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HoP Session Minutes (04/11/20) – Term 4/6 2020

Prior to the HoP session, HoP was provided with the consolidated feedback from students, collected by the ISTD Student Board.

Sections

Issues raised

Term 4 Mods

Intro to Algo

  • Insufficient support materials
    • Instructors also do not set aside any session to review materials live with students
    • Suggested to have a similar arrangement to Infosys, where the first two sessions are recorded lectures, and the third session would be a cohort session to review material
  • Between the last feedback (in 2019) and now, the only difference is that homework are longer
    • Commented that the new homework are harder than the problem sets
    • Looking for more practical, implementation-based problems
  • Suggested to tailor the course to include algorithm design (problem-solving), on top of understanding the existing algorithms
  • Commented that mid-term exam duration (1h) was too short, 1.5h would make it more manageable

Responses

  • Prof Tony wondered if the current arrangement was due to Covid, and if it would improve if things were back to normal
    • Students shared that instructors also used the cohort session as a lecture session instead of a tutorial during the previous batch
  • Prof Tony will communicate to the instructors to use the cohort session as a tutorial session, used to discuss/review material

Comp Struc

  • Workload is too high
  • Commented that mid-term exam duration (1h) was too short, 1.5h would make it more manageable

Responses

  • Prof Tony mentioned that the nature of the courses meant a relatively high workload, otherwise students would not be able to learn anything
  • Prof Tony also suggested that students make use of any learning opportunities (such as coaching sessions) in order to help revise and understand the material

Term 6 Mods

Database and Big Data

  • Over-usage of TA
    • Questions were redirected to the TA, who also appeared lost at times
  • Required to watch a 3h-long video
  • Comments on the weightage of various components
    • Quiz vs project
      • 10% for each quiz is not very reasonable, considering that the project is 25%
    • Also commented that quiz 1 was way too hard compared to what was taught
    • Project's scope is way too large for 25%
  • Lack practice materials
    • Instructor did not release answers for the quiz, and students had to refer back to the 3h lecture
  • Too much theory and too little application
  • Suggested that the mod be split into 2 separate modules, DB and Big Data

Responses

  • Prof Tony would allow the instructor to focus on his area of expertise in the future, instead of needing to teach this mod
  • Under consideration to remove the Big Data section of the mod
  • Consider adjusting final exam arrangements and weightages

CDS

  • Labs not well-organised
  • Goal of CDS not well-understood, ML seems to overlap a lot with CDS
  • Also, instructors seem to assume students are doing ML even when it is not a co/pre-requisite course
  • Suggested to frame CDS as the applied component of ML instead (ML will teach the theory, CDS will teach how to use said theory)
  • CDS project is vague and feedback is insufficient

Machine Learning

  • Lectures were recorded but not released
  • Prepared notes were good, but delivery of content could be better
  • Questioned the need for the annotation of 500 documents

Responses

  • Lecture recordings were eventually released
  • Prof Tony will inform the instructor to have a smaller data set for annotation in the future (to at least give some experience of annotating)

Others

Mid-term survey

  • Some courses didn't open the mid-term survey
    • Comp Struc instructors had to make a special request to eDimension team to actually open up the survey

Responses

  • Prof Tony suggested to have mid-term survey open for all ISTD modules, and Felice would help inform the relevant personel for note in the future.

Course Delivery and Content

  • Suggested to QC courses to help improve course content and delivery

Other stuff

Pillar Name

  • Some students asked why not Computer Science and Design
    • Differentiation from other CS schools
    • Possible accreditation requirements
  • University proposed Computing Systems and Design, which many felt is unsuitable due to the lack of any reference point
  • Re-open a new poll to gauge student response towards the name change, what name would be good, and why.