postgraduate
Caulfield School of Information Technology
PG Student/Staff Meeting No. 2
Minutes of Caulfield School of Information Technology Student Staff Meeting.
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ATTENDANCE AND APOLOGIES:
Present:
Staff: Christina Branton, Michelle Ketchen, Joze Kuzic, Maria Indrawan-Santiago, Steve Wright, Rob Meredith.
Students: Jian, Sneha, Vicky, Georg
Apologies: Terrance, Martin Atchison, Campbell Wilson
WELCOME:
Georg
The projectors go out after 10 minutes. It can then take 5 minutes to half an hour to reset. Even if you keep moving the mouse or touching the screen they go off.
Steve wright: The staff account takes 10 minutes to load.
Michelle, surely this is a setting issue.
Sneha agreed that in K107 the PC ‘goes’ then the projector goes to sleep. And for tutorials after 6pm the air conditioning goes off so the rooms are stuffy and airless.
Actioned: MK to speak to David Broderick to see what can be done.
“As discussed during the mid year break we will enable a policy that prevents the AV machines in the labs from going to sleep. This will ensure that the projector receives a signal from the AV pc all the time.”
FIT5131 Programming foundations. Students would like to have solutions to the tutorial questions but the lecturer does not provide them.
Action: MI-S to talk to the lecturer
General:
Students are always looking for power points in lecture theatres. Discussion re availability of power points/chargers/lockers.
Michelle: all the labs have power points, IT student lounge has power points.
Students commented that a lot of non IT students used the lounge.
Action: MK will ask facilities whether we can get more power facilities.
Jian
FIT4039 Android and iOS development.
The lecturer gets faster and softer as the time goes on.
Students want the option to study Android OR iOS separately.
Maria; students need to have exposure to both. But your feedback is heard.
Jian: in the labs you are supposed to submit 2 versions. It is a workload issue/scaling of assignment.
FIT5057 Project management. Some people are unhappy with the class test/ and assignment.
Discussion arose as to how much detail the student actually wanted and that the unit outline and assignment details currently provide the information.
Action: Joze to speak with lecturer
FIT5171 Assignment difficulties. The infrastructure for students to do their assignment was not in place (Configuration didn’t happen properly, cannot connect to the assengi account from their home, the wrong code base was uploaded and fixed the week before the assignment).
Action: Maria to talk to the chief examiner
FIT5047 Intelligent Systems. Kevin was reluctant to remark the assignment.
Sneha
FIT5057 Project management. Sneha would like a marking guide that details where the marks would come from/be allocated for (!)
She doesn’t want to miss marks, nor does she want to write too much if it will not get her marks. Discussion from course directors present:
Maria stated that she explained her marking process. Srini stated that he would not give out a marking guide. Steve explained his mark breakdown. They suggested that what was being requested was too prescriptive: the specifications should be enough and the students should be able to work out what is important if they have just been taught it.
Rob: Clarity over assignments is required. Are the assignments specifications clear or are expectations different.
Joze stated that it was best to ask questions within the lecture rather than the tutorial. That way he can answer and everyone can hear and benefit. Tutors don’t necessarily have real world experience.
FIT5130 Systems analysis and design. A tutor was overheard claiming that ‘it is hard to get marks out of me’ and the students get depressed.
Rajiv
FIT5094 This issue is faced by first semester students mainly. After that students understand. Students who get exemptions come in at a ‘harder’ unit without the prior ‘higher education’ learning.
Steve: we tell students to shop around in their first two weeks, sit in on lectures, see if they like it or listen to a recording to get a feel for a unit.
FIT5123 Introduction to Business information systems The lecturer still going fast. Students have approached her about this.
Rajiv asked about IE and what was needed to get internships. The course directors explained that it was not and industrial placement, that students will be organised into a development team and work with a real client but that it would be done here at University. Discussion arose regarding managing student expectations.
Action item: talk to Marketing and Admissions about what they say. And the career expo at Clayton
Vicky:
FIT5132. Introduction to databases.. The tutor has improved in arriving on time. He has promised to provide another tutorial to make up the time.
FIT5130 Systems analysis and design. Most students in one of the tutors tutorial haven’t got feedback.
Response: That tutor has been unwell, should be sending information out shortly. The other tutor gives feedback in a timely fashion and gives examples
Action: Rob to talk to tutor
Maria
Anything else?
Re FIT5046. Unless you are good at Java this would be a difficult unit. The skill level has dropped, this used to be an elective unit, now it is core
Sneha: Could we have print credit? It costs a lot to print out hard copy (sometimes have to hand in soft and hard copy of assignments).
Jian: FIT5047 Intelligent systems. Tutor is hard to understand.
Georg (at the end). When working in groups the Chinese students don’t share. They look after each other