Faculty of Information Technology
Caulfield Campus
MAIT and MIT Student/Staff Meeting
Meeting 2/2004 of the
Present: Mr Andrew Barnden, Mr Andy Cheng, Mr Andrew Dixon, Dr Maria Indrawan,
Dr Chris Ling, Ms Aleisha Matthews, Ms Allison
Mitchell, Dr Campbell Wilson, Associate Professor Arkady
Zaslavsky
MIT Student Reps: Lars Flagan,
Peter Green, Christian Hagelid
MAIT Student Reps: Mr Tariq
Al-Shebani, Jamil Al-Shaqsi, Sri Thulasiraman
MINUTES
Master of Applied
Information Technology
Mr Andrew Dixon from the
Caulfield library began by responding to some of the student feedback he
received. There were some concerns raised about wireless access on level 4 of A
Block. Mr Dixon informed the students that there is
no wireless access on level 4 and only on level 3. Mr
Al-Shebani requested that level 4 get wireless access
also. Mr Dixon asked that Mr
Al-Shebani email him with the request for wireless on
level 4 and he said he will follow it up with the appropriate library staff. Mr Dixon informed staff and students that there is a new
postgraduate brochure available in the library which outlines what text books
are available to be borrowed. Mr Dixon also informed
everyone that there are some new options available to students in the library
which include overnight loans, reservations of text books and online e-books.
Online e-books are an option if the book the student wants to borrow is not
available and it is also at no cost to the student. Mr
Al-Shebani also informed Mr
Dixon that on level 4 of A Block there is a computer desk with loose cables
underneath the desk which is a safety issue. It was also asked if hourly
borrowing of text books is available for students so they can take the book
away to photocopy chapters and then return once finished. Mr
Dixon agreed to look into this option. Mr Dixon
thanked the students for their feedback and left the meeting.
Action: Mr Dixon to look into the safety issue mentioned on level 4
of A Block, to see if it was possible to get wireless on level 4 of A Block and
to also see if hourly borrowing is available so students can photocopy
chapters.
Dr Wilson asked the
student representatives if there were any other concerns that they wished to
discuss. Mr Al-Shebani
informed staff that level 3 of B Block was too hot and the air circulation was
very poor.
Action: Ms Matthews to
request the air conditioning be looked into by Facilities and Services and
raise the issue with Muhamed of Technical Services in
the Faculty.
Mr Thulasiraman
said that he had heard that SNC students have been given credit for Cisco from
institutions other than Monash. Dr Wilson said that he would look into this.
Action: Dr Wilson to
discuss with Associate Professor Jan Newmarch.
Mr Thulasiraman
said that in the previous semester in CSE9000 it was announced by the lecturer
that the examination would be conducted online. Mr Thulasiraman had concerns that as a result of
this he was disadvantaged in exam. Mr Cheng informed Mr Thulasiraman that it is up to
the lecturer to change how the exam is completed as long as the assessment
guidelines did not change and this was not the case.
Mr Thulasiraman
asked Mr Cheng if his policy on not accepting late
assignments could be changed so that only a penalty could be inflicted on
students who submit their assignments late rather than it not being marked at
all. Mr Cheng said that students are made well aware
that this is the case with any late assignments and there is no reason why they
should be accepted. Mr Thulasiraman
said that such reasons as missing a train on the day which cannot be helped or
predicted should be taken into consideration. Mr
Cheng said that Mr Thulasiraman
can talk to him outside the meeting regarding this issue.
Mr Al-Shaqsi
introduced himself and thanked staff for this opportunity to supply staff with
feedback. He began by mentioning that at the last staff/student meeting he
raised an issue he had with one of his tutors, he then went to talk to his
lecturer about this and he felt he did not receive an adequate response. He
informed staff that he has recently written a letter regarding this issue to
the Head of School and is awaiting a reply. Dr Wilson said this was the best
course of action to take in this sort of situation.
Mr Al-Shebani
suggested that a data communications unit should replace CSE9001 as this unit
is too general and not beneficial. Dr Indrawan
suggested that such concerns should be written on the subject evaluation forms
which are handed out to all students during week 11-12.
Masters of
Information Technology
Dr
Indrawan began by introducing herself and the other
staff members present at the meeting.
Mr Andrew Barnden
began by speaking about his action item from the previous staff/student meeting
regarding students commenting that in two IMS units, OLAP (IMS5004) and Data
Warehousing (IMS5026) that there was not a sufficient amount of time in the
tutorials to get the set tasks completed. Mr Barnden informed students that he has spoken to both
lecturers of the these two units and they said that
any unfinished work can be completed in the labs where the appropriate software
is installed.
Mr Flagan
remarked to Mr Barnden that
the tutors for these two units were very good. The tutors were leaving the
questions to the students which they found was very beneficial to their
learning. Mr Flagan
mentioned that in the data warehousing unit IMS5026, that
approximately half of the students in the class have little knowledge of the
prerequisites and it makes it very hard for the other students to progress and
this may also be why all of the work is not being completed in the tutorials.
Action: Mr
Barnden will take this issue to SIMS to discuss.
Mr Flagan
raised the issue of unit cancellations. He said that CSE5510 was cancelled very
late in Semester 1 2004 and this was not communicated in a timely manner to the
students. Three of his other units were also cancelled which made it very hard
for him to choose his units from the current selection. Dr Indrawan
said that due to a number of staff leaving over the past year the school has
been forced to make some changes to the planned teaching allocation. Dr Indrawan said that the students were welcome to come and
see her to discuss unit selection. Dr Indrawan said
that unit cancellations should be run past the course coordinators before any
units are cancelled.
Mr Hagelid
said that CSE5807 was not very well prepared and the labs did not commence
until week 3. Dr Indrawan said that the first time a
unit runs and some minor glitches may be expected. He also said that the room
the lecture was held in was not very good, however
they have now changed to a better room. Ms Matthews said that due to the other
5th year cancellations the enrolment numbers for CSE5807 increased a lot and
there was not a large enough lecture theatre available until week 5.
Mr Flagan
mentioned that the computers in the lab B5.37/38 where CSE5000 is held are very
slow and some of them are not working.
Action: Ms Matthews to look into
moving CSE5000 into another room for next semester and/or contact the technical
staff to look into updating\fixing the exisiting computers.
Mr Flagan
took this opportunity to thank both the course coordinators and the
administrative staff for all of their help and assistance.
Meeting Closed