Minutes of the SSCC Meeting February 28th 1996

Natalie May/Graham Knight

Attendance list

GJK, NM, SRW, SAS, GAR, PB, JW, SRA, PAR, CDC, R Harbird, D Kumana, N Daley, S Tupper, S Goorah, P Wood, A Jazayeri, J Thomas

1. Apologies for Absence

Apologies were received from R Carbonell, Hiral Patel, Hari Patel, B Kusdemir and B Buxton, S. McGuinness

2. Minutes of meeting held on Nov 11th 1995

The minutes were approved without exception.

3. Matters arising

Extended hours of access to laboratories had been implemented and the scheme now seemed to be working well.

Following a CNUC meeting, SAS reported that the small cluster room in Chemistry was the last containing ISD UNIX facilities. This service is soon to be discontinued. There will be no extension of hours. A long term project is in hand to construct a new cluster room which would hold 50 PC's.

The distribution of past examination papers was apparently proceeding satisfactorily.

Floppy disc drives had now been installed.

4. Progress towards provision of a student common room

GK introduced the report (attached to the agenda). Of the three options considered:

The Bursars would not consider adding kitchen facilities outside the existing common room
The Bursars would not allow the toilet provision in the department to be reduced. SRW noted that the bursars had to keep in mind that the population in the department was likely to increase. However the Bursars will be approached again to see if they are willing to reconsider
Adding a sink to the existing research library would cost about £1200. There would obviously be considerable additional costs involved in the conversion.

Doubts were expressed that the research library would be big enough. There was a suggestion that the existing room might be made acceptable if it were redecorated, re-furnished and a vending machine was added. A subcommittee consisting of Peter Burrows, Stuart Tupper and one other student will meet to discuss which is the best choice. GK would solicit volunteers for the remaining post ACTION GK, PB

5. The effectiveness of current tutorial system and need for reform/abolition.

A feeling was reported by the 2nd year reps that the tutorial system was not meeting students needs. It was suggested that these should be abandoned and time freed for private study.

It was pointed out that the department is obliged by the college to have tutorials. 2nd year tutorials had been designed to provide students with training in "transferable skills" however it was now recognised that some technical support was also needed. A new 2nd year tutorial system will put into operation for the academic year 1996/97, this will take the form of alternating weeks of personal skills and technical support. It is hoped that this will meet the needs of students satisfactorily.

6. Student behaviour in lectures.

Students and staff are being disrupted by inconsiderate actions by students during lectures including talking, eating and playing with computerised toys.

There was general support that this was a problem which must be tackled. Warnings will be given by lecturers and offenders will be asked to leave. More severe sanctions should be imposed on students who continue to disregard their colleagues by disrupting lectures.

GK will send a message to students re-iterating the importance of this matter. ACTION GK

7. Problems arising from current courses

MSc CS students appear to be having difficulty obtaining supervisors and projects and there was a feeling this was due to the heavy load of MSc IT supervision. PAR is monitoring the IT quota and this seems low at present so seems unlikely to be causing problems. However, some MSc students had reported that tutors are refusing to take on more projects. JW would investigate this and the matter of allocating project supervision would be placed on the TCM agenda. ACTION JW, GK

It was noted that some departments assigned tutors to students systematically. There was little support for this. The MRES students have a meeting at which lecturers present ideas. This was felt to be a good idea but impractical for larger degree programmes.

Lecture Timings. There were complaints that sometimes there was insufficient time for students to move between lectures. Lecturers were reminded that due to lecture room constraints students are obliged to move from one side of College to the other to reach lectures (especially IT students). Lectures should start 5 minutes past the hour and end 5 minutes to the hour.

The fact that coursework results for C328 were not yet available had been raised before the meeting. SRW will ensure availability. ACTION SRW

Mid-term course evaluation forms had not been issued for HCI. It was pointed out that mid-term assessments are not compulsory so not all lecturers issue them. The end of term course assessment will cover all courses and results will be processed and displayed as per TCM guidelines. There was support for the idea that the mid-term course assessment should be the compulsory one. SRW will ask Faculty if this would be acceptable ACTION SRW

There was strong support for feed-back sessions after mid-term course assessment. GK would ensure staff were aware of this ACTION GK

The issue of feed-back from B20b projects was raised. GK agreed to raise this with Graham Roberts. ACTION GK (Outside the meeting Graham Roberts has stated that the problem has been recognised and remedial action is in hand)

8.AOB

The student pigeon-holes were cluttered with uncollected post. It was pointed out that a student was employed who could help deal with this. Steps would be taken to ensure the situation improved.

9. Date and Time of next meeting

To be announced.