|
|
|
Thanks to all
for giving feedback - below is the result of the survey, with only
identities censored. My comments are in red. |
| Survey ID |
1283 |
| Title |
COMP3231/9201/3891/9283 09s1 |
| Description |
Course survey for Operating Systems |
| Anonymous |
Yes |
| Fill Ratio |
78% (77/99) |
| # Filled |
77 |
| # Suspended |
2 |
| # Not Filled |
20 |
|
 indicates required field |
|
|
|
Please provide us with as much constructive feedback as you can. We
do read these surveys and act on the information you provide. Thanks
for your input.
|
|
|
|
| 1.
|
Give
a high rating if you have a good opinion of something (e.g.
interesting, useful, well-structured, etc.). Give a low rating if you
have a bad opinion of something (e.g. too slow, confusing,
disorganised, etc.)
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Excellent |
|
Satisfactory |
|
Poor |
N/F |
| Lecturer: Kevin Elphinstone |
38 (49%) |
31 (40%) |
6 (8%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (3%) |
| General OS lectures |
28 (36%) |
34 (44%) |
13 (17%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
| Consultations |
17 (22%) |
23 (30%) |
29 (38%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
8 (10%) |
| Your tutor |
26 (34%) |
29 (38%) |
13 (17%) |
2 (3%) |
2 (3%) |
5 (6%) |
| Tutorials |
18 (23%) |
34 (44%) |
17 (22%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (3%) |
6 (8%) |
| Asst1: Synchronisation |
29 (38%) |
32 (42%) |
13 (17%) |
2 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
| Asst2: Syscalls |
29 (38%) |
30 (39%) |
12 (16%) |
4 (5%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
| Asst3: Virtual Memory |
26 (34%) |
29 (38%) |
12 (16%) |
6 (8%) |
3 (4%) |
1 (1%) |
| Textbook |
14 (18%) |
22 (29%) |
29 (38%) |
3 (4%) |
3 (4%) |
6 (8%) |
| OS/161 In general |
19 (25%) |
30 (39%) |
20 (26%) |
4 (5%) |
2 (3%) |
2 (3%) |
| C Language |
30 (39%) |
25 (32%) |
18 (23%) |
2 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
| Computing resources |
22 (29%) |
27 (35%) |
21 (27%) |
5 (6%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (3%) |
| Course web page |
25 (32%) |
32 (42%) |
18 (23%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
| Message Board |
32 (42%) |
31 (40%) |
9 (12%) |
3 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (3%) |
| Help with technical questions |
27 (35%) |
30 (39%) |
14 (18%) |
3 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
| Lecture slides |
25 (32%) |
33 (43%) |
12 (16%) |
4 (5%) |
2 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
| Operating Systems overall |
36 (47%) |
25 (32%) |
14 (18%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
|
|
|
|
| 2.
|
Please rate which of the following factors influenced your decision to enrol in this course
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Major |
Minor |
No |
N/F |
| Interest in operating systems as a field of study |
40 (52%) |
26 (34%) |
10 (13%) |
1 (1%) |
| Chance to get hands dirty with low-level code |
24 (31%) |
32 (42%) |
20 (26%) |
1 (1%) |
| Jobs propects for OS hackers |
8 (10%) |
26 (34%) |
42 (55%) |
1 (1%) |
| Would llike to do OS research |
9 (12%) |
29 (38%) |
37 (48%) |
2 (3%) |
| Course is core for me |
26 (34%) |
12 (16%) |
38 (49%) |
1 (1%) |
| Friends told me it was good |
26 (34%) |
17 (22%) |
32 (42%) |
2 (3%) |
| Chance to do challenging programming assignments |
29 (38%) |
26 (34%) |
21 (27%) |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 3.
|
Any other factor that influenced your decision?
|
|
Question type : Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (28 comments) |
|
| 4.
|
Would you recommend this course to another student such as yourself?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Yes
|
66 (86%) |
|
|
No
|
9 (12%) |
|
| N/F |
2 (3%) |
|
|
| 5.
|
Please provide feedback on the kind of material covered
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Too much |
|
OK |
|
Too little |
N/F |
| High-level OS issus |
5 (6%) |
9 (12%) |
56 (73%) |
6 (8%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
| Low-level (implementation) issues |
2 (3%) |
10 (13%) |
47 (61%) |
16 (21%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
| Unix/Linux |
1 (1%) |
6 (8%) |
50 (65%) |
19 (25%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
| Windows NT |
2 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
25 (32%) |
30 (39%) |
18 (23%) |
1 (1%) |
| OS/161 Internals |
3 (4%) |
11 (14%) |
49 (64%) |
9 (12%) |
4 (5%) |
1 (1%) |
| Other Systems |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
45 (58%) |
15 (19%) |
13 (17%) |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 6.
|
What were the best things about this course?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (67 comments) |
|
| 7.
|
What were the worst things about this course?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (62 comments) |
|
| 8.
|
How does the workload in this course compare to workloads in other ...
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Much
Lighter |
|
Similar |
|
Much
Heavier |
N/F |
| COMP courses |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
19 (25%) |
37 (48%) |
18 (23%) |
1 (1%) |
| INFS courses |
5 (6%) |
2 (3%) |
20 (26%) |
11 (14%) |
25 (32%) |
14 (18%) |
| Courses in general |
1 (1%) |
4 (5%) |
13 (17%) |
31 (40%) |
26 (34%) |
2 (3%) |
|
|
| 9.
|
Did
you get the impression that the staff (lecturer, tutors, consultants)
tried their best to answer your questions and help you? Please tick N/A
if you did not attend lecture, consults, tutes)
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Strongly
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Strongly
Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
| Lectures |
43 (56%) |
25 (32%) |
3 (4%) |
2 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (3%) |
2 (3%) |
| Tutorials |
37 (48%) |
16 (21%) |
5 (6%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
13 (17%) |
4 (5%) |
| Consultations |
17 (22%) |
14 (18%) |
7 (9%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
37 (48%) |
2 (3%) |
|
|
| 10.
|
How does the quality/value of this course compare to other....
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Among
the best |
|
Average |
|
Among
the worst |
N/F |
| Year 3 COMP courses |
37 (48%) |
27 (35%) |
9 (12%) |
2 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
| COMP courses in general |
33 (43%) |
33 (43%) |
9 (12%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
| Courses in general |
31 (40%) |
34 (44%) |
10 (13%) |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 11.
|
Do you think it would be better if the course used Java-based assignments?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Yes
|
10 (13%) |
|
|
No
|
66 (86%) |
|
| N/F |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 12.
|
Would it be preferable if more of the pre-requisite courses used C?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Yes
|
41 (53%) |
|
|
No
|
35 (45%) |
|
| N/F |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 13.
|
What
background knowledge do you think you were missing that would have
helped you in this course? Are the official pre-requisites a suitable
preparation? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (56 comments) |
|
|
|
| 14.
|
What topics caused you the most difficulty? You can select more than one item
|
|
Question type : Multiple answer -- Check Box |
|
| |
|
| System calls |
14 (18%) |
| Processes |
5 (6%) |
| Threads |
7 (9%) |
| Low-level implementations issues |
29 (38%) |
| Synchonisation and concurrency |
13 (17%) |
| Deadlock |
5 (6%) |
| Memory Management and Virtual Memory |
42 (55%) |
| File Systems |
9 (12%) |
| I/O Management |
21 (27%) |
| Scheduling |
5 (6%) |
| Multiprocessor Systems |
20 (26%) |
|
|
| 15.
|
Which material do you think you will be most useful to you in the future?
|
|
Question type : Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (61 comments) |
|
| 16.
|
What material related to operating systems, but not currently in the course, would you like to have seen covered?
|
|
Question type : Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (46 comments) |
|
| 17.
|
Which of the current topics would you like to see scaled back or excluded?
|
|
Question type : Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (44 comments) |
|
|
|
| 18.
|
Is the current mode of lecture delivery, using computer-projected slides, effective?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Yes
|
72 (94%) |
|
|
No
|
4 (5%) |
|
| N/F |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 19.
|
Was
the subject material (lecture notes, information on the subject web
page, textbook, tutorials, manuals, etc.) sufficient to follow the
course? |
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Always
|
25 (32%) |
|
|
Most of the time
|
40 (52%) |
|
|
Sometimes
|
8 (10%) |
|
|
Rarely
|
2 (3%) |
|
|
Never
|
1 (1%) |
|
| N/F |
1 (1%) |
|
|
| 20.
|
Did
the explanations in the lecture help you to understand the subject
material? (please choose N/A if you generally did not attend lectures) |
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Always
|
15 (19%) |
|
|
Most of the time
|
49 (64%) |
|
|
Sometimes
|
9 (12%) |
|
|
Rarely
|
0 (0%) |
|
|
Never
|
0 (0%) |
|
|
N/A
|
2 (3%) |
|
| N/F |
2 (3%) |
|
|
| 21.
|
If you have not been attending lectures, what factors influenced your decision not to attend?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (31 comments) |
|
| 22.
|
Any suggestions for improving lectures?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (51 comments) |
|
| 23.
|
If
you used other textbooks other than Tannenbaum (e.g. Silberschatz,
Stallings), how do you think they compare to each other? Which gives
the best explanations, which has the best structure, etc.... |
|
Question type : Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (18 comments) |
|
|
|
| 24.
|
The aim of the tutorials is to help you understand the subject material better. Please convey how they performed in this role
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Strongly Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Strongly Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
| The tutorials helped me understand the material |
24 (31%) |
26 (34%) |
9 (12%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
13 (17%) |
3 (4%) |
| The questions were appropriately timed |
14 (18%) |
27 (35%) |
14 (18%) |
4 (5%) |
2 (3%) |
13 (17%) |
3 (4%) |
| The questions were of appropriate difficulty |
12 (16%) |
34 (44%) |
14 (18%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
13 (17%) |
3 (4%) |
| The questions should have increased difficulty |
2 (3%) |
10 (13%) |
29 (38%) |
13 (17%) |
6 (8%) |
14 (18%) |
3 (4%) |
| The number of questions was appropriate |
14 (18%) |
28 (36%) |
12 (16%) |
5 (6%) |
1 (1%) |
14 (18%) |
3 (4%) |
| The number of questions should be expanded |
3 (4%) |
9 (12%) |
26 (34%) |
15 (19%) |
6 (8%) |
15 (19%) |
3 (4%) |
| I always prepared for the tutorials |
3 (4%) |
10 (13%) |
22 (29%) |
12 (16%) |
10 (13%) |
17 (22%) |
3 (4%) |
| Preparation beforehand improved my understanding of the material |
14 (18%) |
16 (21%) |
14 (18%) |
5 (6%) |
1 (1%) |
24 (31%) |
3 (4%) |
| Class participation is important for understanding the material |
24 (31%) |
13 (17%) |
10 (13%) |
7 (9%) |
4 (5%) |
16 (21%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 25.
|
Please rate how effective your tutor was. Check N/A if you did not deal with the particular tutor.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Excellent |
|
OK |
|
Poor |
N/A |
N/F |
| Tutor A |
35 (45%) |
11 (14%) |
5 (6%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
24 (31%) |
2 (3%) |
| Tutor B |
1 (1%) |
6 (8%) |
6 (8%) |
4 (5%) |
5 (6%) |
44 (57%) |
11 (14%) |
|
|
| 26.
|
Any suggestions for improving tutorials?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (35 comments) |
|
|
|
| 27.
|
Please rate the level of difficulty of the assignments
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Too easy |
|
Just right |
|
Too difficult |
N/F |
| Asst1: Synchonisation |
5 (6%) |
25 (32%) |
43 (56%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
| Asst2: System Calls |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
42 (55%) |
26 (34%) |
1 (1%) |
3 (4%) |
| Asst3: Virtual Memory |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
24 (31%) |
25 (32%) |
23 (30%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 28.
|
How
well was each assignment specified (taking into account a significant
part of the assignments is understanding the environment you solution
must work within)?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Very clearly |
|
OK |
|
Confusing |
N/F |
| Asst1: Synchonisation |
21 (27%) |
23 (30%) |
27 (35%) |
3 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
| Asst2: System Calls |
14 (18%) |
21 (27%) |
22 (29%) |
10 (13%) |
6 (8%) |
4 (5%) |
| Asst3: Virtual Memory |
7 (9%) |
20 (26%) |
22 (29%) |
11 (14%) |
12 (16%) |
5 (6%) |
|
|
| 29.
|
Did the supporting material (manuals, notes, comments in code) provide sufficient information for solving the assignment?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Very much |
|
Somewhat |
|
Not at all |
N/F |
| Asst1: Synchonisation |
29 (38%) |
25 (32%) |
16 (21%) |
3 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
4 (5%) |
| Asst2: System Calls |
16 (21%) |
26 (34%) |
23 (30%) |
8 (10%) |
1 (1%) |
3 (4%) |
| Asst3: Virtual Memory |
12 (16%) |
15 (19%) |
24 (31%) |
19 (25%) |
3 (4%) |
4 (5%) |
|
|
| 30.
|
Rate which factors (if applicable to you) contributed to the assignments being difficult in your eyes
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Major |
|
Minor |
|
No |
N/A |
N/F |
| Topics are conceptually difficult |
19 (25%) |
20 (26%) |
13 (17%) |
5 (6%) |
16 (21%) |
1 (1%) |
3 (4%) |
| Implementation is difficult |
28 (36%) |
20 (26%) |
11 (14%) |
6 (8%) |
7 (9%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
| Lack of familiarity with C |
5 (6%) |
9 (12%) |
15 (19%) |
11 (14%) |
31 (40%) |
3 (4%) |
3 (4%) |
| Lack of experience with a large code base |
11 (14%) |
18 (23%) |
22 (29%) |
11 (14%) |
10 (13%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
| Lack of experience debugging C |
12 (16%) |
14 (18%) |
17 (22%) |
9 (12%) |
20 (26%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
| Lack of previous low-level programming |
7 (9%) |
15 (19%) |
20 (26%) |
8 (10%) |
22 (29%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
| Lack of familiarity of programming on the UNIX OS |
5 (6%) |
9 (12%) |
19 (25%) |
5 (6%) |
34 (44%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 31.
|
The aim of the assignment work was for you to develop practical skills with the concepts covered in lectures.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Not really |
|
Somewhat |
|
Very much |
N/F |
| Did the assignment work help with this? |
2 (3%) |
5 (6%) |
9 (12%) |
18 (23%) |
40 (52%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 32.
|
The
move to a 12-week session has an effect on how substantial the
assignments can be. This year we made ASST2 much easier than previous
years to compensate. We would be interested in your feedback as to how
this worked out.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Stongly Agree |
Agree |
In-between |
Disagree |
Strongly Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
| ASST0 should be kept as a warm-up |
43 (56%) |
17 (22%) |
8 (10%) |
3 (4%) |
3 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
| I found ASST0 useful to get started |
35 (45%) |
24 (31%) |
9 (12%) |
3 (4%) |
3 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
| The guided questions in the assigments are useful |
15 (19%) |
21 (27%) |
28 (36%) |
8 (10%) |
0 (0%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
| I mostly ignored the guided question part of the assignment an just got started |
5 (6%) |
17 (22%) |
17 (22%) |
19 (25%) |
11 (14%) |
4 (5%) |
4 (5%) |
| ASST2 helped me warm up for ASST3 |
3 (4%) |
24 (31%) |
22 (29%) |
14 (18%) |
10 (13%) |
1 (1%) |
3 (4%) |
| Fork() should be put back in ASST2 |
8 (10%) |
12 (16%) |
26 (34%) |
11 (14%) |
8 (10%) |
9 (12%) |
3 (4%) |
| Three weeks is enough to attempt an individual assignment |
16 (21%) |
22 (29%) |
16 (21%) |
10 (13%) |
9 (12%) |
1 (1%) |
3 (4%) |
| The guided-questions should be dropped from the tutorials |
0 (0%) |
6 (8%) |
12 (16%) |
28 (36%) |
16 (21%) |
12 (16%) |
3 (4%) |
| I found the extra lectures on ASST3 useful |
36 (47%) |
20 (26%) |
10 (13%) |
2 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
5 (6%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 33.
|
Do you have any specific comments about OS/161
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (32 comments) |
|
| 34.
|
Please
indicate whether you (dis)agree with the following statements about the
use of Subversion (SVN) to manage the assignment code base.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Strongly Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Strongly Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
| SVN greatly helps in developing a collaborative assignment solution |
34 (44%) |
19 (25%) |
11 (14%) |
3 (4%) |
2 (3%) |
5 (6%) |
3 (4%) |
| SVN is relatively simple to learn to use |
32 (42%) |
19 (25%) |
16 (21%) |
2 (3%) |
2 (3%) |
2 (3%) |
4 (5%) |
| SVN just gets in the way and should be not be used |
3 (4%) |
3 (4%) |
11 (14%) |
22 (29%) |
31 (40%) |
4 (5%) |
3 (4%) |
| SVN is reliable with no real hiccups in use |
14 (18%) |
23 (30%) |
21 (27%) |
10 (13%) |
4 (5%) |
2 (3%) |
3 (4%) |
| SVN was useful to transport code between UNSW and home |
31 (40%) |
14 (18%) |
12 (16%) |
7 (9%) |
1 (1%) |
9 (12%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 35.
|
Please indicate whether you (dis)agree with the following statements regarding group assignment work.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Strongly Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Strongly Disagree |
N/F |
| Group work is a better than working as an individual |
26 (34%) |
15 (19%) |
23 (30%) |
6 (8%) |
3 (4%) |
4 (5%) |
| Groups reduce the assignment workload |
20 (26%) |
17 (22%) |
17 (22%) |
13 (17%) |
6 (8%) |
4 (5%) |
| Groups should be optional, but every submission is marked the same |
10 (13%) |
23 (30%) |
18 (23%) |
11 (14%) |
10 (13%) |
5 (6%) |
| Groups are unfair as inevitably one member does all the work |
11 (14%) |
27 (35%) |
18 (23%) |
11 (14%) |
6 (8%) |
4 (5%) |
| Larger groups would be better |
9 (12%) |
4 (5%) |
13 (17%) |
23 (30%) |
24 (31%) |
4 (5%) |
| Having a partner to help understand the assignment really helps |
33 (43%) |
18 (23%) |
12 (16%) |
4 (5%) |
6 (8%) |
4 (5%) |
|
|
| 36.
|
What do you think of the advanced assignments?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Great Idea!
|
23 (30%) |
|
|
|
13 (17%) |
|
|
Don't care
|
31 (40%) |
|
|
|
1 (1%) |
|
|
Abolish!
|
5 (6%) |
|
| N/F |
4 (5%) |
|
|
| 37.
|
Any suggestions for improving the assignments?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (40 comments) |
|
|
7. COMP3891/9283 Extended Operating Systems
|
|
|
Skip this section if you did not do COMP3891/9283 Extended Operating Systems.
|
|
| 38.
|
How would you rate extended OS as a whole?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Excellent
|
9 (12%) |
|
|
|
11 (14%) |
|
|
Average
|
4 (5%) |
|
|
|
0 (0%) |
|
|
Poor
|
0 (0%) |
|
|
N/A
|
8 (10%) |
|
| N/F |
45 (58%) |
|
|
| 39.
|
What were the strong points of COMP3891/9283?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (17 comments) |
|
| 40.
|
What were the weak points of COMP3891/9283?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (12 comments) |
|
| 41.
|
Any suggestions for improving COMP3891/9283 Extended OS?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (12 comments) |
|
|
|
| 42.
|
Answer the following questions to convey your opinion of the final exam
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Strongly Agree |
Agree |
Neutral |
Disagree |
Strongly Disagree |
N/F |
| The exam overall was too hard |
0 (0%) |
10 (13%) |
25 (32%) |
34 (44%) |
4 (5%) |
4 (5%) |
| The exam overall was too short - i.e. it should be 3 hours |
4 (5%) |
12 (16%) |
16 (21%) |
31 (40%) |
9 (12%) |
5 (6%) |
| The exam should contain more True/False questions |
4 (5%) |
7 (9%) |
26 (34%) |
29 (38%) |
6 (8%) |
5 (6%) |
| The exam gave me the oppurtunity to demonstrate my understanding of operating systems |
11 (14%) |
37 (48%) |
16 (21%) |
8 (10%) |
1 (1%) |
4 (5%) |
| I think my exam result will be representative of my operating systems knowledge |
8 (10%) |
31 (40%) |
13 (17%) |
17 (22%) |
4 (5%) |
4 (5%) |
| The final assessment should be weight ed more towards the exam |
6 (8%) |
9 (12%) |
20 (26%) |
25 (32%) |
12 (16%) |
5 (6%) |
|
|
| 43.
|
Do you have any particular comments you would like to make about the exam?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (47 comments) |
|
|
|
| 44.
|
What do you think of the message board?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
| |
Great idea |
|
OK |
|
Abolish |
N/A |
N/F |
| The message board in general |
48 (62%) |
12 (16%) |
11 (14%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (4%) |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 45.
|
Should we give feedback and answer questions via the message board instead of using email to class account?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Definitely
|
32 (42%) |
|
|
|
12 (16%) |
|
|
Indiferent
|
20 (26%) |
|
|
|
1 (1%) |
|
|
No way
|
9 (12%) |
|
| N/F |
3 (4%) |
|
|
| 46.
|
We
always look for evidence of cheating in assigments and try or best to
catch and penalise cheaters. Please tell us what you think about the
treatment of cheaters in the course. |
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
Too soft
|
9 (12%) |
|
|
|
3 (4%) |
|
|
Just right
|
55 (71%) |
|
|
|
1 (1%) |
|
|
Too harsh
|
1 (1%) |
|
| N/F |
8 (10%) |
|
|
| 47.
|
Any other comments/suggestions that might help us to improve the course in the future?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom page (31 comments) |
|
| 48.
|
What do you think your final result will be for the course?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio Button |
|
|
HD
|
12 (16%) |
|
|
DN
|
31 (40%) |
|
|
CR
|
16 (21%) |
|
|
PS
|
8 (10%) |
|
|
FL
|
1 (1%) |
|
|
No Idea
|
7 (9%) |
|
| N/F |
2 (3%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to Summary |
| 3.
|
Any other factor that influenced your decision?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
Any
true CS or CE student should have to do it, and not the watered down
ones that most places give. It's what seperates us from the people that
we may be outsourced to. |
|
3: |
Best elective I had on offer. Glad I did it. |
|
4: |
Chance to learn how user programs really work |
|
5: |
Friends told me it was hard and challenging |
|
6: |
Fun? |
|
7: |
Intensive Programming. |
|
8: |
It sounded interesting |
|
9: |
It was good to do a subject involving both interesting concepts, and *real* coding. |
|
10: |
Learn more about Unix etc. |
|
11: |
NA |
|
12: |
Nil |
|
13: |
No |
|
14: |
No |
|
15: |
No |
|
16: |
No |
|
17: |
No |
|
18: |
None |
|
19: |
Reading and developing on top of real code is usefull |
|
20: |
Seemed like a good way to improve programming skills in general |
|
21: |
Something I wanted to do before I left uni |
|
22: |
Started watching the berkley lectures for OS and realised how interesting the area is. |
|
23: |
The fact that the lecturer seems to take student feedback seriously and publish the review results annually. Cool, glad somebody reads these surveys!!! |
|
24: |
chance to learn a lot |
|
25: |
core subject |
|
26: |
every software engineer should know what they are developing on and how it works with the underlying operating system |
|
27: |
learning Linux |
|
28: |
no |
|
| 6.
|
What were the best things about this course?
|
|
1: |
*Bonus marks for completing this survey! :) |
|
2: |
- The lecturer cares about the quality of the course.
- The lecturer understands the subject thoroughly.
- The lecturer seems to understand students' general level of comprehension. |
|
3: |
-followed on from Microprocessors and Interfacing and Real Time Engineering very nicely.
-it was great to find out how an OS worked, something I'd never thought about before. |
|
4: |
1. Extensive coverage of OS internals especially file systems, memory management, etc.
2. os161 to play around with.
3. Concept based and challenging assignments
4. Extended lectures covering extra material |
|
5: |
Assignment - provided a means to understand learnt material. Pair work though troublesome was good experience |
|
6: |
Assignments |
|
7: |
Assignments
I felt were some of the most challenging and interesting I've seen in 4
years of uni. Often you just needed to get your head around an
algorithm/data structure and it fell into place, but getting to that
point was challenging and fun.
I also work as a Java dev, so seeing a non-Java course was refreshing. |
|
8: |
Assignments and tutes |
|
9: |
Assignments, Concepts |
|
10: |
Assignments, were very interesting. |
|
11: |
Being
able to understand OS works not just theoritically but practically as
well. Now I can understand more how my computer works with its OS and
stuff, its really interesting... |
|
12: |
Challenging assignments! Assignments in a lot of COMP courses are too easy. Also our tutor was very good (Tutor A). |
|
13: |
Clear lectures. Challenging assignments. Useful forum responses. |
|
14: |
Consultation |
|
15: |
Consultation times were of great help especially when doing assignment. |
|
16: |
Content, my tutor, the lecture notes |
|
17: |
Everything! ;) The assignments were a blast, the lectures were easy to follow, interesting and informative. |
|
18: |
Extended lectures and advanced parts of the assignments |
|
19: |
Extended
lectures provided good insight into real world applications. Having
bonus marks for early completed assignments was also good to encourage
on time assignments. Also having the lecture as two 2hr blocks was good
(able to take in content better) |
|
20: |
Extremely interesting, covers many issues in OS, has permanently changed the way I think about programming for the better :-) |
|
21: |
Forum responds by Kevine and Nic were pretty prompt |
|
22: |
Getting a better understanding about how things work under the hood. |
|
23: |
Going through the processes and procedures one by one. |
|
24: |
Good
lectures, solid tutorials, and a well structured course. We always knew
where we were in the scheme of things, which was a huge help in
developing the big picture. |
|
25: |
Good lectures, sufficient course notes on OS theories. |
|
26: |
I
can honestly say that this course is one of the best CSE courses I have
done so far. It is challenging at first, but once you grasp the
underlying concept the course doesn't seem too hard.
I think the best things about this course are:
- Lecturer: very enthusiastic, very clear in explaining the concept
material and in general a very nice person.
- Tutorial: I had Tutor A as my tutor and I think he is great. He explained
concepts in detail and answered all questions clearly.
- Course material: Covers all the major OS issues and gave me a solid
understanding of how OS operates. |
|
27: |
I found the all the content very interesting and the lectures were presented very well. |
|
28: |
I
think the assignment hands-on experience is really good and sets up a
realistic job type scenario where you have to understand code written
by previous programmers and also code written by your collegues. |
|
29: |
Interesting assignments |
|
30: |
Interesting course content, challenging assignments. Like the group system. |
|
31: |
Interesting theory. |
|
32: |
Interesting, well-structured. Concept-based rather than rote-learning. |
|
33: |
It
was fun and interesting. The assignments, while time consuming and
challenging, were challenging in a constructive and teaching way. There
were also fun to code overall.
I learnt a lot of fundamentals about OS's which is good general
knowledge for a computing student. (I previously did not know all that
much about them). It was very useful. |
|
34: |
It was interesting. Kevin and Tutor A are good teaching staff. |
|
35: |
It was well structured.It was tought well. The concepts were clearly exaplained. |
|
36: |
It's
got the best combination of practice/theory I've seen so far.
Reading/modifying real code, yet getting to know how things are
implemented in major modern OSs is excellent. |
|
37: |
Learn how programs really work.
How hardware is abstracted.
Introduction to a variety of different OS details and implementations.
Ironically: learned better from breaking abstraction! |
|
38: |
Learning about how the os is integrated as an interface between software and hardware |
|
39: |
Learning how operating system works.
Useful for the general programmer even if not really looking into programming OS, but useful for optimization and efficiency.
Assignments are useful and practical. |
|
40: |
Lectures were excellent; they were animated and almost always interesting |
|
41: |
Made
us realize how things work behind the scenes. Now I can relate this to
what's going on in an operating system when some operation is
performed. Learning about the operating system's code helped a lot in
this. |
|
42: |
Material covered, and that the assignments let you actually implement important things, rather than just toy problems. |
|
43: |
Really
enjoyed getting the process of getting a complete picture.I learned a
lot of high level stuff and some low level stuff (e.g. logic gates, EE,
assembly) and it was quite exiting to get that big "missing link"
filled in. I also really enjoyed the implementation of OS concepts in
OS161. I was quite daunted by the prospect at first, but I learned a
lot more this way and had a greater sense of achievement. |
|
44: |
Really helps general programming knowledge. |
|
45: |
Textbook was ok. |
|
46: |
The UNIX related issues |
|
47: |
The assignment was good.. cover things from lectures |
|
48: |
The assignments and tutorials. |
|
49: |
The assignments helped me understand OS concepts in how they truly worked, as opposed to how they worked on paper.
The 100 sample exam questions helped me understand view the course material in a different light. |
|
50: |
The assignments. |
|
51: |
The
best things about this course would be the tutorials, they were very
helpful. Also the lectures were very detailed and covered alot of
information |
|
52: |
The chance to get a basic understanding of how an OS works. |
|
53: |
The course(lecture/tutorials) notes. |
|
54: |
The inner workings of an operating system (Theory) |
|
55: |
The
interesting topics covered and the means in which they were covered.
Furthermore, the assignments were challenging - and involved real
programming. None of this dodgy Java design stuff. |
|
56: |
The lectures. They were quite informative and covered all the topics in an appropriate depth. |
|
57: |
The material presented was very interesting. Especially the extension lectures.
Probably the most interesting course I've taken at uni. |
|
58: |
The tutorials in particular Tutor A was very good.
I did not attend many lectures
(I notified you of this at the start of session) but the notes were quite easy to read from and easy to understand.
The 100 questions were amazingly good to study off. |
|
59: |
The tutors were excellent. The forum posts were always responded to which was great |
|
60: |
There was a lot of support for the incredibly hard assignments. Questions on the forums were generally answered really quickly. |
|
61: |
To learn how the OS does all it does. It demystifies a lot. |
|
62: |
Well set out goals and good timing of lecture material. |
|
63: |
Well taught, thourough coverage of content, challenging |
|
64: |
learn how the operating system work |
|
65: |
learning
about virtual memory and virtual filesystem and generally how to write
programs that work with the os instead of against it. |
|
66: |
surprisingly
learned alot that I didn't know before. most courses are kind of intros
to material and its kept at that, but with this course we actually went
into some real issues and problems that are faced with real operating
systems. i felt like i really started to get involved in "real stuff"
if you know what i mean. |
|
67: |
the relationship between assignments and operating system concepts |
|
| 7.
|
What were the worst things about this course?
|
|
1: |
- Tutorial was a bit too unstructured.
- Attempt to divide assignment workload between group members amounted to a little impossible sub-assignment. |
|
2: |
-the way I got suckered into doing their assignments, to the detriment of other courses :P |
|
3: |
1.
Distributed systems was not even touched. A brief overview would have
been better to allow one decide whether to take it further.
2. Unix/Linux was only briefly covered.
3. No coverage of windows XP.
4. Multimedia systems not covered.
I'd
like to cover more, but there are limits as to what can fit into 12
weeks - it was pretty packed early in the course, maybe at the end I
can squeeze some material back in (notably security) - Try COMP9243 for
distributed systems - much more satisfying than anything I can squeeze
into a lecture or 2. |
|
4: |
12weeks is not enough time... larger groups for the assignments could have given them more depth |
|
5: |
Additional info on assignments 2 and 3 was a bit delayed and pretty random.
Yes
agreed - in past years this info was limited to those who came to
consults and tutorials - turning the lecture into one large consult was
a bit spontaneous. |
|
6: |
Althought
difficult assignments were challenging and useful, the deadlines were
quite tough and it was quite difficult to start the assignment by
yourself, in terms of understanding what needed to be done. The
tutorials helped alot with this process however. |
|
7: |
Assignment
due dates.
However, the extension was great since it meant all other assignments
could be completed, then OS finished off and still get a good mark.
Thanks BTW! |
|
8: |
Assignments - brain-life-sucking leaving almost no time for other subject (but who cares XD) |
|
9: |
Assignments were too heavy-loaded. |
|
10: |
At
times the tutorials were largely unstructured, but that is more the
fault of the students who did not prepare more than anything else.
I think that there should be an option to opt into a random partner
allocation program or something. |
|
11: |
Debugging the assignments. |
|
12: |
Explaining several operating systems as though they were several topics. |
|
13: |
Feedback. Late marking. Not enough on OS161 internals. |
|
14: |
For
people who would like to get early mark, it is very hard because the
assignments were released 2 weeks before it is due and the early mark
leaves us approx 1 week to do hence we only have 1/2 consultation
before the early mark is due.
Actually, they were all three weeks before they were due (except ASST0) |
|
15: |
Harshly marked assignments without any outline as to the style requirements. |
|
16: |
Having
to memorise all pros/cons of each algorithm/method provided is tedious.
Also, I find that there was not enough talk being done about Windows
(although some was.. we must recognize that most people in the world
use Windows...). |
|
17: |
I didn't end up being very happy with my assignment partner. |
|
18: |
I
don't know if this is bad but this course takes a lot of free time from
you, if you want to do well and you don't have much OS knowledge like
me. |
|
19: |
I
felt that the tutes were at times a little poorly prepared and
conducted by my tutor. I am nitpicking here, though, and overall I was
quite happy. I do think however that the questions could have been
posted earlier (I had the Tuesday tute, and I would have liked to
prepare the tute over the weekend).
What annoyed me was that the assigments specs stated that we should
prepare the questions for week x and the questions were actually done
in week x-1. That was not announced until the Monday though, and as a
result of that I didn't have enough code reading time before the tute.
Another thing that I thought could have been done a little better was
that the VM material was thought disjoint to fit in the FS material
before Asst2. I would have preferred to stick with the order of the
book and do FS before starting on VM.
|
|
20: |
I personally dislike the lower level sort of things. |
|
21: |
It finished. |
|
22: |
It is quite hard to certain group of people. |
|
23: |
Learning curve on assignments was very steep. |
|
24: |
Lecture notes needed more information.
No labs to assist learning during the course. |
|
25: |
Lecture notes were hard to understand. Textbook was a waste of money |
|
26: |
Lecture times - 3-5pm in the afternoon is the hardest time of the day for me to concentrate! |
|
27: |
Many details you have to understand before you see the big picture |
|
28: |
No lab class |
|
29: |
Occasionally,
the mechanisms and choices made in the design of OS/161 was
frustratingly hard to determine, leading to quite a lot of wasted time
due to programming whilst assuming things that just weren't true. |
|
30: |
People
who finish the assignments for the one week bonus get really frustrated
when they come into uni for a lecture to find that you're going over
what to do for the assignment. Maybe more warning about these lectures?
Apologies, they were spontaneously done to fill a gap here and there. |
|
31: |
Possibly marking turn around, but I gather this is necessary. |
|
32: |
Simply not for me. I don't particularly enjoy low level coding and thus found it very difficult. |
|
33: |
Slow pace of normal lectures |
|
34: |
Some
parts of the assignments were difficult to understand from the spec
alone. While these issues were cleared up in lectures and tutes it
would be good if the specs were a bit clearer on how we should approach
implementing our solutions. |
|
35: |
The 2 hour lectures were an insurmountable test to attention span... especially the low level code walkthroughs |
|
36: |
The assignments |
|
37: |
The assignments |
|
38: |
The assignments were a bit too challenging |
|
39: |
The
assignments, in assignment 2 abd 3 there were not much information on
how to approach it. Therefore it took alot of time to try and
understand on how to approach the assignment and left very little time
to do the actual coding. Some more information on how the functions
interact with each other and how to do the assignment would be helpful |
|
40: |
The group work leads to free rides. |
|
41: |
The materials sometimes is quite hard to understand however there are tutors and consultations so it doesnt matter much. |
|
42: |
The slog required to gain a basic understanding of an OS. |
|
43: |
The
synchronisation stuff was interesting, but I am assuming it overlaps
with concurrency courses, so it may have been better to only introduce
the concepts we need for later assignments.
And that it ended :( |
|
44: |
The
tutorials. The organisation differed greatly from that mentioned in the
course outline, and this was largely in the negative direction. The
tutor seemed to have very little interest in the course and went over
the topics in such depth that it was barely understandable despite
having gone over the tutorial questions and fully understood them. The
tutor also admitted to have never read the assignment specs, so the
tutorials dedicated to them were extremely awkward and not the benefit
they were designed to be. The process of giving marks to those who
spoke up in tutorials was also counter-productive and resulted in
tutorials that were forced and dominated by those who knew the material
rather than those who didn't. |
|
45: |
There
was not enough time to actually figure out the workings of OS161.
Overlapping assignments were not helpful as they reduced the amount of
time we could actually work on something. It would be nice to get our
marks back earlier as we had only received 10% (a 10% that didn't
indicate anything due to the nature of assignment 0) of our class mark
for the majority of the semester. By the end of the teaching period we
had only received 35% of it. |
|
46: |
There was not enough time to cover all the aspects of the course. |
|
47: |
There was nothing wrong with this course accept that the time constraint of a semester. |
|
48: |
This
is not really a bad thing, but it was a difficult course and there was
a lot of material and so it was difficult to absorb all the material at
times. |
|
49: |
Too fast, not enough time to settle. Strange lecture times. |
|
50: |
Too
much provided code, would prefer to do more 'from scratch', such as the
semaphore implementation in asst1. I guess there isn't enough time in
12 weeks... |
|
51: |
Tutor didn't turn up once, that sucked. |
|
52: |
Tutorial participation marks. |
|
53: |
Very challenging assignments somewhat over my head in some cases. |
|
54: |
You
really need to be a very good programmer in order to do well in this
course. It's not enough even if you have completed the first year
computing courses as prerequisites. Assignments are really hard and
there are just 2 extremes - whether you can do it or you can't.
Grouping for assignments is also an extreme, geniuses group together
and do extremely well and for groups which are not really clever their
contributions on the assignments will not be proportional to the marks
they get, even if they had tried really hard. (I even saw stressed
people crying in the labs for assignment 3).
If people
are that stressed out, they should start early take advantage of the
consults - that's what they are there for - to help out. |
|
55: |
a bit too short |
|
56: |
assignment3 was a bit rush at the end of semester |
|
57: |
everything
seemed so crammed and rushed. i guess thats because theres simply so
much material in operating systems that it can't be helped. i died
trying to study that much material for the final exam. |
|
58: |
lecture slides are too vague to visualize the low level details involved |
|
59: |
memorisation. though not often, the bit of rote learning (guess its hard to avoid entirely) |
|
60: |
probably not your choice, but friday afternoon is a really crap time for a lecture...
It is not my choice |
|
61: |
the exam |
|
62: |
trying
to setup os161 on a non-cse computer. There is insufficient and out of
date information on setting up eclipse (to compile and checkout code)
and gdb for os161. I would recommend setting up a wiki on the course
website, so students can fix the mistakes and add to the documentation.
Good idea - I had hoped the forum would be used for that, not sure a wiki would be that much better, but it is worth a try. |
|
| 13.
|
What
background knowledge do you think you were missing that would have
helped you in this course? Are the official pre-requisites a suitable
preparation? |
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
2
semesters of C programming in 1st year, and programming with AVRs in
CMOP2121 were sufficient introduction. Having done COMP2041 also helped
with debugging/profiling techniques. |
|
3: |
A
knowledge of the workings of OS161. The ability to code in C has very
little to do with your ability to get assignments done. Understanding
the API is of greater importance and there wasn't enough time to get it
under the bonnet. |
|
4: |
Absolutely none. Yes, they are. By now people should be familiar with C. |
|
5: |
Alot of concurrency is taught. Why not make foundations of concurrency (comp3151) a pre-req?
Hmmm, it is not a second year subject as far as I know. |
|
6: |
An
introductory knowledge of OS structure would have been helpful before
beginning, as it took awhile to get my bearings as to how it all fit
together. That period was a bit of a struggle. The C and assembly that
I had done was enough to get by. |
|
7: |
At
times I think I lacked some basic understanding about the way the
operating systems code functioned. This was not covered fully in this
course or the pre-requisites. That could have helped me out greatly in
the course. |
|
8: |
Better knowledge in C |
|
9: |
C language itself and probably an OS jargon course.
Yes. |
|
10: |
Debugging |
|
11: |
Definitely
some deeper unix knowledge was required: 2nd tut started talking about
fork and fds, which was a bit difficult to catch at first, although
were well explained. Prerequisites are fine, should remain. |
|
12: |
Doing 1st year computing courses and Microprocessors and Interfacing should be enough. |
|
13: |
Fine |
|
14: |
General programming, but I'm Elec, so that's my fault. |
|
15: |
I
don't think there was any background knowledge missing - I had to
refresh myself on a few things with C, but I had learnt them before in
other courses anyways. |
|
16: |
I
dont think the pre-requisites were a problem as such. But there has
been some time since I used C language. Java would have been much
easier to remember, pickup again with eclipses suggest etc. |
|
17: |
I found that knowledge from previous COMP courses was suitable and there were no major things missing. |
|
18: |
I
had no previous C programming experience. So pointers were a nightmare.
Since I didn't do the pre-requisites in Australia, I don't know if they
are suitable preparation. |
|
19: |
I
had spent the previous year trapped inside Java, VHDL, and assembly
code. I took a bit of time to re-learn some of the more advanced
aspects of C programming. All in all, there was no real problem with
prereqs. |
|
20: |
I hadn't touched C since first year, so for the first major assignment this was an issue. |
|
21: |
I
have done Computer Architecture (COMP3211) before I did this course
which helps me understand some part of the course especially the
multiprocessor topic. |
|
22: |
I
needed some more C preparation (pointers etc. and tricks). Also, I
needed more Unix knowledge to be faster with the assignments. aabut
this is all part of yhe learning curve. |
|
23: |
I needed to do more C more recently. But that's my fault not yours. |
|
24: |
I
think the current pre-requisites are sufficient, it would be nice to
have 2nd year courses in C so that people aren't so rusty at the start
of this course, but it was easy enough to get up to scratch. |
|
25: |
I think the pre-reqs are adequate. |
|
26: |
I
think this course needs a C refresher before we're allowed to take it.
By 2nd year, I'd completely stopped using C and forgotten all the rules
and structures. |
|
27: |
I
thought they were suitable. I think by 3rd year switching between Java
and C should not be a big deal and people are being overly dramatic. |
|
28: |
I
wish I had a better background in C library functions, as I joined as a
postgrad student, and perhaps I didn't have as good a foundation in C
as the other UNSW undergrads. |
|
29: |
More C in second year. |
|
30: |
More background knowledge on C. Since the C used in this course was alot harder than the C used in previous courses. |
|
31: |
No one takes the pre-requisites seriously anyway... |
|
32: |
None |
|
33: |
None, I felt pretty prepared. |
|
34: |
None. Required pre-requisites were suitable. |
|
35: |
Not
sure, but something was amiss certainly. During lecture, a significant
number of students seemed to have understood most of the materials from
the outset while the rest, myself included, were still stupefied by the
concepts introduced. |
|
36: |
Nothing. |
|
37: |
Official pre-requisites are good. |
|
38: |
Official pre-requisites are suitable. |
|
39: |
Official prerequisites are fine. Maybe concurrency as assumed study would buy you more time? |
|
40: |
Perhaps
some more experience with concurrent programming. I did the electrical
engineering prerequisite (ELEC2142 Embedded Systems Design) and found
it decent preparation. |
|
41: |
Pre-requisites are fine. |
|
42: |
Remembering how to use pointers properly |
|
43: |
The
COMP2121 pre-requisite seemed largely unnecessary as most of COMP2121
deals with actually writing assembly for a specific AVR chip and
dealing with I/O devices, and does not mention privilege levels, TLBs,
etc, so not much beyond the first week or so of information from
COMP2121 was actually necessary. As many people dislike COMP2121
(personally, I didn't mind it so much *shrug*), it may make sense to
post some reading material for people to become familiar with instead. |
|
44: |
The
more general understanding of how a computer works.
They assume that because you are doing computer science, you should
have taken an interest in this sort of thing and know about things
which lecturers tend to take for granted. This can be difficult for
someone who has never really done anything of the sort before or had
any really deep interest in computers before. It would be useful to
include more of this very general and fundamental stuff in, say,
Computing 1A |
|
45: |
The official prerequisite should be enough |
|
46: |
The only real C course I did before this was Computing 1B, originally I did Haskell for Computing 1A.
I just wished the prerequisite courses stuck to maybe two core languages C, and Java.
OS really did chuck you into the deep end pretty quick. |
|
47: |
The pre-requisites were a suitable preparation. |
|
48: |
They're fine now. In fact, you cover things that we'd already learnt (hello, subversion). |
|
49: |
Yes the official pre reqs are fine. C can be a little bit rusty by 3rd year when all of second year is object oriented. |
|
50: |
Yes
the official pre-requisites are fine.I have done comp1911 and comp1921
and both teach us C programming so it was easy to use C for operating
systems. |
|
51: |
assembly code and some computer architecture knowledge will help |
|
52: |
concurrency could be good as a prereq (there seems to be alot of overlap between the two) although I managed fine without it. |
|
53: |
concurrency
programming. I don't think any of the prereqs I did covered that at
all, so it was lucky I had done computer networks before (which had a
little bit of concurrency in java). other than that, no concurrency at
all, and i wouldn't expect a first year comp prereq to have done any
concurrency programming either. |
|
54: |
hardware stuff, i'm not sure from what courses, but i'm quite struggling when someone talk about hardware jargon |
|
55: |
knowledge
of C language(COMP1911, COMP1921) and assembly language and
hardware(COMP2121). Yes the official prerequisites are appropriate for
this course. |
|
56: |
the
official pre-requisites are a must but requires labwork that involves
having a hands-on in the implementation issues of operating systems
part-by-part for easy visualization when doing operating Systems course
|
|
| 15.
|
Which material do you think you will be most useful to you in the future?
|
|
1: |
?? |
|
2: |
A general understanding of operating system concepts. |
|
3: |
All |
|
4: |
All of it, since Im trying to write a emulator |
|
5: |
All of this will figure in conversations in my career |
|
6: |
All quite useful |
|
7: |
Almost all of it is useful to an application programer. |
|
8: |
Concur/sync, VFS, scheduling, |
|
9: |
Concurrency |
|
10: |
Concurrency |
|
11: |
Concurrency |
|
12: |
Concurrency Issues/DeadLocks |
|
13: |
Concurrency, File Systems, Memory Management and Virtual Memory, Scheduling |
|
14: |
Don't know |
|
15: |
Don't really know |
|
16: |
Experience with low level C |
|
17: |
I really have no idea and I don |
|
18: |
I think all of them will be equally useful |
|
19: |
Linux/Unix understanding |
|
20: |
Memory Management and VM |
|
21: |
Memory Management and actual experience with low-level issues form the assignments |
|
22: |
Memory management and virtual memory |
|
23: |
More coverage of multi-processor systems |
|
24: |
Multithreading and memory |
|
25: |
Not any one in particular |
|
26: |
Nothing specific. The important part to me is to have understood what OS does in general. |
|
27: |
Operating System internals |
|
28: |
Overview and mem management |
|
29: |
Possibly concurrency, C progrsamming skills in general |
|
30: |
Processes & threads, synchronization, memory management and virtual memory. |
|
31: |
Processes, Threads, and concurrency |
|
32: |
Scheduling. I am driven to small hardware embedded designs. |
|
33: |
Synchonisation and concurrency |
|
34: |
Synchonisation and concurrency |
|
35: |
Synchronisation |
|
36: |
Synchronisation and Concurrency |
|
37: |
Synchronisation and concurrency |
|
38: |
Synchronisation, VM |
|
39: |
Synchronisation/Concurrency; General Knowledge of OS Fundamentals |
|
40: |
TLB caching, i/o management, sync+concurrency issues |
|
41: |
The multithreading material, as well as the multiprocessor material was very useful. |
|
42: |
Threading, Concurrency Issues and System Calls |
|
43: |
Threads and synchonisation |
|
44: |
Threads+Processes, Virtual Memory |
|
45: |
Threads, multiprocessor systems |
|
46: |
Threads/Multiprocessing |
|
47: |
Understanding how all of this fits together. |
|
48: |
Understanding the overheads involved in making syscalls, implementation details of file systems and VMs, concurrency. |
|
49: |
Unsure. Probably the course as a whole rather than a specific topic. |
|
50: |
all of it |
|
51: |
concurrency and deadlocks |
|
52: |
concurrency, deadlocks |
|
53: |
file systems, synchro and concurrency, scheduling |
|
54: |
general programming |
|
55: |
memory management - really useful in terms of how I should write programs to work effectively with the operating system |
|
56: |
most of them |
|
57: |
multiprocessor systems and their scheduling |
|
58: |
probably
knowing the costs associated with context switching and how processes
and threads are dealt with at the low level. i did this course thinking
that i might be able to improve the efficiency of my coding and i was
correct. it will also help me understand reverse engineering alot
better. |
|
59: |
synchronisation and concurrency |
|
60: |
textbook |
|
61: |
threading & concurrency |
|
| 16.
|
What material related to operating systems, but not currently in the course, would you like to have seen covered?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
A bit more history on how OS have evolved. Possibly as extra/optional reading Sadly, what little material I had in this area was first to go in moving from 14 -> 12 weeks sessions. |
|
3: |
A deeper look at drivers and interfacing and such. |
|
4: |
Again,
nitpicking here, but I am quite interested in the whole topic of GPU
processing, and maybe a little look at distributed OS's (I'll take that
course next year to find out more)
The cource is the better option |
|
5: |
Bootloader for more modern systems (such as x86) |
|
6: |
Comparison between popular existing OSes, e.g. Unix, Windows, Mac, and the reasons behind their design decisions. |
|
7: |
Didn't miss anything that badly. But probably more on non-Unix OS's. |
|
8: |
Distrbuted Systems, Linux/Unix and Windows case studies |
|
9: |
Don't know anything about OS apart from what I've learnt here |
|
10: |
Don't know. |
|
11: |
Drivers? |
|
12: |
GUIs for OSs |
|
13: |
IPC, pipes, shared memory, the networking stack, an assignment implementing a scheduler / dispatcher
Scheduler might be an option for an advanced component of the synch assignment |
|
14: |
Maybe a brief look at what the future might be? Multicore, 64bit, 128bit, Massively parallel, mostly I/O supervising etc. |
|
15: |
Maybe not directly related to OS, but a discussion of various current memory allocaters would have been interesting.
Yep, that is the kind of material that would be good for extended - need to find the time to create the material |
|
16: |
More UNIX based issues. |
|
17: |
More about specifics of different OS's. |
|
18: |
More details about drivers and their low level implementation (perhaps an assignment to write a driver for some I/O). |
|
19: |
More multiprocessor and concurrency-related material (or maybe not, since that's what COMP3151 is there for) |
|
20: |
Multimedia processing |
|
21: |
Nil |
|
22: |
No comment |
|
23: |
None |
|
24: |
None |
|
25: |
None, I thought the coverage in the course was very good. |
|
26: |
Not Sure |
|
27: |
Os interface |
|
28: |
Security |
|
29: |
Security holes. |
|
30: |
Study cases on Windows |
|
31: |
Virtual Machine .. may be abit more on windows base OS .. why is crap .. what makes crap |
|
32: |
Would have been nice to see more i/o: lamebus, drivers |
|
33: |
a bit of security and an overview of multimedia operating systems |
|
34: |
build and i/o system |
|
35: |
device drivers/interfacing, we kind of glossed over it in looking at VFS. |
|
36: |
ext4 - came out recently apparently uses extents (similar to runs in ntfs) |
|
37: |
i
wasnt sure what to expect from the course before i did it, and after
having done it i can't think of anything more to add to the course.
there's already so much material its mind blowing. we didn't do much
about security aspects of operating systems? programming multiple cores
should be covered in more depth |
|
38: |
it was all well covered |
|
39: |
maybe a comprehensive high-level comparison between windows and linux |
|
40: |
more implementation issues |
|
41: |
networking |
|
42: |
none |
|
43: |
none |
|
44: |
nothing in particularly |
|
45: |
nothing more |
|
46: |
virtual machines |
|
| 17.
|
Which of the current topics would you like to see scaled back or excluded?
|
|
1: |
All
of the topics covered were interesting; however, it would have been
nice to spend a tad longer on synchronisation, deadlock, et cetera. |
|
2: |
Concurrency |
|
3: |
Hard to say. Everything seems essential. |
|
4: |
I think virtual memory could be scaled back and included in its own course |
|
5: |
I/O Management |
|
6: |
I/O Management |
|
7: |
I/O Management |
|
8: |
IO management |
|
9: |
Interrupts, we know the useful stuff already from 2121. |
|
10: |
Multiprocessor Systems |
|
11: |
Multiprocessor Systems |
|
12: |
Multiprocessor Systems. |
|
13: |
Multiprocessor systems |
|
14: |
No comment |
|
15: |
None |
|
16: |
None |
|
17: |
None |
|
18: |
None of them. All were interesting |
|
19: |
None
really, some of the pages of low level code were slightly excessive,
but I understand they were to illustrate a point rather than anything
else. |
|
20: |
None, all topics are interesting :) |
|
21: |
None. |
|
22: |
Nothing |
|
23: |
Nothing! |
|
24: |
Scale down memory management |
|
25: |
Synchronisation and concurrency |
|
26: |
Synchronisation, but that's because I didn't find it very challenging. |
|
27: |
The coverage of the banker's algorithm was a little much, especially since it can't really be used in practical situations. |
|
28: |
The material not related to assignment. |
|
29: |
They all are too important for OS too be scaled back. |
|
30: |
all pretty sufficient |
|
31: |
disk algorithms, the topic should not be assessible as it is too easy |
|
32: |
i/o topic could have probably provided more details |
|
33: |
io |
|
34: |
it was all good, a bit too much time on the basic overview of files, better spent on nitty-gritty implementation details |
|
35: |
its
hard to choose when all the topics are so relevant, i don't think any
of them should be excluded or scaled back, despite how much content
there is already |
|
36: |
nil |
|
37: |
none |
|
38: |
none |
|
39: |
none |
|
40: |
none |
|
41: |
none |
|
42: |
none. |
|
43: |
real time scheduling - it's simple and boring and felt like course filler |
|
44: |
subversion - I think students should already know version control by this stage and it
you'd be
surprised little do - given the 'intro' week will disappear next year -
the subversion lecture will probably disappear with it - I should leave
the slides up though. |
|
| 21.
|
If you have not been attending lectures, what factors influenced your decision not to attend?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
1-hour lectures on friday + 4 hours of travel is not a good use of time, begins to matter when assignments start to pile up |
|
3: |
Attended all lectures. |
|
4: |
I asked you for permission at teh start due to a class clash.
However I did manage to attend a few and they were quite good. |
|
5: |
I attended most lectures. |
|
6: |
I attended most lectures. |
|
7: |
I attended most of them - but when I didn't - it was because I was very busy with other commitments... |
|
8: |
I did attend. |
|
9: |
I
generally don't find lecturers very helpuful, I find it hard to learn
from them. I actually attented more OS lectures than I usually do for a
course; I found Prof. Elphinstone very good. |
|
10: |
I
had a timetable clash that CSE would not fix (not that this is your
fault!). However I found notes (and occasionally iLectures) sufficient
for catching up. |
|
11: |
I have been attending lectures. |
|
12: |
I occasionally missed lectures due to paid work, but this has always been the case. |
|
13: |
I skipped a few lectures when I had assignments to do that were due very soon. |
|
14: |
I skipped the Friday lecture consistently due to my work schedule.
I found the lectures more interesting than most other COMP courses I've done, so I didn't skip out of boredom. |
|
15: |
I
usually felt the time would be better spent doing assignments (not just
OS assignments, most of the term I had 4 COMP assignments all due
within the space of a week), and I have the textbook and lecture notes
which together covered the course well |
|
16: |
N/A |
|
17: |
NA |
|
18: |
NA |
|
19: |
NA |
|
20: |
Normal lectures are too slow sometimes |
|
21: |
Not
enough time. If there is a work commitment, lectures are the first
thing to be sacrificed. Not everyone in uni works to buy stuff, some
work to pay rent. |
|
22: |
The book is good. Attending lectures works and is definitely worthwhile. Sometimes since I live so far I will skip a lecture. |
|
23: |
The only lectures I didn't attend were... for doing one of the assignments, and I had a thesis meeting. |
|
24: |
There are other assignments from COMP subjects that I have to do |
|
25: |
Time restraints. |
|
26: |
Timetable clash. |
|
27: |
Timetable clash. |
|
28: |
Working on assignment instead. Common time for partner and I. |
|
29: |
commitment with other courses |
|
30: |
i
must have missed the last few lectures, primarily because i was doing
30uoc and i was hibernating in my room doing assignments non-stop day
and night. most of the time o/s assignments. |
|
31: |
work, family |
|
| 22.
|
Any suggestions for improving lectures?
|
|
1: |
1 lecture per week will be good |
|
2: |
1.
While I could memorize most of the facts presented in the slides, it
wasn't until the sample exam questions that I discovered that while I
knew the 'whats', I didn't always know the 'whys'. For example, I
learnt that a Working Set was "all the memory pages needed by a process
in a time interval", but I didn't know why I needed to know that. After
studying the sample questions, I realized that working sets that take
up more than RAM can cause thrashing. And that the CPU utilization to
page fault ratio was a measure of thrashing. I knew the facts (which
were presented in an excellent way), but I didn't always know a) why I
was learning them, or b) how to relate them together to fit a bigger
picture, to design a good OS.
2. Another specific point I wish to mention is segments in OS/161
virtual memory. I knew that there were 4 segments and what their
characteristics were. It wasn't until after Assignment 3 that I
realized that there could be 4 virtual memory addresses (in kuseg,
kseg0-kesg2 respectively) , and all 4 virtual addresses could be
pointing at exactly the same physical address in RAM. That the 4
virtual memory segments were really just a 'window into' or
'perspective of' the exact same physical region, was a big 'aha' moment
for me. Once again, I knew the individual facts about each OS/161
segment, but I didn't see the bigger picture, how they all fit
together.
3. A number of times, the lecture notes were not available in time to
print for the lecture (one time it was made available a week after the
lecture?). As taking notes helps immensely in my remembering what was
said, I hope future students at least get half an hour to print notes
before walking into class.
4. I think we covered most of Processes and Threads, jumped away from
it, and jumped back to it a few weeks later. That was a bit jarring.
But maybe it couldn't be helped because of assignment scheduling.
Couple of comments
- yes assignment scheduling did cause a detour - this should not occur next year
- It
is a complex topic that benefits form reflecting an different aspects
several times - for some, it is not until you have seen several of the
aspects do you get the 'aha' moments, for others it come earlier - it
depend on the individual..
|
|
3: |
Catch out more people when talking. Several lectures were very noisy and it could be hard to hear the lecturer. |
|
4: |
Different time than 3-5! |
|
5: |
Finally
a small point: I have a problem with my color vision (as do 3-7% of
males) and as a result of that I can't see red laser dots. This of
course applies to all lectures where laser pointers are used. A chap in
the school of physics is actually using a green pointer for this
reason...just a small suggestion.
|
|
6: |
Give link to recorded talks at the start of session for podcasting.
The recording stuff is new for me, I thought it just appeared for you in my.unsw some where., until late in the session. |
|
7: |
Have sample excercises with solutions.
???? In addition to the tutorials, and 100 odd study questions? |
|
8: |
I
find the lecture to be dry at times, but I guess that is because the
topics can be hard to understand if you don't read before hand. |
|
9: |
I
found the illustrations very helpful. Such as real life scenarios of
when deadlocking could occur, the problem with the round table and
cutlery made me understand the problems of concurrency very clearly and
quickly. Perhaps more could be used. |
|
10: |
I
really liked the lectures, and I know you've worked very hard for the
lecture slides. However, a select few of the examples I felt needed
updating. I wouldn't have minded a bit of the more recent stuff, like
SSD too. |
|
11: |
I think lectures are quite good, and one of the positives of the course. I wouldn't want to change anything. |
|
12: |
I
think you get what I'm going to say here: go faster
Also having lectures on the assignment was *incredibly* irritating when
I had already done the assignment and I travel all the way to uni to
sit and be told everything I've already done. Maybe give a warning if
you are going to have a lecture on the assignment so those who have
already completed it can not come
See above comment - point is taken |
|
13: |
I would have liked if possible to sometimes fit in the slides more unix/windows real examples of implementation. |
|
14: |
If
you could release more detailed lecture notes it would be good or maybe
background info with regards to the content of the slides. |
|
15: |
In
an ideal world, students should be given enough time to read about the
subject matter before the lecture on a topic. Lectures then are more of
a summary and clarification session on that topic. |
|
16: |
Increase lecture hours to 4 hours per week to abe able to cover more topics in the stipulated time. |
|
17: |
It is quite fast, try to cover everything in a lecture which make students cannot really follow. |
|
18: |
Less
lengthy re-iteration of how things work, the explanations were all
perfectly clear, and drawing all those red diagrams took a while.... |
|
19: |
Less powerpoint |
|
20: |
Maybe
more drawings. When I looked back and saw the drawings that were done
on the fly during lectures, it helped me remember what was said. |
|
21: |
More examples relating directly to OS161, then comparing to the general case |
|
22: |
More information on implementation in some areas would have been useful |
|
23: |
More
interactive diagrams and less lists of things in slides. The
explanations using the pen on an empty slide were most helpful. It
would be great if they could be recorded along with the speaking that
went with it. |
|
24: |
No |
|
25: |
No, they were as good as they could be |
|
26: |
No, they were quite good. |
|
27: |
None. Quite decent. |
|
28: |
Not really. |
|
29: |
Not really. They're quite well thought out. |
|
30: |
Occasional trivia? |
|
31: |
Overall,
the use of technology was good (that pen thing in powerpoint), but
maybe you could use some swanky animations to explain a few topics,
e.g. disk arm scheduling, disk block allocation schemes, etc?
Nothing too fancy, but that real-time scheduling algorithm slide-show
was fairly hideous |
|
32: |
Perhaps
adding parts of the 100 questions onto the last few slides as a
"revision" would be good for those that are particularly keen.
The answers can be released at the end of the session before exams. |
|
33: |
Perhaps
you could put up some milestone mini 10minute quizes in between
lectures topics or at end of your lectures that the whole lecture can
go through, just so that we know we're on par. In some of our lectures,
we did finish a little bit early which is great, but the option of
staying longer for a mini quiz could probably be useful for people
struggling. |
|
34: |
Simpler
Questions that do involve the students. Not advanced or off track
questions which involve a great understanding of the course |
|
35: |
Since
this course has been driven towards assignments, then present a formal
lecture to prepare for the assignments. I understand this was done for
Asst3 but it was not helpful somehow to my group somehow. So,
formalized it.
If not, the theory coverage is fine. |
|
36: |
Some lectures cover a lot of material so kevin rushes in some of the lectures .This should be avoided. |
|
37: |
The lecture notes should be more in details. |
|
38: |
There
should be some alternatives (in marking schemes etc) for middle-ranged
students to survive in this course. Also, we really need to be guided
with OS-161 codes, lectures and tutorials are just not enough because
they all based on theoretical and the conceptual part of operating
systems, not on the code. There should also be a system which balances
the groupings so that good students help the not-so-good ones, with the
condition that both contribute to the assignments. |
|
39: |
They
appear to be conducted quite well; furthermore, Elphinstone is not one
of these lecturers who 'just reads off the slides', but at the same
time not someone who goes off on irrelevant rambles - all in all,
rather solid lecturing! |
|
40: |
Trivia/fun section every 20 mins to wake us up. |
|
41: |
Understandably
you have to go slow enough for everyone to keep up, but it was a bit
slow at times. for most of us it would have been sufficient to just say
"FIFO paging" and a minute pointing out why that is different instead
of the 15 mins spent walking through. |
|
42: |
When
you annotate your slides using your tablet PC, it is especially hard to
read later. I don't know what you can do, but neater writing there
would make a difference, especially since those slides are often
assignment help. |
|
43: |
excellent as is |
|
44: |
give news about current OS trend, not only in extended but normal OS as well (news break?) |
|
45: |
i
thought the lectures were pretty good already. i felt that the lectures
were a little rushed, so it would be nice to have an extra hour per
week for lectures to go into more details on difficult topics such as
vm. |
|
46: |
maybe recording lectures |
|
47: |
no |
|
48: |
none |
|
49: |
nothing can top the lecturer's teaching technique. Everything was covered properly and interestingly. |
|
50: |
the slides should include low level implementation for better understanding |
|
51: |
use more diagram |
|
| 23.
|
If
you used other textbooks other than Tannenbaum (e.g. Silberschatz,
Stallings), how do you think they compare to each other? Which gives
the best explanations, which has the best structure, etc.... |
|
1: |
|
|
2: |
- |
|
3: |
Did not use other textbooks |
|
4: |
Did not use other textbooks |
|
5: |
I did not use text books at all |
|
6: |
I didn't use any other textbooks. |
|
7: |
N/A |
|
8: |
N/A |
|
9: |
N/A |
|
10: |
NA |
|
11: |
NA |
|
12: |
Nil |
|
13: |
Wikipedia is best for a getting a general understanding, then |
|
14: |
better explained in implementation level |
|
15: |
didnt use other text books |
|
16: |
n/a |
|
17: |
tannenbaum
was really good except that some explanations are unnecessarily long
and could have been summarised. overall i am quite happy with Tannenbaum |
|
18: |
there was a textbook? |
|
| 26.
|
Any suggestions for improving tutorials?
|
|
1: |
A
little extra time for tutorials would be great. Because sometimes the
tutorial exercises weren't touched at all during assignment period as
one tutorial wasn't enough for it. So one extra consultation
hour(lecturer or tutor) a week during assignments might sort the above
problem |
|
2: |
Tutor B some times didnt come prepared to the tutes . if he is not aware
of what the question are ,its hard for him to explain.We some times had
andrew and some times rafael and i dont know why tutors kept switching. |
|
3: |
Tutor B was a bit new, but he was pretty good, he just needs to get into his
stride. Tutor A was awesome, bring back the "I don't do A.M." shirt!!
Some of the tutorial questions were quite hard and only in retrospect
did they make sense, I personally couldn't do some of the harder
questions in the tutorial even with preparation. |
|
4: |
Encourage
tutors to help out on the course forums more... Also, perhaps some
optional labs where we could attend for some hands on help. |
|
5: |
Even
though there were organised weekly tutorial questions, the actual
tutorials turned out to be unstructured Q&A sessions on whatever
topics students wanted to ask. Some students even tried to create
questions based on the most recent lecture simply to obtain
participation mark. The problem was that these questions were
technically off-topic for that day. |
|
6: |
Have people come out and use the board. |
|
7: |
I
would find useful if the tutor could make some small review of the past
week of material during the tutorial in his own way of explaining. This
gives a fresh perspective on the material and allows more focus during
the rest of the tutorial. |
|
8: |
It would be better if tutor comes on time |
|
9: |
Lab works should be better? |
|
10: |
More exam like questions. |
|
11: |
N/A. Was in extension class, didn't attend tutorials. |
|
12: |
NULL |
|
13: |
Need practical labs. |
|
14: |
Need to actively explore OS161 within tutorials. |
|
15: |
No. |
|
16: |
None |
|
17: |
None, Tutor A was great! |
|
18: |
Not really. |
|
19: |
Tutor A was late a little too often (and didn't show at all once). That was a
little annoying since we were always late for Tuesdays lecture for that
reason (tute was before lecture).
Please also see my comments above regarding the tute questions. |
|
20: |
Tutor A FTW! |
|
21: |
Tutor A was a great tutor! explained everything very well! |
|
22: |
Remove participation mark. |
|
23: |
Remove
the ridiculous participation marks. It is counter-productive to
learning and instead makes you focus on the marks you are getting for
speaking rather than actually learning anything from the tutorial.
Also, force the tutors to stick to answering the questions set out in
the tutorial and not going off on their own and making up questions. |
|
24: |
Sometimes there were too many questions to cover in just one hour. A longer tute or fewer questions would help. |
|
25: |
Suggestion:
Extended students should still have tutorials (bringing them up to 5hrs
of face-to-face, a still modest amount). Perhaps their tutes could be
more advanced, perhaps not.
Early on I
offered to cover the tutorial prior to coveriing more material - nobody
took up the offer. I'll offer more frequently next time around - maybe
a regular 10 minutes at the start each week. |
|
26: |
There
were a few weird times when the content in the tutorial was ahead of
the lectures, or several weeks behind which was confusing. |
|
27: |
They were pretty alright. |
|
28: |
Tutor on time? |
|
29: |
Tutors should have structured presentation of the answers with discussion. More help in assignments. |
|
30: |
extended tutes were a good idea |
|
31: |
increase to a 2/3 hours tute (since there are no labs) |
|
32: |
no |
|
33: |
none |
|
34: |
not
really, they were pretty good. They left enough time for us to just ask
questions about the course material and assignments which was good |
|
35: |
use computer or something for showing the demo |
|
| 33.
|
Do you have any specific comments about OS/161
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
As
with most other unix/linux implementations I find that the naming
standards (variable/functions names etc.) are sometimes misleading and
lack standardization.
Yes, callling the data structure that evetually becomes a process a thread control block erks me as well. |
|
3: |
Doing
the assignments wasn't the issue, it was understanding exactly what the
scope was. It was kind of annoying to be muddling through the
assignment for days, get stuck on something big, go to a consult and
hear the tutor pretty much tell students what you'd spent the past few
days working out.
This is a
hard call - quite a few students need a little direction, but you
learn/understand more if you figure out yourself, and have the tutor
confirm its true. I hope we a giving a reasonable balance between the
two. |
|
4: |
Good
course in general, I felt like I learnt quite a bit of stuff compared
to some other COMP courses. I finally got to understand how an OS
works, something that I've wanted to know for a while. |
|
5: |
Great comments to generally help get started implementing assignments |
|
6: |
Great teaching OS. Very well commented. |
|
7: |
Having
been told that OS/161 is a stripped-down version of a real OS, my
appreciation for the real OSes has increased significantly. |
|
8: |
I did find it easier to deal with than I thought, it didn't feel like a big codebase. |
|
9: |
It
might be nice to have a "readme" txt document that came included with
OS161 that gave a brief rundown of the file structure, little more
detail than what was given in ASST..0? or ASST1.. I can't remember.
This seemed to be a question that many asked in the tutorials. |
|
10: |
It would be good if we were given more information on OS/161. |
|
11: |
It's
a good subject but I think it really got a hit (along with the rest of
CSE) when the semester was reduced to 12 weeks.
12 weeks is fine if you don't have much to do during semester (e.g.
Commerce - 2 exams and an assignment that doesn't get you to think).
For CSE, you just get raped by your assignments. |
|
12: |
It's
great to work with, however it is riddled with extraneous CS161
stuff... so we cannot really rely on the comments, which can be
confusing at times. |
|
13: |
Keep using it! |
|
14: |
NULL |
|
15: |
No. |
|
16: |
None |
|
17: |
Nothing in particular, I guess it is a really good simulation for getting a good idea about the working of an OS |
|
18: |
Nothing wrong with it |
|
19: |
OS161
was quite strange and foreign to me as a program. And took quite a bit
of time to link the concepts we were talking about with the actual code
of OS/161. |
|
20: |
One
of the few changes in CSE coursese to work with a large code base, so a
very useful experience, however I feel that a little too much was given
to us for 'free', alot of the code we wrote in the assignments was
dictated by the style of the existing code, so it would be nice to do
more from scratch.
You should take the advanced course! |
|
21: |
Overall, a good OS to learn from... |
|
22: |
Quite a good educational OS |
|
23: |
The
course is good and is tought well but the group work is not necessarily
a good idea.I did all my assignments by myself even though i was in a
group for the first 2 assignments and later on I split. |
|
24: |
The
fact the OS/161 is widely used by universities was helpful, as we could
often find lecture notes etc. from other universities that helped to
clear up some of the more difficult concepts.
Drop me an email as to the location - I'm very happy to explicitly point to other helpful material elsewhere |
|
25: |
The way it's written is very confusing. I guess it's probably due to my lack of C programming experience.
Variable and function names are a mess. |
|
26: |
With eclipse, viewing the source is a charm. I can't imagine using other IDE.
In general, i think that OS/161 is a pretty good platform to get started. |
|
27: |
having a online source documentation tool on the course website would make it easier to discuss assignments with your partner:
http://www.student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs350/common/os161-src-html/ |
|
28: |
no |
|
29: |
no |
|
30: |
none |
|
31: |
o/s161
is hell. it takes way too much time and effort to learn the code base
and what goes on inside the system, where function calls go and what
gets changed. i barely had time to examine it with all of my other
subjects and relied mostly on my partner to do all of the work. as a
result we both suffered heavily. i understand why os161 was chosen, it
makes sense once alot of time has been spent on it, but its just not
practical on such a short timescale of 12 weeks. i think i could have
learn the same concepts on a different codebase in a more reasonable
amount of time, but i guess the point is about practical experience
with a real o/s that counts and i'm glad for that in the end - i
wouldn't change it. i just wish we had more time to play around with it. |
|
32: |
os161 to reflect more about working on a real os. |
|
| 37.
|
Any suggestions for improving the assignments?
|
|
1: |
-
The hardest part about the assignments was figuring out how to start.
That's not saying that the assignments became easy afterward. A
concrete guidance on where and how to start would help significantly.
- Once we figured out what was needed for the assignments, the next
biggest challenge was to divide up the work among the partners so no
one was overloaded or deprived of learning opportunities. It would be
helpful if we were given a suggestion on how the work should be split
among the team members. |
|
2: |
A sheet on the C library functions we needed to know about would have helped?
And my point in Q22 about the 4 VM segments. |
|
3: |
Assignment
were pretty good. But if there would have been more time then I would
suggest the third assignment to be a little more harder as it really
helps in understanding the memory management system, so a little more
time spent with the assignment will be of great help in understanding
theory with a practical approach |
|
4: |
Assignments were ok, but feedback was really slow. If assignments could be marked sooner that would be better. |
|
5: |
Better/Fairer explanation of the scope. |
|
6: |
Challenge, but implementation was difficult. |
|
7: |
Extend the deadline |
|
8: |
Get
rid of assingment 0, wa too much time was wasted on it which could be
spent on the real assignments. I also like the idea of making groups
optional. However I am biased because I wasn't happy with my partner
this time, I have had good experiences with group work in the past. |
|
9: |
Give away more info upfront + along the way |
|
10: |
Give
us the assignment based part of this survey just after we do that
assignment. Most of the things you're asking happened so long ago. |
|
11: |
Giving
us more information on how to approach the assignment and how each
function interacts with each other. Since I had to wait till the
tutorial to find out how each of the function works and by then I had
wasted alot of days where I could have been working on the assignment.
Also assignment 2 and 3 were very confusing, some detailed instructions
on what to do would be good |
|
12: |
I
constantly needed more time to do the assignments. I certainly never
made the 10% bonus and so couldnt even attempt the advanced assignment
- I think this is a spurious requirement and should be removed,
especially for 3891 students (I guess you could argue a 3891 student
*should* be make the 10% bonus deadlines, but due to the inflexbility
re: extensions, those of us with other commitments found it very
difficult to).
Pair assignments will 80% of the time mean one person does no work and
the other does all of it. |
|
13: |
I ran out of time. Perhaps more skeleton code. |
|
14: |
I
think the guided questions should be better directed. Rather than
pointing to code that happen behind the scenes which we don't need to
worry about. Or keep them and put in with more helpful questions |
|
15: |
Individual assignments would be preferable.
Getting assignment results earlier would be preferable...
Dryrun tests in give would have been nice. |
|
16: |
It
would be nice if solving an assignment was sufficient for all related
aspects to work (eg do VM and fork just works) without modification.
This would make it easier to see if your implementation works, write
more adventurous tests and have a greater sense of achievement! |
|
17: |
Make the specs a lot clearer! |
|
18: |
Make them clearer as in which specific parts of the code should be looked at. The stubs really helped. |
|
19: |
More
guidance needed. Alot was given, however the learning curve was still
very steep. It took alot of time to get familar with os161 |
|
20: |
More
time should be spent explaining the ins and outs of OS161 with regards
to the assignments. Tutor A did a good job during the tutorials but they
don't last too long. Paper and hard copies of specs are often nice. |
|
21: |
My
partner wrote about 5 lines of code all semester for the assignments.
Can't you use SVN blame and award the marks appropriately?
You need to explicitly state relative contribution if you're unhappy with your partner. |
|
22: |
Need to be more and harder. |
|
23: |
No suggestions .I think they were very relevant to what was being taught in lectures. |
|
24: |
No
suggestions but just a comment. The assignment sheet is too long. Ever
consider sectioning it? Do a search on the web and it is found that all
universities in the world are using the same syntax. Can this course be
a bit more unique?? :-) |
|
25: |
No, they were great! :) |
|
26: |
Organization
and clarity of what we're asked to do could be better in the assignment
specs. The list of steps in the ASST3 spec was very helpful. |
|
27: |
Perhaps a bit more support for ASST3 earlier on. It took a long time to understand it. |
|
28: |
Perhaps
more of a specific walkthrough of what needs to be done? Rather than
"look through the files and fill in what's missing". |
|
29: |
Please let average students survive. |
|
30: |
Provide
more test cases that are already written, the last thing I want to do
when the deadline is approaching is having to worry about last minute
writing of code to think about all possible test cases. An alternative
would be to encourage more people to post their test codes. The bonus
questions only ever help those students that would get HD anyways. But
the real enrichment should be for everybody. |
|
31: |
Reduce
the difficulty of ASST3. As it is at the end of the session, it clashes
with assessments from many other subjects and makes it near impossible
to complete - despite the extra couple of days. |
|
32: |
Some more advanced parts! |
|
33: |
The
intro to SVN in the assignments (not the lecture) needs to be a little
more detailed.
There were times where I just typed whatever and hoped for the best, as
I did not understand what the commands were really doing aside from a
vague "this merges my changes into... the branch which is somewhere...
probably in a different location to the trunk.." |
|
34: |
be released earlier to leave more possible consultation times before it is due |
|
35: |
i
liked the idea of the advanced assignments, and the flexibility about
them. i only wish i had more time to spend on the assignments... |
|
36: |
maybe
more mini assignments (like ASST0) that don't count for any marks but
help you mess with the codebase and learn the parts before the real
assignments are released. it would help ease the suffering from being
thrown into the deep end when you have to deal with virtual memory all
of a sudden and have nothing to work from. |
|
37: |
more incentive to do the advanced assignments.
having the late penalty be off the maximum mark instead of your actual mark. |
|
38: |
no |
|
39: |
none |
|
40: |
peer assessment for partner |
|
| 39.
|
What were the strong points of COMP3891/9283?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
Assignments. |
|
3: |
Extended parts of assignments. Lectures that were interesting but not going to be assessed (majorly lacking in uni these days). |
|
4: |
Fun |
|
5: |
Great exposure to more, interesting examples from OS community.
No pressure to complete tutorials each week -- onus to do self study instead |
|
6: |
I don't lose any marks for not having actually made use of the Advanced assignments or Extended lectures ;) |
|
7: |
Interesting facts and knowledge were taught |
|
8: |
Interesting lectures. |
|
9: |
Interesting topics |
|
10: |
Interesting topics covered, especially Virtual Machines. |
|
11: |
Learning much more about the box we use |
|
12: |
N/A |
|
13: |
No tutorial participation marks.
Extended lectures were mostly interesting, even though I only attended a few due to timing issues |
|
14: |
Quick paced lectures kept interesting. Encouraged further understanding of 3231 concepts and cemented them. |
|
15: |
The extra topics studied in the advanced lectures was quite interesting |
|
16: |
The
fact that we did not need to go to tutorials, and inevitably get bored,
was a major plus, as was the material covered in the lectures. |
|
17: |
learning in depth about interesting topics (such as fast mutex). |
|
| 40.
|
What were the weak points of COMP3891/9283?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
I
didn't feel that the lectures were that useful. Interesting, yes, but
not very applicable to anything else in the course (including the exam). |
|
3: |
It doesn't force me to do any more than COMP3231, yet I get COMP3891 on my transcript... |
|
4: |
It was canceled a few times. |
|
5: |
N/A |
|
6: |
No pressure to check tutorial answers or course progress. |
|
7: |
Powerpoint |
|
8: |
Short notice Cancellations =(
Sorry, had the flu that day - the non-swine variety thankfully |
|
9: |
Since there is no extended question on the exam, there isn't enough motivation to learn the material thoroughly. |
|
10: |
That we ended up missing quite a few weeks. |
|
11: |
could
be more interactive ... things you get taught in lectures will be
forget quite quickly if not reinforce by something. tute questions or
tiny coding execrise ...then again .. adding too much to the current
work load is not a good idea |
|
12: |
not really having much of a say and what we covered. |
|
| 41.
|
Any suggestions for improving COMP3891/9283 Extended OS?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
Add an exam question, or make the extended part of the assignment compulsory for extended students. |
|
3: |
Anything I think I'd be suggesting would be something that I would assume would be covered in Advanced OS. |
|
4: |
Have
additional assessment for the advanced class. Either extra questions in
the exam, or make the advanced parts of the assignments compulsory and
not bonus marks |
|
5: |
Having first 20min of tut for tut questions then rest for extended material |
|
6: |
Less powerpoint, more focus on OS161 in lectures. More sample code. |
|
7: |
N/A |
|
8: |
Perhaps model solutions to a recently finished assignment? |
|
9: |
Pointers to additional material that we could investigate? |
|
10: |
Should be more informal discussion?
i.e. more like a tutorial and not be in a lecture theatre |
|
11: |
allow students to choose topics at the beginning of the course |
|
12: |
may be get the students to come up with a list of things that want to learn.. and pick topics from that list |
|
| 43.
|
Do you have any particular comments you would like to make about the exam?
|
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
2 hour exams are spot-on. |
|
3: |
Assignments are a better way to learn and prove understanding. Exams don't guarantee understanding. |
|
4: |
Didn't
ask a wide enough range of questions. Weaknesses in small areas make a
huge impact when the exam is so limited. Have more application
questions, just regurgitating the textbook is boring. |
|
5: |
Duration too short to adequately answer each question fully. |
|
6: |
Even
though I generally knew the answer to the questions in exam, I still
find myself a little bit rushed, I did the last part of last question
in exam in 3 minutes and consequently not enough time to think
thoroughly |
|
7: |
Exam was good, effort is proportional to performance. |
|
8: |
Exam was hit and miss. |
|
9: |
Good exam, however I felt the subtractive marking for the true/false was a little cruel. |
|
10: |
I
could have spent 3 hours answering the paper, perhaps I just write slow
or was a bit dopey on the day, but I was rushed to get it done in 2
hours and missed the last few marks. I did extended and don't think its
my knowledge. Exams shouldn't test speed, if someone can get the
answers eventually then they know it. An extra hour would be useless to
someone that doesn't know the material.
Also, the exam was weighted more towards memorisation and less towards
understanding. |
|
11: |
I
find it difficult too be worried about all pros/cons of each algorithm
or method presented. Perhaps it would be a good idea to only put those
type of questions as true/false or multiple answer (and tell students
this about the exam) and include some questions that relate to some
os/161 important stuff. Also I found misleading that some of the
questions were so similar to the practice exam/questions but sometimes
had one or two words different which made you wonder if there is really
any difference with the past questions. In other words, I found that
the wording of some of the questions was rather vague and too open to
interpretation on the part of the students. |
|
12: |
I
found the exam quite easy, perhaps due to the extreme similarity
between our final exam and the sample paper and practice questions
given. This makes it easy to do well simply by rote-learning the
expected responses for different types of questions, rather than
calling for a deeper understanding of the issues. Questions of a
broader nature that require students to apply knowledge from multiple
aspects of the course may do a better job of determining the quality of
a student's understanding. At the moment it tests whether or not you
have spent time doing the practice paper and questions. |
|
13: |
I had the supplementary (oral) exam, so the comments above are not about the general written final exam. |
|
14: |
It was a fair representation of the course's material. |
|
15: |
It was a very fair exam, good distribution of topics. The 100 sample questions helped ALOT! |
|
16: |
Multiple choice mark deduction was evil!
|
|
17: |
My
exam timetable were packed. So, revising work was really tough.
Especially earlier lecture topics has made me forgotten the lot of its
theory.
I've no control over the exam timetable. |
|
18: |
N/A |
|
19: |
No |
|
20: |
Not
much explanation was happening. No questions regarding approaches
appeared despite showing up in the sample questions and exam. |
|
21: |
Question 1a slightly ambigious, should it be a function or call, or theoretically implemented |
|
22: |
Re:
assessment weightings... why does CSE use this harmonic mean so
frequently? It seems to me that if you do badly in one half of the
course, you simply do pretty badly overall... I've always hated that,
not that I've ever done particularly badly, it's just annoying to think
that if you stuff up one thing it can really screw things up for you. |
|
23: |
Seemed easier than I was expecting. |
|
24: |
Seemed pretty balanced. |
|
25: |
Seemed
to miss large sections of the course. It would be nice if we were
either told which sections would be covered, or if they all had some
coverage. |
|
26: |
Some
of the multiple choice questions were a bit ambiguous (e.g. there was a
question of whether you could construct a robust time sharing system
from base/segment registers - what does robust mean?), which made
answering them risky as you lost marks for incorrect answers. |
|
27: |
Some of the questions were a bit obscure and were not the focus of lectures and tutorial questions. |
|
28: |
Some of the things tested were not essential things for OS. More important things were not tested. |
|
29: |
T/F questions should not be penalised |
|
30: |
Tell us that we need pencils next time! |
|
31: |
The 100 sample questions were a great help! |
|
32: |
The
allowance offered to PG's should be extended to undergrads as some of
us actually have to work for our living and are in just as hard a
position to devote tremendous amounts of time to the assignments. |
|
33: |
The
length of paper should be set according to the time allowd to do the
exam. The exam paper was too long to complete in 2 hours. |
|
34: |
The
practice exam was much easier than the actual exam, which was a little
off putting, but nothing major.
I'm glad there were not 'enumerate what happens on an interrupt,
including the calling of C code and pushing onto the stack etc etc'
those questions are more rote than understanding, I was glad that the
exam was more deeper understanding questions. |
|
35: |
The sample question was a great help in revising for the exam. |
|
36: |
The sample should be more representative of the real exam difficulty. |
|
37: |
To
be honest, there was ALOT of material to revise covered by the course
and revising them all for the exam can be very stressful at times. |
|
38: |
Unfortunately
the exam was at the end of a long week of other exams and I only had an
afternoon and morning to study for it, so my mark will not be
indicative of how well I could have gone. It was a very decent exam
that was not too hard at all. But it is a matter of scheduling and is
as always pot luck. |
|
39: |
When
I say "The final assessment should be weighted more towards the exam",
what I actually mean is that the final exam is a lot easier than the
assignments. Perhaps the assignments should be marked easier. |
|
40: |
You tested alot of memory, but only the concurrency section really tested the ability to think |
|
41: |
at
times were unsure whether my answer was too long or too short, maybe
providing a rough guideline on how long each response should be would
be good. |
|
42: |
i'm
not sure why the exam was only 2 hours (my gut tells me it was to make
it harder!) i think given the amount of content in the course, a 5 hour
exam may have been more sufficient. though i think the level of
difficulty of the questions was fair - you either knew it or you
didn't, no bull**** involved. |
|
43: |
it was a bit lengthy. ran out of time at the last question |
|
44: |
it's hard to make up a sentences during exam, it's too rush for me.. that's the problem for me |
|
45: |
no |
|
46: |
nothing in particular |
|
47: |
the
questions are too open. This combined with so many notices about
keeping answers concise made it hard to demonstrate my knowledge |
|
| 47.
|
Any other comments/suggestions that might help us to improve the course in the future?
|
|
1: |
- Mid session quiz for earlier topics and cater for later topics in the exam. - Scrap harmonic mean(it's depressing).
- I find that OS theory is rather interesting but the assignments are too intensive that it has deluded the concepts.
- A lab session with tutors might help students with assignments and OS161 environment.
- A restructured assignment website. Section them such that it is clear. |
|
2: |
14 Week sessions! I want to learn more :P |
|
3: |
Add
more novelty, such as done in the last week, to present some cutting
edge (rather than classic or 8 year old new) material to the course. |
|
4: |
I actually dont know how cheaters are treated so I cannot really comment. |
|
5: |
I
am not a fan of the use of the harmonic mean to calculate the final
mark. While it may seem like it is a way to make sure that people
getting decent marks are competent at both implementing things and
writing about them in the exam, workload from other courses (and for
some of us, part time work) makes it hard to devote as much time as
desired to the assignments, so submissions are inevitably rushed, and
the harmonic mean makes it hard to make up lost marks in the exam. |
|
6: |
I
have been taught how to use SVN in at least 4 different CSE courses now
(2911, 2041, 3141, 3231), each of which wastes about an entire lecture
on it. I think with 12 week semesters you cannot afford to waste a
lecture on this, and it is reasonable to expect that by 3rd year
students are capable of reading the manual for themselves. Perhaps
provide instructions on the course website and set it as required
reading in week 1.
Excellent to know - svn is hereby removed from the course... |
|
7: |
Increase total lecture hours to cover more topics.
I'm not allowed to, even if I wanted to, and could not survive the rebellion from those who want less.
|
|
8: |
It is quite a good course! It will be even better when the semesters become slightly longer once more. |
|
9: |
Keep Tutor A on as a tutor, he was one of the best, most energetic and confident tutors I have ever had. |
|
10: |
Labs needed. |
|
11: |
Labs
or exercises to ramp up to the assignments. Each assignment is a
different topic, so inbetween there should be small exercises or labs
to help with implementation. |
|
12: |
Loved, *loved* the extended lectures.
I wish we did cover IPC, the networking stack (and ports). They feel like gaps in my knowledge.
|
|
13: |
Need more time with tasks. |
|
14: |
No harmonic mean. Its more motivational, when you can count the marks as you earn them. |
|
15: |
No. |
|
16: |
Not really, this was a great course overall. :) |
|
17: |
Not that I can think of. |
|
18: |
Overall a good course. And I'm not just saying that for the bonus marks. |
|
19: |
Please do not delay the information on the assignments, release the whole texts with explanations of what's going on! |
|
20: |
Please
don't overlap assignments.
Please don't have an assignment due during stuvac.
Please give our results back quicker. I really wanted to know how I
went for assignment 2 since it didn't actually work and I was curious
to see how much of a weighting the design doc had against the
automarking.
If you collect the assignment you can see the marking breakdown. |
|
21: |
The
Exam covers everything in the course .. while the assignment .. target
a specific idea. So what i found is i spend majority of the time in
understanding and doing the assigments .. but its really only covers a
tiny bit of the course ... if the exam and the assigments are more
closely related that will be good ... |
|
22: |
The
tutors should be more prepared while coming to the tutes. There should
be some incentive for people who do assignments individually. Avoid
free rides in groups. |
|
23: |
There should be at least one more consultation hour during the assignments.
Yes, but
it is hard to justify given all the times I showed up to find nobody.
Is it that hard not to leave it until the last consult before? I'll
look into some extras the week before. |
|
24: |
Tutors
were very lax in returning marks. I don't know if this is because I did
extended, but it took far too long for any real feedback, regardless of
how long it must have taken to complete all the marking. |
|
25: |
Why
does this course require COMP2121? We didn't really use any of the
concepts learnt in COMP2121. Any assembler you showed us was only of a
token nature and we only ever needed to understand C in the assignments. |
|
26: |
With
regard to the message board, even though it's a good idea, most
students apparently have very poor writing skills. A lot of time was
wasted simply trying to understand what a student was asking in order
to see if the problem presented was similar to mine. The topic titles
were often too general too. Additionally, the search box did not work
as well as it should (actually I don't think it worked at all). |
|
27: |
don't make it the same with other uni,
i found some similar solution on google :p |
|
28: |
i
liked the introduction of some active research topics in class - maybe
it was in tutes, can't remember.
overall, an excellent course, it felt polished and well-thought. i
probably learnt some of the few useful things i'll take from my degree
in it.
actually, i don't recall things getting marked very quickly at all.
that was annoying - maybe you should hire some more cse goons |
|
29: |
if
you really, REALLY want to improve the course in the future, make the
assignments HARDER. maybe like 5 assignments instead of 3.
That is what the advance versions are for, I can't reasonably expect to increase the load. |
|
30: |
no |
|
31: |
none, generally this course is well equipped to help its students |
|
|
|
|