2018/19
Reports from student surveys and lecturer responses
This page presents feedback from students about their experience on Informatics courses, to help future students in their course choices. There are also responses from the lecturers. Please note that lecturers regularly revise course content and presentation from year to year — often directly in response to exactly this feedback.
Do not redistribute or reuse this material without permission. If you would like another format or want to use it in your own publication then please contact the Informatics Teaching Organisation.
Feedback reports
The most recent feedback is from 2018/19, and covers 90 courses at all levels in the School of Informatics. Please note that not all courses run every year and course content changes from year to year. See the Course Index for current details of all courses offered.
The tables below bring together 1,312 individual submissions from students, gathered through an online survey at the end of each semester. Each course lecturer has been invited to write a response, and these are linked alongside the student feedback.
The published reports contain free-text responses by students about their experience of each course and recommendations to others planning their studies. Each course organiser receives this report as well as statistics on multiple-choice responses. All these reports, together with student feedback about individual members of teaching staff, are collected and sent to the Director of Teaching.
Please note that these are personal responses from individual students: some courses have a low response rate, and a small sample can be unrepresentative. To find out more about each course yourself, go to the index at http://course.inf.ed.ac.uk and browse the current course web pages.
Each year we remove responses that contain offensive language or otherwise breach the University Dignity and Respect policy. In 2018/19 there were eight responses removed for offensive language, two more for other breaches of the Dignity and Respect policy, and 47 responses edited to remove personally identifying details. One course report has been withdrawn at the request of the lecturer. There was no other editing or selection of results before publication.
Notes on the tables
The word (new) after a lecturer name indicates a change in the staff teaching a course.
Courses are grouped by year taken. Note that many honours courses may be taken in a choice of years: these are listed as Year 3/4 or Year 4/5/MSc as appropriate.
Viewing each feedback report requires DICE authentication: you must have an School of Informatics user account to log in and download these.
Year 1 courses (Level 8)
Course Name | 2019/20 Lecturer | 2018/19 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Computer Programming Skills and Concepts | NOT RUNNING 2019/20 | report (Alexandru / Rajan) | |
Informatics 1 - Cognitive Science | Hennig (new) / Lucas / Keller | report (Lucas / Keller / Shillcock) | |
Informatics 1 - Data and Analysis | NOT RUNNING 2019/20 | report (Stark) | |
Informatics 1 - Introduction to Computation | Yorsten (new) / Fourman / Wadler | report (Fourman / Sannella / Wadler) | |
Informatics 1 - Object-Oriented Programming |
NOTE: new version of course running in 2019/20 |
report (Seeker) |
Year 2 courses (Level 8)
Course Name | 2019/20 Lecturer | 2018/19 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Informatics 2A - Processing Formal and Natural Languages | NOT RUNNING 2019/20 | report (Cryan/ Cohen) | |
Informatics 2B - Algorithms, Data Structures, Learning | Shimodaira | report (Kalorkoti / Shimodaira) | |
Informatics 2C - Introduction to Computer Systems | Grot | report (Grot) | |
Informatics 2C - Introduction to Software Engineering | Alexandru (new) | report (Jackson) | |
Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Reasoning | Etessami / Yorsten (new) | report (Etessami / Stirling) |
Year 3 courses (Level 9)
Course Name | 2019/20 Lecturer | 2018/19 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Automated Reasoning | Fleuriot | report (Fleuriot) | |
Computer Design | NOT RUNNING 2019/20 | report (Topham) | |
Foundations of Natural Language Processing | Lascarides / Cohen (new) | report (Lascarides / Thompson) | |
Informatics Large Practical | Gilmore (new) / Jackson (new) | report (Andreadis) | |
Introductory Applied Machine Learning | Williams / Storkey (new) |
report (UG) (Goddard / Williams / Andreadis) report (PGT) (Goddard) report (Distance Learning) (Goddard) |
|
Introduction to Vision and Robotics
|
TBC |
report (Hospedales / Herrmann) report (Distance Learning) (Hospedales) |
|
Operating Systems | Leather (new) | report (O'Boyle) | |
System Design Project | Webb / Tonneau (new) | report (Webb) |
Year 3/4 courses (Level 10)
Course Name | 2019/20 Lecturer | 2018/19 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Algorithms and Data Structures | Mayr | report (Mayr) | |
Computational Cognitive Science | Lucas | report (Lucas) | |
Computer Security | Arapinis / Kohlweiss | report (Arapinis / Kohlweiss) | |
Compiling Techniques | Dubach | report (Dubach) | |
Computer Communications and Networks | Marina | report (Marina) | |
Database Systems | Guagliardo | report (Guagliardo) | |
Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science | Bradfield (new) / Sun | report (Heunen / Sun) | |
Professional Issues | S. Anderson | report (S. Anderson) | |
Software Design and Modelling | Stevens | report (Stevens) | |
Software Testing | Rajan | report (Rajan) |
Year 4 courses (Level 10)
Course Name | 2019/20 Lecturer | 2018/19 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Honours Project (Informatics) | TBC | report (Sannella) | |
MInf Project (Part 1) | TBC | report (Sannella) |
Year 4/5/MSc courses (Level 11)
Year 5/MSc courses
Most MSc study is at Level 11. However, MSc students may take up to 30 credit points of Level 9 and Level 10 courses. Those are listed in the sections above for Year 3 and Year 4; except for the MSc-specific Introduction to Java Programming which appears here.
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