Survey ID |
1381 |
Title |
COMP3231/9201/3891/9283 14s1 |
Description |
|
Anonymous |
Yes |
Fill Ratio |
78% (108/138) |
# Filled |
108 |
# Suspended |
3 |
# Not Filled |
27 |
|
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 |
Pretty similar
results to past years, albeit slightly
more positive.
Outliers are:
- Help
with technical questions is much higher
- I'll attribute that to piazza.
- Video
capture was also rated a little
higher this year - wonder why given
largely same approach.
|
|
Excellent |
|
Satisfactory |
|
Poor |
N/A |
N/F |
Lecturer: Kevin
Elphinstone |
66 (61%) |
34 (31%) |
8 (7%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
General OS
lectures |
40 (37%) |
56 (52%) |
12 (11%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Your tutor |
23 (21%) |
13 (12%) |
18 (17%) |
5 (5%) |
2 (2%) |
47 (44%) |
0
(0%) |
Tutorials |
24 (22%) |
18 (17%) |
18 (17%) |
3 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
44 (41%) |
0
(0%) |
Asst1:
Synchronisation |
51 (47%) |
39 (36%) |
16 (15%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Asst2: Syscalls
|
33 (31%) |
56 (52%) |
16 (15%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
1
(1%) |
Asst3: Virtual
Memory |
44 (41%) |
37 (34%) |
23 (21%) |
2 (2%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Textbook |
18 (17%) |
18 (17%) |
20 (19%) |
4 (4%) |
2 (2%) |
46 (43%) |
0
(0%) |
Computing
resources |
23 (21%) |
41 (38%) |
30 (28%) |
3 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
9 (8%) |
1
(1%) |
Course web page
|
32 (30%) |
38 (35%) |
36 (33%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Piazza message
board |
62 (57%) |
35 (32%) |
9 (8%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Wiki |
27 (25%) |
45 (42%) |
27 (25%) |
5 (5%) |
2 (2%) |
2 (2%) |
0
(0%) |
Help with
technical questions |
52 (48%) |
36 (33%) |
14 (13%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (3%) |
2
(2%) |
Lecture slides |
42 (39%) |
53 (49%) |
11 (10%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
1
(1%) |
Lecture video
capture |
66 (61%) |
28 (26%) |
8 (7%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (3%) |
0
(0%) |
Operating
Systems overall |
56 (52%) |
42 (39%) |
10 (9%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
|
|
|
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 |
61 (56%) |
38 (35%) |
8 (7%) |
1
(1%) |
Chance to get
hands dirty with low-level code |
60 (56%) |
36 (33%) |
12 (11%) |
0
(0%) |
Jobs propects
for OS hackers |
12 (11%) |
41 (38%) |
55 (51%) |
0
(0%) |
Would llike to
do OS research |
17 (16%) |
44 (41%) |
45 (42%) |
2
(2%) |
Course is core
for me |
20 (19%) |
23 (21%) |
64 (59%) |
1
(1%) |
Friends told me
it was good |
58 (54%) |
28 (26%) |
21 (19%) |
1
(1%) |
Chance to do
challenging programming assignments
|
63 (58%) |
30 (28%) |
14 (13%) |
1
(1%) |
|
|
3. |
Any other factor that
influenced your decision? |
|
Question type :
Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (48 comments) |
|
4. |
Would you
recommend this course to another student
such as yourself? |
|
Question type : Single
answer -- Radio Button |
Wow, this is
pretty high |
Yes |
105 (97%)
|
|
No |
3 (3%)
|
|
N/F |
0 (0%) |
|
|
5. |
Please provide
feedback on the kind of material covered
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
Students still
interested in seeing more of windows. This
next case study I develop will have to use
windows as an example. |
|
Too
much |
|
OK |
|
Too
little |
N/F |
High-level OS
issues |
1 (1%) |
12 (11%) |
89 (82%) |
6 (6%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Low-level
(implementation) issues |
1 (1%) |
15 (14%) |
77 (71%) |
15 (14%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
Unix/Linux |
2 (2%) |
13 (12%) |
76 (70%) |
14 (13%) |
3 (3%) |
0
(0%) |
Windows NT |
0 (0%) |
7 (6%) |
48 (44%) |
40 (37%) |
13 (12%) |
0
(0%) |
OS/161 Internals
|
7 (6%) |
20 (19%) |
70 (65%) |
10 (9%) |
1 (1%) |
0
(0%) |
Other Systems |
1 (1%) |
3 (3%) |
76 (70%) |
20 (19%) |
8 (7%) |
0
(0%) |
|
|
6. |
What were the best things
about this course? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (98 comments) |
|
7. |
What were the worst things
about this course? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (86 comments) |
|
8. |
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 |
A slight uptick
of lectures and downtick for tutorials,
nothing of concern though. |
|
Strongly
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Strongly
Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
Lectures |
72 (67%) |
28 (26%) |
4 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
4 (4%) |
0
(0%) |
Tutorials |
37 (34%) |
17 (16%) |
4 (4%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
47 (44%) |
0
(0%) |
|
|
9. |
How does the
quality/value of this course compare to
other....
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
|
A
general uptick this year.
|
Among
the best |
|
Average |
|
Among
the worst |
N/F |
Year 3 COMP
courses |
70 (65%) |
25 (23%) |
12 (11%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
1
(1%) |
COMP courses in
general |
69 (64%) |
26 (24%) |
11 (10%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
1
(1%) |
Courses in
general |
71 (66%) |
26 (24%) |
11 (10%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
0
(0%) |
|
|
10. |
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 (90 comments) |
|
11. |
Consultations were
underutilised during semester. Please
comment on why you did not take advantage
of the available consultations. (e.g.
inconvenient time, did not need, not
useful, etc..). |
|
Question type :
Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (93 comments) |
|
|
12. |
What topics
caused you the most difficulty? You can
select more than one item
|
|
Question type : Multiple answer --
Check Box |
The hard
technical parts of the course remain just
that. Consistent with past years. |
|
|
System calls |
21 (19%) |
Processes |
4 (4%) |
Threads |
5 (5%) |
Low-level
implementations issues |
28 (26%) |
Synchonisation
and concurrency |
18 (17%) |
Deadlock |
6 (6%) |
Memory
Management and Virtual Memory |
58 (54%) |
File Systems |
22 (20%) |
I/O Management |
23 (21%) |
Scheduling |
13 (12%) |
Multiprocessor
Systems |
39 (36%) |
|
|
13. |
Which material do you
think you will be most useful to you in
the future? |
|
Question type :
Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (97 comments) |
|
14. |
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 (67 comments) |
|
15. |
Which of the current
topics would you like to see scaled back
or excluded? |
|
Question type :
Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (63 comments) |
|
|
16. |
Is the current
mode of lecture delivery, using
computer-projected slides, effective? |
|
Question type : Single
answer -- Radio Button |
|
Yes |
105 (97%)
|
|
No |
1 (1%)
|
|
N/F |
2 (2%) |
|
|
17. |
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 |
33 (31%)
|
|
Most of the
time |
67 (62%)
|
|
Sometimes |
6 (6%)
|
|
Rarely |
0 (0%)
|
|
Never |
0 (0%)
|
|
N/F |
2 (2%) |
|
|
18. |
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 |
21 (19%)
|
|
Most of the
time |
63 (58%)
|
|
Sometimes |
7 (6%)
|
|
Rarely |
3 (3%)
|
|
Never |
0 (0%)
|
|
N/A |
12 (11%)
|
|
N/F |
2 (2%) |
|
|
19. |
The lectures
were captured again this year, and made
available on the course web site as h264
video. Please answer the following to
guide me going forward.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
The availability
of lecture videos was highly appreciated
again. The quality has proven sufficient 2
years running.
It seems that a significant minority 40%
skipped lectures in favour of watch video
offline. This is backed up by small
numbers attending lectures.
My queries attempting to find out if
students struggled to find time/keep up
with the material when skipping lectures
seems to indicate it is not an issue.
Students also seem okay with adding extra
support material for the course in the
form of video.
|
|
Strongly
Agree |
Agree |
Indifferent |
Disagree |
Strongly
Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
I found the
lecture videos useful |
56 (52%) |
42 (39%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
5 (5%) |
2
(2%) |
The quality of
the sound was sufficient to follow
the lectures |
51 (47%) |
42 (39%) |
3 (3%) |
2 (2%) |
2 (2%) |
6 (6%) |
2
(2%) |
I used the
lecture video at least once. |
62 (57%) |
38 (35%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
3 (3%) |
3 (3%) |
2
(2%) |
I mostly used
the lecture videos instead of
attending lectures. |
16 (15%) |
25 (23%) |
17 (16%) |
22 (20%) |
19 (18%) |
7 (6%) |
2
(2%) |
I used the
lecture videos instead of attending
lectures, and struggled to keep pace
with the course. (select N/A if you
mostly attended lectures) |
7 (6%) |
9 (8%) |
8 (7%) |
19 (18%) |
11 (10%) |
51 (47%) |
3
(3%) |
The screen
captures are better than what
echo360 offers. |
36 (33%) |
22 (20%) |
24 (22%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
22 (20%) |
3
(3%) |
Having extra
pre-recorded material available
would be useful (e.g. debugging,
svn, assignment tips). |
42 (39%) |
38 (35%) |
19 (18%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
4 (4%) |
3
(3%) |
Video recordings
should be limited to what is covered
in lectures. |
4 (4%) |
16 (15%) |
34 (31%) |
26 (24%) |
17 (16%) |
7 (6%) |
4
(4%) |
720P video
resolution is sufficient. |
44 (41%) |
42 (39%) |
11 (10%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
5 (5%) |
4
(4%) |
|
|
20. |
If you have not been
attending lectures, what factors
influenced your decision not to attend? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (63 comments) |
|
21. |
Any suggestions for
improving lectures (including the lecture
video captures)? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (60 comments) |
|
22. |
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 (31 comments) |
|
|
23. |
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 |
Pretty similar
to previous years, except a small downtick
in the first question. |
|
Strongly
Agree |
|
Neutral |
|
Strongly
Disagree |
N/A |
N/F |
The tutorials
helped me understand the material |
24 (22%) |
32 (30%) |
11 (10%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
36 (33%) |
4
(4%) |
The questions
were appropriately timed |
22 (20%) |
29 (27%) |
13 (12%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
37 (34%) |
4
(4%) |
The questions
were of appropriate difficulty |
20 (19%) |
26 (24%) |
20 (19%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
36 (33%) |
4
(4%) |
The questions
should have increased difficulty |
6 (6%) |
8 (7%) |
37 (34%) |
12 (11%) |
5 (5%) |
36 (33%) |
4
(4%) |
The number of
questions was appropriate |
10 (9%) |
29 (27%) |
23 (21%) |
5 (5%) |
0 (0%) |
37 (34%) |
4
(4%) |
The number of
questions should be expanded |
8 (7%) |
17 (16%) |
35 (32%) |
6 (6%) |
2 (2%) |
36 (33%) |
4
(4%) |
I always
prepared for the tutorials |
6 (6%) |
15 (14%) |
21 (19%) |
15 (14%) |
5 (5%) |
42 (39%) |
4
(4%) |
Preparation
beforehand improved my understanding
of the material |
13 (12%) |
28 (26%) |
18 (17%) |
1 (1%) |
1 (1%) |
43 (40%) |
4
(4%) |
Class
participation is important for
understanding the material |
14 (13%) |
20 (19%) |
18 (17%) |
7 (6%) |
4 (4%) |
40 (37%) |
5
(5%) |
Occasional
tutorials being out of sync with
lectures (due to public holidays
etc..) is not a problem |
11 (10%) |
28 (26%) |
20 (19%) |
3 (3%) |
1 (1%) |
41 (38%) |
4
(4%) |
|
|
24. |
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 |
We had a new
tutor this year and an experienced one.
The survey reflects this. I'll give
feedback to the new tutor to improve for
next time. |
|
Excellent |
|
OK |
|
Poor |
N/A |
N/F |
Tutor A |
29 (27%) |
9 (8%) |
5 (5%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
58 (54%) |
5
(5%) |
Tutor B |
8 (7%) |
8 (7%) |
10 (9%) |
2 (2%) |
2 (2%) |
71 (66%) |
7
(6%) |
|
|
25. |
Any suggestions for
improving tutorials?
|
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (40 comments) |
|
|
26. |
Please rate
the level of difficulty of the assignments
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
Pretty similar
to previous years |
|
Too
easy |
|
Just
right |
|
Too
difficult |
N/F |
Asst1:
Synchonisation |
12 (11%) |
21 (19%) |
70 (65%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
3
(3%) |
Asst2: System
Calls |
1 (1%) |
5 (5%) |
57 (53%) |
38 (35%) |
4 (4%) |
3
(3%) |
Asst3: Virtual
Memory |
0 (0%) |
1 (1%) |
50 (46%) |
37 (34%) |
17 (16%) |
3
(3%) |
|
|
27. |
How well was
each assignment specified (taking into
account a significant part of the
assignments is understanding what to do
from the commented code itself)?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
|
|
Very
clearly |
|
OK |
|
Confusing |
N/F |
Asst1:
Synchonisation |
42 (39%) |
25 (23%) |
34 (31%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
4
(4%) |
Asst2: System
Calls |
14 (13%) |
26 (24%) |
34 (31%) |
24 (22%) |
7 (6%) |
3
(3%) |
Asst3: Virtual
Memory |
16 (15%) |
27 (25%) |
29 (27%) |
24 (22%) |
9 (8%) |
3
(3%) |
|
|
28. |
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 |
48 (44%) |
34 (31%) |
22 (20%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
3
(3%) |
Asst2: System
Calls |
24 (22%) |
26 (24%) |
37 (34%) |
15 (14%) |
3 (3%) |
3
(3%) |
Asst3: Virtual
Memory |
21 (19%) |
33 (31%) |
33 (31%) |
16 (15%) |
2 (2%) |
3
(3%) |
|
|
29. |
How confident
were you with the following low-level and
general programming concepts PRIOR to the
course.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
My general aim
with this question was to get a feel for
programming experience.
It confirms my suspicions that a
significant body of students have little
experience with "tools of the trade"
outside seemingly simple programming
tasks.
Specifically, POSIX/System programming,
debugging, source code version control,
and source navigation which are
tangential, but helpful to the course, are
lacking.
|
|
Expert
(e.g. > 100hrs) |
Solid
experience (e.g. < 100hrs) |
Some
experience (e.g. < 10hrs) |
Little
to no experience (e.g. < 1hr) |
Never
heard of it before |
N/F |
C programming |
29 (27%) |
60 (56%) |
15 (14%) |
1 (1%) |
0 (0%) |
3
(3%) |
C pointers |
23 (21%) |
49 (45%) |
30 (28%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
4
(4%) |
C pointer
arithmetic |
18 (17%) |
46 (43%) |
35 (32%) |
6 (6%) |
0 (0%) |
3
(3%) |
Compilation
toolchains (gcc, ld) |
8 (7%) |
24 (22%) |
48 (44%) |
21 (19%) |
4 (4%) |
3
(3%) |
Debugging with
GDB or similar |
3 (3%) |
18 (17%) |
36 (33%) |
34 (31%) |
14 (13%) |
3
(3%) |
POSIX
programming |
5 (5%) |
11 (10%) |
18 (17%) |
26 (24%) |
45 (42%) |
3
(3%) |
Assembler
programming (on any platform) |
7 (6%) |
36 (33%) |
46 (43%) |
15 (14%) |
1 (1%) |
3
(3%) |
Source code
version control |
13 (12%) |
24 (22%) |
34 (31%) |
23 (21%) |
10 (9%) |
4
(4%) |
Source code
navigation (cscope, gtags, ctags or
similar) |
4 (4%) |
6 (6%) |
11 (10%) |
41 (38%) |
43 (40%) |
3
(3%) |
|
|
30. |
How confident
are you with the following low-level and
general programming concepts AFTER the
course?
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
Nice to see that
OS resulted in a general perception of
improved programming-related skills, in
addition to OS itself. |
|
Expert
(now part of your programming
toolbox) |
Could
use the concept elsewhere with a
little effort |
Now
roughly know what it is |
Still
have no idea |
N/F |
C programming |
66 (61%) |
35 (32%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
4
(4%) |
C pointers |
58 (54%) |
42 (39%) |
4 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
4
(4%) |
C pointer
arithmetic |
55 (51%) |
44 (41%) |
5 (5%) |
0 (0%) |
4
(4%) |
Compilation
toolchains (gcc, ld) |
21 (19%) |
56 (52%) |
25 (23%) |
2 (2%) |
4
(4%) |
Debugging with
GDB or similar |
16 (15%) |
57 (53%) |
27 (25%) |
4 (4%) |
4
(4%) |
POSIX
programming |
12 (11%) |
34 (31%) |
34 (31%) |
24 (22%) |
4
(4%) |
Assembler
programming (on any platform) |
23 (21%) |
54 (50%) |
25 (23%) |
2 (2%) |
4
(4%) |
Source code
version control |
30 (28%) |
53 (49%) |
18 (17%) |
3 (3%) |
4
(4%) |
Source code
navigation (cscope, gtags, ctags or
similar) |
20 (19%) |
43 (40%) |
24 (22%) |
15 (14%) |
6
(6%) |
|
|
31. |
Which source
code version control system were you most
familiar with BEFORE taking the course. |
|
Question type : Single
answer -- Radio Button |
Hmm, git is
pretty popular. I'm wary of git do to its
"power" (i.e. ten different way to do the
same thing). SVN in the past has been robust
and relatively simple. I will consider
just switching to git if there is a
general familiarity with it. However, not
confident it is the right choice for the
20% who are first timers. |
git |
78 (72%)
|
|
hg (mercurial)
|
0 (0%)
|
|
svn
(subversion) |
6 (6%)
|
|
other |
1 (1%)
|
|
I had not used
version control before |
20 (19%)
|
|
N/F |
3 (3%) |
|
|
32. |
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? |
3 (3%) |
3 (3%) |
15 (14%) |
28 (26%) |
56 (52%) |
3
(3%) |
|
|
33. |
Any suggestions for
improving the assignments? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (60 comments) |
|
7.
COMP3891/9283 Extended Operating Systems
|
|
Skip this section if you did not do
COMP3891/9283 Extended Operating Systems.
|
|
Extended OS aims to be an informal
lecture on selected advanced topics from
real systems, research areas, or state of
the art. It also aims to cover OS/161 in
more depth to prime students for the
advanced assignments. |
|
34. |
Please answer
the following.
|
|
Question type : Single answer -- Radio
Button |
|
|
Strongly
Agree |
Agree |
Indifferent |
Disagree |
Strongly
Disagree |
N/F |
EOS should be
assessed differently to OS. |
3 (3%) |
25 (23%) |
17 (16%) |
3 (3%) |
0 (0%) |
60
(56%) |
Compared to OS,
completing EOS should indicate a
greater OS understanding and level
of achievement. |
15 (14%) |
29 (27%) |
4 (4%) |
0 (0%) |
0 (0%) |
60
(56%) |
Having separate
exams is a good way to differentiate
EOS from OS. |
13 (12%) |
29 (27%) |
4 (4%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
60
(56%) |
Requiring
completion of a subset of the
advanced assignments is a reasonable
way to achieve a higher "bar" for
EOS. |
13 (12%) |
29 (27%) |
4 (4%) |
2 (2%) |
0 (0%) |
60
(56%) |
Only automarking
the advanced assignments is OK. |
3 (3%) |
12 (11%) |
14 (13%) |
17 (16%) |
2 (2%) |
60
(56%) |
EOS should have
tutorials in addition to the extra
lecture. |
5 (5%) |
16 (15%) |
18 (17%) |
6 (6%) |
3 (3%) |
60
(56%) |
EOS should be
more formal and structured like OS.
|
3 (3%) |
9 (8%) |
23 (21%) |
9 (8%) |
4 (4%) |
60
(56%) |
The advanced
assignment components were too
large. |
3 (3%) |
17 (16%) |
16 (15%) |
8 (7%) |
4 (4%) |
60
(56%) |
The advanced
assignments should be worth a higher
fraction of the EOS mark. |
8 (7%) |
14 (13%) |
20 (19%) |
4 (4%) |
2 (2%) |
60
(56%) |
|
|
35. |
How would you
rate extended OS as a whole? |
|
Question type : Single
answer -- Radio Button |
Slight improvement
this year.
|
Excellent |
19 (18%)
|
|
|
25 (23%)
|
|
Average |
4 (4%)
|
|
|
1 (1%)
|
|
Poor |
0 (0%)
|
|
N/A |
3 (3%)
|
|
N/F |
56 (52%) |
|
|
36. |
Any suggestions for
improving COMP3891/9283 Extended OS? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (23 comments) |
|
|
37. |
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 |
4 (4%) |
6 (6%) |
47 (44%) |
45 (42%) |
3 (3%) |
3
(3%) |
The exam overall
was too short - i.e. it should be 3
hours |
6 (6%) |
12 (11%) |
29 (27%) |
40 (37%) |
18 (17%) |
3
(3%) |
The exam should
contain more True/False questions |
2 (2%) |
8 (7%) |
35 (32%) |
40 (37%) |
18 (17%) |
5
(5%) |
The exam gave me
the oppurtunity to demonstrate my
understanding of operating systems |
21 (19%) |
55 (51%) |
19 (18%) |
10 (9%) |
0 (0%) |
3
(3%) |
I think my exam
result will be representative of my
operating systems knowledge |
13 (12%) |
48 (44%) |
30 (28%) |
12 (11%) |
2 (2%) |
3
(3%) |
The final
assessment should be weighted more
towards the exam |
3 (3%) |
13 (12%) |
39 (36%) |
33 (31%) |
17 (16%) |
3
(3%) |
|
|
38. |
Do you have any particular
comments you would like to make about the
exam? |
|
Question type : Long-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (56 comments) |
|
|
39. |
This year we
trialled Piazza as an additional medium
for student support. Please choose one of
the following. |
|
Question type : Single
answer -- Radio Button |
|
Keep using
Piazza. |
91 (84%)
|
|
Get rid of it.
|
2 (2%)
|
|
I do not have
an opinion of it. |
12 (11%)
|
|
N/F |
3 (3%) |
|
|
40. |
Any comments on the use of
Piazza? |
|
Question type :
Short-answer |
|
Answer at the bottom
page (64 comments) |
|
41. |
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 |
3 (3%)
|
|
|
5 (5%)
|
|
Just right |
89 (82%)
|
|
|
2 (2%)
|
|
Too harsh |
2 (2%)
|
|
N/F |
7 (6%) |
|
|
42. |
What do you
think your final result will be for the
course? |
|
Question type : Single
answer -- Radio Button |
|
HD |
19 (18%)
|
|
DN |
36 (33%)
|
|
CR |
29 (27%)
|
|
PS |
7 (6%)
|
|
FL |
0 (0%)
|
|
No Idea |
14 (13%)
|
|
N/F |
3 (3%) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Back to Summary |
3. |
Any
other factor that influenced your
decision? |
|
1: |
no |
|
2: |
General interest and course content |
|
3: |
NA |
|
4: |
I can't graduate if I don't pass this
course. |
|
5: |
Mostly friends who recommended me this
course |
|
6: |
I believe that understanding OS is
extremely important in a computing degree |
|
7: |
The knowledge the course provides seems
like good core knowledge to have for anyone
working with computers |
|
8: |
N/A |
|
9: |
It's good to know about all fields of
Computing; even the ones that I'm bad at |
|
10: |
I happened to be on industrial placement
for co-op which ironically gives me the
greatest amount of time to focus on a single
subject. |
|
11: |
prereq to advanced courses (AOS,
distributed, etc) |
|
12: |
Get some concurrency knowledge |
|
13: |
chicken is tasty white meat! Try
crocodile! |
|
14: |
No |
|
15: |
No |
|
16: |
No |
|
17: |
Was told it was an extremely useful course |
|
18: |
reputed by word of mouth as a 'must do'
course for comp sci |
|
19: |
no |
|
20: |
Not only students say it's a good course,
but also lecturers of other subjects. |
|
21: |
N/A |
|
22: |
No |
|
23: |
For the further possible requirement of my
job |
|
24: |
I think understanding OSes is a big step
to understanding computers in general |
|
25: |
I heard UNSW had a great OS course. |
|
26: |
no |
|
27: |
I thought programming would be fun
(Electrical Engineering Major) |
|
28: |
Just sounded really interesting to be able
to learn about the systems that enable
humans to actually use computers. |
|
29: |
Didn't have any knowledge of OS. |
|
30: |
challenging course assignment |
|
31: |
Wanted to get a taste of AOS |
|
32: |
Nope |
|
33: |
Understanding how a computer really works |
|
34: |
No, mostly covered in Q2 |
|
35: |
It |
|
36: |
Interest in the field |
|
37: |
I just wanted to know how operating
systems worked :D |
|
38: |
interesting |
|
39: |
More or less gneral interest. Also highly
recommended amongst peers in same program.
(EE elective) |
|
40: |
AOS |
|
41: |
A chance to broaden my knowledge base. |
|
42: |
Someone I know believes that it's
essential for a CS degree. |
|
43: |
My cs2041 tutor said it was good |
|
44: |
It's often touted by other students as a
should-be core course. |
|
45: |
Seems like a fundamental knowledge area
for CS |
|
46: |
No |
|
47: |
OS should be core knowledge for any CS
major |
|
48: |
No |
|
6. |
What
were the best things about this course? |
|
1: |
The moment asst 3 worked. It was really
hard, but also really rewarding when we got
it out.
I really enjoyed the tuts (looking at the
problems on a practical level) ; I felt they
balanced the mostly theoretical lectures out
nicely |
|
2: |
Overall the programming tasks were
interesting. |
|
3: |
Challenging assignments
Interesting content
Excellent tutor |
|
4: |
Comprehensive material |
|
5: |
Content was interesting, important and
relevant.
Material covering the content was good.
Assignment helped a lot with learning the
content. |
|
6: |
Lectures and assignments |
|
7: |
machine level algorithms |
|
8: |
Learning about the building blocks on
which the OS's I use everyday are built on.
Understanding these systems i just blindly
use is really worth doing. |
|
9: |
-Topic was extremely interesting and
important to know about.
-Good lecturer that obviously cared about
the course
-Assignments were challenging at times |
|
10: |
Assignments were great.
|
|
11: |
Lecture videos, assignments, lecturer |
|
12: |
Learning about how operating systems work,
the problems encountered by OS programmers
that I would never have thought of. Just
interesting in general and it's good to see
the history, how the OS has involved and
where it relates to real world examples in
current/previous OSs. |
|
13: |
It isn't as messy as other level 3 comp
courses |
|
14: |
Very well balanced course, hands on
learning experience. Assignments were very
good for learning the material, there was
little difficulty in understanding course
material once an assignment was done. |
|
15: |
Video lectures, great slides, great layout
of assignment specifications. |
|
16: |
The course was very engaging because it
explained how the OS I took for granted
worked. Concepts such concurrency and
different algorithms were very interesting
to look at. |
|
17: |
The assignments are very interesting and
challenging. They also encourage students to
extensively use version control and
debugging software. |
|
18: |
Challenging and useful assignments. |
|
19: |
Assignment work |
|
20: |
Assignments
Range of Content
Organisation |
|
21: |
Really interesting content. Learned a lot.
Can see how things learned can apply to not
only OS but a lot of other issues
surrounding computing in general |
|
22: |
The assignments were
challenging, debugging was painful but very
satisfying when successful. Keep the lenient
late policy, we would have given up rather
than pushing for a complete solution if it
weren't for it. Thanks
for confirmation it is having the desired
effect. |
|
23: |
Hands on O/S internals experience, good
opportunity to learn processes/threads/user
level program running and kernel operations. |
|
24: |
deep approach on particular OS like os/161 |
|
25: |
Lecture Slides |
|
26: |
The content was well structured and
prepared. I got the feeling that the
lecturer was guiding us down a path because
his slides seemed to intuitively answer
questions raised in lectures |
|
27: |
Hands-on, fun assignments, interesting
lectures, help available whenever |
|
28: |
Great slides, really interesting content,
video lectures are the best. |
|
29: |
The content was interesting; the lectures
were generally engaging. Having the lectures
recorded has been absolutely excellent and
has helped a lot with studying and with any
missed lectures due to illness. The
assignments have been really fun. |
|
30: |
It was definitely interesting, and by far
the most useful course I've ever done. |
|
31: |
The 'aha' moment when finishing the hard
assignments. |
|
32: |
The Extended Lectures were very
interesting, especially addressing more
complex issues and getting a look into the
actual literature. |
|
33: |
> chance to get low and dirty with OS
> great conceptual understanding of
something sophisticated i use everyday
> good lecture slides supplemented by
good lecturing and videos
> piazza was friendly and lecturer was
approachable there |
|
34: |
The assignments were the most challenging
and therefore most rewarding aspect of this
course. Great experience working with an OS. |
|
35: |
Assignments - working on a large codebase
which was written by someone else. |
|
36: |
Kevin's delivery. |
|
37: |
Incredibly interesting content
Assignments very good for learning |
|
38: |
Interesting to get into the nitty gritty
of operating systems and having an
understanding of what needs to be done. |
|
39: |
Interesting, generally engaging lectures.
Recordings were very helpful for studying. |
|
40: |
Best was teaching of concurrency issues,
(as I think this is very important to many
different computing fields). |
|
41: |
Interesting content, challenging
assignments, engaging lectures |
|
42: |
Besides acquiring very clear concepts and
structure about operating system, I get some
chance to peek how OS/161 works. |
|
43: |
Well structured, good energy, lots of
ressources. |
|
44: |
Getting to learn something that I believe
will be very useful and relevant in the
future |
|
45: |
Videos are helpful |
|
46: |
Content |
|
47: |
Threads and Synchronisation also Virtual
memory made me understand how computers work |
|
48: |
Very challenging
Demanded hard work |
|
49: |
Assignments |
|
50: |
Breadth of material covered and the
assignments were hard and challenging but
worthwhile. |
|
51: |
The exposure to the OS mechanism. |
|
52: |
Good lecture, well organized and excellent
support |
|
53: |
The assignments - awesome. |
|
54: |
Fantastic to understand the operating
system in our laptop we use everyday, so
much in depth. |
|
55: |
Very interesting, lots of useful content
covered and the support online was really
helpful. |
|
56: |
material, general knowledge of OS |
|
57: |
Heaps of materials: lecture recordings,
wiki, piazza, answers to tutorials and
probably more that I missed. |
|
58: |
Lectures recording was a huge help, most
handy resource for the course |
|
59: |
Deal with all the assignment |
|
60: |
Really interesting topics
Wide variety in knowledge about OSes |
|
61: |
Assignment depth: concurrency, vfs, file
management.
Online lecture allowed for me to revise
content.
Piazza was very useful! As some of the
problems I experienced in my understanding
or assignments were shared and asked by
others
|
|
62: |
Challenging assignments |
|
63: |
Information resources (recordings, slides,
piazza), great email coverage so nothing got
missed. Solid support network available. |
|
64: |
Piazza
Lecture recordings |
|
65: |
Challenging, interesting |
|
66: |
challenging |
|
67: |
Very enjoyable and relevant final exam.
Recorded lectures for picking up small
details left out in slides
Very clear goals with regard to
understanding of operating systems
Challenging content |
|
68: |
Well structured and fun |
|
69: |
the assignments |
|
70: |
challenging assignments |
|
71: |
Kevin's a great lecturer, lecture videos
very helpful, challenging assignments that
make you feel like you really learned
something |
|
72: |
Kevin is an awesome lecturer and the
course is run very well. |
|
73: |
Online lecture videos |
|
74: |
The assignments: I learned a lot from them
(sometimes things not covered in lectures -
like how to design waitpid) and they covered
many of the major topic areas
The help offered on Piazza was also very
good and helped with my understanding even
though I personally didn't ask anything |
|
75: |
course is split between basic and extended |
|
76: |
Real system implementation for
understanding the details of OS related the
course. |
|
77: |
Well structured, clear assignments |
|
78: |
The assignments gave me in-depth knowledge
of operating systems. |
|
79: |
Know the basic implementation of OS |
|
80: |
Synchronisation assignment, knowledgeable
instructor |
|
81: |
new area |
|
82: |
It was interesting and challenging.
The piazza forums worked well. |
|
83: |
A great insight to the operating system
which until this course, was a general
mystery symbolised by the Windows Logo and
the blue screen of death. |
|
84: |
Teaching me about the internals of an OS,
helped me to better understand computing in
general. Learning about concurrency
(issues/solutions etc.) was very useful as
well. |
|
85: |
The tutorials and assignment lectures were
good |
|
86: |
Assignments were fun, good amount of
detail into most topics |
|
87: |
Challenging assignments that were also
helpful for learning. An organised lecturer
who knew how to teach well. |
|
88: |
The discovery aspect was good - i.e., we
have all the pieces, but we need to find out
how to put them together.
|
|
89: |
It was fun implementing parts of an OS |
|
90: |
Fun, hands on assignments
Good ratio of theory vs prac
Interesting and useful course content |
|
91: |
The tutorials and the relevancy of all
these topics. We deal with Operating Systems
every single day. Now I know how they work.
I was able to explain to non-Comp Sci majors
what i was learning and they understood. |
|
92: |
Excellent lecturer Kevin :)
Really interesting content |
|
93: |
Lecture recordings, assignments, content,
everything, etc. |
|
94: |
Challenging assignments, interesting
lectures |
|
95: |
Assignments and theory behind how OS
works. |
|
96: |
The chance to get hands on with
implementing an operating system. |
|
97: |
Course material is well-organised and
planned. Kevin is a very good lecturer with
a very clear and natural presentation style.
Personally really appreciate the lecture
recordings (and the quality of them) because
it allowed me to review material when I
couldn't keep up in lectures (I have
difficulty paying attention sometimes) or to
catch up when I couldn't make it to a
lecture for whatever reason. Lecture
recordings being made available soon after
the lecture took place really helped to
ensure that I did not fall behind in the
course.
My tutor was also very knowledgeable and
very helpful and encouraging. |
|
98: |
useful and help me to know how the OS is
working |
|
7. |
What
were the worst things about this course? |
|
1: |
The lectures were very fast paced and it
was hard to keep up since I like writing
notes. The recordings helped though because
I could pause periodically
Subversion was slightly annoying to use
partly because I wasn't used to it and
partly because it didn't seem to work as
well as other version control systems in
terms of merging and branches.
The course is not wed to SVN, and it
appears we are approaching the point of
the general cohort being familiar with git.
We'll seriously consider switching to git
next year.
|
|
2: |
File systems are boring and the
assignments (especially assignment 3) were
very difficult |
|
3: |
no |
|
4: |
The last assignment with many problem time
consuming and path fix |
|
5: |
I wish we had smaller milestone 'labs' to
do so that we could be more comfortable with
manipulating low level code instead of being
thrown off the deep end |
|
6: |
It was hard to get started on assignment
2. An additional lecture discussing the
assignment like for assignment 3 would be
very helpful. |
|
7: |
Challenging assignments |
|
8: |
Would prefer something like Labs to get a
better understanding of OS161 |
|
9: |
Getting it wrong early leads to a lot
pain. |
|
10: |
Unforgiving assignment marking |
|
11: |
Slow feedback on assessments, EOS had too
little scope with regard to assessment marks
and tasks. Some EOS content hard to relate
to the core course (Rollback/Rollforward) |
|
12: |
Harmonic mean Time to do assignment 1 is
too big, leaves little time for assignment 2 |
|
13: |
The amount of content covered made for a
not great studying experience...but it's not
really a problem since less content would've
made it less interesting :P |
|
14: |
not providing enough info on other OS on
how different OS work differently |
|
15: |
I wanted to get into more depth with
scheduling (eg: have an assignment for it).
Too large of a focus on what didn't work or
what was old/history. |
|
16: |
The teamwork - for assignments two and
three it became difficult to coordinate for
the amount of time that was necessary to
spend together, so despite being a pair
assignment it ended up being a lot more one
sided work wise. People with partners who
are unreachable or do not participate are
also disadvantaged. Whilst I was happy with
my second partner (especially after my
useless first one), I nonetheless believe I
could've finished earlier and understood the
assignment better if I had done it alone
with the assistance to understanding offered
by Piazza. |
|
17: |
Bugs were often hard to debug |
|
18: |
Lectures too long |
|
19: |
Assignments felt a bit too 'hacky'
(getting things you're aware of to work)
rather than really figuring out/bringing
things together to work. |
|
20: |
Having the lectures in biomed was bad;
having to run from CLB to biomed for EOS was
quite annoying and meant we lost a bit of
time. The assignments felt a bit rushed even
when we started early and worked on them
regularly - I think because initially we
didn't know enough to be able to know what
we needed to do, and trying to work it out
felt like scrambling around blindly; by the
time we were finished everything made sense
though. |
|
21: |
Sometimes concepts were not as well
motivated as I would have liked it to be. A
lot of concepts were but when it came to
OS161 implementation details there were a
lot of things that I was unsure about, and
why it was implemented in a certain way,
rather I just took a few things for granted
(especially in the assignments) |
|
22: |
I think extended students should either
have their own tutorials or be made to
attend regular tutorials as well. |
|
23: |
The assignments weren't worst for their
difficulty but |
|
24: |
-There were a few issues but I don't think
they were bad enough to warrant me filling
this in. (see my other responses) |
|
25: |
Sometimes lectures were too complex and
did not explain topics too well, and
therefore required a lot of reading outside
of uni. |
|
26: |
Biomed! Agreed
:-) |
|
27: |
We need more time for assignment 3. |
|
28: |
Easy to fall behind if you missed a key
concept |
|
29: |
Harmonic means are scary |
|
30: |
Took up the bulk of my time. |
|
31: |
Biomedical Theatres. I know lecturers do
not choose the lecture hall, but I still had
to complain about this somewhere.. |
|
32: |
Assignment spec was a bit cryptic
sometimes. Timing of Assignment 2 was poor |
|
33: |
Lectures weren't that great but I'm not
sure why. Unfortunately I fell asleep in
most of them. Not sure what can be done to
improve. Timing wise, the sample exam was
not true to the actual exam. Sample exam had
only 16 T/F questions and only 74 marks
total while the actual final exam had 25 T/F
questions and 98 (+2) marks total. However,
there was still enough time to finish the
exam. It is just that the sample was a
little too short so the final could catch
people off guard if they were timing
themselves at home and doing the sample
question. There
was 100-ish exam-like questions on the
wiki in addition to the one exam. |
|
34: |
The content was sometimes very difficult
to understand, though I'm not sure that
there's much that could be done about that
given the amount of content there was. |
|
35: |
I am not satisfied with the ass marks. |
|
36: |
Lots of time needed for assignments |
|
37: |
Not really much. |
|
38: |
Going through assembly language is not
that fun. |
|
39: |
The difficulty of the last assignment. |
|
40: |
Lectures were sometimes slow in pace |
|
41: |
none |
|
42: |
Would have preferred to have just a small
amount more of a look at modern operating
systems actually do things - I wouldn't want
an assignment on buddy or slab allocators,
but I'd have liked to know what they are,
esp in extended.
I thought that the assignments were perhaps
not explained fully from the get go. I
personally wasted a lot of time in the later
assignments creating structures that didn't
quite work because I'd misunderstood what
went where. I ended up resolving this issue
by reading a lot of the OS161 guides and
labs on the internet, as well as perusing a
number of complete copies of OS161 that
aren't very hard to find on Github. I
actually wish i had known about these
resources earlier than I did.
|
|
43: |
Occasionally slower lectures
Lecture locations. |
|
44: |
Freeloading of assignment partner. |
|
45: |
The stress of the assignments.. |
|
46: |
content is very heavy sometimes |
|
47: |
Assignments |
|
48: |
Lectures notes could have more detail |
|
49: |
None |
|
50: |
The amount of detail in this course was
staggering, given I was undertaking a full
semester loading I probably would have
struggled immensely to keep up. |
|
51: |
Wish we could attend a different tutorial
if we had to miss one and still get credit. |
|
52: |
Mobile OS missing |
|
53: |
Not sure if this is relevant, but would've
been good to see more low level stuff (hacky
assembly things you don't get to see
anywhere else, processor specific examples).
For example things that OS's did or
functionality that CPU's provided that was
gradually phased out because it was
unnecessary. But that's probably just me. |
|
54: |
the tutorials |
|
55: |
Hardness. |
|
56: |
The assignments were extremely difficult
to start. Once the very basic things were
done they became reasonable assignments, but
the hurdle to get started was extremely
difficult to get past. |
|
57: |
up to date ??? |
|
58: |
None. |
|
59: |
teamwork is not good for this kind of
assignments(talking about the base OS
course) |
|
60: |
Starting the assignments. I had no idea
where to begin sometimes and it stressed me
out. |
|
61: |
hard |
|
62: |
deadly assignments.. especially ass3.
spent more than 5 days to finish it |
|
63: |
Tutorials. I had one great tutor who came
in 2 or 3 weeks, and the other weeks the
tutor was not so good. She was very quiet,
got the impression she didn't know how to
phrase things more than 1 way so couldn't
see what you were getting at trying to
explain things, tutes were boring and not
very interesting. |
|
64: |
Some of the assignments I did feel a lot
out of my comfort zone, e.g. I found the
forking component of the assignment very
difficult to figure out. |
|
65: |
Nothing much to complain but maybe change
the way class participation marks are given.
|
|
66: |
The challenging assignments that make you
feel like you really learned something. Took
up so much time! Also didn't like how my
tutorials were run, everyone (including
myself) wants the class participation marks.
Makes it seem artificial and didn't have
natural flow. Just people shooting their
hands up to answer questions. |
|
67: |
Felt that some assignments could have used
more explanation/direction (perhaps
intentional?) |
|
68: |
Setting up everything.
Also, sometimes the assignments got a bit
too confusing. |
|
69: |
My partner. Group assignments can be bad
if teamed up with a bad partner... hard to
avoid. |
|
70: |
Somewhat unguided extended components of
the assignments, especially asst02.
Very little documentation/guidance was
provided.
It felt like we had to already be extremely
knowledgeable about operating systems, and
possibly OS/161 in order to achieve the
harder tasks of the extended components.
|
|
71: |
The dirty bit needs a far better
explanation. |
|
72: |
Lost some mark in assignment due to code
style. When I work at day with php and java,
sometimes it is easy to miss switching. |
|
73: |
not easy to understand |
|
74: |
I thought the third assignment was a huge
step up in terms of difficulty.
|
|
75: |
I did not like the assignments, mostly for
personal interests reasons though. |
|
76: |
There do tend be some very big gaps in
learning about the theory of Operating
Systems and how they are actually
implemented. The pseudo code really helps
but since we don't have labs there tends to
feel like we're also learning how the
program the OS to do the assignments. |
|
77: |
The file systems topic was rather tedious |
|
78: |
None |
|
79: |
I thought the file system topic was a bit
dry. Not the implementation (i-nodes, open
file tables) but instead the file names,
directory, working directory part. I/O was a
bit difficult to understand. |
|
80: |
1. Trying to figure out how to do fork()
in assignment 2. I read over the OS161 code,
but was so confused and had no idea. I felt
really lost, and no one could really tell me
without giving it away entirely, and I
wanted to figure it out alone. So I didn't
like that feeling of hopelessness that came
with not being able to figure it out. 2. I
was partnered with someone really
disorganised, and so the assignments went
badly for me, which I felt I didn't deserve,
as with someone better organised I could
have gone better. But that isn't the fault
of the course. |
|
81: |
Usage of SVN. |
|
82: |
Nothing in particular |
|
83: |
My partner |
|
84: |
OS161 teaching not very guided, found the
OS161 specific tutorial exercises basically
impossible on my own |
|
85: |
A lot of content to absorb, and it's easy
to forget content that isn't reinforced
through assignments |
|
86: |
NA |
|
10. |
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: |
Personnaly, a little bit more C knowledge
would have helped, but the official
pre-requisites are adequate. |
|
2: |
The official pre-requisites is sufficient
enough to understand the course, perhaps an
induction/C revision lecture online would be
useful as there was a 1 year interval for a
lot of students since the last time they had
to use C. |
|
3: |
NA |
|
4: |
Nothing really, VM is just hard.. |
|
5: |
COMP2121 is relevant. |
|
6: |
Not missing anything, prereqs are
suitable. |
|
7: |
none. Since I'm a com.eng student and know
about low level machine, such as MIPS
machine already. Other students such as
comp.sci students maybe get confused with
some low level language |
|
8: |
Having done Comp1927 and COMP2121, I
haven't been in the situation where the
course expects some background knowledge
that I didn't have. So the pre-requisites
are suitable, I'd say. |
|
9: |
n/a |
|
10: |
C pointers and syntax. Yes, but I
transferred from a different university and
did not learn C. |
|
11: |
A bit of history about OSes |
|
12: |
Pre-requisites are suitable |
|
13: |
COMP1927 and COMP2121 are sufficient. |
|
14: |
The pre-requisites were good, but
pre-existing knowledge of source code
management would have been an excellent
recommended pre-requisite |
|
15: |
The official prerequisites are good
preparation. |
|
16: |
I think my background knowledge was
adequate. I think the prerequisite of
comp2121 should be removed since the only
thing that I found to be crucial was knowing
what an interrupt is which could easily be
explained in less than 10 minutes.
However I do feel as though the course
(assignments specifically) require some
level of programming maturity so maybe
removing the comp2121 prereq and having a
warning that this is a third year course
would be good? |
|
17: |
Having not taken any 2nd year comp courses
I did find a few gaps in background
knowledge. Really the pre-requisites were
fine, I took first year computing courses
and also ELEC2142 which deals with assembly
and other useful information.
Other information I would have liked to know
to the course was some general know-how in
linux. I was never really taught much except
how to run gdb and gcc and so if I needed to
set up paths and shell scripts or install
things it was a bit foreign. I also never
learnt any sort of subversion.
The other thing that would have been a
little helpful was learning more about the
MIPS/RISC3000 architecture/assembly. Having
only learnt ARM some of the instructions
particularly the branch delay slot required
a bit of thought. It wasn't a real problem
though, as I understood all the assembly
basics.
I also had to learn how to typecast properly
as I hadn't really had any experience with
that... |
|
18: |
Official pre-reqs seem fine. I did cs2121
a very long time ago and was still able to
recall/follow the MIPS-related content that
was covered. And C-programming is a given;
if one isn't comfortable with it by 2nd/3rd
year in CSE they should do something about
that in their own time. |
|
19: |
C. I've enrolled in the summer course of
COMP1927 which removed some contents and
makes it a little bit hard. But generally
the prerequisites are suitable. |
|
20: |
Little to none. Yes. |
|
21: |
The pre-req is sufficient in my own
experience. |
|
22: |
None, the prerequisites were fine |
|
23: |
Didn't feel like I required any additional
information. |
|
24: |
Official prerequisites are sufficient. |
|
25: |
Suitable preparation, although having done
Computer Architecture would have helped for
later topics I've heard. |
|
26: |
A bit more experience with GDB would have
come in handy. |
|
27: |
No, i'm pretty fine |
|
28: |
Coming from an elec background having done
ELEC2141 and ELEC2142, I felt I was well
prepared for this course. Not sure how this
relates to microprocessors as I have not
done that course. |
|
29: |
Pre-req was fair |
|
30: |
C code traversing. |
|
31: |
Prereqs were suitable. I feel like it
would have been helpful if I'd read more
into different OSs, and used Linux and had
to deal with it before. When Kevin mentioned
OS specifics and things with say, Linux and
Ultrix and Itanium, some students would be
nodding along, and I would be somewhat lost
- I had no idea about OSs beyond the
mainstream ones |
|
32: |
Official Pre-reqs good |
|
33: |
I did COMP2121 as a co-requisite and did
not feel that I missed anything.
COMP1927 is the only course I think which
should absolutely be a prerequisite. |
|
34: |
I think COMP2121 is a suitable preparation |
|
35: |
Several times in the extended lectures
discussions were held which I had no idea
about regarding implementation differences
and techniques. In those cases a greater
exposure particularly to the unix os may
have made it easier to follow the
discussion. |
|
36: |
no |
|
37: |
I took the prerequisite at the same time,
I found OS helped to understand the
prerequisite content more than the opposite
case |
|
38: |
Concurrency would have been nice but not
necessary |
|
39: |
2121 helped a bit I guess. Really you just
need a decent understanding of actual
hardware and generally how it all works, so
you can build OS concepts on top of it. |
|
40: |
computer hardware /architecture |
|
41: |
no experience in implementation or coding
on huge project(big scope) |
|
42: |
Pre-requisites were enough |
|
43: |
knowledge of C was necessary - knowledge
of microprocessors wasn't |
|
44: |
None. I have taken assembly language so it
was okay. |
|
45: |
hardware related issue.
yeah, suitable |
|
46: |
Prereqs are suitable. |
|
47: |
I didn't do the prerequisites, but I think
ELEC2117 is very similar to COMP2121 though
so should probably be made a valid
alternative |
|
48: |
The prerequisites are suitable, assuming
you learned everything properly. |
|
49: |
The pre-requisites are fair |
|
50: |
The prerequisites were sufficient. |
|
51: |
In the syscalls assignment it would have
been easier to have had practice in using
the various syscalls (read, fork, etc.)
before having to implement them.
I feel like COMP2121 wasn't really a
necessary prerequisite (I was taking it at
the same time and this course helped me in
that one more than the other way round) but
this might not be true for everyone |
|
52: |
comp2121 came in very useful |
|
53: |
Official pre reqs are perfect |
|
54: |
enough |
|
55: |
The pre-requisites are suitable, but I
think should set some mark requirement(e.g.
mark of COMP9021 > 75). |
|
56: |
Official pre-reqs are fine, I think.
I didn't take 2121 (doing it as a co-req),
and OS is helping me more with 2121 than the
other way around. |
|
57: |
Pre-requisites are fine |
|
58: |
official pre-req is a suitable perparation
to this course |
|
59: |
I think I was alright with what I had.
Maybe COMP2041 would have helped for Linux
skills |
|
60: |
I had the prereq waived and didn't run
into any problems from not formally taking
COMP2121. |
|
61: |
Nothing |
|
62: |
Bit coding |
|
63: |
The official pre-requisites are suitable.
Being familiar with GDB would definitely
help, but I learned it during the course so
I didn't experience any major issues. |
|
64: |
I think COMP2121 is a pre-req which isn't
required and largely a strong grasp of C is
required. |
|
65: |
I think it's fair. |
|
66: |
Prerequisites were sensible |
|
67: |
The prerequisites are very much
appropriate. I wish I'd learnt my COMP2121
content a little better than what I did. |
|
68: |
I think computer architecture should also
be the pre-requisite of this course. |
|
69: |
pre-requisites are fine |
|
70: |
I think it was fine. |
|
71: |
A greater understanding of non-solutions
to concurrency problems. |
|
72: |
Pre-requisites are suitable. |
|
73: |
I'm a Physics /Comp Eng, so i have had the
bare bones of computing courses leading up
to this, and I certainly don't think I was
prepared.
It is likely because apart from comp 2, I
haven't done any other coding, because DCS
and Comparc are both hardware design
subjects.
Perhaps having another of the second yeah
comp subject as a prereq wouldn't be a
horrible idea, because I got a little
swamped by the return to C land. |
|
74: |
None |
|
75: |
Pre-requisites were suitable |
|
76: |
It was targeted at a good level. Not sure
COMP2121 is entirely needed (as a student
who has done it before). |
|
77: |
Official pre-requisites are fine in my
opinion, there was nothing that glaringly
obvious that I could suggest. |
|
78: |
It is sufficient |
|
79: |
I did this course without the COMP2121
prereq: wasn't a problem. For future
students, do continue to give waivers. Also,
COMP9447 is probably an equivalent to this
prereq.
Background knowledge: some more familiarity
with GDB would have been helpful. Official
prereqs: sufficient for most cases. |
|
80: |
pre-reqs were fine |
|
81: |
I found the pre-requisites were
sufficient. |
|
82: |
As an elec eng student (so I've done our
equivalent of the prerequisites) I felt that
the things I had problems with generally
weren't the things emphasised in the
lectures/tuts. I felt we have a bit of an
understanding of the theory covered earlier
in the course, but I had to work hard than
most comp students on the assignments since
my C coding skills were a little forgotten.
A lot of the jargon used to explain examples
was new to me |
|
83: |
Microprocessor |
|
84: |
I definitely think the official
pre-requisites were suitable preparation. As
for missing background knowledge - I don't
know, I mean if I knew all about OSes
already that would be helpful, but that's
not the point of doing OS. |
|
85: |
I felt as though very little background
knowledge was required. The pre-requisites I
had done were more than enough |
|
86: |
more extensive gdb knowledge |
|
87: |
all good |
|
88: |
Pre-requisites were fine. |
|
89: |
A lot. I'm an electrical engineering
student doing this as an elective. I've only
done COMP1917, COMP1927 and ELEC2142
(assembly language course).
Setting up the environment was very
challenging, and probably the biggest issue
in terms of missing pre-reqs. All the cse
students already have a favourite editor,
and know how to use it with c-tags and so
on. I had no clue. Had I not picked a
partner who was a cse student, I would have
really struggled. Many non-cse students have
never used make (although the step by step
instructions meant this wasn't an issue),
and we've barely used gdb.
I use Linux as my only OS at home, so I find
using the terminal trivial. Think this isn't
the case for many other non-cse students. (I
once wore my xkcd "sudo make me a sandwich"
shirt to Uni, and none of my electrical
engineering friends got the joke). Halfway
through the semester my friend told me that
he finally figured out how to paste text
into the terminal (because ctrl-c ctrl-v
doesn't work). Other students don't know how
to use grep, look up manpages, or do lots of
other stuff which seems trivial to you and
I. All the anecdotes about VAX machines, and
mentions of the TCP/IC stack were completely
lost on me and my electrical engineering
friends. My other non-cse friends don't have
a clue about Linux file permissions, or even
the VFS (how everything is a subdirectory of
/, and other drives are stored in /media,
and home folders are in /home/username).
I've started writing a "Guide to OS for
non-cse students" document. I'll finish it
once exams are over and send it to you. I
think it will address these concerns. |
|
90: |
I found that I was a bit inexperienced
with C programming and often found that I
knew "conceptually" what I wanted to do for
the assignments, but "ran out of C" when I
tried to implement it. My suggestion to
future students would be to ensure they have
plenty of experience with C, Perhaps more
than just the first year COMP subjects (1917
and 1927, and the Embedded/Assembly
programming course).
XXX Programming background |
|
11. |
Consultations
were underutilised during semester. Please
comment on why you did not take advantage
of the available consultations. (e.g.
inconvenient time, did not need, not
useful, etc..). |
|
1: |
Piazza is enough for consultations |
|
2: |
Did not need |
|
3: |
Didn't need them, so I didn't seek them
out. |
|
4: |
I felt that simply rewatching the lectures
was ample. |
|
5: |
Replaced by Piazza, which I think is a
better system than one-on-one consults |
|
6: |
Easier to ask the tutor in tutorials |
|
7: |
I did not feel the need. Piazza worked
just as well |
|
8: |
I don't use consultations as I usually
have many people to approach, facebook
groups to query, or piazza message boards to
probe before having to resort to the
lecturer. (I don't want to bother you or
lecturers in general) |
|
9: |
Inconvenient Time |
|
10: |
did not feel I needed consultations |
|
11: |
Piazza is more than good enough. |
|
12: |
Piazza! |
|
13: |
Did not need, Would not have had enough
time to ask lecturer when I have a question.
|
|
14: |
But I did! |
|
15: |
Too busy |
|
16: |
Time inconvenience. |
|
17: |
Most of the time my problem could be
resolved simply by asking questions on
Piazza or doing additional self-study. And
asking questions online gets a faster
response. |
|
18: |
Usually problems with course content could
be solved by simply more research or study |
|
19: |
did not need, tutorial and pizza are
enough |
|
20: |
I thought the available resources were
sufficient |
|
21: |
get to know deeply about OS |
|
22: |
No idea they were on. |
|
23: |
Piazza platform almost answers every
question. |
|
24: |
too many assignments from other courses |
|
25: |
bad time |
|
26: |
Did not need. Forums, Facebook group and
friends proved sufficient |
|
27: |
Normally could work out problems myself by
talking and discussing with lab partner |
|
28: |
The forum was more convenient |
|
29: |
Never used consultations before, but I
would probably only use it to clear up
questions for assignments or if there was a
topic I couldn't understand before an exam.
These problems were alleviated by the class
forum. |
|
30: |
Often our tutorial finished early, so my
assignment partner and I spoke to our tutor
on a few occasions in that time instead.
Emailing her and writing on Piaza was a
faster way to get our questions answered too
(I feel I used Piaza a lot!) |
|
31: |
Mainly that it had to be scheduled every
time, i.e. one couldn |
|
32: |
Didn't really need them, Piazza answered
the rare questions I needed to ask. |
|
33: |
Did not need |
|
34: |
did not need |
|
35: |
Timing. |
|
36: |
Aren't consultations always underutilised?
Piazza solved any questions I had, in any
case. |
|
37: |
piazza dealt with problems |
|
38: |
inconvenient time |
|
39: |
inconvenience and lots of resources
available like Piazza to make up for it. |
|
40: |
Piazza was adequate enough for me. |
|
41: |
Did not need them. Piazza was great and so
was the course web page. I could also catch
Kevin right after class. Tutor A in the
tutorials was a LEGEND. |
|
42: |
did not need them |
|
43: |
I was busy with other courses and did not
spend enough time pondering about OS
lectures till the exam period (Which was a
bit late to start attending consultations) |
|
44: |
I ddi not need them |
|
45: |
Did not need, and was inconvenient. When
there were topics I did not understand, I
preferred to look online/use piazza, for
solutions |
|
46: |
The lectures and tutorials as well as
piazza were sufficient |
|
47: |
I thought that my questions were trivially
silly, or that you could only answer them by
telling me how to do the whole assignment.
Also, when were the consultations? Also,
Piazza answered most of my questions. |
|
48: |
Intimidating |
|
49: |
inconvenient time |
|
50: |
did not need |
|
51: |
did not know about it |
|
52: |
Didn't need them - piazza was enough |
|
53: |
Did not need it |
|
54: |
Did not need. |
|
55: |
consultation is not an approach for me to
study, however it will save a lot of time
for exploring the unknown problem. |
|
56: |
did not need |
|
57: |
I did use them |
|
58: |
I was at work when I wasn't at uni |
|
59: |
Too many assignments from other courses |
|
60: |
I think piazza seemed sufficient when
coupled with non exhaustive requiring
solutions to assignments |
|
61: |
Piazza answered most of my questions |
|
62: |
we have piazza already and it good |
|
63: |
did not need, forum was very helpful |
|
64: |
I have never used a consultation before. I
usually just ask my peers if I need help. |
|
65: |
Was not very aware of them. And the forum
helped very much so was not a major
requirement. |
|
66: |
Piazza was more useful, as I could get
consultancy from anywhere. |
|
67: |
I was able to figure out most questions
myself and Piazza / wiki was extremely
helpful (plus lecturer answers were
frequent) |
|
68: |
piazza more convenient |
|
69: |
inconvenient time, would come to the
consultation if this semester doesn't have
so many assgs |
|
70: |
No help needed -> PIAZZA |
|
71: |
Because the consultation times were
usually at inconvenient times for me |
|
72: |
Did not feel the need, given the huge
amount of online resources. |
|
73: |
Long commute to uni |
|
74: |
Did not feel I needed. |
|
75: |
My heavy course load meant i was leaving
things to the last minute more than i would
like, and by the time i had questions i
needed to ask it was a bit late. |
|
76: |
Did not need. |
|
77: |
Busy working on placement, mostly didn't
need it anyway *hopefully* |
|
78: |
Used the itnernet instead |
|
79: |
Due to some of my other courses (namely
COMP4128) I did not have a lot of spare
time, and as a result almost all of my time
at uni this semester was spent on that. |
|
80: |
Did not need them |
|
81: |
Piazza seemed like a much more accesible
system. I also think it is more convenient
for both student and lecturer. |
|
82: |
inconvenient time |
|
83: |
Inconvinient time |
|
84: |
Piazza was more than enough, and very
useful. |
|
85: |
No need |
|
86: |
Did not need. |
|
87: |
Do not usually take advantage of
consultations. |
|
88: |
I've never used consultations before. |
|
89: |
Did not need. I understood it was a hassle
for Kevin to come to K17, and he was very
active on the Piazza forums with answering
questions which was really useful. There
wasn't really a point where I or my group
needed to have someone review our code since
we pretty much did that ourselves through
pair-programming and working together on
understanding the material. Any non-urgent
questions I had I raised with my tutor at a
tutorial. |
|
90: |
I didn't feel I needed it, and also
couldn't attend due to work. |
|
91: |
Too busy, not a fault on the part of the
course (and I also got a lot of useful
information off Piazza) |
|
92: |
the time was inconvenient; I didn't need
them at first. consults during the study
break / exam period would have been good (or
mentioning them more publicly if there were
consults I didn't know about!) |
Take away was
that Piazza seemed to cover the
consultations (though, I'd argue that it
can't replace a whiteboard) |
93: |
Piazza and pretty much covers the function
of consultations. Also I usually just Google
stuff. |
|
13. |
Which
material do you think you will be most
useful to you in the future? |
|
1: |
I think the synchronisation and
concurrency will be most useful, especially
if I decide to do the concurrency course |
|
2: |
Synchronisations and concurrency (for
robotics), possibly virtual memory. |
|
3: |
Concurrency, Deadlock, System calls |
|
4: |
Knowledge of syscalls & processes,
concurrency issues, low-level computing |
|
5: |
Concurrency |
|
6: |
Most of the material in general is useful
but I particularly found low level
implementation the most useful since I did
not have much experience with it. |
|
7: |
concurrency |
|
8: |
concurrency |
|
9: |
vm |
|
10: |
Understanding of processes and threads and
their role in the operating system |
|
11: |
Processes and Threads |
|
12: |
Thread/processor/deadlock knowledge. |
|
13: |
I don't know, they'll all be useful if I
work in the field, won't they? |
|
14: |
Most of it |
|
15: |
Scheduling, I/O, Multiprocessor |
|
16: |
synchronisation |
|
17: |
All of it seems pretty useful, whether I
choose to do OS in the future or not. |
|
18: |
Deadlock, writing concurrent user level
code |
|
19: |
Synchronisation and concurrency |
|
20: |
All of it, I suppose synchro though. |
|
21: |
System calls, Memory management &
Scheduling |
|
22: |
Thread and process |
|
23: |
Probably stuff to do with disk
buffers/caching etc. As well as the core
content like system calls and
process/threading. |
|
24: |
Virtual memory |
|
25: |
..basically all of it |
|
26: |
memory management |
|
27: |
Concurrency |
|
28: |
Piazza Forum Sigh! |
|
29: |
I intend to work in the field of OS so
everything. |
|
30: |
Concurrency, memory management |
|
31: |
having a general understanding of low
level systems etc |
|
32: |
Concurrency |
|
33: |
Synchronization Concurrency |
|
34: |
Virtual Memory, File system, concurrency
and multiprocessor systems. |
|
35: |
Threads/concurrency and multiprocessors |
|
36: |
multiprocessor systems and I/O |
|
37: |
concurrency, deadlock, VM, and file system |
|
38: |
learning ctags/cscope |
|
39: |
Alllllll of it. |
|
40: |
A more low level scope/frame of mind has
given me interesting goals / designs for
hobby projects, and higher
level/multiprocessing are important and
still underutilised |
|
41: |
Concurrency and the algorithms used for
scheduling or page swapping |
|
42: |
Just having a better understanding of OS
implementation will be very beneficial in
the future |
|
43: |
syscalls, processes/threads, memory, file
systems |
|
44: |
Knowing about synchronisation and
concurrency, preventing deadlock maybe
(because I've never taken a concurrency
course). But I found all of the course very
useful in helping me better understand how a
computer works - before doing OS, there's
just a black box between cs2121 and every
other programming course, and you accept
things like the stack grows down and the
heap grows up but OS really helps you
understand why. |
|
45: |
Algorithms in general, useful for
theoretical computer science. |
|
46: |
Concurrency; threads; scheduling |
|
47: |
Synchronisation |
|
48: |
General understanding + Threads and
Concurrency |
|
49: |
Synchronisation and
concurrency/deadlocking and multiprocessor
systems + scheduling. |
|
50: |
I/O management and low level
implementation issues |
|
51: |
Multithreading, Concurrency, VM |
|
52: |
Synchronisation issues and just problem
solving in general. |
|
53: |
Synchronisation and concurrency |
|
54: |
All if it is pretty good, learning GDB
properly was very useful |
|
55: |
Concurrency, Threading |
|
56: |
Synchronisation & Concurrency, Memory
Management and Virtual Memory |
|
57: |
Concurrency knowledge |
|
58: |
concurrency |
|
59: |
Multithreading |
|
60: |
Synchonisation and concurrency |
|
61: |
System Calls, Low-level implementation |
|
62: |
Processes, threads, synchonisation and
concurrency and maybe memory management. |
|
63: |
Pretty much all of it |
|
64: |
concurrency, memory management |
|
65: |
High level understanding of operating
systems, and virtual memory |
|
66: |
Concurrency and scheduling |
|
67: |
Memory and concurrency, maybe? |
|
68: |
Multiprocessor, memory, Synchonisation and
concurrency |
|
69: |
Synchonisation, Deadlock, Scheduling and
Virtual Machine |
|
70: |
Virtual Memory and concurrency. Everything
else was interesting though. |
|
71: |
Synchonisation and concurrency |
|
72: |
Synchronisation and concurrency |
|
73: |
memory management and multi-thread
programming |
|
74: |
Threads |
|
75: |
Probably concurrency |
|
76: |
Concurrency, system calls, scheduling,
i/o, filesystems |
|
77: |
Deadlock |
|
78: |
Threads & processes, concurrency,
memory management, multiprocessor systems,
deadlock |
|
79: |
System Calls |
|
80: |
Everything especially concurrency |
|
81: |
Memory Management and Virtual Memory |
|
82: |
Synchronization/concurrency, Scheduling |
|
83: |
memory management |
|
84: |
Concurrency and virtual memory |
|
85: |
Memory management |
|
86: |
Use of concurrency and synchronisation
primitives in designing / implementing
systems. |
|
87: |
The ability to read and comprehend a large
codebase. |
|
88: |
Synchronisation and concurrency. |
|
89: |
all |
|
90: |
Perhaps the virtual memory stuff, as well
as knowing how OSes work in general. |
|
91: |
everything |
|
92: |
I think all is too detail or low level
hence will not be used if not follow the OS
mature |
|
93: |
Concurrency and understanding of low level
coding |
|
94: |
processes, memory management, file systems
and I/O |
|
95: |
Concurrency |
|
96: |
concurrency, threading, understanding of
how it all links together |
|
97: |
scheduling |
|
14. |
What
material related to operating systems, but
not currently in the course, would you
like to have seen covered? |
|
1: |
Not sure of other areas in the course |
|
2: |
- |
|
3: |
OS security (eg. logic bombs, login
spoffing, etc.) |
|
4: |
Not much - there's already so much content |
|
5: |
Network communications. |
|
6: |
I don |
|
7: |
- |
|
8: |
wanted to know more about Windows |
|
9: |
Mobile OS |
|
10: |
N/A |
|
11: |
nothing i can really think of |
|
12: |
SSD Yes,
eventually SSDs should be covered.
|
|
13: |
Don't know. |
|
14: |
Unsure. |
|
15: |
- |
|
16: |
Networking |
|
17: |
Security |
|
18: |
Graphics, GPU compute and FPGA compute
(tangentially at this stage) |
|
19: |
Security? How it is implemented in OSs.
Also how things like fork() worked. |
|
20: |
None |
|
21: |
do not know |
|
22: |
no |
|
23: |
Porting programs between OS platforms |
|
24: |
Seeing an OS like OS161, run natively on
the computer (i.e. booting from the BIOS) |
|
25: |
Embedded systems, security/reliability |
|
26: |
Everything I know about them I learnt in
the course.. |
|
27: |
N/A |
|
28: |
Not sure, cause i don't know about it :P |
|
29: |
hacking |
|
30: |
Not sure. |
|
31: |
more general information about a variety
of operating systems |
|
32: |
Security. The rest can be left for AOS. |
|
33: |
Nothing |
|
34: |
how to boot a os |
|
35: |
Basic issue about security of OS |
|
36: |
It'd been better if the course covered
more optimisation and performance issues. |
|
37: |
- |
|
38: |
As previously mentioned, some cool
processor specific stuff. |
|
39: |
Security. |
|
40: |
I have no knowledge about OS outside of
the course. Sorry. |
|
41: |
NA |
|
42: |
NA |
|
43: |
Further in-depth details about paging. |
|
44: |
security |
|
45: |
not sure yet |
|
46: |
None |
|
47: |
Security |
|
48: |
n/a |
|
49: |
More security related topics. |
|
50: |
I don't know,sorry |
|
51: |
None |
|
52: |
microkernels and drivers |
|
53: |
Basic O/S secuity issues |
|
54: |
Hacking. Priv-esc |
|
55: |
Distributed operating systems, security,
UIs, WMs and DEs, , |
|
56: |
I'd have liked to have explored Windows
which I use nearly all the time (just as as
interest :)). |
|
57: |
N/A |
|
58: |
Security |
|
59: |
Implementation of Device Drivers (in more
detail) |
|
60: |
n/a |
|
61: |
mostly about advance C code trick |
|
62: |
graphical |
|
63: |
More cutting edge implementation examples,
really interested in ex4 |
|
64: |
security |
|
65: |
I am not sure. |
|
66: |
all what i expected and more already |
|
67: |
Some x86 or ARM topics would be fun,
because those are the most famous
archirectures. I know those arechirectures
are much more complex compared to MIPS, but
it should be covered at least one lecture This is really
computer architecture. Interesting, and
related, but not core to the course. |
|
15. |
Which
of the current topics would you like to
see scaled back or excluded? |
|
1: |
- |
|
2: |
n/a |
|
3: |
File Systems - I think too much time was
spent on them |
|
4: |
file system |
|
5: |
Nothing if the assignment 3 can be lessen
in detail then is good for other student |
|
6: |
They were all important |
|
7: |
None, seemed quite well balanced. |
|
8: |
Current topics are sufficient to gain a
good understanding of the operating system. |
|
9: |
None |
|
10: |
Multiprocessor Systems |
|
11: |
N/A, I liked the current choices |
|
12: |
File Systems was very tedious |
|
13: |
concurrency |
|
14: |
concurrency scaled back |
|
15: |
I think it's a fair balance at the moment. |
|
16: |
None |
|
17: |
NA |
|
18: |
Maybe I/O |
|
19: |
multi-processor |
|
20: |
None. |
|
21: |
none |
|
22: |
- |
|
23: |
N/A |
|
24: |
None |
|
25: |
mm and vm |
|
26: |
None |
|
27: |
NA |
|
28: |
all seemed pretty useful |
|
29: |
Virtual memory |
|
30: |
None |
|
31: |
Nothing |
|
32: |
Seems OK to me. |
|
33: |
multiprocessor systems |
|
34: |
(Maybe) scale back (a little bit) on
synchonisation and concurrency. |
|
35: |
none. |
|
36: |
not sure yet |
|
37: |
earlier part of multiprocessors, I/O |
|
38: |
more about thread implementation on
different os platform |
|
39: |
Multiprocessor Systems |
|
40: |
N/A |
|
41: |
None |
|
42: |
Scheduling |
|
43: |
I/O management |
|
44: |
I/O management |
|
45: |
None |
|
46: |
None. |
|
47: |
Don't know. |
|
48: |
Maybe cut back on the file system case
study, maybe do a case study for another
topic. |
|
49: |
I/O Management |
|
50: |
Probably |
|
51: |
all good |
|
52: |
None |
|
53: |
I think we went further than necessary
into deadlocking |
|
54: |
- |
|
55: |
Concurrency |
|
56: |
Perhaps multiprocessor systems. |
|
57: |
System Calls from an elec prerequisites
perspective.. But I guess to comp students
didn't know as much about them already |
|
58: |
I am not sure. I really do think it was
balanced. |
|
59: |
File systems. |
|
60: |
N/A |
|
61: |
no |
|
62: |
None |
|
63: |
Nothing particular |
|
20. |
If
you have not been attending lectures, what
factors influenced your decision not to
attend? |
|
1: |
I only attended when I had another
obligation or had to work on the assignment.
Sometimes I would attend, and the material
was an overview of something I already knew. |
|
2: |
laziness |
|
3: |
Travelling to class |
|
4: |
Doing the assignments; the lecture time
was a convenient time to meet with my
partner |
|
5: |
Mostly related to assignment of other
course |
|
6: |
NA |
|
7: |
In a perfect world I would attend every
lecture and pay attention and it would be
great, but I don't always have the attention
span during that given time of day, or am
not feeling well, or am last minute
assignment-ing and skip all my classes that
day.
In the case of OS, my non-attendance had
nothing to do with the course or the
lecturer or the lectures themselves. |
|
8: |
Just missed a few lectures when I was away
for a conference |
|
9: |
Location |
|
10: |
time |
|
11: |
The lectures I tended not to attend were
ones in the biomedical theatre. I usually
had a class at lower campus just before it,
so it was rather inconvenient to get to |
|
12: |
Competing course work often meant i had to
balance my time carefully, and the lecture
recordings of this course were of incredibly
high quality, so i felt safer skipping OS
lectures. |
|
13: |
Working internship |
|
14: |
The lecture slides are fantastic (although
you make everything sound so easy that I
zone out in lectures only to realise I've
missed a bunch of stuff). |
|
15: |
Attended first half. Fell back on schedule
in the second half due to assignments but
caught up with lecture videos. |
|
16: |
N/A |
|
17: |
too busy doing assignments |
|
18: |
I attended as many lectures as I was able
to, and would have liked to attend more.
I've been generally unwell this semester
which has limited my ability to attend
lectures to some extent, and there were
times when I was well enough to be at uni
but I was nevertheless unable to make it to
biomed/clb (due to the long distance), or
unable to make it through an entire two hour
lecture block. |
|
19: |
I prefer to learn at my own pace |
|
20: |
Clashes, biomed, lazy. |
|
21: |
It's more effective personally to watch
the lecture, because I was able to rewind at
anytime when I need to. Also the bio-med
lecture hall is not a comfortable
environment to sit in for two
hours/wednesday extended lecture, it's too
hot and I struggle to breath. |
|
22: |
There wasn't anything wrong with the
lectures, I was just immensely busy this
semester. |
|
23: |
Timing |
|
24: |
The fact that lectures have been recorded
for me to watch in the comfort of my home. |
|
25: |
N/A |
|
26: |
Other assignments and exams |
|
27: |
n/a |
|
28: |
NA. I went to all lectures and never
regretted doing so. |
|
29: |
Timetable conflicts, and when Operating
Systems lecture was the only subject for the
day. |
|
30: |
Timetable clash, still came often. |
|
31: |
I like the idea of learning at my own
pace, with video that I can play and pause
when needed. I also had work most of the
days, so the videos were super useful. |
|
32: |
Towards the end of the course I sacrificed
a few lectures to catch up on assignments
that were piling up and was unable to follow
subsequent lectures easily. It was difficult
to catch up using the recordings during
teaching weeks as I felt my time would be
better spent completing assignments. |
|
33: |
N/A |
|
34: |
I generally prefer to learn on my own/in
my own time |
|
35: |
Some lectures I missed due to other
assignment deadlines. |
|
36: |
Find it more effective to listen to
recordings due to ability to repeat and
better coordinate with study schedule |
|
37: |
Could not make it, had internship
commitments and videos were available so I
chose to watch them instead. |
|
38: |
N/A |
|
39: |
n/a |
|
40: |
health |
|
41: |
There were video lectures available, which
was more convenient for me |
|
42: |
Doing OS assignments |
|
43: |
I have found I find textbooks and other
resources more useful in my mode of study
and do not thrive in a large lecture group
audience. For lectures I did attend, the
lecturer was quite effective and explained
concepts well (telling from my peers) but I
unfortunately do not learn this way (and
that is my failing) |
|
44: |
I didn't ever miss both the lecture and
the lecture recording; in a few of the weeks
I didn't attend the lectures, usually
because of assignments and other things, and
the knowledge that there'd always be lecture
recordings afterwards. |
|
45: |
Mostly attended lectures, but I skipped a
couple because I needed to work on my
COMP4128 assessments. |
|
46: |
N/A |
|
47: |
Long travel times, a desire to work when I
want (times when I'm most productive). |
|
48: |
Time tabling issues and assignment
deadlines. I had a 1 hour clash, and 1
lecture in biomedical theater directly after
a lecture in the law building. Otherwise I
would spend time on assignments near the
deadlines. |
|
49: |
I attend lectures |
|
50: |
I attended for the first 3-4 weeks but I
found myself sleeping in most of the
lectures. |
|
51: |
Bad timetable schedules and not releasing
the lecture slides early mean't I couldn't
prepare for the lectures beforehand. |
|
52: |
I prefer learning from a textbook/at my
own pace so live lectures aren't the best
for me.
This does not reflect badly on the lecturer
at all however I found the video captured
lectures to be great. |
|
53: |
busy working, fast learner and
understanding material |
|
54: |
N/A |
|
55: |
I attend but don't listen
I don't know why |
|
56: |
Speed of lecture |
|
57: |
I seem to tune out every 10-20 minutes.
With video lectures, I'm able to pause, and
process what has been said, essentially
allowing my full focus throughout the video. |
|
58: |
sometimes there's homework |
|
59: |
- |
|
60: |
I missed a couple to work on assignment 2
instead. |
|
61: |
Other commitments |
|
62: |
I did mostly attend lectures, but the
recordings were easier to understand because
you could pause to make notes and rewind if
you missed something |
|
63: |
Scheduled time of classes. |
|
21. |
Any
suggestions for improving lectures
(including the lecture video captures)? |
|
1: |
Sometimes it was had to follow when you
were obviously pointing to something on the
screen and it was impossible to tell what..
Maybe some sort of highlighting function
could fix that? |
|
2: |
reading more source code in Linux |
|
3: |
Using the pointer tool instead of
hand-waving makes the videos easier to
follow. |
|
4: |
N/A |
|
5: |
- |
|
6: |
A bit neater work with the stylus, if I
have to nitpick. |
|
7: |
These were some of the best lecture video
recordings I've seen in any course, a lot of
it has to do with the quality of the lecture
presentations and Kevin's lecturing style.
The only thing is sometimes a laser pointer
would be used in class which obviously
wouldn't show up in the screen captures -
sometimes Kevin would use the cursor which
would show up. But I did not find it too
difficult to infer what he was referring to,
just had to pay a bit more attention to what
he was saying and what was written on the
slide (pausing is sometimes needed to take
in the whole slide). |
|
8: |
n/a |
|
9: |
Not to use white board, always plot on
computer so that video can capture |
|
10: |
No. Kevin's lecturing is truly among the
best I have seen at UNSW. He knows the
material, and knows how to deliver it well.
He knows how to speak to a crowd (it's
amazing how many lecturers don't). |
|
11: |
A better way of drawing on the lecture
slides, maybe a stylus of some sort |
|
12: |
Possibly improving the audio |
|
13: |
Quite satisfied with the way they are.
Though it would have been good if Kevin used
the simulated lazer pointer more often
instead of pointing to the screen so we know
what he is referring to. I realise that is
probably a bit of a hassle. |
|
14: |
Slightly more detail on some slides, to
make them less cryptic when looking back |
|
15: |
no |
|
16: |
Live examples |
|
17: |
No |
|
18: |
more excitement/fun |
|
19: |
get more example to explain some
processes, such as virtual memory and file
system. |
|
20: |
Tell non-extended people about the
extended lectures which explained how to do
the non-extended assignments. Extended
students need that help less than
non-extended ones.
The videos were superior to echo360 only
because you can download them, and watch
them later when you don't have internet
access (which I did a few times). |
|
21: |
Could post the video captures on youtube.
It works very well for streaming videos and
I'm sure there would be a lot of people who
aren't at unsw who would be very interested
in following along too. |
|
22: |
more interactiveness |
|
23: |
two hour lectures become quite boring |
|
24: |
Jokes?
Maybe more interaction
Less slides? |
|
25: |
No, they were extremely helpful. Cannot
thank you enough for making them available. |
|
26: |
Going to biomed was a chore. I'm sure
Kevin is aware and probably has no control
over it either. |
|
27: |
Sometimes it seemed like what was being
said wasn't related to what was written on a
slide so I'd concentrate on what was being
said rather than reading the slide and then
the lecture would move on to the next slide |
|
28: |
The audio volume is slightly lower
compared to the balance with other audio |
|
29: |
NA |
|
30: |
no |
|
31: |
Video captures are amazing. Slides are
very solid |
|
32: |
n/a |
|
33: |
Would have liked a broader survey of
implementations used in current operating
systems across topics. |
|
34: |
None |
|
35: |
Bonus marks for attending a majority
subset of the lectures (>80%) to
encourage attendance while still retaining
video lectures. |
|
36: |
N/A |
|
37: |
N/A |
|
38: |
Random joke slides in between breaks |
|
39: |
n/a |
|
40: |
People in the lecture should be quieter,
but that isn't Kevin's fault |
|
41: |
I'm satisfied with lecture. |
|
42: |
Maybe Kevin can slow down occasionally :)
But videos solve that issue. Have more
student interaction just to keep things
lively. |
|
43: |
Lectures were generally good, but
sometimes they got a bit disengaging, I
think this was a combination of the long
duration without sufficient breaks. |
|
44: |
n/a |
|
45: |
Perhaps more use of the stylus for
explanations. |
|
46: |
The lectures were definitely useful, but I
think more practical demos in lectures would
have helped. |
|
47: |
None |
|
48: |
Telling students "you may probably won't
understand what I'm about to say until you
rewatch the video lecture when studying for
assignment"? |
|
49: |
A lot of the lectures I found I didn't
understand properly until AFTER assignment
completion. I'm not sure if this is just a
problem I had or if it was like that for
other people. Maybe releasing assignments
earlier could remedy this? |
|
50: |
I cannot stress enough how good the
lecture recordings are.
|
|
51: |
Maybe a few more examples of questions |
|
52: |
explanations of the extended parts could
be clearer |
|
53: |
This one's a bit difficult since I'd
suggest putting up more information on the
slides themselves so listening to every
single lecture is not a must BUT I do see
the downside of too much information if you
do in fact choose to add more detail. Slides
are presentation material, supporting if
anything so unfortunately there isn't a nice
solution for this. |
|
54: |
They're fine |
|
55: |
lot of my friends said the lecture is
boring and sleepy. should have make it more
interesting. |
|
56: |
use mouse to point at things - pointing at
slides IRL do not translate to screen |
|
57: |
NA |
|
58: |
Keep the lecture recordings, they're
great. |
Biggest issue
seems to be lack of a "laser pointer" in
the lecture recordings. First-world
problem :-) I do try to vocally
direct the listeners attention ("on the
top left....."), but I'll try to use the
simulated pointer more - it is a little tricky
to do well without spending the lecture
talking down to my laptop. |
59: |
Perhaps labelling the pages of lecture
notes that each video/lecture covered.
Better resolution is always good, but 720P
is watchable. I often experienced issues
while trying to download lecture videos from
home, with the downloads intermittently
failing halfway through. It would also be
good if the lecturer could repeat questions
for the video recording, otherwise these
appear a little out of context if the
student was not loud enough to be captured
on the video. |
|
60: |
- |
|
22. |
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: |
n/a |
|
2: |
n/a |
|
3: |
Only looked at Tennenbaum |
|
4: |
n/a |
|
5: |
N/A |
|
6: |
N/A, did not use a textbook |
|
7: |
I used this for some explanations:
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/ |
|
8: |
n/a |
|
9: |
sorry,I haven't used that |
|
10: |
NA |
|
11: |
No use of textbook. Slides were
sufficient. |
|
12: |
I used Silberschatz and Tannenbaum.
Tannenbaum was excellent for use alongside
the lectures, and somewhat helpful for the
assignments. Silberschatz was completely
useless in comparison. |
|
13: |
N/A |
|
14: |
I use Operation System Concepts
(Silberschatz, Stallings) as another
textbook as a extra explanation if I can
hardly understand some concepts. It's really
hard to say which one is much more better
than others. |
|
15: |
used Tannenbaum |
|
16: |
na |
|
17: |
- |
|
18: |
N/A |
|
19: |
N/A |
|
20: |
no idea |
|
21: |
N/A |
|
22: |
- |
|
23: |
N/A |
|
24: |
Used Tannenbaum. |
|
25: |
n/a |
|
26: |
N/A |
|
27: |
n/a |
|
28: |
n/a |
|
29: |
Used tannenbaum |
|
30: |
N/A |
|
31: |
NA |
|
25. |
Any
suggestions for improving tutorials?
|
|
1: |
more questions, no participation mark |
|
2: |
get more suggestions about the assignments |
|
3: |
More dynamic tutorials with examples,
videos and pictures etc. Sometimes just
reading and a whiteboard isn't all that
engaging. |
|
4: |
I thought they were great. Tutor A was
such a great tutor to me. Especially being
on exchange. She was always willing to talk
and help me. |
|
5: |
More questions? Although I was in
Extended, I did the tutorials anyway to
ensure I understood the material, and may
have found it more helpful to have more
questions, both simple and more difficult |
|
6: |
N/A |
|
7: |
more fun |
|
8: |
It seemed like Tutor B was either reading
from answers, or reciting explanations
word-for-word, rather than explaining topics
in an easy to understand way. |
|
9: |
Maybe one or two open questions per
tutorial to further the student's interest
to do with the related topic material |
|
10: |
Please release the answer before tutorial,
because sometimes I didn't quite understand
the answers provided by tutors. |
|
11: |
pick partners from your tutorial |
|
12: |
Not a fan of class participation marks,
but I guess they made the tutorials more
interactive. I felt Tutor B was very
methodical and rigid in her tutorials,
opting to stick to answering the questions.
The one time we had Tutor A I felt the
tutorial was a lot more natural and she
didn't seem fussed about noting down class
participation (perhaps because it wasn't her
class). |
|
13: |
NA |
|
14: |
no |
|
15: |
didn‘t attend tutorial |
|
16: |
None, Labs would be awesome though. |
|
17: |
Ditch the participation mark |
|
18: |
make it more interesting |
|
19: |
Would like Labs as well |
|
20: |
Put some challenging question for extended
students |
|
21: |
- |
|
22: |
n/a |
|
23: |
number and depth of questions didnt match
student numbers so it was unfair to have
attendance based on answering of said
questions. |
|
24: |
More questions, possibly using relevant
past exam questions to expand the number of
questions each week. |
|
25: |
Tutorials are great, I love doing the
questions each week. I wish my tutor were
more engaging and less awkward/quiet. She
says 'no' a lot, which tutors aren't meant
to do. (She's very nice, just not great at
tutoring). |
|
26: |
Maybe find a better way to do the
participation mark: a lot of time students
tried to answer a question simply to have a
mark and were not providing an
interesting/correct/precise answer. |
|
27: |
N/A |
|
28: |
I'm in the extended class, so no tutorials
for me. |
|
29: |
Didn't go, did the questions at home.
(Extended) |
|
30: |
N/A |
|
31: |
The teaching style of a tutor really makes
a difference. Forced participation helps. |
|
32: |
n/a (EOS) |
|
33: |
need more info on certain concepts, always
have time after explaining all tutorial
questions |
|
34: |
Tutorials that focused on explaining the
assignments were very useful
|
|
35: |
The tutorial questions related to the
assignments were somewhat helpful, but I
found I never actually referred to them when
I was actually doing the assignments. |
|
36: |
N/A |
|
37: |
N/A |
|
38: |
no |
|
39: |
Maybe add a few more questions? Or just
make discussion points? Some ended fairly
early (after finishing the content) |
|
40: |
Adding easier tutorial questions to the
current set of questions may improve class
participation. Alternatively could use a
different method of awarding class marks. |
|
33. |
Any
suggestions for improving the assignments?
|
|
1: |
Better timing
Less time for ass1,
More time for ass2,
Ass3 had enough time |
|
2: |
more guidance |
|
3: |
learning curve from asst1 to asst2 was too
much |
|
4: |
Smaller tasks to complete each week that
help to understand code |
|
5: |
asst1 and asst2 must be more challenging |
|
6: |
Second assignment could have had better
references/guide as traversing through all
the complicated code and its relations to
each other was very time consuming. |
|
7: |
More information on where to start :D |
|
8: |
I would say specifications could be a lot
more comprehensive and explanatory but I
also feel it was intended to be very general
and high-level. Though it does mean spending
more time digging through code, reading
resources, man pages, forum/wiki
posts/discussions, etc., I think this might
have been the point. I can say I benefited
from undertaking the above and didn't really
mind spending extra time doing it. But if
the point of this question is how to make
the assignments easier/less time-consuming
for students then probably the assignment
specs. |
|
9: |
It was somewhat difficult to work out how
to approach ass2. Perhaps a 'ass2 tips'
video could be made like with ass3 |
|
10: |
Perhaps a bit more time on the code
walkthroughs to introduce the code.
Assignment 2 in particular was extremely
confusing to start, even after reading lots
of the code. Assignment 3 was ok, but most
of the people i talked to found that
implementing the frame table first was an
easier approach than starting with a
temporary page table.
That's my perception also
|
|
11: |
decrease the difficulty, make it be done
by singles instead of team of 2 |
|
12: |
No |
|
13: |
I think the "advanced" assignment parts
probably should've been apart of the regular
course, even if ones hand was held a bit
more to achieve that. Completion of them
didn't feel as rewarding as other courses
with similar formats (Compilers) |
|
14: |
git would be strongly preferred for
assignments: COMP2041 (which students have
probably done prior) teaches the basics of
git, and if students are already familiar
with it then perhaps not so much time will
be spent fussing over svn branches in
setting up the assignments? :) |
|
15: |
More of the walkthrough lectures would be
amazing as a resource as the assignment 3
walkthrough greatly aided in understanding
the assignment details. Point
taken, I'm considering doing this, though
the VFS lecture explicitly point out the
design of the solution to the assignment
and I point this out several times in the
lecture. |
|
16: |
Explain dirty bits better. |
|
17: |
Making some things a little clearer? Like
I said before, for things like fork() we
just had no idea whatsoever, despite all the
reading. I felt like we had a lot of hints,
but did not know how to tie them all
together. So maybe some way of clarifying
how to do fork()? It wasn't immediately
clear to us to use fork_newthread() or
whatever it was. I thought we did something
similar, but didn't use it. Also, a better
way of testing? More specific tests that we
could run, on varying levels. For asst3, all
we had were those few programs. We could not
get the programs running, due to some
totally unknown error. Smaller, lower-level
tests would have been helpful to detect what
was going on, as our theoretical
implementation was correct, but we were
utterly lost as to why it couldn't open the
programs. So we could never find out why it
did things. |
|
18: |
If possible, please provide correct
answers of assignments as references. |
|
19: |
Make it clear which files need to be
edited. |
|
20: |
Clarity in some ways. I found the
FAQ/traps/pitfalls page much more helpful
than some specs.
One huge suggestion that almost killed my
partner and I - Can you please let people
know that after thread_exit()/thread_fork()
that we're supposed to press enter to return
to console? We spent 12 hours trying to
debug this problem in assignment 2 only to
have our hearts broken when a fellow
classmate asked if pressing enter after
forking was normal. |
|
21: |
Sometimes the lectures and
assignments/practical material felt very
disconnected. Maybe try mentioning or
briefly covering how the material relates to
OS161 and our practical work more often? |
|
22: |
Maybe providing more documentation,
especially the extended components. |
|
23: |
The later assignments in particular felt
like we didn't understand the concepts well
enough (after going to lectures or watching
lecture videos, and reading lecture notes,
and talking to peers) to really implement
some of the required things. |
|
24: |
Separate into more smaller 'milestones' to
hit along the way, so that you know you're
making good progress. Sometimes it felt like
you had to basically code the whole
assignment, THEN compile for the first time,
THEN try to debug (i.e., not an iterative
approach). This might be my own problem
though. |
|
25: |
no |
|
26: |
NA |
|
27: |
A bit more guided introduction into
starting the assignments. |
|
28: |
I really did not like the third one, I
think more direct instructions would have
helped but I also understand that it kills a
little bit the purpose. |
|
29: |
when doing the assignments I would have
liked the spec to be a little more explicit
but in retrospective thought, I think I
learned a lot more with the spec exactly as
it was - and required some background
reading and digging to truly understand
concepts. |
|
30: |
Provide more examples of expected output,
or common incorrect output. |
|
31: |
I feel like the assignments were more a
case of 'write this structure' than a case
of solving a problem etc.
eg the paint shop was a fun and interesting
part of an assignment, which involved
designing a solution and implementing it.
I felt that the later assignments were more
of a case of working out what the standard
solution Was and then writing it out. My
difficulty came in when I didn't fully
understand the structures/functions I was
writing, rather than because I hadn't
considered some issue, or had an incomplete
solution.
i would say the assignments could be
improved by making them less monolithic.
eg the virtual memory assignment all blurred
together into one giant task - make an
allocator and frametable solution, and a
page table set up that works with the frame
table, and the vm_fault which deals with
both of them etc. I didn't feel there was a
clear route for going through and building
and testing little bits at a time.
Interesting, the walk through for the VM
assignment explicitly describes what you
suggest. I can't tell if this is
information overload, or whether you just
happen to miss it.
|
|
32: |
None |
|
33: |
Improve spec for assignment 3 and make it
less difficult; cover it in regular lectures
and extended lectures |
|
34: |
was not really a fan of doing the
assignments in pairs.. Would have preferred
to do them on my own even if that means
additional work.. |
|
35: |
Considering the advanced part of the
assignments are compulsory for EOS students,
the amount of marks awarded compared the
amount of effort necessary to earn them
don't seem proportional. Maybe more marks
can be allocated to each small part of the
advanced assignment, so that it's easier to
get to or close to the cap. |
|
36: |
svn conflict resolution is very annoying.
Always had to manually correct stuff via
email, etc. Please give some additional info
regarding this. |
|
37: |
n/a |
|
38: |
Would have liked more content and more
room for extension in the assignments (well
more room for extension in 1 and 2 anyway). |
|
39: |
First assignment could have more of a
relation to direct O/S problems instead of
purely conceptual producer/consumer &
store problems. Clear guide to bad practices
with regard to programming style,
allocation/deallocation of memory. |
|
40: |
no |
|
41: |
hints and explanation videos (like the
ass3 video) would be very useful |
|
42: |
Virtual Memory Assignment was too lengthy
and required a lot of time initially just to
understand the concepts and another bulk to
code it. Do consider scaling it down a
little. |
|
43: |
The time for assignments 2 and 3 are very
strict, it would be better if we have some
more days (2-3 days) to work it out. The
reason being that there are other courses
that has overlapping assignments. |
|
44: |
Clearer specifications. |
|
45: |
A lot of hints/clarifications were spread
out over the spec, wiki, forums etc.
Sometimes a bit of work to refer to all the
sources, but not difficult to do if you
plan/design properly. |
|
46: |
Assignment 3 could have been specified in
more detail. |
|
47: |
Personally I think it's about right. Good
early bird bonus system and some challenging
bonus mark tasks (which we never attempted
because we never made the early deadline -
but they looked hard). |
|
48: |
making sure the thing worked before
leading us on a search for three days for a
spinlock bug :( Apologies
for that one. I managed to slip under the
radar of us (and several other Unis). |
|
49: |
Clearer directions on which files to
change would be helpfull. |
|
50: |
Mechanism to ensure partners aren't
freeloading. |
|
51: |
Better balance difficulty and workload. |
|
52: |
Since it was in sys161 a better focus on
what sys161 did prior to completing the
assignments may have been better. |
|
53: |
no |
|
54: |
use git and not svn would be nice as most
people use git and would take away the
problem of generating the diffs. |
|
55: |
Test them a little more - a friend got
really stuck on the problem that needed to
be fixed in assignment 3 |
|
56: |
Clearer specification on what needs to be
done and what is already there would be
helpful to save time. |
|
57: |
Make what the Oracle does clearer, e.g.
failing for spurious debugging printfs |
|
58: |
I would prefer if the walk-through lecture
was given the week before the assignment is
released, followed up with the tutorial the
next week. I think this would help ensure
that the tutorials can be used for revising.
The timing in the
semester makes this a challenge to do in
lectures (we're time constrained), there
is nothing stopping you from doing a walk
through yourself. |
|
59: |
Less cryptic descriptions. Required
behaviour should be more well-defined. |
Underlying tone
seems to be desire for assignments to be
more prescriptive, i.e. less thinking,
researching, designing. I think that
would remove the challenge and make
them less interesting. |
60: |
They were just scary to start off with. I
liked how assignment 3 had a help tutorial.
It would be nice if they all had that. |
|
36. |
Any
suggestions for improving COMP3891/9283
Extended OS? |
|
1: |
Maybe have some tutorial questions for
extended so we could gauge our understanding
of the extended material. |
|
2: |
In some lectures discussions went into
areas I had no exposure or knowledge about.
Some explanation or background info for
those that were not accustomed to the info
would have been good. |
|
3: |
Nothing in particular. Advanced components
were fun to complete. |
|
4: |
More content that expands on learned OS
content (i.e. scheduler activations, VLA's),
greater assignment component and smaller
exam component. |
|
5: |
More guidance for the extended components
etc |
|
6: |
- |
|
7: |
I feel like too many people are taking
3891 making it more of an actual course
which detracts from the whole tutorial feel
of the EOS lectures. Make EOS heaps harder
and OS harder and scare people out of EOS,
cause at the moment everyone is telling
everyone to take EOS
Bingo, that is my perception, also. It has
the potential to become a "victim" of its
own popularity.
|
|
8: |
Integrating material from the extended
lectures into assignments would be
brilliant; the only way knowledge of
extended topics is assessed is in the final
exam. |
|
9: |
More extended content! |
|
10: |
Sometimes the marks given for advanced
assignment sections weren't indicative of
difficulty (we found fork() much easier than
the waitpid() system calls) |
|
11: |
I would personally have still preferred
tutorials (especially to do code
walkthroughs and assignment related work)
and spend the 1 hour lecture for EOS
dedicated to advanced topics, instead of
using the 1 hour lecture as a
sort-of-tutorial lecture. |
|
12: |
I loved the Extended part of the course
content wise, but there was a much greater
lack of support for the coding (which is
where I struggled particularly).
As a bit of a C noob, I found the extended
assignments really difficult.
I'd still take extended again though,
because the extra stuff we did was so
interesting. |
|
13: |
It would be cool if the EOS lecture
content was somehow relevant to the
assignments. There were a few vague
connection, but it would facilitate a deeper
understanding if it was more connected to
the hands on assignments. |
|
14: |
Have the advanced assignments to be
related to the advanced content in the
lectures. E.g. there were some topics that I
had to study for the final exam which we had
not delved into in the assignments. Which
makes it harder to study at the end. |
|
15: |
I felt it was a bit unfair for automarking
the extended parts. For example, we did
parse in the arguments for execv, but forgot
argv[0], meaning we lost all the marks on
doing that (-0.5 is harsh). |
|
16: |
The lectures were incredibly interesting
but felt unfocused, and it was a bit hard to
tell what exactly was examinable and what
wasn't. |
|
17: |
Slow down lecturing speed for EOS. And
also give it a little bit more structure.
The contents in EOS is not much harder than
OS, but the way it is taught make it very
hard to follow. |
|
18: |
N/A |
|
19: |
A little less on virtual machines |
|
20: |
Sometimes detail was given in unusual
areas (e.g. log file systems, too much
detail on performance, not enough detail on
implementation) |
|
21: |
more organisation |
|
22: |
Tutorials would be a huge improvement. Not
that it was bad without it, but it would
have helped tremendously with keeping up to
date with the course (I guess attending
standard OS tutorials would have also been
an option). |
My perception is
a tension between "a normal structured
lecture" and the informal advanced tutorial
it has evolved from. I would like to keep
it the advanced tutorial, rather than
effectively make OS be a course with 4 hrs
of lectures each week catering for the entire
cohort. |
23: |
-Having an assignment (or an advanced
component of one of the existing
assignments) that involves concepts taught
in EOS would be really good.
-Not sure if this will be done already but
since EOS is harder (both in exams and
assignments) there should be some sort of
scaling that would allow the same raw mark
in EOS to be better than in OS.
-There should be more concepts taught in EOS
we lost too many lectures to assignment
walkthroughs. |
|
38. |
Do
you have any particular comments you would
like to make about the exam? |
|
1: |
I felt the exam didn't cover as much
material as it could have. A longer exam
might make this possible |
|
2: |
I am a bit worried about the harmonic
mean. I find that I generally make a mess of
exams (I get quite stressed during exam
periods) and I normally rely on in-semester
assessments/quizzes to make up for my
(usually) poor exam results. I suggest
adding in a mid-semester exam to cover the
first half of the content, and use the final
exam to cover the second half of the
content. (for some reason I don't get as
stressed out by mid-semester exams) |
|
3: |
Multiple Choice questions were somehow
confusing |
|
4: |
I didn't like the amount of true/false
questions and the penalties - I understand
that you don't want people guessing, but
some questions were ambiguous and I wanted
to be able to justify my answer in case I
was wrong about how I interpreted the
question. |
|
5: |
some of the multiple choice questions
seemed ambiguous |
|
| | |