The University of New South Wales

Minutes of Meeting



Minutes of the meeting of the Computer Science and Engineering Education Committee (EdC 19/01)
held at 10:00am on Friday, 8th March 2019, in Room 103 (HoS Meeting Room), Computer Science Building.

Enquiries concerning these minutes should be directed to John Shepherd, extension +61293856494, jas@cse.unsw.edu.au.

John Shepherd
Committee Chair

Minutes


  1. Apologies and Welcome


  2. Minutes of Previous Meeting

    CSE Education Committee 18/04 (5 October 2019)

    Were (more or less) approved.

    3. Present: John Shepherd (JAS) (chair), Andrew Taylor (AT), Annie Guo (HG), Bruno Gaeta (BG), Eric Martin (EM), Fethi Rabhi (FR), Hui Wu (HW), Kevin Elphinstone (KE), Wen Hu (WH), Wayne Wobcke (WW)
    Apologies: Alan Blair
    Absent: -
    In Attendance: Jashank Jeremy (JJ), Andrew Bennett (AB), Evan Kohilas (EK)
      Present / Quorum:   7 / 5   (quorum 5 reached)

  3. Reports from Bodies outside CSE

    John Shepherd will report on any interesting/relevant developments that have occurred in committees, work-groups, etc. at UNSW.

    • Special Consideration Handling

      Discussion of the University's decision to centralise the handling of special consideration. Stated motivation: uniform treatment of students, less admin work for convenors. General dissatisfaction with the idea of removing lecturer discretion in handling of special consideration. Need clarification on Supp timelines. We should push back.

    • Late Enrolment Handling

      UNSW wants to disallow enrolments into courses after week 1. Need a stated school policy to describe precisely how CSE plans to implement this, with allowance for exceptions from course convenors.

    • Engineering 4th-year Thesis Structure

      The new three term Thesis structure was introduced: three 4UC courses (A/B/C) taken in consecutive terms. Most discussion was around allowing Thesis B and C to be taken in one term; when would it be allowed, what are the deadlines, how would it be assessed? Other

    • Students Viewing their Exam Submissions

      Not clear that we are required to do this; was once a policy. Other Eng schools have a system for students to view papers, check for addition errors, questions missed, but examiner does not have to answer questions. Students already have opportunity to submit request for mark review or remark. Do we also want a policy like other Eng schools? Should CSE Assessment Committee develop a policy?

      Discussion also on exam digitisation.

    • Engineering Student Support Services

      Generally satisfied with current services, except for the split between the Hub and TSA (different services provided by each).

    • Term 2 Intake (starting 2020)

      AT thinks it won't result in more students. Most others think it will. Given current course offerings, should be able to progress through the program ok. BIOM and SENG most at risk of scheduling difficulties.

      ACTION: JAS to check whether scheduling works for T2 entrants.

    • ASTRA - UNSW-wide SMS-like system

      Quick review of how CSE might use the new UNSW ASTRA system for marks maintenance. Continue with SMS and upload "major" assessments to Astra.


  4. 4th Year Theses

    Covered in above item.


  5. Enrolment Numbers

    AT reported on enrolment numbers. Undergrad intake similar to last years (around 700 majors). Postgrads increased significantly. Total intake around 2000. Expect even more next year.

    Faculty exploring new pathways into our degrees. Agreement with WSU for students to join UNSW programs after two years. NS Global Diploma will also add more students.

    Large CSE courses allocated in large theatres, but attendance generally Do not want multiple lecture streams for large courses. Plan to ask Timetabling to allow one large theatre for large course, and the rest of the students go into a WEB stream.

    Prefer no courses with enrolments limited to < 100. Some courses have equipment constraints. Trade-off between choice for students and staff costs.

    Tutor and demonstrator costs are blowing out. Working committee (chaired by Helen Paik) looking for ways to run "small class teaching" more cost-effectively. Run larger tutes? Are there enough e.g. size 30 tute rooms on campus?

    Need better ways to handle wait-lists for full courses.


  6. UNSW3+

    The idea of "hitting the ground running" in Week 1 via work in Week 0 was trialled in some courses with mixed results. Need to consider assignment scheduling.

    Planning to shift some course offerings from T3 to T1 and T2. AT suggests COMP3511. JAS asks for other "volunteers". Need more ADK courses in T1.


  7. Course Revision: COMP3411/9414/9814

    De-merge UG and PG offerings: 3411 taught to students with significant programming background; 9414 taught to students with little programming background. PG students with significant programming background can opt for COMP3411 (using the COMP9814 course code). Do we need a different name for the PG version? Expect numbers to increase substantially. Need to get AIMS revisions.

    Discussion of pre-reqs. Suggest COMP9021 for 9414. Also, pre-reqs of 9417 need changing: drop 9024 as a pre-req.

    ACTION: Put in AIMS revisions for courses.


  8. Course Revision: COMP4920/SENG4920

    Suggestion to split Ethics and Project Management into two 3UC courses. Do we still need the Project Management part? All programs have courses which include project management. Is this sufficient? And with the

    Problems with single T3 offering; blocks some students from graduating. These students need to take EET Ethics in order to graduate, and the number is growing. Could we have a common Faculty Ethics course? With splits between schools for discipline specific content (vaguely like ENGG1000).


  9. Transfers from Old CS (3978) to new CS (3778)

    There has been some disquiet among students who decide to transfer from a combined XYZ/CS degree to a straight CS degree. This transfer requires moving from from 3798 to 3778, which has different requirements.

    AT thinks they should not be forced into 3778. ENG.SSS is allowing substitutions to assist students to graduate on time.


  10. Summer Term

    In the summer of 2018/2019, we ran five courses, because UNSW3+ messed up exchange students. General concensus that our courses cannot be effectively taught in 5 weeks. We should not offer courses in Summer.


  11. School Assessment Review Committee

    Faculty requires Schools to perform "remediation" tasks that used to be done by the Faculty Assessment Review Group.

    Program Directors can override results in some other schools. Should the CSE Assessment Review Group be able to suggest cases to be referred to Program Directors.

    ACTION: JAS to write terms of reference for SARG.


  12. Any Other Business

    13. None

      The meeting finished as 11.30am.