NOTES OF A WRAP-UP MEETING HELD ON 30 MAY 2007

Year 4 – MSci/MEng COMPUTER SCIENCE, including the INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME

Present: GAR (Chair), 9 students, JFS (Minutes).

1. Coursework hand-in procedures
The students strongly recommended that the department should move to electronic coursework submission. People mentioned systems which operate well elsewhere, including one which checks for plagiarism, and even provides initial automatic feedback if programming code doesn’t work.

It was pointed out that we must meet UCL requirements for coursework coversheets. People felt that this should be possible even with electronic submission.ACTION: Teaching Committee

2. Supervised Learning course (COMP4055)
Students who took this option found it exceedingly difficult, especially the mathematics. They had been led to believe it was a pre-requisite for Evolutionary Computation COMP4057 but felt this was not true. ACTION: JFS to forward comments to teaching staff.

3. Feedback and return of coursework
There was general dissatisfaction over delays in having coursework marked and returned. In some cases, coursework was not being returned until after the exams had started. A student who had taken a Maths department course described how well this had been organized, with mini-tests throughout the term and prompt feedback.

4. Facilities
In response to a query about whether the facilities provided to students seemed appropriate, several of those present commented on how much better the new Common Room space was, in comparison to the previous arrangements.

5. Late night lab access
Some students would have found it useful to have extended lab hours, especially towards project hand-in time. GAR explained the issues around getting ‘Designated Persons’ trained in first aid and fire safety procedures. He acknowledged that there seemed to be increasing demand and that this needed to be looked into again.ACTION: JFS to discuss further with JJ Giwa.

6. MSci/MEng CS (International Programme)
A student on the International Programme was disappointed to find that his degree would be MSci rather than MEng, because he had not been able to take group project during his 3rd year abroad. He suggested that students in similar circumstances should be warned about this in advance. ACTION: JFS to inform staff/amend the department’s Study Abroad web pages. Also to pursue whether a suspension of regulations might be possible.

7. Virtual Environments (COMP4076)
Students on this course recommended that the material supplied as a link to the syllabus should rationalized. People felt that there as too much, and found it difficult to work out what was useful. ACTION: JFS to pass this on to the teaching staff.

8. Systems Requirements Engineering (COMP4014)
Students on this course felt that the examination was too long for the time allowed; no-one had managed to complete it, and it was different to the past papers. There were also concerns about coursework feedback, as people did not understand why some coursework had been graded highly while others were not. ACTION: JFS to pass this on to the teaching staff.

JFS
30/05/07