Mail to CSE addresses is now forwarded. This will continue indefinitely so people with long establish @cse.unsw.edu.au address continue to receive mail sent to them.
New mail alias software was implemented last year which allows CSE to continue to provide mail aliases including aliases for classes (e.g. comp1917-list) and for school roles (e.g. teaching-staff)
A bug with the new mail alias software caused mail to not be delivered to some members of mail aliases. This was fixed in week 0.
Slow delivery times (~1 hour) were experienced for e-mail during week 1. This was caused by e-mail making multiple (slow) transit of the central anti-spam/malware filter (Ironport) system. Reconfiguration of mail routing centrally and at CSE has improved delivery times. CSG is also dealing with subtler issues related to pgrad/staff mail being hosted differently centrally.
Migration of services to these machines is underway. In some cases this can occur without impact on users. In other cases there short outages may be necessary (with appropriate warning and at time to minimize impact on users). Some services may not be relocated until mid-year.
CSG would also like to migrate work on old "research" hardware to these new servers.
This may provide convenient access to teaching software such as Matlab.
This looks potential useful at CSE particularly in service courses.
Its suggested we trial use of myaccess in a course to gain experience its capabilities & limitations.
A possible candidate is provision of Matlab to ENGG1811 students in the second half of session.
Chil lab contains 20 Macs whose primary teaching use is COMP3511/9511 which runs in session 2. It is also used for Comp Club the DO's high school program and few miscellaneous other purposes.
It is unlikely space can be found to redeploy the Macs and they are out of warranty in October.
The best option appears to be to shift COMP3511/9511 and Comp Club to general access (Linux) teaching labs. This requires suitable software being available which may require use of a virtual machine to provide access to Windows based software, and perhaps allocation to particular labs to obtain acceptable performance.
As session 2 timetabling has been completed there will be significant logistical problems shifting COMP3511/9511 labs.
There was agreement at CMAC that loss of Tuba as a teaching lab was unfortunate and it would be preferable if the basement could be retained as a homogeneous teaching precinct.
There was agreement at CMAC that it would be preferable from a teaching perspective if Banjo lab on the ground floor perhaps with the addition of the consultation rooms - was used for Cisco.
The new lab created in the space occupied by FIPRAS is planned to be available prior to session 2, there was agreement at CMAC that there was an risk that this lab would not be ready for s2, leaving us with one less teaching lab - and hence contingency planning was necessary.
It also has 2 restricted access labs, oud & banjo , containing 37 screens - intended primarily for pgrad coursework students, hons students & tutors. These are not normally used for classes but are used for exams when needed.
In 16s1 there are ~400 hours of scheduled classes in CSE's teaching labs. These classes mostly run for 12 weeks but in some cases the bookings are only for a small number of weeks.
For comparison, 15s1 there were ~300 hours of scheduled classes in CSE's teaching labs.
14 labs gives us ~560 hours of scheduled classes 9am-5pm, or 840 hours (9am-9pm).
CSE labs hence have the raw capacity to accommodate either growth in demand in 2017 or loss of a teaching lab for 16s1.
Lab classes are timetabled centrally some months in advance to meet other constraints in student timetables. Handling loss of a teaching lab for 16s2 would involve disruption to students - in many cases no spare lab would be available in the same time slot, the class would need to be cancelled and the student would be forced enrol in another class possibly in the evening.
In some cases conversion to a BYOD device lab may be possible, contingent on a suitable CATS room being available.
We could also consider use one of the restricted access labs - although these have fewer screens than tuba.
Currently tut-lab classes are timetabled so they do not overlap to facilitate allocation of tutors. Removing this restriction for 17s1 would reduce fragmentation and make some more lab hours available at the cost of making provision of good tutors more difficult.
In principle ~200 Windows (SOE) workstation in MechEng labs on J17 level 2 are also available.
Use of these would much reduce logistical problems for some classes, e.g. 16s1 COMP1917 with 770 students.
CSG will investigate provision of a sufficiently secure & reliable exam environment on SOE & Linux workstation . It appears the recent increase in CSE server capacity combined with campus networking bandwidth may make this feasible via a "thin" SOE/Linux client.
Few classes are still using the phbBB-based web forums - most use alternatives such as Piazza, webcms, OpenLearning or Moodle to host class discussions.
Hence CSG would like to decommission the phbBB-based web forums.
There was agreement at CMAC there was insufficient use in teaching to justify the work necessary to continue support of the phbBB-based web forums.
CMAC was noted that a number of lecturers find Piazza provides efficient & effective forums for courses..
CMAC noted that where lecturer have concerns preventing use of an external system such as Piazza, webcms and Moodle offer alternatives internal to UNSW. There was agreement at CMAC any advantages phbBB might have over these systems was insufficient to justify the cost of continuing CSG support considering the small number of classes involved.
CSG agreed to delay decommissioning phbBB until the end of 16s1.
The trial will be with COMP1911 using the containers to sandbox student C programs to provide web-based compilation, execution and testing
Containers appear to sufficiently lightweight that we could allow students in a large course to manipulate entire virtual Linux machines in assignment and lab exercise.
Docker might also provide an effective way to provide extra software on CSG machines in advanced courses.