| Faculty: | SCHOOL OF COMPUTING | Academic Year: | 2008/2009 |
| Department: | COMPUTER SCIENCE | Semester: | 2 |
| Module: | DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS - CS1102Y |
| Qn | Items Evaluated | Module Avg Score | Nos Responded |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Overall opinion of the module. | 3.540 | 50 |
| 2 | Grade likely to get for the module. | 3.469 | 49 |
| 3 | Difficulty level of the module. | 4.000 | 50 |
QN\SCORE | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
Qn 1: Overall opinion of the module. | Excellent | Good | Satisfactory | Unsatisfactory | Poor |
Qn 2: Grade likely to get for the module. | A | B | C | D | F |
Qn 3: Difficulty level of the module. | Very Difficult | Difficult | Average | Easy | Very Easy |
| Nos. of Respondents(% of Respondents) |
| | | ||||||
ITEM\SCORE | | | Excellent | Good | Satisfactory | Unsatisfactory | Poor |
| | | ||||||
Module | | | 3 (6.00%) | 25 (50.00%) | 19 (38.00%) | 2 (4.00%) | 1 (2.00%) |
Module at Same Level (Dept) | | | 164 (12.12%) | 615 (45.45%) | 459 (33.92%) | 86 (6.36%) | 29 (2.14%) |
Module at Same Level (Fac) | | | 204 (10.16%) | 894 (44.54%) | 746 (37.17%) | 127 (6.33%) | 36 (1.79%) |
| Nos. of Respondents(% of Respondents) |
| | | ||||||
ITEM\SCORE | | | A | B | C | D | F |
| | | ||||||
Module | | | 7 (14.29%) | 19 (38.78%) | 15 (30.61%) | 6 (12.24%) | 2 (4.08%) |
Module at Same Level (Dept) | | | 394 (29.94%) | 591 (44.91%) | 253 (19.22%) | 62 (4.71%) | 16 (1.22%) |
Module at Same Level (Fac) | | | 529 (26.93%) | 1004 (51.12%) | 351 (17.87%) | 63 (3.21%) | 17 (.87%) |
| Nos. of Respondents(% of Respondents) |
| | | ||||||
ITEM\SCORE | | | Very Difficult | Difficult | Average | Easy | Very Easy |
| | | ||||||
Module | | | 13 (26.00%) | 24 (48.00%) | 13 (26.00%) | 0 (.00%) | 0 (.00%) |
Module at Same Level (Dept) | | | 298 (22.04%) | 603 (44.60%) | 391 (28.92%) | 52 (3.85%) | 8 (.59%) |
Module at Same Level (Fac) | | | 330 (16.45%) | 767 (38.24%) | 815 (40.63%) | 82 (4.09%) | 12 (.60%) |
| Q1. | Please comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the module, and suggest possible improvements. |
| 1. | It would be a good idea to adopt a classic book like Knuth's "The Art of Computer Programming" as the textbook for the course. The present textbook is sufficient for the course, but doesn't provide the depth of material and the breadth of perspective that Knuth's book offers. |
| 2. | This module is took up almost all of my time this semester. The module should be made a 4MC one with the workload cut down. |
| 3. | What is taught in the module is very useful, but more lab exercises may be needed in order to make students understand well. The exam is closed book and even no helpsheet is allowed, which is really suffering. |
| 4. | Difficult but useful |
| 5. | This module is easy to understand. |
| 6. | There should be webcast as I will be able to refer to it when I have my own doubts. Having webcasts help me understand the topic better as well. |
| 7. | The module is very informative. However I feel that students with no prior foundation will not be able to grasp the module easily especially when the amount of information is so much. It would help if lecturers would print out all the different sample codes for each scenario and focus more on teaching the fundamentals of the module. |
| 8. | I recommend a change of textbook to one that illustrates more actual java code instead of pseudo-code. The lectures were effective and makes up for weakness with regard to textbooks. |
| 9. | After changing into sit-in lab, i think the number of hand-on practice is reduced. In addition, the most important of this module is about recursion but the module does not give special attention on it. Although i can understand it is quite hard to set up the problems for recursion, we still need more practice on recursion. |
| 10. | The lectures and tutorials are conducted very well. But the textbook is not easy to use. |
| 11. | the first part of the module was harder to grasp than the lower level module, CS1101. i personally feel that allowing students to code what they've been learning on the spot helps students understand better. also, the second part of the module was very dry. |
| 12. | The lecture should have webcast. As the module is very concepts based, a webcast will enable us to clarify our understanding if we did not manage to catch it during lecture. |
| 13. | |
| 14. | Lectures moved too fast |
| 15. | The lesson can get very mundane and dry at times. It would be useful if there were example questions discussed during lectures, to allow us to have a better understanding on how we will be assessed for the module. |
| 16. | first part was interesting with the new "remote control" system to answer questions and very interactive. However, this was not continued during the second part of the module with professor ling. |
| 17. | Good explanation of some concepts. However the topic on graphs was covered quite hastily. More time could be allocated to explaining Trees and graph concepts such as Dijkstra's algorithm and recursion application in trees. |
| 18. | more labs and practices. adopt the cs1101 approach. |
| 19. | Many tough concepts to grasp within a single semester. The CS1101 style of teaching in a programming lab would perhaps be of help to students as they could run programs whenever they are in doubt of certain concepts being taught. |
| 20. | Lectures can be clearer, slides should be provided more details. if possible, a sample code given would be helpful. |
| 21. | The lectures are well organised. |
| 22. | Strengths: TA and lecturer are very friendly and much willing to help us. Weaknesses: 1) lecture notes can provide more actual codes instead of plainly pseudo-codes. 2) One of the female TA seems to be talking to herself or just talking to one or two of the students during one of the tutorial session which she helped to cover when our actual TA had something on. There doesn't seem to be much attempts in engaging the whole class to participate. |
| 23. | NIL |
| 24. | Strengths: - The sit-in lab is not carried out weekly. - Only 1 mid-term test. Weaknesses: - Tutorial participation is graded. Very silly idea. - Not enough practice. - Sit-in labs are usually not related to take-home labs. A tough toll on students who havent had great programming experience besides 1101 course. - PE is very hard, and there are no clear guide as to which to focus on. How to grapple with it? Suggestions: - Should provide webcast lectures. Very important for revision. In that way students will not feel that helpless also. Especially for students who take 3 weeks to master a data structure! It's double stress for students without programming experience except for 1101 course. |
| 25. | It is easy to understand the concept, but difficult to apply. |
| 26. | the topic is very dry |
| 27. | Strengths: - Gives me a better understanding of Java Programming and the different Data Structures - That Programming is not just about good coding but also efficiency as well Weaknesses: - I feel that 1102 should follow the lab grading like 1101, that take home labs are graded. I feel that the time constraint given for each sit in and no access to the Internet is unnecessary and unrealistic when we do programming or coding for companies in the future. - Able to code during the 1hr30mins just means that you are fast at coding and analyzing. But for those who do badly in labs, does not mean that they do not know how to code, means that they just take a longer time to code. |
| 28. | Interesting way in engaging students during lectures with the Classroom Response System. |
| 29. | We could have more number of practice problems for each topic and also, more practice for the labs and the PE. |
| 30. | learn a lot of concepts and overall, I think I know more about JAVA! |
| 31. | The module provides a comprehensive way to data structures and algorithms. However, the pace is a little bit slow. |
| 32. | This module taught about the data structure and the different algorithms that is used in implementing the data structure. I believe it helps us a lot so as to understand the difference data structure involved in different problems. Overall, I have benefited from this module as I find that it is very enlightening as well as improving my programming language. |
| 33. | Weakness: The degree of content delivered in lecture is not sufficient or rather not very helpful when required to do lab sessions. This is because i feel only the basic content about each chapter is covered in the lectures and it becomes difficult to relate and successfully complete a lab work. Weakness: Tutorial sessions are quite short, having a teaching assistant to conduct the tutorial session is not so efficient as the TA himself/herself sometimes is not able to clarify certain content. Strengths: The components grading system(CA, Sit-in-Lab, PE, Final Exam, Tutorial Participation). |
| 34. | Strengths: - introduce us to a more in-dept more understanding on ADT Weaknesses: - workload is very heavy Improvements: - prof should spend more time in teaching those topics that the students find it hard to understand e.g. recursion, big O |