By Megan Chan

Welcome to 2020. Our world is pandemic-ridden, the planet is on fire, and PHI has made its comeback.

The cessation of PHI between the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 academic years had been gradual, but inevitable. A dashboard for students and teachers alike, the formerly popular website was used to keep track of homework assignments, display SS-Bulletin-esque announcements, and provide access to curriculum plans and calendar dates, among other features. A staple of Renaissance College, PHI was essential in day-to-day life. 

That changed in the 2017-2018 academic year when Google Classroom, a new web service, rose in popularity among RCHK teachers. Admired for its clean interface and lack of technological issues, the website facilitated accessible sharing resources more effectively than PHI. 

Some of PHI’s features withstood the test of time — student bulletin announcements were still submitted through the website, while students continued to take advantage of PHI’s early admin updates to obtain timetable information before beginning the school year. It didn’t take long, however, for RCHK to officially switch to Google Classroom months later, making PHI a scarcely used relic.  

“Google Classroom was easily accessible and more convenient for the students,” Y11 student Esha Bijani noted. “PHI had disappeared for a while, so I didn’t think it would come back. Teachers also became more familiar with Google Classroom, so PHI seemed obsolete.”

As noted by RCHK Truth journalist Justine Leung at the time of PHI’s discontinuation: “There is a chance that Phi will be repurposed […] either that, or the rest of its functions will be fully closed down and discontinued.” Three years since its discontinuation, PHI had seemed en route to its demise. Apparently, this isn’t the case. 

Bit by bit, PHI crept back into RCHK students’ lives. Attendance and reports, which traditionally took place on Gateway, transitioned over to PHI. Displayed announcements were updated to reflect current listings on SS-Bulletin, even as the rest of the website remained the same. 

The unofficial switch to PHI became apparent with the release of reports, but the lack of prior announcement baffled students: “I was shocked,” commented Y11 student Ivan Suen. “It’s quite annoying because I didn’t know [the reports were] going to be released on PHI, so I kept reloading Gateway and wasted ten minutes.” 

PHI’s comeback came as a surprise to most — but behind-the-scenes, the switch had been a long time coming. The change occurred consequently of the new ESF app, released this year, which provided different resources, updates, and alerts for parents and students alike. One of the app’s key features is its close link to PHI, which can be directly accessed from the home page.

“[A] switch to PHI has been planned for a long time,” according to Ania Zielinska, head of learning technologies at Renaissance College. “The development of the ESF app has given additional impetus to [the] PHI transition as the app is closely linked to PHI.  Early informal feedback from parents has been positive and we hope that ESF will be developing student use of the app in the forthcoming months.”

Which begs the question — should we expect to see more of PHI in the coming years?

The answer is a resounding yes: “We are hoping to move core services (CAS/SA, EE and TOK) [to PHI] in the next 12-18 months, effectively leading to discontinuation of ManageBac. Many other features are also under consideration [for moving].” 

Responses to this change were mixed: “I don’t like managebac because it’s hard to navigate,” remarked English teacher Graeme Brasher, “so I am all in favour of moving to a superior application.” 

Y10 student Shriya Srinivasan was more critical: “PHI just isn’t great. [...] It’s not a good idea unless they make it better. It is a good idea to stick to one platform, but it shouldn’t be PHI.”

“Students put in a lot of effort to adjust to managebac,” Y12 student Shevaun Yip pointed out. “Switching over to PHI seems unnecessary, and everyone used to managebac needs to relearn how to do everything on PHI.”

PHI’s infamous technical difficulties also prove to be a sore point: “PHI doesn’t seem to be working in their favour, judging by what happened last time with the report cards and PHI crashing,” Yip elaborated. 

Only time will tell whether PHI succeeds in becoming the primary online resource at RCHK once again, an undoubtedly important task given the increasing reliance on online learning. Who knows — maybe PHI will go back to discontinuation again a few years down the line.

Zielinska further reported that “moving the reporting system from Gateway is the ESF foundation strategic plan — and it has been happening across the schools in the past three years.” Attendance, now conducted manually every lesson as opposed to the former swiping-in method, was the most notable feature moved onto PHI. Report cards and transcripts, both of which record attendance, moved subsequently as well.