The University of New South Wales
Notice of Meeting
A meeting of the Computer Science and Engineering Teaching Committee
(CSE Teaching Committee 17/2)
will be held at 12:00pm on Friday, 05 May 2017,
in Room 103 (HoS Meeting Room), Computer Science Building.
Enquiries concerning this agenda should be directed to John Shepherd, extension +61293856494, jas@cse.unsw.edu.au.
John Shepherd
Committee Chair
Agenda
-
Apologies and Welcome
-
Minutes of Previous Meeting *
CSE Education Committee 17/1 (31 March 2017)
-
Business from Previous Meeting
CN put all of the pre-reqs into SiMS and the Handbook (her final great act in CSE ... for a while). Some problems have emerged this week (1-5 May) in a small number of UG pre-reqs and have now been fixed. JAS is re-looking at all pre-reqs and will post a new set next week for re-checking.
To Do:
- investigate what other Universities do for Hons
- how many people transfer from 4-year to 3-year degrees simply to graduate
- investigate changing dual-badged courses to hybrid
- develop induction package for new (casual) academic staff
- develop FAQ for all academic staff
-
Reports from Bodies outside CSE
John Shepherd will report on any interesting/relevant devlopments that have occurred in committees, work-groups, etc. at UNSW.
-
Course Revision: COMP9321 Data Services Programming
This revision significantly changes the focus of the course from deploying web technologies and protocols to build user-facing web applications, to developing services for supplying data and analytics via web protocols.
-
Course Revision: COMP9322 Software Service Design and Engineering
This revision modernises some of the topics covered in the course, and changes the title to better reflect the new content focus. It also introduces new topics which have been developed since this course was originally designed (e.g. micro services).
-
New Course: COMP6324 Internet of Things Service Design and Engineering
The Internet of Things has become an important paradigm in the development of systems that interface organisational infrastructure to the physical world. This new course aims to identify and disseminate critical knowledge and skills related to the engineering of IoT services.
-
Course Revision: ENGG1811 Computing for Engineers
Chun Tung Chou has consulted widely with the Engineering Schools who use ENGG1811 in their programs, with the idea of shifting the focus away from spreadsheets and MatLab towards programming (in Python). He has support from all schools, some of whom turn out to be using Python in their later courses already. We present the new structure of the ENGG1811 course, to be implemented starting in 18s1.
-
Course Title Revision: COMP9323 Software as a Service (SaaS) Project
This revision simply changes the title of the course to more accurately reflect what is covered in lectures and project work.
-
Course Title Revision: COMP1511 Programming Fundamentals
I've had feedback from students this semester that they thought COMP1511 was a lower-level course than COMP1911 because (a) it has a lower number, (b) the course title (Introduction to Programming) makes it sound more "introductory" than "Computing 1A". This proposal is simply to change the title to give the (correct) impression that COMP1511 is more challenging than COMP1911. It is also more consistent with the name of the other new first-year courses. Other suggestions for the title are welcome.
-
Elite Students Program
Revisting a proposal from last year ...
We have some very good students in our undergraduate programs. It would be desirable to encourage them to be involved in school research projects. Potentially, this means allowing them progress faster through their program and take more advanced courses earlier. And potentially it means waiving lower-level pre-reqs.
Cassandra Nock produced a relatively detailed proposal for how such a program might be organised, which was discussed at EdC last year. Before implementing, we need to consider some fine details, e.g.
- should it be available from 1st year? what ATAR would be required?
- what kind of performance should be required to remain in the program?
- how much should students be allowed to deviate from the standard core?
-
UNSW3+
The UNSW3+ implementation team is asking Schools to propose "delivery patterns" for their courses. This typically means how many contact hours in the various course activities (lectures, tutes, labs, project meetings, seminars, etc.) and how these hours are spread over the weeks of the term. Each CSE course needs to consider how it might be delivered from 2019 on. 10 weeks of classes is non-negotiable, but everything else is up for consideration. This also needs to be considered in light of the new UNSW assessment policy.
Particular points of concern in UNSW3+ are: the reduced StuVac, the shortened turn-around time in exam marking, and the lack of time for Supps (some proposals suggest doing them in Week 1 of the following term). The shortened marking time could potentially be alleviated by the next item.
-
Exams
The new UNSW assessment policy specifies that exams may not be more than 2 hours in length (if centrally managed). Running exams in our labs, with centrally supplied invigilators, is not particularly effective since they tend to be inflexible and do not understand technical issues, which occasionally arise (e.g. student's workstation freezes).
We have spent several years refining an exam environment for our workstation labs, to the point that setting up labs for our exams is almost routine. Many CSE exams are now lab-based, and the practical components of such exams are most effective if students are given more than 2 hours to complete the work ("it's not a race"). There are other advantages to conducting exams in labs, including: students can easily fix mistakes (if they notice them), collecting exam "papers" online makes for much more effective distribution of marking, and not having to read bad handwriting.
We propose that as many CSE courses as want to can do their exams in labs and, where it is educationally sensible, should be able to have time limits greater than 2 hours. We further suggest that CSE invigilators (typically tutors) should be used in preference to centrally supplied invigilators.
-
Teaching "pinch points"
What issues have arisen because of the significant increase in student numbers this year?
-
Any Other Business