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Algorithms, spring 2009, TIN092/DAT600

Your own effort

1. How many hours per week did you spend on this course?

49 svarande

<15 hours/week»		20		40%
Around 20 hours/week»		21		42%
Around 30 hours/week»		7		14%
Around 40 hours/week»		0		0%
>50 hours/week»		1		2%

Genomsnitt: 1.79

- Läser detta ovanpå vanligt schema i Fysik 3 vilket innebär kandidatarbete och subatomär fysik.» (<15 hours/week)
- Except the lectures and exercises, I spent around 4-8 hours a week on assignments. I didn"t do any extra problem solving or reading in the book. I had probably done more problem solving if there were recommended exercises. On the other hand, 15 hours/week might turn out to be enough anyway.» (<15 hours/week)
- 15-20» (Around 20 hours/week)
- Relative, depending on the week. But avarage 20/week» (Around 20 hours/week)
- I study very less in normal routine. Only study before exams, and that suffices for me.» (Around 20 hours/week)
- Roughly 8h per lab, 3h per ex, 2h per week constructing own algorithms plus all lectures.» (Around 20 hours/week)
- less in the beginning of the quarter, more in the end (as usual)» (Around 20 hours/week)
- very time consuming» (Around 30 hours/week)

2. Attendance on lectures

49 svarande

<25%»		6		12%
25-50%»		7		14%
50-75%»		9		18%
>75%»		27		55%

Genomsnitt: 3.16

- Due to my work I was unable to attend.» (<25%)
- Gick på den enda som inte kolliderade med subbatomär fysik.» (25-50%)
- Due to collisions with another course» (50-75%)
- Had two lectures on the same time and mostly I skipped the algorithm lecture.» (50-75%)
- Very good lectures, just that I had much to do in other courses.» (50-75%)
- unfortunately the lectures had a scheduling conflict with another more important class.» (50-75%)
- Krockade med en annan kurs.» (50-75%)
- Monday lecture collided with our Math Mod course.» (50-75%)
- Attended all lectures.» (>75%)
- 100%» (>75%)
- All» (>75%)
- Very good lectures! It was a bit odd at first though, and the reason being that I"m accustomed to algorithmic principles and design methodologies from before. You presented it from the ground up, which I think was/is appreciated for people both new and old to algorithms!» (>75%)
- The lectures are okay, but the material should really be available long before. Especially the exercises with good solutions. It"s no use to do the exercises beforehand only to see that there are no answers. You then have to spend 2 hours on the regular exercise to check if you"ve got it right. A waste of valuable time.» (>75%)
- 100%. Worth it. Enjoyed it! Better then reading the book.» (>75%)

Teaching and course administration

3. To what extent has the teaching been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		5		10%
Some extent»		6		12%
Large extent»		20		40%
Great extent»		18		36%

Genomsnitt: 3.04

- I missed most of the lectures.» (Small extent)
- The lectures are quite nice» (Large extent)
- Bra föreläsningar. Kul med Kalle och hobbe!! :)» (Large extent)
- Great lectures» (Great extent)
- Only due to the teaching have I learnt. The best teacher I have ever come across.» (Great extent)
- The hand outs helped a lot in taking notes and reflecting on previous topics during the lecture.» (Great extent)
- Very good lectures!» (Great extent)
- Erlands teaching has been really helpful.» (Great extent)

4. To what extent has the the course literature and other material been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		13		26%
Some extent»		17		34%
Large extent»		13		26%
Great extent»		6		12%

Genomsnitt: 2.24

- The course literature was bit slow to get through. It felt too abstract.» (Small extent)
- Book: Small extent Labs: Large extent Slides: Huge extent Exercises: Great extent Tune a little more exercises over labs. In any case recommended exercises (similar to reading instructions) of the book would be great and up the value of the book.» (Small extent)
- Did not buy the book. Used the web for information.» (Small extent)
- Didn"t touch the book at all, mainly because I didn"t have time to. I"m sure it"s great and will be a good reference literature. The slides are generally good, but the cost criteria slides _must_ be improved to be more stringent. I"ve taken lots of courses in mathematics but had a hard time to understand this material anyway. It must be possible to present it in a better/more stringent way. Perhaps get a review of this material from a mathematician?» (Small extent)
- Only slides, didn"t read the book» (Some extent)
- Lecture notes were good.» (Some extent)
- The slides are really good. I haven"t even opened the book.» (Some extent)
- Har inte haft riktigt med tid att läsa genom boken som jag skulle viljat, men kommer nog skumma igenom under sommarlovet, det är planen iaf.» (Some extent)
- Not too fond of the course litterature.» (Some extent)
- Slides for missing lectures were a godsend. And the book is good.» (Large extent)
- Quite good lab assignments» (Large extent)
- Maybe simplify the slides a bit, atleast a few of them. Take smaller examples of dynamic programming. Too much information on a couple of the slides (the slide of the dp example in particular).» (Large extent)
- I would like to have seen more solved excercises as handouts» (Large extent)
- Didn"t buy the book. Lectures and slides were enough for me, plus some online material.» (Great extent)

5. Was the course literature worth its price?

49 svarande

1 (not worth it)»		4		11%
2»		7		19%
3»		13		36%
4»		8		22%
5 (well worth it)»		4		11%
Did not buy the litterature»		13

Genomsnitt: 3.02

- 500:- or more. That is never worth the price. » (1 (not worth it))
- Interesting but much to many words(american). Not so pedagogic but good as reference material. » (1 (not worth it))
- Not really.» (2)
- Seeing how little time I have had to read, the book has not been worth the money. However it will make a good reference book on my book shelf. However I have more often turned to wikipedia than the book during the course.» (2)
- Is that the best book available? I doubt it. If it is, then it"s time for Erland to write his own book on the subject. He has the knowledge. Time to put it to use.» (2)
- I could probably have done without it but it"s always good to read about different topics before the lectures.» (3)
- Have consulted it a couple of times so i would think its maybe worth it...» (3)
- The book was handy for finding new exercises, but other the labs, lectures and exercise sessions left little time for reading. I"ve not read the book enough to comment about it"s quality.» (3)
- Very verbose book! At times a bit boring (too much background information).» (3)
- Bought it, but didn"t touch it.» (3)
- I love it! I read it for fun!» (5 (well worth it))
- I bought it, but didn"t have time to read it.» (Did not buy the litterature)
- I borrowed it.» (Did not buy the litterature)

6. How well did the course administration, web page, handouts etc work?

Very badly»		1		2%
Rather badly»		2		4%
Rather well»		30		61%
Very well»		16		32%

Genomsnitt: 3.24

- Material such as lecture slides should be available BEFORE the lecture is held! Putting them on the web page several days after, or even over a week in some cases, is unacceptable. "The slides aren"t done until the lecture is held" is simply saying "I"m too lazy to do this in good time".» (Very badly)
- always late handouts, but otherwise god links» (Rather badly)
- The web page is confusing and there are a lot of unnecessary extra "information" that you have to wade through to get to the stuff that matters. Lab 1 is a perfect example on this and i actually pasted it to some friends and they asked me if it was a joke.» (Rather badly)
- Though I"d really prefer not having to hand in as a .tar.gz package.» (Rather well)
- Rather complicated instructions about how to hand in the labs. » (Rather well)
- Getting handouts at the beginning of each class was very nice. Sometimes the handouts/exercise questions were delayed on the website. Website needs a workover to become more structured» (Rather well)
- Bra på denna biten, dock kändes hemsidan lite ouppdaterad och med gammalt innehåll. Står bland annat att man kan skriva inlämningar på svenska.» (Rather well)
- Utskrifter på alla föreläsningar är klockrent! Har inte varit med om det på någon annan kurs.» (Rather well)
- All the tarballing etc feels a bit oldschool, but whatever floats your boat :)» (Rather well)
- Some broken links on the course web page, late publish of labs on the web page.» (Rather well)
- As said earlier, the exercises would be great to have a week before, _WITH_ solutions!» (Rather well)
- * Answers on some more exercices on paper (for us not attending at the lectures) * deadlines in fire would be good * if possible, get the laborations earlier» (Rather well)
- It has worked rather well, but not perfect. Too slow on updating some parts of the web page, like the "Diary&Content" section. » (Rather well)
- Nice to get handouts at the lectures» (Very well)
- Very nice with the handouts given each lecture. Easier to follow the lectures when you don"t have to write everything down at the same time.» (Very well)
- Perfect. We got every handout in the class before the lecture.» (Very well)
- Excellent work, also the lab/ex descriptions where well defined and therefore rarely misinterpret.» (Very well)

7. Was the number of teaching hours sufficient?

- Yes. including the extra questioning hours the teaching hours were sufficient.»
- Yes»
- I do not know.»
- More labsupervisions»
- I think the amount of lectures would have been fine if I"d been able to attend them all. Lab supervision is not something I think should be scheduled, the ad hoc solution worked great and it really is better to try solving problems alone.»
- It was sufficient, but maybe it would be good with some more time for questions about the labs.»
- Yes»
- It would have been nice with a supervised self activity lecture each week, where you could ask about problems from the course literature.»
- I think so. Can be improved.»
- Yes. Nice to have the lecturer hold the exercies.»
- Need much more Lab supervision. Should be atleast 2 hours per week»
- More lab supervisions. The labs took so much time of the course it would therefor be rather good to have more help at the labs. »
- self activity exercises with supervision»
- Yes.»
- I"d like to see more exercises, either if it"s supervised or recommendations.»
- More lab supervision maybe.»
- Yes, the time was sufficient.»
- Perhaps a bit more on greedy algorithms. If you"re going to take the advanced course, greedy approaches are sometimes used in conjunction with approximation (and thus is good to know well!). Although probably the most demanding topic of the course.»
- need more labsupervision»
- The teacher or assistants should have a couple of hours every week booked so that the students know they will be in their offices for questions. Describing a problem in a mail can be difficult and asking teacher during a lecture break may be hard since many wants to talk to him.»
- Yes»
- no it was just about rite.»
- lab supervision is needed more»
- Yes»
- Yes, it"s probably sufficient (haven"t taken the exam yet..).»
- We really need lab supervision. Of course the labs were doable, but if you were on the wrong track it was hard to correct without real supervision (mailing is not enough).»
- I would have liked some scheduled lab supervision. This is something you should really change next year!»
- Some excercises in small groups would have been nice.»
- Yes, I do believe it was sufficient. But don"t have 4 hours in a row next year. As exciting as the subject is, 4 hours is long. »

8. What course content was missing/would you have liked to see more of?

- I think it was very well balanced.»
- Maybe something more about recursive equations and how to solve those. »
- Divide and Conquer seems very useful, and I would not mind seeing a little more of it. Some of the complexities were very hard to calculate with the tools we were shown, but that may be beyond the scope of the course.»
- Greed, problem complexity, backtracking, logarithmic (esp. pseudo-exponential) complexity.»
- More about how to prove the correctness and optimality of algorithms.»
- More time on the actual solving of sums and recursive functions. This was done very quickliy, and later on we almost always skipped the actual solving and skipped to the answer with the motivation, "now you see that...". Well all of us didn"t.»
- As it feels now, i need to do the exam before I answer this question.»
- I don"t think anything was missing. For more, there is advanced course as well.»
- more intractability»
- More about NPC would be nice, but probably hard to get get the hours for it since it requires additional knowledge of the other stuff in the course»
- The course is fine as it is.»
- Intractability»
- Intractability felt a bit hazy. It would have been nice to somewhere, preferably in the course lecture PDF"s, have clear concise definitions of what P, NP and NPC are. As it stands now it is very hard to find out what exactly they mean since they are vaguely described a bit and a bit there etc.»
- Greed är intressant»
- A little more of greedy algorithms, more on proving correctness and less dynamic programming. In my opinion dynamic programming was the easiest topic hence one lecture would be sufficient.»
- More specific and more difficult examples in class, especially for greedy algs.»
- Algorithm design in general.»
- Greedy.»
- maybe it"s better to repeat some knowledge about data structures.»
- Intractability was a bit shoret mite be intresting to see an exsampel of the algorithm fore and Intractability problem. »
- complexity»
- None»
- I think it"s fairly okay as it is. »
- A bit more proofs would have been nice. I also think "partial" dynamic programming would have been good.»
- Perhaps Intractability? The actual proof making part. But it doesn"t seem to be a priority in this particular version of the course. »

9. What did we spend to much time on?

- Dynamic programming was one area that took a lot of time, relatively to how hard it was to learn.»
- Maybe dynamic programming»
- Perhaps Dynamic Programming.»
- Labs with dynamic programming»
- Dynamic programming»
- It all felt like a reasonable amount was spent an everything.»
- DP. But I liked it. Its an important area, so requires more time.»
- Greed algorithms»
- same.»
- Complexity theory»
- Dynamic programming, backtracking.»
- Backtracking var kanske något stort, det blev nästan lite repetivt. Om DP är viktigt, höj gärna svårighetsgraden efter ett tag.»
- The labs and exercises demanded most DP, but greedy and proofs of greedy was what boggled my mind the most. Even more so than the logarithmic cost criteria.»
- No idea.»
- Nothing. I think every part got the time that was needed.»
- Nothing.»
- not too much time for any of them, there are many topics to cover.»
- in genral it was not to mutch time on any thing in particuler»
- complexity»
- I think we spent too much time talking about dynamic programming, it"s not that difficult.»
- Dynamic programming»
- complexity»
- Perhaps solving recurrence equations and dynamic programming. Solving recurrence equations might be good for those who does not have a good mathematical background though.»
- Nothing. As I see it.»

Study climate

10. How were the opportunities for asking questions and getting help?

Very poor»		1		2%
Rather poor»		7		14%
Rather good»		20		41%
Very good»		12		25%
I did not seek help»		8		16%

Genomsnitt: 3.39

- We tried reaching someone for help with a lab once and couldn"t find them on Chalmers. Not enough data to really form a view though i guess.» (Rather poor)
- It has been hard to get in touch with course assistants.» (Rather poor)
- Fast response on mails, but not much help/hints from them, and no lab supervision pass.» (Rather poor)
- This might be the part that I"m most disappointed with about this course. Must be a better way then asking questions on the breaks? » (Rather poor)
- The lab supervision meetings were great» (Rather good)
- We didn"t get any response on a question we mailed to our lab supervisor.» (Rather good)
- Used the time during break, also got replies from e-mail reasonably quick» (Rather good)
- The email responses were fast most of the time.» (Rather good)
- The lecture breaks proved to be a good opportunity.» (Rather good)
- No lab supervisions but we asked at the lectures instead» (Rather good)

11. How was the course workload?

1 (Too low)»		2		4%
2»		2		4%
3»		20		41%
4»		20		41%
5 (Too high)»		4		8%

Genomsnitt: 3.45

- I would not have minded having one submission per week. Generally Master"s courses are too simple at Chalmers, in my humble opinion.» (1 (Too low))
- Lab 3 was a bit hectic, but overall a good amount of work.» (3)
- As I said earlier, I don"t spend much time during normal days. Although before exams, I study quite much. This has been my practice since my school days, and is always helpful.» (3)
- The workload is quite equal to other advanced level courses on the Signals and Systems department for instance.» (3)
- I had another course taking a lot of time, I would have liked to spend some more time on this course otherwise.» (3)
- Kindof high, but thats prolly relative to what you read/do besides this course» (4)
- Hard to say if it was the course itself, or doing the bachelor"s thesis at the same time..» (4)
- nice» (4)
- The handins dominated. Depending on if we got stuck they could take extra long time. I pity the poor soul who had to work alone!» (4)
- It was too high in the sense that there where little time left for the book, but the workload was still doable.» (4)
- The laborations took too much time from other exersices.» (4)

Summarizing questions

12. How well did the course fullfill your expectations?

1 (not at all)»		0		0%
2»		5		10%
3»		8		16%
4»		23		47%
5 (very well)»		12		25%

Genomsnitt: 3.87 (bidrar till totalt genomsnitt/jämförelseindex)

- I would like to be able to formulate my algorithms more like mathematical functions and less like imperative programs. The pseudo code idea seems awkward at best.» (2)
- It was pretty much what I had expected.» (3)
- En kul och spännande kurs. Hade varit bra med mer tid till den,men går man fysik så gör man...» (4)
- Quite well, this was pretty much what I expected to learn.» (4)
- Didn"t really have any clear expactations but it seamed interesting.» (5 (very well))

13. What is your general impression of the course?

Poor»		0		0%
Fair»		4		8%
Adequate»		8		16%
Good»		23		47%
Excellent»		13		27%

Genomsnitt: 3.93

- Gillar verkligen Erlands undervisning. Tillhör de bästa föreläsarna jag haft. Engagemang och humor är två bra egenskaper där. » (?)
- I only took it as a prereq. for subsequent algorithm courses. In 7.5hec you can accomplish a lot more than this.» (Fair)
- It was a good and interesting course but I didn"t like the "layout".» (Adequate)
- The submission feedback was a little bit difficult to decipher. Seemed a bit sloppily written, and I though that was unfair since I took great care to express myself as clearly as possible.» (Good)
- Good but difficult» (Good)
- Having a four-hour long lecture on wednesdays was a bit too much.» (Good)
- It"s a good course. Courses in problem solving are always good to have. The theoretical focus is good.» (Good)
- Or at least pretty close to excellent. And it"s much due to Erland himself. He is great. As a person and due to his great knowledge and his ability to teach it. He is among Chalmers top-3 best teachers. » (Excellent)

14. What should definitely be preserved to next year?

15. What should definitely be changed to next year?

16. Additional comments

17. How anonoumous must an enquiry be?

49 svarande

yes»		30		85%
no»		5		14%
No opinion»		14

Genomsnitt: 1.14

- I can see no reason to why it would not be acceptable. » (yes)
- Why not?» (yes)
- However... the list of people who answered should be just that, a list of people without a connection to particular answers. Making people log in means fewer are likely to do so.» (yes)
- Är det såna problem att få folk fylla i denna enkäten? På fysik går det bra så vitt jag vet.» (yes)
- As you mention, I believe that information if a particular student has filled the evaluation or not while keeping that students answers hidden among all evaluations would be a great approach.» (yes)
- How do we know that you can"t see that?» (yes)
- I think the main problem is that you make the enquiry before the exam. If you had a corrected exam in your hand you not only know more about the course, you are also certain that the answers didn"t affect the exam correction :) There are lots of practical problems with this though.» (yes)
- Answering this quiz has nothing to do with my ability to formulate and analyze algorithms.» (no)
- NO! It"s a matter of privacy! And how would this be possible if the exams are supposed to be anonymous? ,)» (no)
- While I think the idea with bonus point for the enquiry is a good idea, which can be futher developed, too much of a control of who wrote what is a VERY BAD IDEA. It will be misused sooner or later. Just leave those things to the FRA, NSA, etc. :-) » (no)
- I think enquiries like this are crap, and I do not understand why you insist on them. Why must education necessarily be "democratic"? If people already know what is best for them, why do they even need education? It is your job to design a good course, not the students". In my humble opinion. :-)» (No opinion)

18. What is your secret number?

- Different, but a good way to make people actually evaluate the course. Maybe some algorithm problem at the end of the evaluation?»
- Incomprehensible.»
- Good!»
- Silly»
- If a student would not be interested in answering the enquiry they could simply leave as many questions as possible blank or uncorrect, if many students do this the result could be misguiding.»
- A good idéa to actually get people to answer these evaluation forms.»
- Stupid. What happens if i lose the number? Does that mean that I"m not as good at algorithms as the other students or just that i am clumsy?»
- chance guess .0015 hot too high. still don"t see any numbers starting with 0»
- This is an exercise in futility. Entirely pointless.»
- ...what if everyone picks the same number?»
- Why not only one number, I mean it does not matter which particular one we pick, right?»
- The way you put it makes me want to cheat. Apparently I didn"t.»
- Funny»
- Cool»
- Works! »
- It"s okay I think.»
- Would have been smarter to show a number when you submit the answers and not before. In a popup maybe.»
- Always good too get free point :)»
- Great! Love it. Finally somebody daring to think in new ways. Even if it doesn"t work out, your courage is great for even trying it. But mind you - it better be a secret-number-question on the August exam too. Or I will not be happy. Because I"m not doing the exam in May. »
Genomsnitt totalt för detta stycke: 3.87