Minutes of the Staff-Student Joint Committee Meeting held on

Monday 23 October 2000 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room

 

Present	Dr A Al-Tabbaa		Dr GT Parks
	Ms PE Courtney		Ms LC Stockbridge
	Mrs CB Drummond		Dr MPF Sutcliffe
	Mr TG Froggatt		Mr B Timms
	Ms DA Galletly		Mr BT Todd (in attendance)
	Mrs J Hawtrey-Woore		Dr  JAWilliams

 

 

00.30   Attendance of past and future member
The committee agreed that, although no longer officially a member of the SSJC, Mr Todd should be allowed to attend the meeting in view of his impending candidature for re-election.

 

00.31   Apologies for absence
Apologies for absence were received from Dr DRH Jones and Mr PJ Wolfe.

 

00.32   Minutes of the meeting held on 15 May 2000
The minutes of the meeting held on 15 May 2000 were approved.

 

00.33   Matters arising from the minutes

00.20 Matters Arising

00.07(ii) Undergraduate common room
Dr Parks reported that the fate of the South Wing Basement was still undecided. Dr Williams had joined the Space Committee in order to be able to represent claims for use supported by the Teaching Office.

00.07(iii) Inglis building drinking fountains
Mrs Hawtrey-Woore reported that drinking water was already supplied to the Ladies toilet in the Inglis Building. Cups were now being supplied.

00.08(iv) Provision of Tripos paper cribs on the web
Dr Parks reported that the process of putting the last five years worth of Tripos cribs on the web was well under way. Directors of Studies were still undecided about the question of placing Examples Paper cribs there.

00.10(i) Student representation on Coursework Working Party
Dr Parks reported that the previous Coursework Working Party had disbanded. A recommendation to set up a new one to address the issues raised by the SSJC would be put to the next meeting of the Coursework Committee. The student members of the SSJC agreed to confirm or revise their nominations for this Working Party.

00.10(v) Review of Drawing teaching
Dr Parks reported that this review had concluded and that, as a result, arrangements for the teaching of Part IA Drawing had been substantially revised.

00.10(vi) Teaching of report writing through Exposition classes
Dr Parks reported that Dr JP Longley had revised the instructions given to Exposition leaders on this matter. Dr Longley was planning to survey Part IA students about this once Exposition classes had ended.

00.10(vii) Review of Computing teaching
Dr Parks reported that Professor WN Dawes would be convening a meeting of the Computing Representative Group to discuss the issues raised by the SSJC this term. The student members of the SSJC agreed to confirm or revise their nominated representatives for this review.

00.10(viii) Voluntary coursework sessions
Ms Courtney reported that there was substantial interest among the students she had surveyed in the possibility of a local workshop training course arranged specifically for CUED undergraduates. Dr Parks undertook to further investigate the feasibility of arranging such a course.

00.13(ii) Web-based help information for graduate students
Ms Galletly reported that she was conducting a “welfare” related survey to assess the information needs of graduate students. She was aiming to complete this task before the next full meeting of the SSJC.

00.15(iii) Review of ‘Advice for Lecturers from the SSJC’
Ms Stockbridge reported that the revision was complete and undertook to send the revised document to the Teaching Office for publication on the web.

00.21 Introduction of Transcripts
Dr Parks reported that these had been successfully introduced. Some useful comments had been received which would result in the format of next year’s transcripts being “tweaked”. Mr Froggatt asked if it would be possible for a statement concerning “rounding errors” to be added. It was agreed that this was a desirable addition.

00.22 Feedback on 4^th Year Michaelmas Term Presentations
Dr Parks reported that a new assessment form that required those marking presentations to give feedback to the presenter (a copy being sent to their Director of Studies) had been introduced.

00.23 4^th Year Modules Coursework
Dr Parks reported that the guidelines concerning the timely marking of 4^th year module coursework had been emphasised to module leaders. The cover sheers for 4^th year module coursework had been modified in a similar manner to those for 4^th year project presentations to ensure that the student (and their Director of Studies) received feedback.

00.24 Survey of 3^rd Year Coursework
Dr Parks reported that he had discussed the report submitted by Mr Pain and Mr Timms with Dr CJ Burgoyne. The report had been borne in mind when moderating marks for 3^rd year coursework and Dr Burgoyne had taken on board the other issues raised by the report. In discussion the widespread belief that the credit given for 3^rd year coursework was incommensurate with the “one mark per hour of work” guideline was highlighted.

00.26 Provision of Recycling Bins for Cans
Mr Timms reported on the outcome of his investigations into recycling services at Mandela House. He undertook to obtain more detailed information about the collection service available (frequency, amount collected, form of receptacles etc).  Mrs Hawtrey-Woore agreed to attempt to discover how many soft drinks cans are purchased on a daily/weekly basis at CUED in order to assess the recycling demand.  Dr Parks reported that it would be possible to provide suitable receptacles (made in the workshops) for collecting crisp packets, chocolate wrappers etc. if new promotions encouraging their collection were launched.

00.028(ii) Examples paper distribution
Dr Parks reported that the option of distributing Examples Papers in LT0 at 9.00 am on the day of issue had been rejected, because of the congestion this was likely to cause. The Teaching Office decision to delay the putting out of Examples Papers until after 10.00 am on the day of issue, so that they are collected after rather than during lectures, was endorsed by the SSJC.

00.028(vi) SSJC noticeboard key
Dr Parks reported that a new key for the SSJC noticeboard was being obtained.

 

00.34   SSJC and Faculty Board elections on Tuesday 28 November 2000
Dr Parks 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.

 

00.35   SSJC booksale
Dr Parks reported that, as far as he was aware, both the Booksale Organisers being absent from the meeting, all the necessary arrangements for the booksale were in place.

 

00.36   Computerised survey
There was a wide-ranging discussion concerning the reasons for the continuing decline in the numbers of students completing the survey. The main reason was felt to be the decline in use of the machines in the DPO (on which the survey is run) with the growing provision of email facilities in College. It was felt that a web-based survey that could be completed from College would get a much higher response rate. It was agreed that the following actions would be taken:

(i)                  The incentives for completing the survey (random draw champagne prizes) would be more prominently advertised;

(ii)                More frequent email reminders about completing the survey should be issued;

(iii)               Dr Parks should ask Mr TP Love to investigate the feasibility of providing a web-based survey tool;

(iv)              Dr Parks should ask Mr Love to investigate the feasibility of generating automatic reminders             about completing the survey to those who had not done so.

The question of whether the results of the survey should be published on the web were discussed. It was agreed that there would be little interest among undergraduates in reading the entire survey, but that an executive summary would be appreciated.

 

00.37   Cambridge MIT Institute (CMI)
Dr Williams reported on the latest status of the proposed CMI student exchange scheme. Four MIT Mechanical Engineering juniors were taking courses in Part IIA this year. Plans were being formulated to allow some CUED 3^rd years to go to MIT in the 2001-2 academic year. Although it was hoped that, in due course, students could be awarded a classed degree for a year spent at MIT, it was likely that initially, at least, they could only be “declared to have deserved honours” for this year. This was seen as somewhat of a disincentive but not an insuperable one. It was agreed that CUED should provide an information sheet to accompany the MIT transcripts the students would obtain to enable these results to be interpreted in a UK context.

 

00.38   Dates of future meetings
The handover meeting, for current student members and newly-elected members only, will take place on Wednesday 29^th November 2000 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room. The next full SSJC meeting will take place on Monday 5^th February 2001 at 2.15 pm in the Board Room.

 

00.39   Any other business
(i)         It was reported that the Examinations Committee would be meeting later in the term and would discuss the question of rescheduling Part I examinations then.

(ii)        Dr Williams thanked those retiring from the SSJC for their valuable contributions over the past year.