Conflicting ideas erupted over the possible implementing the Follett Discovery link into Talonnet in Faculty Senate on Tuesday, April 14.
No agreement has been reached yet, but according to ASCC Senator Victor Villalobos the idea brought up by the Follett company that runs the campus bookstore said Follett Discovery will provide a link for students through Talonnet to have access to helpful YouTube videos, books needed for the class schedule and outside resources.
He said, “One of the concerns a senator brought up is that before, they tried to do something like that through Talonnet and it overwhelmed the server so bad that it crashed Talonnet.”
In an email to Follett’s corporate team they said, Follett Discovery link would build upon a previous project called BookNow tool.
There are two branches to the Follett Discovery link.
Follett Faculty Discover helps teachers pick the best resources for the course they are teaching.
Follett Student Discover gives the opportunity for students to purchase, manage and access material for the courses they are taking.
Villalobos is concerned that even though the link would not be on Cerritos’ servers, Follett Discovery’s activity could override the server and cause a system crash.
He said, “The last time that happened Talonnet crashed for like a week, students were out of Talonnet.”
As it stands, there will be no extra cost to the school for the implication of Follett Discovery.
Follett corporate team said, “The school is partnering with the bookstore to fully consider the solution and potential benefits to the campus. There is no cost to the school to implement the Follett Discover technology suite.”
If taken into action, Follett Discovery’s objective would be to make it transparent for students to know what resources they need for what class.
However, Villalobos brought up the question about students currently not doing business with the campus bookstore.
He said, “So what if I buy [books] across the street or somewhere else, am I still going to be able to have access to things like MyPearson through [Follett Discovery] and they said no.”
Villalobos said books have to be bought through Follett to get access to online-style course material.
However, something positive Villalobos liked from Follett Discovery is that students don’t have to buy books from the bookstore to access the new information that teachers can add to Talonnet.
