Thursday 13th, 11am in B5.50A

Staff:

Mr Jason Ceddia, Dr Martin Dick, Ms Dianne Hagan, Dr Maria Indrawan, Ms Jan Miller, Dr Matt Mitchell, Mr Rob Redpath, Professor Bala Srinivasan, Ms Sylvia Tucker, Ms Kelsey Van Haaster, Dr Campbell Wilson, Ms Laura Williamson (Secretary), Dr Arkady Zaslavsky

Students:

Mr Ben Carmichael, Mr Julian Clark, Mr Simon Fernleigh, Mr Nathan Flisher, Mr Zakir Khan, Mr Glenn Studd

Apologies:

Judy Sheard, Rod Simpson

1st year

Generally for most students the course seems to be going well, however there are a few issues they wish to raise.

CSE1202 Java appears to be a problem with most 1st years. They feel as though they've been thrown in the deep end regarding the level of difficulty. The staff advise students to ask for help at any time and put in the 12 hours work per week - the lecturer has no way of knowing students need help unless they ask. The staff also advises students to use the Help Desk that is set up.

Other course years found 1st year Java (CSE1202) fine. Hard work, but when the effort is put in, good results will follow.

CSE1200 - Most students seem to be going well and no one had any complaints to bring up.

CSE1204 - Most students seem to be going well also.

Students generally seem to be going well in the other units and there are no other complaints.

2nd Year

CSE3420 - A major concern is that CSE3420 is not offered in Sem 2, 2004. Students who haven't done it in 1st Sem complain that they now have to wait till 3rd year to take it up. The lecturers are talking about re-scheduling the units to make the hard electives more spread out throughout the year.

They also feel that a lot of the units offered in Sem 1 are too hard to do all together and should be spread evenly throughout the year. They feel that the work load is currently too hard.

Another complaint was the lack of professionalism of the tutors. Some students feel that some of the tutors are there for the money and that they don't really know all that they're supposed to know. If there are problems with tutors, the students need to let the lecturers know so that something can be done. The first protocol should be the lecturer or the course coordinator

A good idea would be a tutor feedback form where the students can write comments about their tutors. If there is a major concern at the beginning, the students really should let someone know so that they can change tutes. Students can also use the BComp anonymous feedback to tell staff about their tutors. These messages will not be published on the web, but they will get to the lecturers concerned.

CSE2318 - there is a concern for the students that what is being taught at Clayton is not what is being taught at Caulfield. It's felt that Clayton is more focused on Computer Science where as at Caulfield it's more aimed at the BComp students. They are worried that the exam may be more suited to 'the other' campus. Students were assured that the exam would be the same for both groups, and had been written with the Caulfield students in mind, as it is core for them.

Regarding assignments for CSE2318, the students don't know what they are supposed to be doing. There are no examples in the lecture on how to do the assignment and they have no idea on how the finished product is supposed to look.

Action: to take it up with the lecturer

CSE2201, Software engineering - the students felt that there were more errors in assignments than there should have been and they feel that they spent more time fixing the errors than they should have. More time could have been spent working on the assignment. Jan Miller explained that this was because of delays in getting copyright permissions for the SimMatrix assignment, and assured students that their problems had been taken into account in the assessment.
Programming - one of the major concerns is the jump between 1st and 2nd year programming - the students feel that there is too big a leap to comprehend all that is needed to know. They don't feel that there is enough contact time to get a grasp on programming. Also going from Java to Eiffel is very hard and they wondered why CSE2201 is being taught in a different language to what they were taught in Java. They feel that the focus should be more on the software engineering side of it rather than the code. Staff explained why Eiffel was used as the language of implementation in CSE2201. Discussion took place between students and staff on ideas to fix the problem.

Action: Jan Miller to follow up.

CSE2132 - ER modeling. The students feel that even though the concepts are mentioned in CSE1205, they still don't have the expected knowledge and understanding required for CSE2132. Rob Redpath is having a meeting with CSE1205 lecturers to talk about this very issue.

3rd Year

The students don't feel as though they have enough options to do due all the units that they want, due to all the cancellations that have taken place for second semester. They want more programming units offered in second semester 2nd year so that they have a larger choice of electives in 3rd year.

Lab availability is another major problem. ITS will let us know what they are doing to help solve this problem. Even on weekends the students are having problems getting an available computer. Another problem is the labs at Clayton being shut after 6pm which means that students come here to Caulfield. Therefore we have Caulfield and Clayton students looking for computer space. Staff will speak with ITS to see if some of the labs can have intranet access instead of internet access so that only students who have Uni work to do will use them.

In Sem 2 there should be 3 more labs open.

The students would like CVS? to be installed in a couple more labs.

Students would like to be taught more regarding technical documentation and setting up help systems

Students feel that 1 elective in 1st year would be enough, if we put more into the core

The students don't feel as though there are enough prizes and scholarships in the BComp course. When they look at other courses, they feel as though there are far more incentives for the students to go well.

Action: A prize for the top student in each year level

The students would like more guest lectures from people in industry.

Action: To put up a schedule as to when the guest lecturers will be. Will put it up on the web and advertise guest lecturers on the BComp website

Things that students would like to learn more of:
ADA, RAD, Games Programming, Security. They would like some more 'out there' units.

They do feel though that the range of what we're teaching is good.

The students would like to learn Linux. Disussion took place on where more Linux might fit into the degree

Some positive feedback was issued. AI for Interactivity is a very enjoyable unit. IE is seen as very valuable. CSE2030 was also commended by the students.

Meeting closed 1pm