Digital Systems - David Ostberg, Bodie Royle, Daniel Schmidt

Academics:
Professor David Abramson (Chairperson), A/Prof Trevor Dix, Dr Ronald Pose, Dr Peter Atkinson, Dr Rod Wodley, Dr Graham Farr, A/Prof John Hurst, Dr David Albrecht, Debbi Pickett, Gordon Lowe, John Robinson, Jon McCormack, A/Prof H R Wu, A/Prof Kim Marriott, Dr Alan Dorin, John Jeavons (Maths Department), Joselito (Joey) Chua

Administrative Representatives:
Shiranthi Ponniah, Leeanne Evans, Eryn Glover, Edwina Goh (Minute Secretary)

Professor David Abramson opened the meeting with a welcome to everyone.

Faculty Club

Representatives from 1^st year Computer Science degree: Andre Oboler and Kerri Morgan reported to the meeting on the progress of the faculty club.

Responses especially from 1^st year students have been very encouraging. To date, 70 students and 5 staff have joined the club. Negotiations on the constitution with Clubs and Societies from the MSA are currently under way.

Staff members are encouraged to join the club, without any voting rights.

Problems encountered so far in setting up a student club:

All club assets are the property of the student union, regardless of how they are acquired.
The club must be based only at Clayton campus, with ordinary membership being open to staff and students of Clayton Campus only.

The reasons for establishing a student club:

• To increase communication between staff and students.
• To provide a co-curricular environment in which to continue learning.
• To make students feel more relaxed and comfortable at university.
• To encourage friendship amongst our students, and thereby create a better atmosphere in the school.
• To stop students from isolating themselves and as a result failing.
• To provide good feedback to staff and the school that will allow changes to be made where they are needed.
• To encourage students to help (in an organised fashion) within the school e.g. open days, orientation and the running of the club itself.

LAN Party

A LAN party is scheduled to be held two weeks after the exam.

The meeting was told that financial and any other support would be welcome from the School. Professor David Abramson said he would be happy to look into it, however, he needs to have details on the costing.

Action: Andre Oboler and Kerri Morgan

The meeting was informed that Professor David Abramson has spoken with Dr Lloyd Allison personally.

Assignments Getting Lost

Shiranthi Ponniah informed the meeting that a new procedure has been instituted to prevent assignments from being lost.

Extra Support

Dr Ann Nicholson informed the meeting that a mailing list is being co-ordinated to provide additional support for students who need it.

Ms Doktor informed the meeting that students have to submit 5 assignments in the last week of semester, and this has put enormous pressure on the students.

Dr Nicholson stated that the Admin staff checks and ensures that assignment due dates are spread out evenly throughout the semester and there are no clashes in the submission of assignments.

Ms Doktor requested supervisors to return the "Literature Review" so that they could prepare for their final report.

The Graphics Honours assignment questions were not well phrased and not marked accurately.

Ms Doktor reported that the subjects were well taught and everyone was. She also thanked the staff for their teaching.

Ms Boyd reported that everything was going well.

Mr Barclay asked why practical work on "Operating Systems" do not contribute to the final grade. A/Prof Trevor Dix said practical work does not necessarily guarantee that it was the student's work, hence mark was not included in the assessment.

Multimedia Programming - it was taught well but it was covered in too short period of time.

Dr Alan Dorin explained that this subject is only an introduction to the various topics and that it was supposedly to provides a broad overview.

Database Management Systems was taught well, however, it was stated that the assignment 1 program was written in 1987, it was ancient. A/Prof Trevor Dix is looking into offering Oracle.

Artificial Intelligence lectures were good, however, they clashes with Robotics. Dr Ronald Pose informed the meeting that the timetabling is being reviewed for next year.

CSE 1303 - Computer Science

• Too much time for the point value.
• Both sections were well presented; content covered was well presented so that students could understand.

Suggestions:

• Change to 9 points if possible. (This could balance with the 3 point programming subjects - 3 exist)
• Include 1 more lecture a week (to give more time to cover existing content)
• Improve practical classes

CSE 1305 - Professional Communication and Documentation

Not as relevant to computer science as CSE 1304. In an effort to include more students from outside Computer Science the relevance to Computer Science has been reduced.

Professor Abramson said that they are currently reviewing the structure for next year.

Scott has done a brilliant job while Anita has been away.

MAT 1830 - Maths for Computer Science II

Lecture and tutorial times could be improved. The Maths department (Dr Tony Lunn) advised that they would be happy for the IT faculty to time table the other Maths subjects (MAT 1811/2 & MAT 1841) as they cater only for Computer Science students. They would also be willing to organize things more closely with CSSE for MAT 1830. The suggestion was made that they would hand the tutorial times for this subject to our faculty and we could organize the allocation through Allocate Plus along with the other electives.

Electronics for Digital Systems I was well taught by Viki Giesemann in semester 2.

Not many electives subject for Digital Systems were offered. They were forced to take Computer Science subjects.

CSE 2102 Digital Design II - they enjoyed this subject. Pracs were not very relevant to the subject.

Dr Graham Farr informed the meeting that 0 credit points subject for 1^st and 2^nd projects will be offered next year. Professsor Abramson said that students are allowed to take outside subjects as electives, however, students must be aware of any prerequisite requirements.

Electronics a lot of work, too quick.

Action: Professor Abramson to look into matter.