CSE Teaching Committee, Minutes of Meeting, Friday 28 Aug 2009


The meeting commenced at 2:05 PM.

Present: Arcot Sowmya (chair), Sri Parameswaran, Paul Compton, Richard Buckland, Wayne Wobcke, Eric Martin, Wang Wei, N. Parameswaran, Bruno Gaeta, Ken Robinson, Tim Lambert, Kathy Mitris, Cassandra Nock, Salil Kanhere, Arthur Ramer (scribe)

Apologies: Alan Blair, Peter Ho, Bill Wilson

  1. Minutes of the previous meeting held on 31 July were held over until quorum was reached.

  2. Actions following from Minutes

    1. A revised course proposal for Information Retrieval and Web Search was brought to TC by the proposers, and was discussed later on in the meeting.
    2. The CS Honours policy program revision, to add a Class 3 Honours, has been approved by Faculty UGEC and referred to the Standing Committee.

  3. Report on Academic Matters

    AS reported on FoE UGEC meeting on 7 Aug and AB related matters:

    1. Internal Transfers between programs, both undergraduate and postgraduate, will be implemented UNSW wide this year. Engineering already has a version of it within the Faculty. It is to be extended to all of UNSW this year. Criteria agreed are at least 36 UoC passed, 65 WAM, mark >= 60 in Maths 1A, for transfer into Engineering; otherwise, students to try through UAC.
    2. New version of CATEI being released. Permissions are looser, and still being discussed.
    3. Engineering is trialling a new collaborative/service teaching model.
    4. Library has low usage by engineering students, which may affect the future purchases of books and journals. Several reasons were discussed, the main one being the greater convenience of access through the Net; a question arises (for all schools) - should higher usage be encouraged?
    5. Faculty UGEC is now approving some courses with a sunset or review clause.
    6. Electives versus hybrid courses: Frequently, final year elective courses are re-badged for postgraduates. The issue is that a postgraduate program should not contain only hybrid courses, and should have some genuine postgraduate courses. Hybrid courses should be thought as introductory to postgraduates, and interfacing with undergraduate curriculum. On process, hybrid courses may be put through either UGEC or PGCC, and discussed as a starred item at Standing Committee. Currently hybrid courses with 67** and 68** numbers are being approved.
    7. All 3 UoC GenEd courses to be reviewed by Sept 2009. They will be discontinued by end 2011 in any case.
    8. Standardised cover sheets for new courses and programs will be introduced university wide shortly. ACTION: AS to report on review of relevant 3 UoC GenEd courses in the school.

    Minutes of the previous meeting held on 31 July were now approved, as quorum had been reached.

  4. New updated course proposal Information Retrieval and Web Search Clarifications to the proposal for "Information Retrieval and Web-search" - led by W Wei
    1. it will replace COM9314 - that had enrolment of 20, while the new course is projected to have 80--100
    2. Cassandra: it can be used in various programs
    3. it will concentrate on (1) data structures for Information Retrieval, and (2) practical building of Web search engines
    4. Wayne: it should use Manning's book; should have COMP9024 or COMP2199 as prerequisite
    5. Sri: it is (conceptually) disjoint from Web-services
    6. Cassandra: it should be an alternative to COMP9314
    7. AR and Cassandra: COMP9314 should be made 'inactive'
    The course was approved at the TC level; a consultation with the lecturers of related courses and other minor changes were suggested. ACTION: Updated course proposal to be sent to CN, and then AS, for further processing.

  5. Specific Priorities for 2010 and beyond The items under this heading were re-ordered based on urgency and availability of discussion material.
    1. IEAust Accreditation in 2010: program reviews/revisions

      AS passed on a message from WHW: IEAust accreditation is being brought forward to 2010. It would be useful to have any planned program reviews and revisions in place before the accreditation round.

    2. SE Program Revisions

      KAR discussed potential revisions to the SE program. These include the INFS courses and the workshop courses. TL asked whether CS students could take SENG 2020. KAR said there is a question of prerequisites, also stability of teams through the workshops. SP suggested usage of ASB courses and inclusion of more testing. KAR also pointed out that transitional arrangements, for the workshops in particular, may be necessary.

      ACTION: KAR to bring a revision document to TC in the near future.

    3. CS Program Revisions

      TL and CN have prepared a CS revision document, including replacement for COMP 3711 and the ethics course COMP 2920. Other changes, such as making sure that all double degree offerings are covered, is currently ongoing. RB suggested a review of Years 1 and 2. It was suggested that effects of the last round of changes must be evaluated first.

      ACTION: CS Revision document that includes other changes will be completed soon.

    4. Thesis Courses

      Salil Kanhere led the discussion here, with a document setting out the current situation.

      1. Introduction of 'Elite thesis' - given double weight, already in civil En g; there appear to exist (informally) in CSE as well
      2. Combine thesis A and B, with once-a-year assessment
      3. Wayne: emphasise part B more, but do not degrade part A too low
      4. Cassandra: students do not realise that Part B is much more demanding
      5. TL: make part B to have more units than the current six
      6. conclusion: perhaps wait for the Faculty review, but also conduct an internal review and recommend a single year-long thesis to the Faculty

  6. Any other business RB stated that the session gap is too short, and he plans to raise it at AB. He would like to survey the school before he presents it to the Acad Board.

Meeting closed at 4:05 PM.

School of Computer Science & Engineering
The University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052, AUSTRALIA

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