CSE Teaching Committee, Minutes of Meeting, Monday 16 Feb 2009

The meeting commenced at 11 AM.

Present: Arcot Sowmya (chair), Alan Blair, Richard Buckland, Paul Compton, Bruno Gaeta, Peter Ho, Tim Lambert, Eric Martin, Ron van der Meyden, Sri Parameswaran, Ken Robinson

Apologies: Jingling Xue

  1. AS opened, stating that this meeting was called at short notice, and future meetings will be open to all academic staff. She noted that one more academic staff member had to be nominated to the committee, as well as a sturep. Also, she is awaiting access to the TC web page, and will in future put up all document links on it.

    ACTION:

    1. AS to notify all academic staff of future meetings.
    2. PC to nominate one academic, and ask for one sturep nomination, to TC.
    3. AS to obtain access to TC web page and update it around meeting dates.

    The agenda items were considered out of listed order, based on urgency and time available.

  2. Actions for start of S1

    Course Outlines for S1: AS distributed copies of a 2008 course outline assessment undertaken by TLU. The suggestions from Dr David Clements (DC), Associate Dean (Acad) were tabled by AS:

    After much discussion, a number of actions were agreed upon.

    ACTIONS

    1. RB to make available his first year course outline template to all academics, eg by requesting JAS to put it on WebCMS
    2. AS to mail DC's suggestions and assessment criteria used for course outlines, to all academics

    Use of calculators: AS reminded academic staff who recommend use of calculators in exams, on change in policy: student calculators must be `dot stamped' before exams, and students must be warned to watch out for announcements on this.

    GenEd Course List: AS circulated a GenEd courselist she had prepared, in consultation with other staff- these are CSE courses that other students may take as GenEd, and the list was requested by DC. Minor changes were made after discussion. AS reminded that in future, generic requirements on course proposals such as `48 uoc from any program' must be carefully worded to avoid confusion.

    ACTION: AS to send modified GenEd list to DC.

  3. New/modified S2 courses

    Three course proposals for BINF 9020, COMP3441/9441 and COMP 4442 were tabled and d discussed. Minor changes were suggested for BINF 9020. For the other two courses, besides minor changes, wider consultation with INFS and MATH was suggested.

    ACTION: BG, RB and RvM to consult, modify the outlines and return the proposals to AS, in time to get Faculty approval at end Mar.

  4. Faculty level Eng/Math group

    AS has nominated SP and KAR to DC's group. RB requested that he be added, as he has already been talking to Math about first year courses.

    ACTION: AS to suggest addition of RB to DC's group

  5. Stability in first year course content

    RB outlined the need to maintain stable first year course content, and his plans to ensure it:

    1. maintain permanent course resources on WebCMS for all first year courses, wi th lecturer having flexibility to add to or modify it- this would all course not es/slides, past labs etc
    2. exam paper to be set at course beginning to ensure adherence to content

      ACTION: RB to communicate to staff on these initiatives

    3. Deferred Items

      The following items were deferred to the next meeting:

      1. 2+2 undergraduate program and 1+1 Masters with Chinese universities
      2. 2010 program and course initiatives

    4. Any other business

      KAR raised the issue of teaching in Week 0 during S1. PC undertook to clarify matters with School office.

      ACTION: PC to check with CN and inform all staff

    School of Computer Science & Engineering
    The University of New South Wales
    Sydney 2052, AUSTRALIA

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