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Students are failing AP tests because the College Board can’t handle HEIC images

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669 points danso | 1 comments | 20 May 20 19:36 UTC | HN request time: 0.203s | source
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braythwayt ◴[22 May 20 00:59 UTC] No.23267590[source]▶
A lot of comments are arguing about whether the software should have been modified to accept the HEIC format.

Let's go with "no" for the sake of argument. They probably can't accept an mp3 of me singing my answers, either. But!

If I upload an HEIC, an mp3, a keynote file, or anything else unacceptable... Why doesn't the site provide an immediate "File format not accepted, please upload .gif, .jpg, or .png" message?

According to the article, the software would actually just hang. I think there's room to argue about whether they need to support the default format of an extremely significant platform for students. I think there's room to argue whether they should know enough about INPUT tags to let the browser help with this.

But while we're arguing about those questions, can't we all agree that simply hanging without providing a useful error message, and without giving the student an opportunity to re-upload their image... Is unacceptably poor software design for an institution that holds people's future in their hands?

I don't know about you, but if I were an American college student, I'd now be wondering what else they have kind of slapped together without thinking through graceful error handling?

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1. 0d9eooo ◴[22 May 20 10:42 UTC] No.23270629[source]▶
It should go a bit further than what you're suggesting even. Any half-serious upload of a document or image now, less high stakes than a CB test, generally displays the file you upload for you to verify. Ie, "here's what we have from what you uploaded. Is this ok?"

The college board should have had a list of accepted formats, should have included instructions that they put in the tweet in the upload UI, and should have had an uploaded document verification process. This is solely the responsibility of the CB, and is deceitful at some level, by leading students to believe they were complying when they were not.