Minutes of the Staff-Student Joint Committee Meeting held on Monday 22 October 2001 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room

 

 

Present

Dr A Al-Tabbaa

 

Mr SI Hill

 

Mr DJ Auger

 

Mr BR Martin

 

Miss SA Bird

 

Mr PWT Mash

 

Mrs C Drummond

 

Dr GT Parks  (Secretary)

 

Mr TG Froggatt

 

Mr HK Taylor

 

Mrs J Hawtrey-Woore

 

Dr JA Williams  (Chair)

 

01.30      Apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received from Dr Jones, Dr Sutcliffe and Mr Zhao.

01.31      Resignation of Miss S.F. Morgan

Dr Parks reported that Miss Morgan had resigned her position following her transfer to the Land Economy Tripos. In view of the imminence of the next elections, it had been decided not to hold a by-election.

01.32      Minutes of the meeting held on 14 May 2001

The minutes of the meeting held on 14th May 2001 were approved.

01.33      Matters arising from the minutes

            00.10(viii) Voluntary coursework sessions

            Dr Parks reported that the Electrical and Information Engineering Subject Group had approved the introduction of a “Computer Build” project and that this would be running for the first time at the end of the Michaelmas term. There was some discussion on the question of which years of students should be able to sign up for these activities. It was agreed to review the situation after the first batch of sessions of the year had run.

            01.12(iii) IA Linear Circuits teaching

Miss Bird and Mr Taylor spoke briefly to their paper (“polished” version attached), apologising for the fact that it had been submitted too late to be considered by the summer meeting of the Electrical and Information Engineering Subject Group. Dr Parks undertook to bring the paper to the next EIESG meeting.

            01.13(i) SSJC Dinner

Mr Mash reported that a dinner could be laid on at Emmanuel College for £16 per head. He suggested Friday 16th November for the dinner and agreed to email members of the committee to establish their availability. It was agreed that the department should subsidise half the cost of the meal, i.e. £8 per head.

            01.14(iv) Cleaning of the statue at the CUED entrance

Mrs Hawtrey-Woore reported that the statue would be cleaned when the leaves had fallen from the overhanging lime trees this autumn.

            01.24 Cover for student bicycle racks

Mrs Hawtrey-Woore reported that at present EMBS have no funds available for providing such upgrades to facilities. Dr Williams reported that the new Head of the Architecture Department was keen to redevelop the area between the Architecture Department and CUED and suggested that this might provide an opportunity for the introduction of covered bicycle racks.

            01.25 Drinking water availability

Mrs Hawtrey-Woore reported that paper cups were now being provided. She undertook to investigate ways in which the signage indicating the availability of drinking water might be improved.

            01.26 Provision of on-line timetabling information

Mrs Drummond reported that timetables and lab rotas were now available (as pdf files) via a link on the Undergraduate Teaching Home Page (http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/teaching/).

01.34      SSJC and Faculty Board elections on Tuesday 20 November 2001

Dr Parks outlined the arrangements for the forthcoming elections. He undertook to circulate all the student members of the SSJC with transparencies that can be used to encourage people to stand for the SSJC and also to encourage them to vote in the elections. He also highlighted the need for assistance manning the ballot boxes and conducting the count on the day of the election and undertook to email the student members about this nearer the time.

01.35      SSJC booksale

Mr Mash reported that all the necessary arrangements for the booksale were in place.

01.36      Computerised survey

There was a wide-ranging discussion concerning the reasons for the continuing decline in the numbers of students completing the survey. It was agreed that the new web-based system accessible from outside CUED, introduced this year, should be given a chance before other measures were tried. Mr Love should be asked whether it was possible to implement a system whereby, in the last week of each term, for undergraduates on logging onto the Teaching System the survey tool was automatically launched.

Other means of acquiring survey information discussed were:

(i)                 Distributing paper (scannable) survey forms through supervisors/Directors of Studies;

(ii)                Collecting information on coursework activities via fields on the cover sheets/laboratory handouts.

01.37      Vandalisation of Library furniture

            Dr Williams reported on a recent act of vandalisation. It was agreed that such behaviour was unacceptable and that a suitably worded email about the incident should be sent to all students.

01.38      SSJC homepage

It was agreed that the SSJC homepage might usefully be accorded more prominence by having a link to it alongside the link to the official SSJC web page. It was further agreed that the contents of the SSJC homepage were at the discretion of the student members of the SSJC.

01.39      Date of next meeting

            The handover meeting, for current student members and newly-elected members only, will take place on Monday 26th November 2001 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room. The next full SSJC meeting will take place on Monday 4th February 2002 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room.

01.40      Any other business

(i)                 Lecture room for I12:
It was reported that the lecture room allocated for module I12 was inadequate for the size of audience. Mrs Drummond undertook to see if the remaining I12 lectures could be relocated to a larger room.

(ii)                Classing in Tripos Examinations:
In discussion of the paper circulated by the Faculty Board several points were made:

(a)    That it is very difficult to make comparisons between different courses and different institutions;

(b)   There is a perception among some students and employers that the institution attended is more important than the class of degree obtained;

(c)    There is concern that the classing system employed at Cambridge disadvantages some graduates whose results fall just below the II.1/II.2 boundary in seeking employment with some companies and organisations, for instance the Civil Service, that use a II.1 cut-off in screening applicants.

It was agreed that Mr Mash and Mr Martin should survey current 4th year students to collect evidence on these issues.

(iii)              A Headstart to CUED:

It was reported that the Engineering Society were unhappy with their portrayal in this booklet (issued to all first year students). It was agreed that this issue should be investigated by the next editor of the booklet.

(iv)              4th year project selection procedures:

Mr Martin reported that difficulties had come to light as a consequence of students not having met their 4th year project supervisors face to face prior to signing up for their project. It was agreed that a face to face meeting was an essential part of the process, and that Dr Prager should be asked to add a paragraph emphasising this point in the guidelines issued to students.

(v)               Sandwiches in the staff canteen:

Dissatisfaction was expressed on behalf of graduate students about the quality, range and price of sandwiches on sale in the staff canteen. Mrs Hawtrey-Woore explained that these represented all that was available from the University Centre at present.

(vi)              Thanks to outgoing committee members:

Dr Williams thanked the members of the SSJC for whom this was their last full meeting for their contributions during the year.

 

SSJC Comments on Part IA Linear Circuits Teaching 2000-2001

The first and positive note is that the general consensus is that the course content is absolutely fine. The main two problems are:

1.      The style of lecturing throughout the year (mainly Michaelmas term), and

2.      The large variety of electronics knowledge students have on entering the course. It needs to be recognised that the minimum knowledge gained during A-level Physics is purely Ohm’s law and basic capacitance. No rigorous mathematical proof is seen, as A-level Maths is not required to do A-level Physics.

The suggestions we have are:

·        A more comprehensive handout with the Preparatory Problems booklet.

·        Perhaps an introductory lecture to reinforce this.

·        Most definitely, a slower introduction to each topic outlining better – what we hope to learn, then the learning, then a summary, i.e. BETTER STRUCTURE.

·        A lesser emphasis on the algebraic proof and more on the basics.

·        And most importantly BETTER HANDOUTS:

Ø      The small text along the side of each page whilst being very helpful is also a distraction to lectures and not completely essential. It may be better to place all this text at the back of each lecture as a mini summary. This would leave space for the handouts to be better structured and formatted.

Ø      Most definitely the typos and mistakes in the handouts need to be corrected.

Ø      Lastly when a new set of handouts are drafted, could they be presented to someone such as the authors for some kind of student input?

 

S.A. Bird

H.K. Taylor