TC Agenda 14th November 2018

19.17 Minutes of Previous Meetings

19.18 Matters Arising

18.04 - Moderation of IPP marks - course co-ordinator to adopt the proposed IPP moderation policy. ITO to record policy.

18.29-01 – The Convenor raised the ongoing subject of software options for coursework submission. ACTION: to establish sub-committee to investigate options - ONGOING.

18.59-02: Course Moderation Guidelines / Non-Hons Convenor guide. The BoE Convenors are officially responsible for ensuring that moderation guidelines are available. ACTION: DoLT to refer this to convenors - OUTSTANDING.

18.59-03: Exam Script Loss - DoLT to speak to ITO about the audit process and discuss options. ONGOING.

18.60-01: DoLT to raise the possibility of PhDs “help hours” in a sub-committee. Requests for support should be modified to include an additional section covering this. ACTION: Vicky MacTaggart to look into this with DoLT. ONGOING.

18.60-02: Learning Technologist to produce an overview for the LEARN template. Alex Burford has done so. ACTION: Learning Technologist to provide a report to TC to illustrate how this has been received.

18.60-03: Degree Programme Management Tool.  ACTION: Don Sannella and Richard Mayer were to modify the text Don has used previously for dissemination.

Project Allocation Procedure (1.91 KB Plain text)

18.63: Teaching Programme Review – DoLT. A meeting should be arranged in October or November with a named TPR team – to be discussed at next Teaching Committee. OUTSTANDING.

19.05 Resit Examinations: considering how best to handle the issue of failed coursework.  COMPLETE.

19.06 Proposal to limit UG/MSc project Report Lengths, S.Goldwater. ACTION: S. Goldwater to bring proposal for MSc.

Proposal to Limit MSc Project Report Length v2 (495.28 KB PDF)

Comments from P.Stevens: " I support this proposal. One comment: I'm not sure that "Appendices are allowed, but it cannot be assumed that the marker will read them." is a sensible policy: it's an uncomfortable half-way house between the appendix being part of the dissertation and not. If one marker (usually the supervisor...) does read an appendix, and give credit for what is in it, while the other does not, the result is a discrepancy in the marks - which will lead to the other marker being in effect required to read the appendix anyway, in order to discuss. I think it might be better simply to forbid appendices. (Of course, students can always put extra information elsewhere, e.g. on a web page; but at least then it's clearly not part of the dissertation, which is better.)"

19.09-01 Student reps to be found for Teaching Committee. ACTION: ITO to find. ITO Have contacted year reps to ask for volunteers. No response from year reps.

19.09-03: Policy on Late Coursework to be clarified. ACTION: DoLT & Informatics Student Support to bring a formal proposal to next TC. OUTSTANDING.

19.12 Provision of DPMT for CDTs - A. Lopez. ACTION: (1) Computing Support to be contacted, and a representative to attend TC - DONE. (2) R.Mayr to liaise with T.Spink regarding this modification.

19.13 - (Updated) Proposal for Informatics 1B course - P.Anderson, V.Seeker. ACTION: produce next version of proposal - attached.

Proposal for Informatics 1B course v2.3 (144.16 KB PDF)

 Comments from P.Stevens attached here:

Comments on INF1B P Stevens (3.87 KB Plain text)

19.19 MSc Student Numbers - MSc Project Manager

MSc Student Numbers (3.38 KB Plain text)

Comments from P.Stevens:  "Of course we can supervisor more MSc students if required to do so. However, doing so takes time: once one takes into consideration everything from writing project proposals to marking, supervising two more MSc students is roughly one more full-time week spent on MSc supervision. I see no suggestion that the School will compensate by removing any teaching or admin duties from us, so I assume the intention is that each of us does one full-time week less research than we would otherwise have done. This is a non-trivial fraction of all the time one gets to spend on research in a year. I think the School should say explicitly that it is reallocating our time in this way. (Including pointing it out to College- or University-level people, as appropriate.) This statement should be included in the email that goes out announcing the higher standard load."

19.20 Clusters of MSc Projects - MSc Project Manager

Clusters of MSc Projects (69.85 KB PDF)

19.21 Date of next Teaching Committee - Wednesday the 12th of December, 2018.