MINUTES
MEETING: RSCS CONVENOR MEETING
NUMBER 1: SEMESTER 1 2015
VENUE: N101 CSIT BUILDING
DATE: 7 May 2015, 1-2pm
CONTACT: BINDI MAMOUNEY
APOLOGIES: Lexing Xie, Sylvie Thiebaux, Clive Boughton
1. Formal Items (all items are confidential)
1.1 Minutes from the previous meeting (NA due to meeting being cancelled)
1.2 Matters arising
1.3 SRC Report (30.4.2015)
COMP1100
Midterm: Regarding holding the midterm exam earlier, this is not possible. However there is already a test held in week 4 which is held for the purpose of tracking how students are doing before the census date.
ACTION: Convenor to address the midterm question and why it is held at that time during the lecture.
No programming experience: Students raise this concern every year. Convenor believes it is not true and that is was addressed two years ago. The majority of students do not have a programming background and they do fine. It was suggested that the convenor could publish the results of students compared to the programming backgrounds of the students.
COMP1710
Quiz: The changes to the information given with the quiz is done in consultation with student discussion. Continuous improvement is being made to the style of the quiz. No complaints were made with the 25 students who have been met with.
Midterm: The concern about the question in the middle of the examination which was a bonus was not relevant due to the questions being listed in random order. Also, students could go back to the question if they wished at the end of the examination.
COMP2300
Flip Teaching: Comes down to individual taste amongst students. Discussion on the best way to present recordings, including the length of time, the quality issue and the preparation needed.
ACTION: Associate Director Education to explore the use of flip teaching within RSCS
Peanut: Rationale for using the old and new Peanut was explained by the convenor. Decided that naming them differently (cPeanut and rPeanut?) may help students to understand the value in using them.
COMP2410
Security: Was noted that there is interest in security topics on a regular basis in a lot of courses. Regnet covers some security.
COMP3100
Startups: About half of the students are involved in startups so the information is relevant to many. However, it was also noted that the topics are applicable to everyone.
COMP3530
Blog Posts: Convenor explained that the students are not writing up blog posts each week but are working on a learning portfolio or reflective journal. It does not have to be done each week and should be a holistic reflection rather than a statement.
COMP3650/6365
Vocabulary: It is not possible to change the amount of vocab at this stage of the course. Students were informed at the start of the course what the nature of the language used would be. A suggestion was made to put a note on to P&C stating that this is a language rich course.
Negative Marking: This needs to be explained to the class. The effect of the negative marking was reduced by half and the marks were scaled up 10% for the exam.
COMP6700
To be discussed offline
COMP8100
To be discussed offline
GENERAL ISSUES
Plagarism: Students are not able to express themselves in 3rd year which is leading to plagiarism issues. Students who have been asked to ‘please explain’ regarding close collaboration expressed surprise at the expectations in CECS. Possibly a cultural issue.