Staff Student Rep Meeting – Wednesday 1st Match 2023
In attendance: David Sterratt Deputy Director of Teaching, Philippa Ward Head of Student Services, Toni Noble Deputy Teaching Organisation Manager, Jennifer Oxley Deputy User Support Manager, Beth Hughes Student Adviser, Kendal Reid ITO
Apologies: Bjoern Franke Director of Teaching
UG1
INF1B tutorials have no structure to them, they consist of a worksheet which could be done at home, the students feel that some tutors don’t know the answers to their questions, they would prefer the tutorials to be smaller and the only thing they find helpful is the labs. The lecturer goes to fast, flipping between 4 screens and they feel the lectures are going over mental health too much! There are mistakes in the live coding, the reading textbook is outdated and the coursework instructions are too long and some parts are unnecessary. Brian who assists with the course will be going over beginners coding with the class. The Reps have sent out a feedback form to the class.
UG2
INF2-FDS the students felt the feedback was slightly harsh, David explained that the markers were consistent with marking and the average was around 60%.
INF2-SEPP coursework one was reported to be tedious, the coursework had to be done in pairs, some students felt that their partners did not make a good enough contribution to warrant the same marks as the ones who did put the effort in!
INF2-IADS coursework release was delayed.
INF2D the students felt the coursework on search tree was too long, it took a long time to complete and not worth the 12 marks, there was lots of questions on the Piazza page!
UG3
CS the coursework good but there are a lot of questions on Piazza which are going unanswered! There appears to be an inconsistently in the students timetables with tutorials and labs. The lecturer is over running and the recordings cut off before the end, the lecture recordings are set to start and finish at exact times, so if a lecture over runs this won’t be captured.
ST some concerns were raised about the repositories being used for the Software Testing coursework, the specific concern was that markers were struggling to access the repositories. David made a suggestion that using Github Classroom might provide a solution in future, this was taken to the lecturer and he agrees with the issues and confirmed that this will not be repeated next year.
SDM the mid-term class test the room was reported to be too small, David explained that the room allocations are made before the classes begin and it could have been due to an increase in students enrolling on the course after the room was timetabled.
UG4
Nothing to report.
Pippa is looking into Forum access for UG4 students to meet with their Project Supervisors, this will include a building induction, a tour and building regulations. Students can still sign in as normal for meetings via Reception.
MSc
The students were expecting to find out about project allocations on Monday but have not received any information about this to date. Pippa took this to Course Organiser who responded with that the current situation they ran a provisional MSc allocation and published it to staff, there were aware of some issues, and, as expected was apprised of some issues that necessitated running the allocation again. Unexpectedly, the DPMT system went into a lockdown mode when allocation results were disclosed to staff, making it impossible to re-run the allocation using the tools provided. This issues has now been resolved as of Friday 3rd March.
General
Level 9 the button on the exit door is broken, there also appears to be a roof leak and the toilets require cleaning and supplies restocked.
*Action Kendal/Ray*
Level 6 there are lots of sockets broken. Jennifer asked the Reps if they find faults then to report them, either on the web site or follow the QR Code posters in the Labs.
https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/systems/support/
*Action Jennifer*