Minutes of the Staff-Student Joint Committee Meeting held on
Tuesday 12 May 2003 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room

 

Present	Mr C. Bass	Dr J. Lasenby
	Ms R.C. Catallo	Mr J.E. Lindop
	Mrs C.B. Drummond	Dr R.J. Miller
	Ms H. Dong	Dr C.T. Morley
	Mr S. Elia	Mr M.G. Richards
	Mr C.J. Knowles	Dr G.T. Parks
	Mr P.W. Konopka	Ms A.G. Yetginer
Absent	Mr P.W.T. Mash

 

03.15   Apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received from Mr T.R.P. Bishop, Mrs S. Collins-Taylor, Mrs J Hawtrey-Woore and Mr F.M.N.Z. Tully.

 

03.16   Minutes of the meeting held on 3^rd February 2003

The minutes of the meeting held on 3 February 2003 were approved.

 

03.17   Matters arising from the Minutes

            03.07 Computing Facilities

Mr Knowles reported that a draft of the planned “Introduction to Unix” (for the benefit of new users of the CUED Teaching System) was complete. It was agreed that the full version should be put on-line on the SSJC Homepage and that a single page printed summary should be included in the information pack issued to freshers.

03.08 Lectures and Lecture Notes (ii)

Dr Parks reported that the Teaching Committee had agreed that:

“… variation in lecturing style should not be discouraged, and that appropriate use of the blackboard or OHP was entirely acceptable. Guidelines and the mentoring scheme were in place to help new staff to develop a good lecturing technique, and it was felt that a uniform house-style for lecturing was not good practice. Students should be encouraged to use the existing feedback mechanisms to comment upon courses.”

03.10 Course Content

Dr Parks reported that the Teaching Committee had solicited a report from the Cambridge HASS co-ordinator in order to provide a basis for further discussion on this matter.

03.12 Examinations (i)

Dr Parks reported that the survey of the 260 1^st year students had resulted in 44 voting in favour of Option B (exams on Saturday/Monday/Tuesday) and 77 voting in favour of Option C (exams on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday). In the absence of a clear majority in favour of change, no change could be made.

03.12 Examinations (ii)

Dr Parks reported that the Teaching Committee had not yet received any requests for “open book” examinations in years earlier than year 4, but that, if such a request was received, it would certainly be considered by the appropriate committees.

03.12 Examinations (iii)

Dr Parks reported that the approval of calculators for University examinations was a process involving negotiation and (inevitably) compromise between representatives of a number of Faculties and Departments. The factors considered in these discussions were:

Ø      Model availability;

Ø      Inclusion of desired functionalities;

Ø      Exclusion of functionalities that would undermine the form of examinations and the ability to test particular analytical skills.

03.14 Any other business (i) Part IB Linear Circuits

Dr Parks reported that, as requested, revision lectures on the Part IB Linear Circuits lecture course had been organised. These were reported to have been well received by the 2^nd year students.

03.14 Any other business (ii) Men’s toilets

Dr Parks reported on behalf of Mr Green that the Department had requested funding to refurbish a number of toilets in both the Baker and Inglis Buildings. It was hoped that this request would be successful and at least one set of toilets would be refurbished over the summer. The task of maintaining the state of the men’s toilets had been exacerbated by a ‘phantom’ who was deliberately blocking toilets, creating significant additional work for both maintenance and cleaning staff.

03.14 Any other business (iii) Student photograph galleries

Dr Parks reported that these were now live and accessible from: http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/teaching/index-general.htm

03.14 Any other business (v)3^rd year examples papers cribs

Dr Parks reported that the designing (and subsequent distribution) of a standard form to allow supervisors to report errors in examples papers cribs was in hand.

 

03.18   SSJC CUES position

It was agreed that the ex-officio position on the SSJC for a representative of CUES should be for the Chairman or a nominated substitute to allow for the possibility of the CUES Chairman also being an elected member of the SSJC or Faculty Board.

 

03.19   Use of dictionaries in University examinations

It was agreed that the Examinations Committee should be asked to reconsider the current arrangements/regulations concerning the use of dictionaries in examinations, with the recommendation that a simple (non-technical) English dictionary should be made available (for student consultation) in all examination rooms.

 

03.20   Date of next meeting

The next meeting of the SSJC will take place on Monday 27^th October 2003, 2.15 pm, Board Room.

 

03.21   Any other business

(i)                  Reading time in examinations

In response to an enquiry from Mr Lindop, the reasons for the introduction of 10 minutes reading time at the start of 3^rd and 4^th year examinations were explained. It was accepted that, although 10 minutes was excessively long reading time for some examination papers, uniformity of practice was essential.

(ii)                Review of new Part IIA course

The junior members of the SSJC were assured that their predecessors had been regularly consulted during the development of the new modular structure to Part IIA of the Engineering Tripos. It was agreed that it was important that the views of current 3^rd year undergraduates should be solicited as part of the review of the new arrangements that the Teaching Committee would, as a matter of course, be conducting.

(iii)               Examination rubric

In response to a report from Dr Lasenby that a significant number of candidates had attempted excess questions in at least one 4^th year examination, it was agreed that the Examinations Committee should be asked to review the format of the rubric on examination papers and to consider whether invigilators should be asked to read the rubric out before the start of the examination.

(iv)              3F6

In response to a request from Mr Lindop, it was agreed that the Electrical and Information Engineering Subject Group should be asked to consider whether a written 1.5 hour examination was the best way to examine the material taught in module 3F6 (Software Engineering and Design).