DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

STAFF STUDENT CONSULTATIVE COMMITTEE

Meeting on Thursday 26^th November 2009 at 1pm in Room 1.03 Malet Place Engineering Building

Staff Present

Graham Roberts (Departmental Tutor, Departmental Equal Opportunities Liaison Officer, Director of Studies, Chair), Chris Neil (Undergraduate Administrator), JJ Giwa (Departmental Administrator, Facilities Management and Operations), Nicola Alexander (Departmental Administrator, Academic Policy and Operations), Patricia Fenoy (Departmental Office Administrator), Neil Daeche (Head of Internal Infrastructure), Dave Twisleton (Technician, Safety Officer), Robin Hirsch (MSc CS Programme Co-ordinator), Emmanuel Letier (MSc SSE Programme Director), Simon Prince (MSc CGVI Programme Director).

Student Representatives Present

Bernhard Huemer (1^st Year UG Rep), Ola Jacob Raji  (1^st Year UG Rep), William Mayor (2^nd Year UG Rep), Raunuk Gupta (3^rd Year UG Rep) Rami Al-Maarri (4^th Year UG Rep), Yotam Doron (MSc CGVI Rep), Simon Heard (MSc CS Rep), Ramune Kauaite (MSc CS Rep), Catriona Johnstone (MSc FC), Pritesh Shah (MSc FSE), Saqib Kakvi (MSc ISec), Geerd-Dietger Hoffmann (MSc SSE), Alexandru Matei (MSc SSE), Malcolm Reynolds (Graduate Research), Thomas Stone (Graduate Research). 

1. Apologies for absence.

Jill Saunders (Departmental Manager)

2. Notification of any other business.

No other business was reported at the time. 

3. To note the Committee's Terms of Reference

The Chair, (Graham Roberts), welcomed the committee and directed its attention to the terms of reference, (see Appendix 1), which clarifies the role of the Departmental Staff Student Consultative Committees. 

For further information the Chair recommended that committee members look at the UCL Academic Manual. 

4. Approval of minutes of the last meeting on 23rd February 2009

No feedback was given on the minutes from the previous meeting. The Chair observed that the minutes from the SSCC meetings are made available on the CS webpages and asked one of the reps present at the last meeting to sign a copy as an accurate record. 

5. Matters arising from the minutes of the previous meeting:

5.1 - Return of COMP3005 Operating Systems coursework and updates to coursework submission and return mechanisms (Graham Roberts)

This issue has been addressed and the results are being monitored.  Further information will be available at the end of next term when coursework is due. 

6. Departmental Issues (Nicola Alexander)

6.1 Student Representation on the CS Teaching Committee

The Chair noted that that there are two places available on the Departmental Teaching Committee for student representatives, (one undergraduate and one postgraduate vacancy), and encouraged the reps to volunteer.

6.2 Information about the upcoming IQR

Nicola Alexander informed the student reps about the upcoming Internal Quality Review.  UCL staff will be visiting the department on 5^th February to carry out the review and students may be asked to participate and give feedback on their experiences. 

6.3 Module feedback forms

The module feedback forms were discussed by the Committee.  The Chair reminded the reps that their feedback was anonymous and encouraged them to take part in the process.  He also reminded the committee that the forms only take about 5 minutes to complete and where issues are raised these are discussed at the departmental teaching committee meetings. 

The issue of there often being too little feedback information returned to be meaningful was discussed and the following suggestions were made by the student reps:

• Communication back to students, on the actions made as a result of the feedback, may encourage students to participate. 
• Asking students to complete the forms during scheduled teaching sessions are likely to be more successful than feedback requested after the modules have finished.  E.g. During the last lab session. 
• Making feedback a compulsory requirement and giving students advanced warning of when feedback is due would also help. 

ACTION – Nicola to add to next Teaching Committee agenda. 

7. Induction Week for 2nd years (William Mayor)

William Mayor, (2^nd Year UG Rep), raised the issue that there were no induction week activities held for second year undergraduates this year, such as options talks and module advice sessions.  The Chair responded that there used to be options talks held for students after the May exam period, but very few students ever attended these sessions.  It was therefore decided to increase the options information available on the web, including video content where possible, so that students can access the advice remotely over the Summer and supplementing these with optional drop-in sessions. 

William suggested that having a short “Introduction to the Second Year” lecture during the first week back after the summer would be useful.

ACTION – Those involved in Induction Week planning to investigate possibility of holding introductory lectures. 

8. Local environment items

8.1 The CS student Green Champion is Andrew Lennard (MScFC)

The Chair reported that Andrew has now been appointment as student Green Champion and reminded the Committee that Dr Lewis Griffin is the local Staff Green Champion. 

8.2 Availability of bicycle parking at UCL (Thomas Stone)

Thomas Stone, (Graduate Research Rep), reported that this issue was raised by other students, but that additional bike stands have since been installed in Foster Court so the lack of bicycle parking should now be resolved.  Robin Hirsch confirmed this.  It was noted that the Head of Department played a key role in getting these additional bicycle facilities in place. 

8.3 Smoking at entrances of MPEB and Roberts building (Thomas Stone)

The Student Reps noted that large numbers of people are congregating immediately outside the entrances of the Engineering Front Building, Roberts Building and MPEB to smoke, restricting access through the doors and requiring those who wish to use the entrances to walk through the smoke that they produce. 

The Chair agreed that this was unpleasant and that people should not be doing it. 

JJ noted that there are signs on some buildings asking people not to smoke near the entrances and that maybe Security staff could be more active in preventing people. 

ACTION – JJ to send email to the Faculty Manager to arrange further signage and to contact security staff to see if they can assist in preventing this. 

9. Technical items

9.1 Warning for when your printer quota is running out (Raunak Gupta)

Raunak Gupta, (3^rd Year UG Rep), asked if it would be possible to have printer pop up warnings to alert students when their printer quotas are running low.  Neil reported that pop-ups would not solve the problem as they would have to be queued and therefore are not guaranteed to alert students at the correct time, (or at all if students were to log off).  Other ideas were suggested, such as sending emails to alert students, adding print quota information to the cover sheets when printing and merging the IS and CS printer quotas, however these ideas were considered to be impossible or impractical in the current set up. 

Neil recommended that the best way for students to find out print quotas would be to run the ‘printerquota’ command which tells the user instantly how many copies they have remaining. 

ACTION - Neil to email students reminding them to use the ’printerquota’ command. 

9.2 More computers needed for lab work and/or more places where notebook computers can be used in labs (Yotam Doron)

The Chair confirmed that due to the department undergoing significant expansion in recent years that the computer laboratory space in the department has declined.  This, along with an increase in student numbers, has put considerable pressure on space in the department. 

It was agreed that there is not much that can be done about overall space in the department, however, the Technical Support Group intend to introduce virtualisation software and Sun Global Desktop on the lab machines which should help increase the capacity of the computing facilities.  The virtualisation software will allow the current machines to be used more flexibly and utilised more effectively, eliminating the need to use specific machines for specific purposes.  The Sun Global Desktop will reduce the pressure on space by allowing staff and students to login and use CS computing facilities from outside the department. 

It was raised that further space could be obtained by moving the unused server rack out of the student common room and that this might allow for further laptop/notebook space.  The committee agreed that the server rack should be moved as soon as possible. 

Student reps also noted that they thought internet access in the department was sometimes slow.  When this was discussed it was established that the main departmental server is very slow, but that this should not affect connectivity to other websites.  The speed of the main departmental server has been an issue for some time, but despite efforts to move some content to other servers, replacing it completely is not expected in the immediate future. 

ACTION - Neil to arrange for rack to be moved and look into the possibility of adding laptop space in Common room.  The issue of lab space in general should also be raised at next Teaching Committee.

10. Student common room items

Any money for the student common room this year? (Raunak Gupta)

The committee was informed that there are no additional funds to be allocated to the Student Common Room this year. 

The committee discussed the idea of producing departmental clothing, (designed by students, for students), and then use the proceeds generated to sustain the current facilities in the common room. 

ACTION: Chris Neil and William Mayor to investigate the possibility further. 

Preventing students from other departments using the CS student common room (Raunak Gupta)

Despite reports that students from other departments had been using the Common Room, it was not clear if they had been invited in by CS students of if they came of their own accord.  JJ advised students to report any intruders to her in the first instance. 

It was noted that the door has a security lock to prevent unauthorised access, but that the door is often left propped open.  The student reps informed the committee that this was because the “7” key on the keypad lock only works intermittently, but that this had not been reported. 

ACTION – JJ to investigate fault on common room keypad lock

Installing a microwave (Yotam Doron)

The Chair noted that although this request had been raised previously, for Health and Safety reasons, it is not possible to have a Microwave or Kettle installed in the Student Common Room. 

The Student Reps asked if additional water coolers could be installed on the first, second and third floors, but JJ pointed out that these floors are either shared areas or operated by the Medical Physics Department. 

Dave Twistleton noted that the water dispenser was introduced on the 4^th floor because MPEB does not have drinking water facilities on the lower floors, but that the Roberts Building has drinking water and CS students can get their water there if necessary. 

Can unused lockers be reallocated or coin operated lockers installed? (Yotam Doron)

JJ informed the committee that she investigated using coin operated lockers when she originally arranged for the lockers to be installed, but it was found that coin operated lockers would take up more space and so less would be available for student use.  JJ also noted that the current use of lockers is monitored by the office and it is ensured that the lockers are allocated fairly and that this would not be possible if the lockers were coin operated. 

The committee agreed that the current setup is preferable to this. 

New cues for the pool table (Yotam Doron)

The committee was informed that there are no additional funds to be allocated to the Pool table and that students would need to bring their own cues or use the existing ones. 

11. MScFSE items: Use of Moodle forums, staff availability hours, programming languages and assignments (Pritesh Shah)

The Chair noted that some progress had already been made on this issue and asked the Student Reps to liaise with Emmanuel Letier directly and report the outcome to Chris Neil via Email. 

ACTION – Pritesh Shah to Email Chris with outcome and Chris to add to minutes. 

12. MScCVGI items: MMAI module and coursework (Yotam Doron)

Again, the Chair asked the Student Reps to liaise directly with Simon Prince and report the outcome to Chris Neil via Email. 

ACTION – Yotam Doron to Email Chris with outcome and Chris to add to minutes. 

13. Any Other Business

The Student Reps noted that the paper recycling bins had been moved away from the printing areas and labs. 

ACTION – JJ to speak to Domestic Services regarding having the bins put back.

14. The next meeting is due in February 2010

Terms of Reference (Appendix 1)

• to discuss follow-up action resulting from previous DSSCC meetings, in particular any matter which was referred to the DTC meeting;
• to comment upon the outcome of degree programme and course evaluation questionnaires and any consequent follow-up action;
• to receive notification of any Departmental changes with respect to teaching, admissions, and assessment;
• to comment upon any significant changes to Departmental policy which would have a direct consequence for teaching, admissions, and assessment;
• to comment upon safety within the Department;

to comment upon physical resources within the Department e.g. computer/library facilities etc.;

• to make students aware of the Departmental Equal Opportunities Liaison Officer;
• as part of UCL's Annual Monitoring (AM) and Augmented Annual Monitoring (AAM) processes to (i) receive and consider the Head of Department's overview of the AM and AAM reports and (ii) identify student related issues for further discussion by the DTC;
• to receive and consider copies of the annual reports of the Chairs of Boards of Examiners;
• to report to the DTC concerned by submission of minutes of each meeting of the DSSCC to the officers of the DTC.

The Policy for departmental Staff-Student Consultative Committees is described in the UCL Academic Manual, Section H3