Hi everyone!
Thank you for an amazing term together. I had a wonderful term getting to meet and work with so many of you. Overall I'm just so impressed with the caliber of students and more importantly how much you managed to learn. The growth some of you experience in just 2-3 months is astounding.
I hope you all stay inspired to learn more - and to keep viewing our amazing software engineering field as an opportunity to become tool builders in the world to make the world a better place for every day people. It's an awesome responsibility. You can find a COMP1531-like personal project template HERE, and recommendations for future learning HERE.
Your iteration 3 marks have been released. If you have any questions about it, please contact your project tutor - they are responsible for your final mark. If you do have questions or concerns, please contact them no later than Friday the 6th of Dec at 5pm.
Thanks again to the incredible team of tutors. They keep the lights on and everything running wonderfully.
Other than that, it's been a pleasure to meet so many of you this term. For those I haven't met, I hope I can meet you in the future. Add me on LinkedIn.
Thanks everyone! Catch you around.
🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳
Iteration 3 automarks released
Yuchao Jiang
Happy end of week 11!
This is just to let you know that iteration 3 automarks have been released on gitrun last night. If you need a rerun, the last day to submit a rerun will be in 7 days, which is Saturday 30th Nov.
Iteration 3 manual marks will be released next week. Our tutors are working very hard to mark them.
Good luck with your exams in other courses.
Yuchao
MYEXPERIENCE survey ✨✨✨
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone 😍
First, congratulations for completing all assessment tasks now!!! 10 weeks, that's only about 70 days, you've managed to learn git, javascript, HTTP servers, testing, requirements, and a bunch of other knowledge and skills. You should be very proud of yourselves👍.
If you wish to continue practising the things you've learnt in this course, our wonderful tutor @Maddy has made a COMP1531 Template Project, which you can find on GitHub.
Also, I would love it if you could complete the MyExperience survey if you haven't already. Please let us know what we have done well and what needs to be improved. It always means a lot to the course and the team 😻. We are very keen to use your feedback to make COMP1531 a better course. We only have a 35% completeness rate so far... We will need to hit at least 50% to have the feedback useful.
The last submissions are the day after tomorrow (21st Nov)! THANKS!
[Notice] End of week 10 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
Hope everything has gone well with iteration 3. It's been incredible seeing everyone pick up the work and tackle the challenge. The term has flown by. It's crazy how much you've all managed to learn this term.
🍹PEER REVIEW ITER3 - fill in ASAP
Everyone is required to complete their peer review for iteration 3. Penalty may apply if not filled out (see spec). This is invaluable feedback for your tutor to track how your group is performing together. You need to complete this by Tuesday @ 5pm! (EXTENDED Yay! since we consider the iter3 late submissions.)
FILL IT OUT NOW!!
🙂 Major Project Final Presentation
Please check your group's final time and location on the course website at https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1531/24T3/project/final-presentation. Please be in the room at least 10 minutes before your allocated slot. Online tutorials should already been notified what teams call to join.
What you get up to during the final presentation is described here, but please remember that if you do not attend the final presentation there may be penalties etc.
Do not hesitate to ask on the forum if you have any questions. We are here to support you.
---
I hope you enjoyed your weekend.
EXTENSION due to CSE server is down
Yuchao Jiang
Hello everyone,
We are aware that the CSE server is now down, very unfortunately. The school is working hard to fix them ASAP
We will extend the iter3 deadline to tomorrow (16 Nov Saturday) at 12 pm. Yay.
I hope this helps.
However, submit early if possible. The server will be busy at the deadline due to all groups using the server.
Yuchao
UPDATE (2:09pm 15 Nov):
CSE servers & lab machines seem to be returning to normal.
Apologize for stress and inconvenience to any affected students.
[Notice] End of week 9 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
We're wrapping up week 9 - keep your heads down and keep focused. No more labs (soon). No more new content. One tutorial. Keep steady next week. Updates below:
📣 1. Week 10 lectures - Bonus Lectures
Our week 10 lectures will cover bonus content from:
Tuesday online:
A few extra git bonuses
How to get started with web development
Anything else you want!
Thursday in-person and online:
Project Management Tools.
Software development jobs and market
This is an industry guest lecture from a few colleagues who work in Atlassian.
💡2. MyExperience - please fill it in!!!!
Filling out MyExperience is one of the most helpful things you can do for the teaching team here in COMP1531. It would really mean a lot if you could just take 5 minutes to fill it in. The information is extremely useful for us in understanding how we're doing and where we need to focus attention :)
We really need to hit at least 50% completion of the survey at a minimum for the results to be useful. We only have 7% completed :( so far.
Click here to fill it in!
🦃 Final Presentation Booking
This is the last reminder on booking for the final presentation. Please contact your tutor if you haven't booked yet or if you want to change your booking. The booking system will be closed on Friday of week 10. After that, you will need to email the course email if you want to make any changes.
🐢 General Updates and reminders
Some key updates and reminders for you:
Tutorial 9 solutions will be released tonight.
There is still a Tutorial 10. The last one!
🦃 Iteration 3 - Leaderboard & 1 week to go
Iteration 3 is due on Friday of week 10. Super soon. Good luck - you'll figure it out.
We will be running the leaderboard on the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of week 10.
---
So close! 1 week to go until the bulk of it's over :)
[Notice] End of week 8 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone,
Welcome to the end of week 8. Things are starting to wrap up soon!
Your second last lab is about to be submitted, the tutorials start to get quite light, the lecture content is also quite light. Buckle down and get through the next 14 days and we'll be there in no time.
🐢 General Updates and reminders
Some key updates and reminders for you:
Week 9 Tuesday, we will talk about iter3 in the lecture.
Lab08 is due on Monday (second last lab!)
Tutorial 8 solutions have been released.
Remember to always keep an eye out for new merge requests
Let us know if you need any support with your group work by contacting your tutors or emailing the course at cs1531@cse.unsw.edu.au. We are always here to support you.
🥔 Lab09
Lab09 is the last lab in week 9 :)
⚠️⚠️⚠️Please remember with Lab09 (and project deployment) that you MUST make sure your GITHUB repository is PRIVATE. If any students are found to have created public github repositories you may risk receiving a 0 mark for the labs and/or project and therefore potentially the course.⚠️⚠️⚠️
🍉 Iteration 2 results
Your iteration 2 automarking feedback has been released on gitrun at https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~gitrun/COMP1531_24T3/history. Iteration 2 rerun will be due in 7 days (9th November).
Iteration 2 marks will be released early next week on the course website at https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1531/24T3/grades. You will also receive feedback on manual marking next week. After you receive the marks, if you have any follow-up questions about your grades, please email your tutor directly.
Please remember that your marks are tentative, as we are always exploring cases of contributions and plagiarism.
---
Only 2 weeks to go! You've completed 70% of the course. You're on the home stretch, and the best part about this period of the course is you're more equipped than ever to tackle the challenges in front of you. Let's keep going :)
[Notice] End of week 7 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
I hope everything has gone OK with iteration 2. I know that for some groups that started late things are a bit tough right now - but just remember we're thinking about you 🙏
And of course, please remember that your tutors are here for you constantly to support you.
🐢General Updates and reminders
Lab 5 marks have been released
There is no lab due on Monday, yay!
Tutorial 7 solutions will be released on Friday night.
🍹Teamwork Evaluation ITER2 - complete ASAP.
Everyone is required to complete their Teamwork Evaluation for iteration 2. This is invaluable feedback for your tutor to track how your group is performing together. Penalty may apply if not finish Teamwork Evaluation (see spec).
You need to complete your teamwork evaluation by Monday 12pm of week 8.
FILL IT OUT NOW!!
Note that the teamwork evaluation results will never directly impact your marks. Project Spec section 7 outlines the factors that influence your individual marks.
🦃 Iteration 3
Iteration 3 will be released over the weekend.
Iteration 3 for most of you will be a tone down from iteration 2. It will be a chunk more work to do, but with a much smaller set of new concepts.
We will discuss new concepts for iteration 3 in the Week 8 lectures, including Use Cases, User Stories, Validation, and Conceptual Modelling. Then, in the Week 9 lecture, we will talk about iteration 3 in detail.
We're getting closer to the end of the journey. It's incredible how much you've all already learned.
---
See you soon :)
[Notice] End of week 6 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
We hope your flex week is going well. Very straightforward update this week.
🦃 Project
Iteration 2 - Leaderboard & 7 days to go
Iteration 2 is due at 8 pm Friday 25th Oct (week 7). One week! Keep working and use the course staff as necessary :)
We will be running the leaderboard on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday of week 7. Don't forget to check it out next week here!
Project General
Make sure not to use AI-generated code for your project and labs. Refer to project spec section 9 for more details on "Plagiarism & Academic Misconduct". You should be able to explain your code to your team members and your tutors. We have sent warnings to some students and will continue to explore cases of using AI-generated code in the project.
Please feel free to use the forum as a project stakeholder, with whom you can ask for clarification on the spec. We will talk more about communications with stakeholders in week 8.
🪜 Lecture
A reminder that we have only one lecture in week 7, and that will be on Monday from 1pm to 3pm Online ONLY.
📝 Feedback
Thanks a lot to those who provided feedback. If you have other feedback, could you please complete the feedback survey to help us refine the lectures, labs, and project further? Click here for the survey. We really are keen to use your feedback to make your learning experience better.
[Notice] End of week 5 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hey everyone!
We've hit the halfway point of the course - congratulations!! I'm proud of you, at least :)
I will also remind you of a few things:
By now, you need to have watched the week 4 lectures + the iteration 2 live lecture.
Make a strong start on iteration 2 early next week if you haven't. If you aren't halfway through iteration 2 by the end of week 6 Friday, I regret to inform you that week 7 will get very hard :(
🐢General Updates and reminders
Tutorial 5 solutions are being released.
Lab 5 solutions to follow shortly after to help you with iteration 2.
Lab 4 marks have been released.
Don't forget to nominate your slot for the final project presentation!
🍉 Iteration 1 results and Re-runs
Your iteration 1 marks have been released and are available on the course website on the Grades page. If they are not available, your tutor should have emailed you with an update. If you have any follow-up questions about your grades after this time, please email your tutor directly.
If you want to see a breakdown of your automark, you can view it on the gitrun.
Minor isolated fixes after the due date are allowed but may carry a penalty to the automark. Please take a look at project spec section 6.2 for details on how to request a re-run. The deadline for reruns and mark reviews is 7 days from the release of each iteration's mark release. So reruns for iter1 are due on Sunday, 20th October.
🍉 Project General
Make sure not to use AI-generated code for your project and labs. Refer to project spec section 9 for more details on "Plagiarism & Academic Misconduct".
Please feel free to use the forum as a project stakeholder, with whom you can ask for clarification on the spec. Communication has been recognised as an important skill for software engineers. This not only includes communication within your team but also includes your team's communication with project owners and other stakeholders. We will talk more about this in Week 8, but for now, you can treat the forum as an external stakeholder and ask us if you have any questions.
🪜 Lecture - Week 7
We will only have one lecture in Week 7, and that will be on Monday from 1pm to 3pm Online ONLY. We have many help sessions in week 7, and they are very well staffed. Please make good use of them to support your iteration 2.
📝 Feedback
Thanks a lot to those who provided feedback.
We are working hard to work on your feedback. If you have other feedback, could you please complete the feedback survey to help us refine the lectures, labs, and project further? Click here for the survey. We really are keen to use your feedback to make your learning experience better.
🌈 Enjoy your flex week
Enjoy the time to spend on assessments without the burden of lectures and class time. Remember that in terms of content we're well over the hump of the course.
---
See you in week 7 :)
[Notice] End of week 4 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
Good job to everyone who has gotten iteration 1 together. As we said in lectures, iteration 1 is really an exercise in forcing people in a group to actually work together (come up with a plan, communicate) and we're hoping that you made it through OK :)
For the groups that struggled a little more, keep your chin up and take on the lessons for the next iteration. The last two iterations of the course are 3 weeks instead of two. That breathing room will help. Thank you for the hard work, and we hope you can enjoy a bit of your long weekend :)
Don't forget to catch up and make sure you're on top of the week 4 lectures by the end of the weekend.
🐢General Updates and reminders
The week 5 Monday help session is not running due to Labour Day. But there will be a replacement help session on week 5 Tuesday 2pm-4pm!
Tutorial 4 solutions have been released.
The lab 4 deadline have been extended to Week 5 Tuesday 8:00 pm 👀 due to public holiday
Lab 5 is due Week 5 Saturday 10:00 pm! The earlier due date is due to the flexi week in week 6. Please keep an eye on it.
Lab 3 marks have been released.
Don't forget to nominate your slot for the final project presentation ASAP! Make sure you discuss this with your group first.
🍹Teamwork Evaluation ITER1 - complete ASAP!!!
Everyone is required to complete their first teamwork evaluation for iteration 1. This is invaluable feedback for your tutor to track how your group is performing together.
The peer review feedback deadline is 9am on Tuesday week 5.
FILL IT OUT NOW!!
🔥 Iteration 2 to be released
Iteration 2 will be released this weekend. Keep an eye out for it, and get started next week.
Remember that iteration 2 is where you will need topics from lectures:
Static Verification
Linting
Advanced Functions
HTTP Servers
Persistence (next week) - but this is easy
You will have three weeks for iteration 2, but it is also much more work to do compared with iteration 1. The advice is to start iteration 2 early next week. The very beginning of it (particularly in adjusting to Typescript + Linting + HTTP) will feel like a hurdle. But just focus on getting over that hurdle so that you can get into the more interesting stuff.
🐑 Lectures
We did not have enough time to talk about linting in the lectures this week. But it is very OK! Linting is easy, and you used it in the lab this week. We edited a recording from a previous term for you. Let us know if you want to talk more about linting in a future week!
🤖 Use of AI-generated code in the project
A reminder that we do not allow code obtained with the help of ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Gemini or similar automatic tools (as in the spec Section 9).
✨Last chance to drop
A reminder that this weekend (Sunday) is the last day you can drop the course and make it as if your enrollment never happened. If you do drop the course just shoot your tutor or team members a quick email letting them know (1 minute of your time saves everyone a bit of pain). Since you've dropped right after an iteration, everyone will be fine, and tutors will figure things out :)
Other than that, please have an amazing long weekend and look after yourselves! Stay steady. We still have a bit of term to go.
---
Thanks all - see you soon :) :)
(End of week 3 updates here)
[Notice] End of week 3 updates 🤓
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
We're nearly a third through the term - how exciting :)
Please don't forget to stay up to date with the lectures. You should have watched all of week 1, 2, and 3 lectures. A reminder that last term we found that the majority of students who struggled with the course had also fallen behind on lectures :(
🐢General Updates and reminders
Some key updates and reminders for you:
Go check out the followup post from the typescript lecture.
Tutorial solutions, lab solutions, lab marking will follow the same patterns as previous weeks
Don't forget to nominate your slot for the final project presentation ASAP! Make sure you discuss with your group first.
🍉 Iteration 0 results
Your iteration 0 marks and comments have been made available to you. See them here: https://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs1531/24T3/grades
If you want to see a breakdown of your auto-mark, you can view it HERE. This page is the place that we put everything to do with the running of a particular iteration of your project including:
Official results from an iteration (this)
Leaderboard runs (see below)
Re-running code (we'll talk about that in 2 weeks)
If you have any follow-up questions about your grades after this time, please email your tutor directly.
🦃 Iteration 1 - 1 week to go & Leaderboard
Iteration 1 is due on the Friday of week 4. If you haven't yet started, get to it!
We will be running the pre-submission leaderboard (as per section 8.2 in the spec) to have your tentative marks available on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of week 4. Please read the spec for more specific information around timing.
At this stage, we will be providing a "range" for the mark you currently have at the time we take your commit, and won't be providing a "rank" (this gets tricky to get accurate for a lot of reasons). But we'll evolve this together and hopefully have a great time doing it :)
The page will be here. This is the same page as where you get iteration 0 results.
Also, a reminder that teamwork evaluation starts from iter1. See more details on the project spec under section 7.5.
🌈 Next week
In week 4 the content we learn will focus mainly on web servers, with a bit of advanced Javascript function features and linting. Hayden will take the week 4 lectures.
So if you're feeling under the pump with iteration 1 just catch up on the recordings next weekend before week 5.
See you Tuesday!! :)
(End of week 2 updates)
[Notice] End of week 2 updates 📸
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
We hope you've had a great end to your second week! Honestly, everyone has been pretty great so far and I know it's a bit early in term but I'm generally impressed by the maturity of everyone.
Congrats on submitting iteration 0 - you can take a little bit of a breather this weekend before things start to progressively pick up next week.
🌳 Labs
Your lab01 has been marked. Click here for instructions on understanding your lab marks and feedback. Remember, these marks don't count for anything! It was just a trial run.
Lab solutions are released by pushing a solution branch to each of your personal lab repositories. Click here for instructions on finding solutions.
Lab02 will be due on Week 3, Monday (23rd September), 8:00 pm.
🦃 Iteration 1
Iteration 1 will be released this weekend (by push a new merge request on your project), so you can start next week. Keep an eye out for a merge request in your project repo. An introductory video will be contained in the spec. The video is from 23T2 - it explains things pretty well, though obviously account for any slight variations between terms by reading the full spec (e.g. due dates aren't July etc etc).
Iteration 1 is due on the Friday of week 4 (4th October), so you have around 2 weeks to complete it.
Now that you've seen the week 2 lectures, we expect to see engagement with stand-ups, meetings, task boards, etc from everyone between now and iteration 1 being due.
🚓 [Action Required] Final Presentations Week 11
As part of the last stage of your major project, your group will be required to do a 10 minute presentation during week 11. If you are in an in-person class, your entire group must attend this time in-person. If you are online, your entire group must attend online. Penalties do apply if people can't make it (without special consideration and relevant ELP) which is why we are giving you basically 2 months notice.
Booking starts in Week 3. To reserve a slot, simply let your project tutor know during your labs. Instructions on booking is here on the course website.
📝 Feedback
Could you please complete the feedback survey to help us refine the lectures, labs, and project further? Click here for the survey. We really are keen to use your feedback to make your learning experience better.
⏰ Next week - Lectures
Hayden Smith will start taking some lectures for COMP1531 from next week. Hayden works as a CTO & Co-founder of a Sydney based fintech startup whilst also teaching casually at UNSW. Hayden's lectures have been loved by many previous 1531 students. We are very excited to have him in this course. Hayden will lecture in Week 3 on Tuesday (24th September).
Next Thursday (26th September), we invited an industry guest lecturer, Nick Patrikeos from Atlassian, to lecture on static verification (Typescript) and continuous integration (CI pipelines). Nick has been using the knowledge from these two lectures in his daily work at Atlassian. You will also practise those in your major project!
🐸 Last things!
Tutorial 2 solutions are released.
Lab 2 is due on Monday (23rd September) at 8:00 pm.
Please regularly check for merge requests and spec updates on your labs and project! Every day or two, check out the git commit history or any course-pushed pending merge requests. Click here for instructions on what to do in case of a course-pushed merge request.
You can subscribe to the UNSW COMP1531 channel on YouTube to be updated on the new videos.
Enjoy your weekend!!!
(End of week 1 updates)
[Notice] End of week 1 updates
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone! 😻
Now that we're wrapping up week 1, it's a great time to summarise the key things that happened this week so you can easily feel on top it.
🫡 Week 1 recap
The key things that happened in week 1 are:
Week 1 lecture slides and recordings on the course website.
This week, we talked about javascript and git usage
some further discussions: Accessing Object Properties.
Week 1 tutorial content is here, and lab content links are here.
Tutorial solutions have been released on a "solution" branch.
Labs are due the following Monday (Sep 16th)
Lab solutions are released on a solution branch on Monday evening after due date (Sep 16th)
Lab marks are returned to you the following Friday (Sep 20th, in 5 days from now)
Project groups will be finalised by end of today (if you're unsure about any of this, email your project tutor)
The project will be released to you by Monday of week 2 (Sep 16th).
If you're still a bit unsure about any of the software or tools to setup for the course check out the getting started guide.
We have created a help sessions calendar that you can download.
🐑 Lectures and Tutorials - Week 2
As we learnt from myExperience reports from the past 3 or 4 terms, although the majority of the groups really enjoyed working in a team and meeting some new friends in their groups, teamwork or collaboration within a software project was challenging for some of our students.
To better support your learning collaboration within software projects, this term, we designed new lectures and new tutorial activities to help you learn.
In Week 2 Tuesday's lecture (Sep 17th), we invited industry guests and senior students to panels to discuss collaboration on projects. They will provide insights on how to survive collaboration in industry and in university courses.
In Week 2 tutorial classes (Sep 17th to 20th), you will participate in a Collaboration Game where groups will do activities to practise a collaboration framework (a simplified version of Agile/Scrum). A reminder that participating in tutorials is marked.
🐇Project groups
During your week 1 class your tutor should have finalised your project groups in your lab time.
A reminder that whilst you aren't required to communicate via the Microsoft teams channel we make for you, it's important to note that if teamwork disputes arise or you make claims about other team members contributions later in the course - the only places we will look to for evidence of how you interact with your group are:
The project check-ins and iteration demonstrations
Gitlab contributions (code you push)
Peer reviews at the end of the iteration
Any UNSW emails sent between group members
Conversations that occur on Microsoft Teams only
If we need to analyse group communication, we simply won't be able to look at things like Facebook, Discord, Slack, etc, as these are out of our control and are open to tampering etc that make it unfair to consider reasonable evidence. However, anything in your Microsoft teams chat we'll happily take into account. If you're uncertain about anything here or aren't agreeing in your group how to communicate, talk to your tutor in week 2 and they will help you figure it all out! :)
If you don't have your group sorted, or weren't added to your groups Microsoft teams chat, please email your tutor ASAP.
🪜Project release & Iteration 0
By week 2 Monday morning (Sep 16th), a group project repository will be created for you that you can find here.
The first stage of the project is iteration 0 and you have 5 days next week to complete it. It is due next Friday night (see the spec when it is released)
It's extremely easy and could be mostly done in the lab time next week.
Please watch the introductory video at the top of the spec - it explains everything.
It's important that you start chatting to your group on MS Teams first thing Monday - some of you have labs later in the week, and even though iteration 0 is small, you don't want to be pressed up against a wall trying to rush last minute.
Over the coming days, there may continue to be slight changes to your group primarily due to students potentially dropping the course before census date. Your tutors will always support you and find solutions that will make things OK :)
🐸Last Things!
Next week, we'll talk about 👥 collaboration in software projects, 📦 Package Management, and 🌐 Multi-file & Importing.
Sometimes we push updates to your repos (e.g. labs or project) that may appear as merge requests in the left hand sidebar. Keep an eye out for it. Your tutor(s) can always help out if you're confused.
If you have any feedback on what we have done well or what needs to be improved, please let us know by filling out this survey. Thanks!
Other than that, have a great weekend!!!
(End of week 0 updates)
[Notice] 👋🏽 Welcome to COMP1531
Yuchao Jiang
(The first lecture will be online only. However, you are welcome to come in person to future Thursday classes regardless of if you enrolled in the in-person or online stream).
Hi everyone!
Welcome to COMP1531 24T3 🚀🚀🚀🚀 :)
The fundamental aim of COMP1531 is to help you on your transition from being a solo programmer into being a collaborative software engineer. We have a teaching staff team of more than 50, and we're all super excited to get to know you.
If you haven't already, complete the group preference form and also introduce yourself on the forum!
👀 About the course
We have a course structure lecture for you to check out! If you watch it at 1.5x it's only less than 10 minutes. It's a great one to watch before our first lecture on Tuesday.
👔 Getting ready for week 1!
Here is a quick summary of getting ready for week 1.
Lectures
Our first lecture is on Tuesday, 11 am - 1 pm. It will be online (LINK HERE).
Lectures slides can be found here.
Tutorial / Lab
Your week 1 tute/lab class is a one-hour tutorial and a two-hour lab. Make sure you have looked at where your tutorials and labs are (and if you're not sure, email your tutor—emails here).
There are lab questions to complete in week 1! We will release all labs this weekend on the course website.
However:
Week 1 lab questions aren't worth anything - we mark them for practice, but don't actually count your marks.
Week 1 lab is due on MONDAY of week 2. So for late enrolments you have week 1 weekend to sort that out.
Your tutorial and lab material for week 1 can be found here!
During your class, your tutor will finalise your group allocations for the major project.
See you soon!
It's a pretty relaxed week and things will really start to pick up next Friday where we'll send another notice. The main update on Friday is going to be information about the very first & easy milestone your group will have for the major project.
If you have any questions you can just post on the forum.
See you in the first lecture 😎😎😎
🐕
😎 IMPORTANT - Pre-course information
Yuchao Jiang
Hi everyone!
Welcome to COMP1531. If you haven't done so yet, come introduce yourself.
Our course website is here. You can see the course outline there too.
There are just two things you need to do or be aware of this week.
🟡1. First Lecture
Our first lecture will be Tuesday the 10th of September from 11am-1pm online only. Join the live stream on YouTube here.
🔵2. Group Preference Form‼️‼️
The form is due on Saturday 7th of September at 11pm!! CLICK HERE TO FILL IT IN.
As specified in the course outline, COMP1531 has a major project component that is a 5-person, 9-week group project that constitutes 90% of the course assessment. The successful and equitable formation of amazing groups of students for this major project is a priority for us. And we need to finalise these groups before week 1.
For us to form groups effectively, you are required to complete the preference form.
This form asks you to:
Optionally preference only 1 other student to be in your group of 5. This is for equitable learning purposes.
If you preference someone, to avoid us disregarding the preference, they must:
(1) Be enrolled in the same class at the same time (i.e., same code on MyUNSW)
(2) ⚠️Fill out the form preferencing you as well (we disregard preferences if it only goes one way) ⚠️
Answer a few further questions that help us form groups, regardless of whether you have a person-preference.
Here is a quick Q&A about the project and groups:
Q. Will you accept late preferences?
A. We sadly aren't in a position to accept late preferences, so please fill it in prior to then. Preferences are not guarantees that you will be in a group with that person, however, in nearly all cases we make it work.
Q. What if I don't have a preference?
A. If you don't have anyone to preference or only have one preference, don't even worry! That's very normal. You might hear murmurs from other students that you could end up with a "horror group" for COMP1531. Believe it or not, typically about 50% of student's don't provide preferences, and we just randomly match students in the same class.
Q. I'm scared about being in a bad group and them pulling my mark down, help?
A. We can assure you that while groups that struggle do exist, they only make up a small number of groups. We have structured the course and assessment very intentionally to have processes in place to ensure that if you work hard and follow the rules, your accomplishments should reflect your mark, even if you end up with some challenging group situations. In fact, in 24T3 we've devised the most individualized marking approach where essentially we have the capacity to mark any student individually from their group.
Q. Can I be with my friends even if they're in a full class I'm not in?
A. Lastly, a reminder that we can't manually enrol you in a full class, and we aren't accepting more than one preference per person as this ensures equitable group formation.
Q. How can I edit my answers to the group preference form?
If you’ve found the mistake before the deadline, you can simply edit the answers to your form. Let us know if you have any issues with that! 🐳
Q. Why can't I prefer multiple people?
Unfortunately, for equity reasons, we can not allow multiple preferences. By equity reasons, we mean disparities between completely pre-formed groups and random groups. Our compromise is letting students only allocate a ✨single preference ✨ instead of groups being completely random 😊
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We'll reach out again later this week with more information about getting started and first classes!
👋 Until then, enjoy your week can't wait to meet you all
COMP1531