Minutes of Teaching Committee Meeting 14 September 2001

Present: Keith So, Simon Bowden, andrewt, billw (chair), chak, elgindyh, jas, kenr, lambert, ramer, rossj, sowmya, sridevan, steve
Index
  1. Accreditation follow-up:
    1. Modifications to CS program to achieve requirements for ACS accreditation: It was agreed in principle that CS should be modified by introducing a 6 uoc core course in third year to cover the requisite material. The professional issues and ethics part of this might be shared with COMP4920, but no definite source for the material on management was identified. A subcommittee including billw, lambert, rossj would look at details.
    2. Item deferred to next meeting: Should a strict software engineering process be followed in SENG4910 (with report) / SENG4911? What about COMP4910/1? What about CS honours projects? What about BINF4910/1?

  2. Item deferred to next meeting - Subjects to run in 2002: (draft here).

  3. New course proposal: COMP9025
    The proposal was approved. This course (subject to approval by Faculty committees) would run as an alternative to COMP9020 in 02s1 (for both pg Info Science and pg Computer Science students) on a trial basis.

  4. allocation of examination marking - this item was raised by Ross Jeffery in relation to his workload committee's terms of reference. The view of the committee was that examination marking was allocated separately to the rest of workload, although in some cases other aspects of workload could impact on what was expected of an academic by way of exam marking. Following discussion on the amount of work involved in setting a multiple choice exam, the TC will prepare a policy on multiple choice marking and marking workload.

  5. Standards for project/assignment assessment: the discussion on this led to the conclusion that while most top-ups performed their allocated work superlatively, some underperformed, and that the School should investigate performance criteria for top-ups and ways of making clear the quality requirements for top-up work.

  6. Follow-up on COMP20yy. Members of the Potter committee confirmed that the data structures material had been intended to be spread across the new version of COMP2011 and COMP20yy. A review of the new COMP2011 will be held at the end of the teaching period. NB: it would make sense to combine this review with follow-ups on the introductions of COMP1711 and COMP1721, and a planning session for the implementation of COMP2711 in 02s1.

  7. Should COMP9021 switch back to C? The TC's answer was yes. As COMP9021 and COMP9024 must cover C, Java, and Data Structures, this means that COMP9024 will teach Java, and some data structures material will likely move back into COMP9021.

  8. Maintenance revisions to Bioinformatics. The TC approved the introduction of an Industrial Training requirement for BE Bioinformatics, and resolved that BINF4910 Thesis Part A should be reduced to 3 UoC to make room for a BINF4920 Professional Issues and Ethics.

  9. The TC approved the withdrawal of the BE Computer Engineering MCom option until the removal of the current flaws allowing students to graduate with BE Computer Engineering after substituting Commerce courses for 3 Professional Electives, without actually completing the MCom program. The BE MCom rules are under the control of the Faculty of Engineering (and Faculty of Commerce). While students in other combined programs, such as BE BA, BE BSc, and BE MBiomedE may be asked to complete extra courses in order to meet the BE requirements if they drop out of their combined program, we are not able to enforce this with BE MCom students.

    Students currently in the BE MCom program (i.e. having reached fourth year and substituted Commerce courses for Professional Electives) will be able to complete under the university's interpretation of the present rules. 

School of Computer Science & Engineering
The University of New South Wales
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