Staff Student Rep Meeting – Wednesday 7th November 2018

In attendance: Stuart Anderson, Director of Teaching, Neil Heatley Head of ISS, Kendal Reid ITO, Sarah Taylor Communications and Recruitment, Alison Downie, Computing Support Officer, Karen Davidson Student Support Officer

Update from last weeks meeting:

  • Stuart has spoken with the INF1A lecturers and next year there will be designated tutors.
  • INF2A Stuart hasn’t had a chance to talk to the lecturer about the use of Tophat. *Action Stuart*
  • Neil now has volunteers for the Recruitment Committee.
  • Neil is looking into installing more machines on Level 9. *Action Neil*
  • There is now a sign up on the door indicating that the South Lab on Level 5 is now a Quiet Lab.
  • There is still on-going issues with Level 4 power outage, this will require some electrical work in the near future, the problem is caused by the amount of electrical devices being connected.
  • Neil is looking into send out an email out to the students about the consequences of the misuse of the mailing lists. *Action Neil and Stuart*
  • Can a specific Room Booking queue be added to ito@inf.ed.ac.uk?  *Action Alison*
  • Students can be find bookable spaces on MyEd under Timetabling. *Neil to clarify*

    UG1
    It was reported to be a quiet week, everyone is busy.  They still feel CL is not interactive enough and students are still finding the lectures hard to follow.  Stuart is going to talk to the the CL lecturer about trying to make the lectures more interactive by using Tophat.  *Action Stuart*
    The Reps have also set up a Peer Support group this is the first week, this will allow students to work together, if this works out then they will make it a more regular thing.

    UG2
    INF2C-SE the students are very happy with the communication on the Piazza page from the lecturer.  Stuart is still to talk to Paul regarding the use of Tophat.  *Action Stuart*
    The demonstrator did not appear to have pdf version of the first coursework.

    INF2C-CS the deadline for coursework one is due back today, the marker has returned the marks back to the lecturer, so therefore they should be released soon.

    DMMR Stuart is still to talk the lecturer regarding the use of Tophat in the lecturers.  *Action Stuart*

    INF2A the students feel the first coursework was not clear and properly explained and they could not make sense of the code and the pdf was too long, they hope the second coursework will be better.

    UG3
    CCS some students were confused about the examination dates, this is a Semester one course, but if you are a Visiting Student you sit the exam in December but all other students will sit it in April/May 2019.

    UG4
    EXC students seem to have rising concerns about the exam format. The course has changed significantly since last year; hence, previous papers are not very relevant. The lecturer is not planing on making a practice exam (that many students would find useful) and claims to review exam format in a non-recorded exam revision lecture. Provided the current quality and attendance of EXC lectures, students are questioning the effectiveness of this approach.  There is no tutorials for this course and students don’t have any material to practice on.  Neil has spoken with the lecturer and his response was

    – I’d be fine recording the revision lecture.

    – Regarding the exam format: I have already mentioned (via lecture,
    piazza, and email) to the students that exam will have all three usual
    components: book work questions, algorithm questions, and system design
    questions.  I plan to go over the exam format in detail in our revision
    lecture.

    IAML the first coursework is now a week late, the problem is the course is oversubscribed and there are problems trying to find markers, there is also now 3 levels for this course, UG, PG and distance learning.

    ILP the students are not happy with their marks, they feel this should be looked into, they were also 9 days late in being returned. *Action Stuart*

    UG5
    When will the course statistics be released?  This has now been done.

    http://web.inf.ed.ac.uk/infweb/student-services/ito/admin/course-programme-stats/course-summary

    MSc
    IRR there was concern from the students that draft report that they have to submit will be classed as a Tier 4 Engagement point.  Neil has spoken with the lecturer and he plans to send out an email with submission instructions for the draft report and provide additional clarification about the nature of the tier-4 engagement point so that students don’t need to worry about the academic quality of their report (from a tier-4 point of view). *Action Bjoern Franke*

    The link to the past Dissertation archive is apparently not working. Computing Support will look into this. *Action Alison*

    https://project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk/cosign/valid?cosign-project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk=yz+qiOOLaUYEEyO6+0-ovvpVEBfcepKRugNKJWUnmXxRG3ATJbZpddlnBVO0X+nKt5QF5aoPKHstMy+KIvrCOn3WVQHJn0y5EB1SHjOw7s2kHG-Jr8GggRFcMJuN&https://project-archive.inf.ed.ac.uk/all/msc/

    General
    Are old courses archived anywhere? *Action ITO*

    Can vending machines be supplied?  *Action Neil*

    The hot water in the showers isn’t always running hot depending on certain times of the day, Neil suggested the student should log this with building-issues@inf.ed.ac.uk, so they can look into it.

    The front door is not opening at times especially when it is windy and cam sometimes take at least 10 minutes to open, last week the students rang security who got them in and the door worked for a short time then broke again.  This is a fire exit, so this needs to be dealt with. *Action Neil*

    The School will look at making the the side door at the side of AT Fresh available. *Action Neil*

    Level 9 with the door still not working properly there are still students who do not have access still trying to get in, Neil suggested if anyone suspects that there are people there who shouldn’t be then they should call Security on  650 2222. *Action Neil*

    There was some concern that some students have to sit 2 exams in one day unfortunately this is the case for a lot of students, all timetabling for exams is done by one system that works out everyone’s timetable. There will be some students with certain circumstances that don’t allow them to sit an exam in one day but they would receive separate information regarding this.  The number of students and examinations mean it is almost impossible to schedule the examinations without some students having two exams on one day.

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