Friday 18th March 2011
Department of Computer Science
STAFF STUDENT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE
Friday 18th March 2011
1.03 Malet Place Engineering Building
M I N U T E S
STAFF PRESENT:
Dr Graham Roberts (Departmental Tutor, DEOLO, Director of Studies, Chair) Jill Saunders (Departmental Manager), Robin Hirsch (MSc CS Programme Co-ordinator), Neil Daeche, (Head of Internal Infrastructure), Patricia Fenoy (Departmental Office Administrator), JJ Giwa (Departmental Administrator, Facilities Management & Operations)
STUDENT ACADEMIC REPRESENTATIVES PRESENT:
Shahriar Tajbakhsh (1st Year UG Rep), Sam Gaus (1st Year UG Rep), Ola Jacob Raji (2nd Year UG Rep), William Mayor (3rd Year UG Rep), Min Hyouk Park (4th Year UG Rep), Joanna Tong (4th Year UG Rep), Antonio Garcia Paun (Graduate Student Rep)
IN ATTENDANCE:
Mr Chris Neil, Undergraduate Administrator, (Secretary)
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1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE.
The Chair welcomed the committee and noted that apologies for absence were received from Nicola Alexander (Departmental Administrator, (Academic Policy and Operations).
2 NOTIFICATION OF ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Two issues were raised, (see item 12).
3 APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING ON 6th December 2010
- Minutes should be signed by the chair and at least one student representative.
The Chair asked the committee to check that the minutes of the previous meeting were accurate and asked one of the student representatives who were present at the last meeting to sign them off.
4MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING:
4.1 Moodle site for 2nd year induction week activities (Chris Neil and Graham Roberts)
The Chair reported that further work had been done on the 2nd Year Course Options and induction Moodle page and that it is expected that this will be available for students to use for the next session.
4.2 Computer Science Student Shop (Chris Neil)
Chris reported that the CS Student Shop is ready for use and asked the reps for their assistance in deciding the final designs, prices and advertising the products. There are currently some mock products on the site, but the designs are not in the correct format, (ideally they should be in .PNG file format) and the prices and commission on each product is still to be decided.
Reps suggested that a link could be put on the main CS webpage to advertise it when complete.
4.3 Printer quota alert for lab machines (Neil Daeche)
Neil informed the committee that the printer quota alert has now been added to the disk quota popup window as requested at the last meeting.
4.4 Late return of marked coursework list (Nicola Alexander)
Chris Neil reported that of the four modules that were flagged by students, three of them had now been resolved and students had received their feedback. It was noted that although the return of coursework from COMP1001 was late, the quality of the feedback was very good and the students mentioned that they would not mind waiting slightly longer more helpful comments such as these.
The reps reported that students had still not had coursework returned from COMP3005 that was submitted in November and that late/no feedback was an issue with this module last year.
Nicola emailed students to find out if there were any issues with coursework in the 2nd term, but had so far no responses had been received. Prior to the meeting, Nicola also agreed that this can be made a rolling agenda item and she will continue to follow up instances of late return of coursework that are reported to her.
ACTION – Nicola to chase COMP3005 lecturer.
4.5 Always allowing late submission of coursework on Moodle (Graham Roberts)
The Chair noted that this issue was raised at the Departmental Teaching Committee and that coursework submitted via Moodle is automatically time-stamped making late submissions obvious. He also urged everyone to be aware that if coursework is re-submitted the previous version is overwritten and the time-stamp is updated with the new upload time.
The reps asked how strict the deadlines were for coursework submission and the chair responded that some lectures may not penalize students for submitting coursework a few minutes late, but this is dependent on the lecturer. In general, it is advised that students contact the lecturer in advance to let them know of any problems they are having and not to leave it until the last minute.
The UCL guidelines on the penalties associated with late submission were discussed again, i.e.
· 0 to 1 days late = 5% penalty
· 1 to 7 days late = 10% penalty
· More than 7 days late (but before final deadline) = 100% penalty but deemed complete
· More than 7 days late (after final deadline) = 100% penalty and may be deemed incomplete
The Chair noted that the definition of a ‘day’ for coursework submission purposes is a working day, so does not include weekends or bank holidays.
As an aside, the reps noted that some courses still do not have Moodle pages set up for them
ACTION – Jill asked the reps to report any instances of courses without Moodle pages to her.
4.6 Dealing with noise and behaviour in student labs (Student Reps)
The Chair noted that behaviour in and around the labs should be decided on and self regulated by students. The Reps reported that the 4th floor lab is no longer used as a quiet lab and so the problem of noise is no longer an issue.
4.7Dead mouse in ceiling of 1.05 (JJ Giwa)
The Reps reported that the mouse is still there.
ACTION – JJ to contact Estates and Facilities again to request the removal of the mouse.
4.8 Water dispensers in department and Faculty (Graham Roberts)
This issue was brought to the attention of the Dean of the Faculty, Anthony Finkelstein, in passing by one of the student reps and the Dean has since made it part of one the current refurbishment projects in to install additional water fountains. The Reps indicated that they were impressed with the speed at which their suggestions were implemented.
4.9 24 hour opening of library (Graham Roberts)
The Reps reported that they have heard that the Library plan to adopt 24-hour opening hours in the near future. This should hopefully help improve access to facilities as was requested at the last meeting.
5 ANNUAL MONITORING OF MODULES AND PROGRAMMES (NICOLA ALEXANDER)
It is now a requirement to make Annual Monitoring data available for review at the SSCC and Nicola has now made the Student Reps participants of the Annual Monitoring Moodle course.
The Reps now have access to view the data on the courses and see how feedback is taken into account and acted on. The Reps were informed that they can advertise this facility to other students and they can email Nicola if they require any details of the enrolment key etc.
6 NATIONAL STUDENT SURVEY (NICOLA ALEXANDER)
The Chair informed the committee that student responses to the National Student Survey were better than last year, but that we still need a further 6 responses before the department will meet the NSS minimum submission level and actually feature in the survey results. It was also discussed that the Information Management Department also falls within the Computer Science category for the survey and that our data has been merged with theirs in previous years.
The Chair asked the 3rd and 4th year Reps to continue to promote the survey to students and ask them for their feedback on their experience.
7 THE DEPARTMENT'S CONTRIBUTION TO OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT (WILLIAM MAYOR)
The Chair contacted Ingemar Cox prior to the meeting who responded that the department already does make small contributions to open source software on an ad-hoc basis. The chair noted that the department uses and supports open source software and that contributing was seen as a positive thing. The Student Reps suggested that a website be put up to promote and list the contributions that the department has made and that Summer programming events are organised with the goal of developing open source software.
ACTION – Chair to organise/delegate the setting up of the departmental pages and a summer event to promote contribution of software to open source projects.
8 POOR VENTILATION IN LAB 1.21 (JOANNA TONG)
The Reps reported that the ventilation is poor in this lab and the conditions are very stuffy even when there are only a few students in the area.
JJ noted that temperature regulators have been installed and she believes them to be working, however students may not know how to turn them on or use them properly.
ACTION – JJ to put up a sign to inform students how to control the temperature in the lab.
9 PROBLEMS WITH THE STUDENTTEST WIRELESS NETWORK (PARK MIN HYOUK)
Min Park noted that the studenttest network appears to be getting slower over time and that it is now at the point where it is very unstable. This issue was previously raised with the Helpdesk and John Andrews investigated and found that the problem may be due to equipment re-booting and new ad-hoc networks interfering with the wireless reception. As the problems appear to be persisting, the Chair recommended that Min get in contact with John to see if there is anything that can be done.
The Reps also asked if the large Roamnet and Eduroam networks could be extended to work in the Computer Science building.
ACTION – Min to liaise with John Andrews and Department to look into possibility of using Eduroam.
10 NEW ARRANGEMENTS FOR APPOINTING STUDENT ACADEMIC REPRESENTATIVES (STARS) (GRAHAM ROBERTS)
The Chair summarised the details of the new arrangements for appointing Student Academic Representatives that had been forwarded by the Student Union, (The full document was made available both at the meeting and electronically beforehand). He observed that the main difference is that undergraduate reps will be appointed in February to allow representation of issues from one year to the next. The Reps thought that this idea was a good one and improved continuity.
Other aspects of the document were also discussed. The Reps noted that the Union-provided STARS training was not very useful and that it may be worth the Union advertising that being a STAR does not demand too much time of the finalists students – an issue that initially concerned some of the Reps.
11 ANY OTHER BUSINESS
11.1 The use of small quiet room on 4th Floor
JJ informed the committee that the research project that was using this space has now officially ended, but they have requested to use the room again in the future. She also noted that it is not common knowledge amongst the student body that this room even exists, however it is a taught student facility and is intended to remain so.
ACTION – JJ to advertise the room to students after the current project has relinquished the room.
13 THE NEXT MEETING IS DUE IN LATE NOVEMBER 2012
CHRIS NEIL
Undergraduate Administrator
Department of Computer Science
[020 7679 3690, UCL extension 33690, email: c.neil@cs.ucl.ac.uk ]
+44 (0)20 7679 7214
