mynkpdrMost of our TDS forum threads weren't about learning
I read all 281 course-forum threads from the May 2026 term. 88% were about marks, bugs and deadlines, and replies still came within hours.
After the May 2026 term of Tools in Data Science, I looked at the course forum. I wanted to know what students were actually asking for help with.
The forum had 281 threads and 1,816 posts. I grouped each thread by what it was really for.
What I found
- 88.3% were administrative friction: marks, bugs, deadlines, schedules and rules.
- 6.0% were about learning the material.
- Only 4 threads in the whole term asked for help with the task itself, against 127 marks disputes and 48 portal bugs.
It got worse as the term went on. Marks and bug threads grew from 55% of all threads in May to 72% in August.
It wasn’t slow support
That’s the surprise. Replies were quick: the median first reply took two to three hours, every month, and only 17 of 281 threads went unanswered. The course team wrote about a quarter of the posts, but 158 of the 184 accepted answers.
What it means
Students weren’t asking how to do the work. They were disputing their scores. So the fix isn’t faster replies. It’s clearer marks, fewer portal bugs and clearer schedules, so the forum can get back to teaching.
