into neutral upon
entering the NMR lab and are causing problems that they wouldn't have
caused if they had been here 15 years ago.
My job is beginning to feel an awful lot like that of the Wal-Mart
Associate who monitors the automated check-out stations and runs
frantically to assist every bonehead customer who gets into trouble.
I think I am working more instead of less and, even worse, I'm
feeling separated from my previous level of understanding of what the
software is making the instrument do.
Yesterday, a user needed a 1-D nOe. Instead of poring over the VJ
manuals to figure it out, I fired up the 6.1C emulation instead and
got him a result. I'm not saying VJ is bad, but I think I'm seeing
user-friendly produce user-stupid, and maybe director-stupid as well.
Bill
William C. Stevens, Ph.D. Director
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901
618-453-6498 voice / -6408 fax / 521-9892 cell
http://opie.nmr.siu.edu
Received on Thu Apr 06 2006 - 12:10:37 MST