Student Representatives meeting, 2007 11 21

Participants: Jing Jin, Lina Westerling, Simon Beckmann, Pooya Keshtiari, Karl Landin, Min Juan Wang, Olof Torgersson
Notes: Olof Torgersson

The meeting

The meeting basically had the form of a discussion about the course and possible improvements.

Issues covered

• Some students have mentioned that they think that there is too little time for the project.
  Olof: The course is only 7 weeks so it's difficult to find more time.
• Perhaps shortening the time to decide upon a project could leave more time for actual work? Discussion. The most common opinion was that the time for inventing a project really is needed to come up with a good idea.
• Maybe that Physical Computing (PC) could prepare better for Ubiquitous Computing (UC)? Discussion. It was noted that the connection between the two courses is not very clear. Some things that one should learn in PC is connecting Java and BX-24 and mamaging RFID tags. It was also discussed that there could be literature or lectures in PC preparing for UC. This would shorten the start-up time in UC.
• It was mentioned thath it was unclear what kind of help you could get. Olof: Lalya takes care of technical support. For software issues yhe students may consult Olof. The students will be informed about this.
• It was discussed whether project organization would be a part of the course. No clear guidelines were agreed upon.
• Teaching report writing was discussed. Olof: It should be taught at some ocassion during the first year, but we don't have a good plan yet. It was decided to inform about the contents of the project report at a literature seminar. Detailed feedback can be given at supervision meetings.
• Will there be co-operation with ISD during the spring project course. Olof: I don't know but I will check.Co-operation with ISD during the spring?
• It was also discussed that some students had expectedd UC to be more of a pure project course. Olof: We have re-organised the course a bit this year. Last year the course included a crash course in electronics. When that was removed we decided that there was room for more theory about UC.
• There was a discussion about that the UC course and the Methods course are too similar. An opinion was that it might be because you have to involve a lot of technological issues in the Methods course. Another reason could be structural similarity. Olof: We will think about this for next year.