21T1 OS Survey

The myexperience survey result for this year is available as a PDF here.

Like 20T1, the course was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in it running online. It used the same lectures recorded face-to-face from 19T1, ran tutorials online using blackboard collaborate, ran very similar assignments, and provided support via consults, and switched to using Ed (www.edstem.org) instead of Piazza.

The perception I have it that the course was well received and that there are no major course-wide issues, except the lack of community/interactivity that was a side effect of moving everything online again due to the pandemic. Minor issues are noted below.

• The 10-week term was noted as squeezing regarding available tutorial time (losing flex-week squeezed this tighter). As remarked previously, the aim is to select coverage based on demand/interest/need in the tutorial as reducing the number of questions available for study was unpopular.
• There is a debate regarding pre-recorded (face-to-face recording from 2019) versus live streaming with lecture recordings. My hope is that we simply return back to status quo with face-to-face so the debate goes away. Unfortunately, 22T1 is looking like online as well. There are a lot of trade-offs and complexities in moving to live streaming which I will evaluate for 22T1 (e.g. I'm not convinced me droning away into a webcam will be better than old face-to-face recordings, especially when the vast majority seem to watch at their leisure anyway).
• I added some GDB debugging resources in 20T1, it's unclear if they are helpful, or if people find them useful. Debugging seems a recurring comment.