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| Last modified: 20100913:104310/added feedback from staff-student meeting |
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About FIT2022 (aka Unit Outline)
Unit Synopsis
| Workloads
| Improvement
| Previous News Items
Welcome to FIT2022! These web pages should be your first port
of call for any information specific to this subject. If the
information you seek is not here,
drop me a note
and I'll endeavour to fix it for you.
Please note that these pages will be regularly updated throughout
the semester. You are encouraged to bookmark the home page in your
browser, and visit it at least once per week.
Unit Synopsis
The
Handbook Entry for FIT2022
is available, but not very accurate. See below for more
up-to-date information about the unit objectves and learning
outcomes. Or you can look at the
FIT2022 Avatar Entry.
The Undergraduate Handbook itself is at:
http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/handbooks/undergrad/
The faculty
Unit Guide page for this unit is available (once
approved). Note that this guide can give valuable insights into
how to study the unit.
For example, I often get asked "Is such-and-such a topic
examinable?". You can see what material is examinable by
looking at the learning objectives. If some topic contributes
to that learning objective, it is examinable. To help you
understanding the relationship between the learning objectives
and examinable material, every major learning activity
identified in these web pages has a link to the corresponding
learning objective(s). Simply hover your mouse over the
learning material link to see the learning objective pop up.
The Unit
Objectives are an important aid to understand what
the subject is all about. In them, we try to define what the
university (through the
Clayton School of Information Technology) thinks is
important about the subject.
Prerequisite knowledge
Material covered by the following units, as noted:
-
FIT1008
-
This unit covers a number of software skills that are
relevant to the unit. From the background in programming
that the unit provides, students will be expected in
FIT2022 to quickly pick up the programming language
Python, an object-oriented high-level scripting language
that will allow rapid orientation to the underlying
programming issues in operating systems implementation.
-
FIT1001
-
This unit (which is itself a prerequisite to FIT1008)
covers some basic computer systems material. In
particular, knowledge of the internal organization and
operation of the basic stored-program digital computer is
assumed for FIT2022.
Relationship to following units
There are no units that follow up material in this unit.
Workloads
Students are expected to attend the three lectures each week,
and 1 tutorial and 1 3-hour lab session a fortnight. In addition,
some 7 hours of private study is required.
Improvement
Staff Student Meetings 2010
Two staff-student meetings were held during the semester 2
offering of FIT2022 (9 Aug and 13 Sep). Issues raised include:
-
Lab Assistant does not turn up on time and students
are waiting around to get started. Response: this happened
in one tutorial due to confusion about the room involved. The
tutor has apologised, and promised that it will not happen
again.
-
Labs seem to be a lot easier than lecture
content. Students feel they would benefit from longer tutes
since they are in advance of lectures. Response: This
was perhaps true for the first one of two labs/tutes, but
feedback from later sessions indicated that the comment may
have been a little premature. Certainly lab 1 should be
re-evaluated for next year's offering (FIT2070), with a view
to increasing the content. David Green pointed out that
students need to put in work apart from just labs and tutes.
-
Labs seem to be too long. Response: See above. The
academic goal in designing the labs is to give weaker
students an opportunity to engage with some of the material,
while giving stronger students sufficient challenge to keep
their interest going. Hurdle marks are awarded on the basis
of achieving a realistic minumum, consistent with the weaker
student achievements.
-
Timing of Assignment 2 deadline is awkward, and
clashes with lab week. Response: move deadline to a
week later (after the mid-semester break).
Past Years
The unit evaluation from 2007 is
available. The response rate was very disappointing,
and probably reflects only those students who felt aggrieved in
some way. Most of the negative comments related to the lectures
and lecture notes, which have been addressed for 2008 (see the
written
responses). If you have any comments on the delivery
of this unit (like you feel the tutorial wording is "too
vague"), you are invited, nay encouraged, to
email John Hurst with your comments! I cannot fix
things that I do not know are broken!
The written responses by
last year's students to the open questions 19 and 20 on the Unit
Evaluation are available, along with responses by this year's
unit coordinator.
You are asked to keep your laboratory journals on-line, using
the svn repository provided. I will be reviewing these at the
end of semester with a view to see what things worked well, and
what didn't. This information will be used to improve next
year's unit.
Lecturer Reflections
These are some of the things I (ajh) would like to change for
2008:
- Assignment 1 was at the wrong time, and forced me to
rush some of the scheduling issues. Delay this (and the
topic) to later in the unit.
- Many students commented in the Assignment 1 discussion
that they had trouble getting global variables to work. Add
this to the Python introduction for next year. If the same
assignment is used (or similar), a sample threading program
should be added to the labs.
- Neither the students nor I were happy with the Nutt
slides (vide Staff-Student Meeting Number 2007/3) - they had too
little detail. Revert to SGG. Moved to Stallings slides instead. These were much better!
- The was some confusion of the timing of bonus mark
offerings (vide Staff-Student Meeting Number 2007/4). I personally
don't quite understand what the issue here is, so if anyone
wants to write to
me, please feel welcome.Little use was made of bonus marks, so this issue was non-existent.
-
- Need to integrate the CSE2324 material more
purposefully. This was done very effectively by the
switch to Stallings. His chapter 2, a revision of
Computer Systems, covers caching at pretty much the right
level of detail.
- Revise labs to include CSE2324 material? Not done,
but the changed lectures and notes seemed to address this
issue.
- Develop better lecture notes. The move to Stallings
addressed this one more than adequately.
- An initial reflection on the exam indicates that
students are not engaging with the material. There is poor
understanding of bookwork, let alone any analytical or
critical facility. Problems involving arithmetic indicate a
poor level of ability in this area. Those students relying
upon last minute cramming did not manage to cover all the
material. Need to reflect on this more
systematically. Anecdotally, this seems better. Reports
from the labs indicate that students do seem to be coping
much better, and student interactions, questions, and the
use of the Moodle fourm all suggest deeper engagement with
the material during semester. One of the factors in this,
I believe, is the more strict requirement that students
complete the lab journals in order to gain the lab hurdle
marks. Tutors report much better engagement in the labs.
(The tutorials remain a problem.)
Improvements Made
- A past staff-student meeting raised the concern that the
labs do not make it clear what is required to earn the
"lab satisfactory" mark. There is a simple answer to
that question: proof that you've learnt something new in the
lab (which should be articulated in the lab journal!) A
statement to this effect has been added to the lab
instructions (20100701:135722)
Previous News Items
- 20100802:162015
-
Assignment 1
is now released in final form.
- 20100727:161502
-
Assignment 1 has been
released in draft form.
Document History
| 20100913:104310 |
3.0.1 |
ajh |
added feedback from staff-student meeting |
| 20100615:174300 |
3.0.0 |
ajh |
initial version for 2010, copied from 2008 |
