2020/21
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 2020/21, and covers 55 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 over 1,500 individual submissions from students, gathered through an online survey at the end of semester 1 and semester 2. 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. Some courses do not appear because there were no responses from students. 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 2020/21 there were nine responses removed for offensive language, and 22 responses edited to remove personally identifying details.
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 | 2021/22 Lecturer | 2020/21 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Informatics 1 - Introduction to Computation | Bradfield (new) / Wadler | report (Chirita / Fourman / Wadler) | |
Informatics 1 - Cognitive Science | Hennig / Lucas / Mollica | report (Hennig / Lucas / Mollica) | |
Informatics 1 - Object Orientated Programming | McNeill / Symons | report (McNeill / Stevens / Symons) |
Year 2 courses (Level 8)
Course Name | 2021/22 Lecturer | 2020/21 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Informatics 2C - Introduction to Computer Systems | Grot / Grosser / Ainsworth (new) / Nagarajan (new) | report (Grot / Grosser / Smith) | |
Informatics 2 - Software Engineering and Professional Practice | Alexandru / Constantin (new) | report(Alexandru / Anderson / Garforth) | |
Informatics 2 - Introduction to Algorithms and Data Structures | Cryan / Longley | report (Cryan / Longley / Kalorkoti) | |
Informatics 2 - Foundations of Data Science | Sterratt / Gal | report (Sterratt / Gal) | |
Informatics 2D - Reasoning and Agents | Lascarides / Papapanagiotou (new) | report (Lascarides / Chirita) | |
Discrete Mathematics and Probability | Velichkov / Yorsten / Stark (new) | report (Velichkov / Yorsten) |
Year 3 courses (Level 9)
Course Name | 2021/22 Lecturer | 2020/21 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Informatics Large Practical | Gilmore / Jackson | report (Gilmore / Jackson) | |
System Design Project | Tonneau / Garforth |
report (Tonneau / Garforth / Webb) |
|
Introduction to Vision and Robotics
|
Lu (new) |
report (Khadem) report (Distance Learning) (Khadem) |
Year 3/4 courses (Level 10)
Course Name | 2021/22 Lecturer | 2020/21 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Computer Security | Arapinis / Elahi / Velichkov (new) | report (Arapinis / Elahi / Kohlweiss) | |
Honours Project (Informatics) | Webb | report (Webb) | |
Introduction to Databases | Guagliardo / Cao (new) | report (Guagliardo / Libkin / Pieris) | |
Introductory Applied Machine Learning (UG) | Mac Aodha / Shimodaira / Narayanaswamy (new) / Nazarpour (new) | report (Mac Aodha / Williams / Shimodaira) | |
MInf Project (Part 1) | Webb | report (Webb) | |
Operating Systems | Barbalace / Steuwer | report (Barbalace / Mai / Spink / Steuwer) |
Year 4/5/MSc courses (Level 11)
Course Name | 2021/22 Lecturer | 2020/21 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Advanced Database Systems | Nikolic / Pieris | report (Nikolic / Pieris) | |
Algorithmic Game Theory and its Applications | Etessami | report (Etessami / Guo) | |
Automatic Speech Recognition | Bell / Tang (new) | report (Bell / Renals) | |
Bioinformatics 1 | Simpson / Goryanin (new) | report (Simpson / Armstrong) | |
Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers | Kiayias | report (Kiayias) | |
Computational Complexity | NOT RUNNING IN 2021/22 | report (Guo / Etessami) | |
Human-Computer Interaction | Vaniea / Vines (new) | report (Vaniea / Constantin) | |
Internet of Things Systems Security and the Cloud (IoTSSC) | NOT RUNNING IN 2021/22 | report (Patras / Aspinall) | |
Introduction to Modern Cryptography | Ciampi (new) / Zacharias | report (Wallden / Zacharias / Velichkov) | |
Machine Learning Practical | Bilen / Andreadis / Ramamoorthy | report (Bilen / Andreadis / Ramamoorthy) | |
MInf Project (Part 2) | Webb | report (Webb) | |
Natural Language Understanding, Generation, and Machine Translation | Keller / Birch-Mayne | report (Keller / Lapata / Birch-Mayne) | |
Principles and Design of IoT Systems | Arvind | report (Arvind) | |
Text Technologies for Data Science | Magdy / Ross (new) | report (Magdy) | |
The Human Factor: Working With Users | Wolters / Vaniea (new) | report (Wolters / Bach) |
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.
Course Name | 2021/22 Lecturer | 2020/21 Feedback | Lecturer Response |
---|---|---|---|
Accelerated Natural Language Processing | (Goldwater / Cohen) | report (Goldwater / Cohen) | |
Case Studies in Design Informatics 1 | Vines (new) / Wolters | report (Wolters / Lee / Vaniea) | |
Case Studies in Design Informatics 2 | Lee / Wolters | report (Lee / Wolters) | |
Computational Cognitive Neuroscience | Series / Chadwick | report (Series (Chadwick) | |
Data-driven Business and Behaviour Analytics | Restocchi | report (Restocchi / Sarker / Ross) | |
Data Mining and Exploration | NOT RUNNING IN 2021/22 | report (Gutmann / Narayanaswamy / Renals) | |
Doing Research in Natural Language Processing | Keller / Tang | report (Keller / Tang / Angelidis) | |
Group Research Project (Biomedical AI) | Oyarzun | report (Oyarzun) | |
Image and Vision Computing | Sevilla-Lara (new) | report (Fisher / Hospedales) | |
Individual Project in Advanced Natural Language Processing | Tang | report (Keller / Tang) | |
Individual Research Project (Biomedical AI) | Oyarzun | report (Oyarzun / Simpson) | |
Informatics Project Proposal |
Constantin / Sannella (new) Sannella (new) |
report (Constantin / Anderson) report (Distance Learning) (Constantin) |
|
Introduction to Practical Programming with Objects |
Franke (new) / Glienecke (new) / Symons (new) Franke (new) / Glienecke (new) / Symons (new) |
report (Anderson) report (Distance Learning) (Anderson) |
|
Introductory Applied Machine Learning (PG) | Mac Aodha / Shimodaira / Narayanaswamy (new) / Nazarpour (new) | report (Mac Aodha / Williams / Shimodaira) | |
Introductory Applied Machine Learning (Semester 2) | (Ma / Shimodaira) | report (Ma / Shimodaira) | |
Issues in Clinical Data Modelling | Weisse | report (Weisse / Simpson / Oyarzun) | |
Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition | Murray / Onken | report (Murray / Onken) | |
Reinforcement Learning | Albrecht / Andreadis | report (Albrecht / Andreadis / Herrmann) | |
Research Methods in Security, Privacy, and Trust | Aspinall / Elahi / Kiayias | report (Aspinall / Elahi / Kiayias) |
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