CITS2002 Systems Programming

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Look after yourself!

CITS2002 Programming and Systems - 2014 Project 1 Feedback

Thanks to the 49 (of 135) students who completed the survey. Presented below are links to your feedback, including all 'numeric' questions, and the ones for which you provided comments.

As is seen in many university surveys, a number of comments recommended "more of something". Unfortunately many of these requests cannot be met because the unit is presented under a number of financial and time constraints - for example, we're funded based on the number of students enrolled in the unit, pay lab demonstrators and markers according to standard rates of pay, and those involved in the unit do have other responsibilities each week. The presentation of this unit is 'following' the same constraints as all other units in our Faculty.

Another theme amongst the comments is that we need to be aware that a number of students in the unit have not programmed before (9 of 44 stated this in Question-2). We're certainly aware of this, and (honestly) have been going quite slowly in the first part of this unit. It's also important to reiterate that our Handbook entry lists as Advisable Prior Study for this unit, one of CITS1001, CITS1401, or CITS2401, and ECM Study Guides including CITS2002 provide opportunity to study at least one of these units in earlier semesters. Perhaps for other than the 5 students who are visiting on an International Study Exchange, if you've enrolled in this unit without any prior programming experience, then you've accepted some responsibility to "get up to speed" with some basic programming concepts (variables, conditions, loops) before taking this unit. This is a second-year unit and it's infeasible for every computing unit to start from scratch and to still "teach to the middle" of its cohort.

Please have a look through the comments of your peers, and the replies I've made in blue to some of them. The diversity of opinions and satisfaction is quite notable. Of course, please follow-up with any additional comments or questions via email, or on our help forum.

Chris McDonald
October 2014.