Visa resultat

Algorithms spring 2011 (EH), TIN092/DIT600

Your own effort

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

At most 15 hours/week»		7		15%
Around 20 hours/week»		19		43%
Around 25 hours/week»		16		36%
Around 30 hours/week»		1		2%
At least 35 hours/week»		1		2%

Genomsnitt: 2.31 (bidrar till totalt genomsnitt/jämförelseindex)

2. How large part of the teaching offered did you attend?*

0%»		2		4%
25%»		7		15%
50%»		8		18%
75%»		13		29%
100%»		14		31%

Genomsnitt: 3.68 (bidrar till totalt genomsnitt/jämförelseindex)

3. If you missed lectures, what was the reason? (if it was a collision with an other course then say which one)

4. How many courses did you (try to) take this reading period?

One»		4		9%
Two»		26		59%
Three»		12		27%
More...»		2		4%

Genomsnitt: 2.27

- I read all the slides on the course material and I read the feedback from the assignments. I do all the exercises. This gives me a good idea of what is the most important to learn and in which order. From there I usually use other references to learn (course book, other books, etc.). I consider the "teaching" more about giving a structure/plan on what and when to learn. Again, this has to do with me not doing very well on lectures in general.» (Two)
- The other being my bachelor"s thesis» (Two)
- To much workload in one of the two other courses, it would have worked out better if I focused on this and the easiest of the two other courses.» (Three)
- The collision was with a mandatory course.» (Three)
- 2,5 2 courses at 50% each and one at 25%» (Three)
- Bachelor thesis was to large, had to remove one course.» (Three)
Genomsnitt totalt för detta stycke: 3

Goals and goal fulfilment

5. How understandable are the course goals?

I have not seen/read the goals»		12		27%
The goals are difficult to understand»		0		0%
The goals give some guidance, but could be clearer»		11		25%
The goals clearly describe what I am supposed to learn»		21		47%

Genomsnitt: 2.93

6. Are the goals reasonable considering your background and the number of credits?

No, the goals are set too low»		1		3%
Yes, the goals seem reasonable»		24		85%
No, the goals are set too high»		3		10%
No opinion»		15

Genomsnitt: 2.07

7. Did the examination assess whether you have reached the goals?

No, not at all»		0		0%
To some extent»		1		2%
Yes, definitely»		3		6%
I don"t know/have not been examined yet»		40		90%

Genomsnitt: 3.88

- During the exercises you have been going through some exam questions and I think they seem resonable. » (I don"t know/have not been examined yet)
- While I understand giving an incentive to answer this questionnaire by giving bonus points on the exam (and I think I prefer it over poetry questions on the exam), it does mean I can"t give much feedback. Based on the example exams the structure seems good enough.» (I don"t know/have not been examined yet)
- assignments have, but exam has not been done yet.» (I don"t know/have not been examined yet)

Teaching and course administration

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

Small extent»		3		6%
To some extent»		9		20%
Large extent»		17		39%
Great extent»		14		32%

Genomsnitt: 2.97

- Unfortunately I only had the opportunity to go to one lecture. Would have been nice with supervision exercises, where we could sit and do exercises and get support (not listen to how they are solved). Learn by doing is in my opinion the best way for this kind of course =)» (?)
- Because i couldn"t be almost nothing since the other course was mandatory» (Small extent)
- Läst mest på egen hand» (To some extent)
- The courses I could attend to were good.» (To some extent)
- Erland tries to answer all your questions in a very good and pedagogical way.» (Large extent)
- Lectures and exercises have all been informative, if possibly a bit slow.» (Large extent)
- Erland had some of the best lectures I"ve been to at Chalmers.» (Great extent)
- The teacher is one of the best at Chalmers. He really wants to know that the audience is paying attention and learning.» (Great extent)
- I read all the slides on the course material and I read the feedback from the assignments. I do all the exercises. This gives me a good idea of what is the most important to learn and in which order. From there I usually use other references to learn (course book, other books, etc.). I consider the "teaching" more about giving a structure/plan on what and when to learn. Again, this has to do with me not doing very well on lectures in general. » (Great extent)

9. To what extent has the course literature (the book) been of help for your learning?

Small extent»		13		29%
Some extent»		16		36%
Large extent»		8		18%
Great extent»		0		0%
Did not buy the book»		7		15%

Genomsnitt: 2.36

- Most of the problems we´,ve been facing are well documented on internet.» (Small extent)
- Den är jävligt tråkig» (Small extent)
- Never opened it.» (Small extent)
- Course seem to cover topics not covered so much in the book - backtracking and LCC» (Some extent)
- Hard to understand the course book.» (Some extent)
- The lecture notes were enough.» (Some extent)
- It"s a good book judging by the chapters I did read, but like far too many students I didn"t actually bother reading it through during the course.» (Some extent)
- Would have been good with even more exercises and also with answers. I typically know when I am right but in cases where I am not able to convince myself 100% then it is nice to be able to know if it was incorrect. » (Large extent)

10. To what extent has the copies of the lecture notes helped you?

44 svarande

Small extent»		4		9%
Some extent»		7		16%
Large extent»		23		53%
Great extent»		9		20%
No opinion»		1

Genomsnitt: 2.86

- I appreciate the effort, but ultimately its mainly bin stuffing and I"d rather use my laptop.» (Small extent)
- I prefer to get it in digital format, which I actually did. Those where really great.» (Small extent)
- It"s hard use the lecture notes when it has the font Comic-sans. It makes it harder to read. Please use another font in the future :)» (Some extent)
- The slides were put to good use when you needed to check up something.» (Large extent)
- Very good that they were handed out during the lessons, that way you can make your own notes at the same time. » (Large extent)
- Primary source of information.» (Large extent)
- The lecture notes are very good -- to the point, keep good focus. However, on a few places the text is hard to follow, e.g. when alias names are used instead of already established names.» (Large extent)
- Not really environmental though.» (Large extent)
- Since I took notes having lecture notes help me a lot.» (Great extent)
- Very useful during labs.» (Great extent)
- Did not attend the lectures. But I am frequently using the slides under course material. » (Great extent)

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

Very badly»		0		0%
Rather badly»		4		9%
Rather well»		29		65%
Very well»		11		25%

Genomsnitt: 3.15

- Submitting labs in two pieces and having a common score to keep of track a bit strange. Better to submit in one piece and know immediately in Fire if it is fail/pass.» (Rather badly)
- The assigment hand-in was somewhat confusing as there are at least two (three?) different webpages with instructions + extra hand-in information in some assignments. This should be simpler.» (Rather badly)
- Didnt seem that anything changed over the course. Hard to know what was new since last year. And old information that is not valid anymore still left on the homepage.» (Rather badly)
- I think things could be better but it is quite OK. Especially information is quite scattered.» (Rather well)
- Just some minor criticism, but I"m not a fan of the Comic Sans font, does not feel serious. But other than that the homepage was much help in the learning process. (Some gaps in the information if one doesn"t have the opportunity to attend lectures, when the black board is used, though)» (Rather well)
- I thought it was a bit strange that the weekly exercises were not made available until the session. It would be better to be able to first try to solve them individually and then attend the session.» (Rather well)
- Page is good, very good compared to the atrocious pile of trash that Chalmers calls pingpong. Lecture notes were sometimes a bit late. Not much to add here. » (Rather well)
- Would be useful with a reference sheet for sums etc. to be handed out at the start (or available on the website)» (Rather well)
- Everything was very well updated!» (Very well)

Assignments

12. Assignment 1

44 svarande

Small outcome»		9		20%
Some outcome»		21		47%
Large outcome»		12		27%
Great outcome»		2		4%

Genomsnitt: 2.15

- Most of us are very familiar with the fire system. I feel this should not be in the assignment. I guess it"s justified if there were problems in the past.» (Small outcome)
- Gjorde uppgifterna förra året, så kan inte uttala mig om årets.» (Small outcome)
- Nothing much new for me» (Small outcome)
- Was hard to get into the first problem and it all became a bit messy to understand with the special hand-in system» (Some outcome)
- Good too have a first small assignment to learn the whole process.» (Some outcome)
- I would have liked to have better feedback.» (Some outcome)
- I thought that to be required to answer on the design of the Fire system is out of scope of this course.» (Some outcome)
- Good introduction/repetition on Big-O analysis. Most people should be familiar with Fire by now though.» (Some outcome)
- Good intro lab.» (Large outcome)
- part 1 of assigment 1 was uneccessary.» (Large outcome)
- A good starting point.» (Large outcome)
- Learned mainly about sums, something I was lacking. A good starting assignment with the right difficulty.» (Large outcome)

13. Assignment 2

44 svarande

Small outcome»		1		2%
Some outcome»		5		11%
Large outcome»		30		68%
Great outcome»		8		18%

Genomsnitt: 3.02

- A bit unclear so the extra lesson for backtracking was very useful. » (Some outcome)
- Would have been better to have the backtracking lecture before this lab, not after.» (Some outcome)
- Was interesting to learn» (Large outcome)
- Good exercise. Proof turned out to be quite extensive, moreso than I suspect the course assistant were willing to correct since they didn"t really bother giving much in the way of feedback.» (Large outcome)
- The assignment itself was hard, but I learned a lot from the workshop.» (Large outcome)
- The backtrack part was a bit confusing before a lot of thought and rework was done, an extra lecture along with the assignment would be good.» (Great outcome)

14. Assignment 3

44 svarande

Small outcome»		2		4%
Some outcome»		5		11%
Large outcome»		27		61%
Great outcome»		10		22%

Genomsnitt: 3.02

- Again, good exercise focusing on a specific class of algorithms. However, one problem I feel with both this and the previous exercise is that there was no implementation required whatsoever. I enjoy taking a theoretical approach and picked the spring course largely because I knew that was more of a focus now, but one of the great benefits of computing is that it is often easy and cheap to implement and test your theoretical results. That none of the assignments actually showed what the practical gain was when analysing a large problem strikes me as a great teaching opportunity gone to waste.» (Large outcome)
- Did not do it.» (Great outcome)

15. Assignment 4:

43 svarande

Small outcome»		2		4%
Some outcome»		14		32%
Large outcome»		22		51%
Great outcome»		5		11%

Genomsnitt: 2.69

- Didn´,t have time to complete this, unfortunately.» (?)
- This assignment felt less focused than the previous two, albeit still useful. The topic seems like it"d be better explored in group exercises and investigated on the exam than through a hand-in assignment, as it was the most practical way to write this one was to look at the lecture notes and copy the relevant part. Possibly my experience is coloured by the fact that the deadline was less than 24 hours after the deadline for the bachelors" theses. Consider timing that better next year...» (Some outcome)
- Slightly to abstract in some regards.» (Some outcome)
- Did not do it.» (Great outcome)
- Although the outcome was more on this assignment than the others.. I still preferred the others. The reason I rate this one as great is because most of it was for the first time. » (Great outcome)

16. How did you like the system with points instead of 2 returns? Comment on how well it worked in practice (and suggest improvements) in the comment box.

40 svarande

Not so good at all»		11		27%
Better than 2 returns»		21		52%
Much better»		8		20%

Genomsnitt: 1.92

- I don"t have a reference point, as the question is stated I can not answer. However, without comparing I would say this system is OK. » (?)
- If this system is used it should be possible to get help with the assignments. They can sometimes be hard to understand and even with a high level of ambition you can miss the mark.» (Not so good at all)
- Would rather had returns or have some scheduled lectures there you could ask for help.» (Not so good at all)
- If you are allowed to resend even if you got points (if you got a low point), then yes, this is a much better idea.» (Not so good at all)
- Not getting another chance if you misinterpret the problem (and thus receiving 0 points) is not very pedagogic in my opinion. I liked the system with two returns more. And supervised exercices would be nice as well.» (Not so good at all)
- Since we are working in pairs we don"t really choose our level of ambition.» (Not so good at all)
- Vet ej» (Not so good at all)
- Well, not much worse, but the more feedback the course assistants give the better for me in the end. Granted, they might well disagree...» (Not so good at all)
- Because of time constraints put by the other course we read there was litte time over for these assignments. Having 2 returns would have been better for my part.» (Not so good at all)
- The feedback given when you receive a return must be a lot better if you only get one single return.» (Not so good at all)
- 0 points should be removed. As long as one do an honest try to solve the assignment it should not be possible to get 0 points. Bad judgment from the one that corrected the assignments. If you get 0 points on one part you probably misunderstood something about the assignment. Then it is quite likely that you do not get full points on the other part either, which leads to that you fail the whole assignment part of the course without any 2nd chance.» (Not so good at all)
- Hard to understand at the begining how it worked. Maybe 0p also will give a return. Seems unfair to not let the ones that get 0p another chanse» (Better than 2 returns)
- At times it felt like Filippo was a very much tougher grader than Vinay...» (Better than 2 returns)
- It"s a good system that should be tried out more. However. It can still take too much time to get the return.» (Better than 2 returns)
- It was not perfectly clear how it worked when given rejects on both parts, but the principle is very good.» (Better than 2 returns)
- I was confused about what to do when receiving 1p on both parts of an assignment (2 rejects).» (Better than 2 returns)
- hard to compare since I haven"t tried the other.» (Better than 2 returns)
- A bit confusing, since you didn"t have to struggle to get everything exactly right, but that was not very clear so I did that anyway. Very hard.» (Better than 2 returns)
- It´,s a very good system. Although I believe there wasn´,t enough time for the labs... More time in between please.» (Much better)
- Great system.» (Much better)

Study climate

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

Very poor»		2		4%
Rather poor»		8		18%
Rather good»		16		36%
Very good»		11		25%
I did not seek help (comment on why below)»		7		15%

Genomsnitt: 3.29

- No scheduled supervision sessions.» (Very poor)
- We should have scheduled time with the TAs.» (Very poor)
- Would have been nice with scheduled supervised assignmenthelp.» (Rather poor)
- Would be good with a scheduled supervision time» (Rather poor)
- This is my biggest criticism of the course. It"s a tough course, which makes it even more important to have tutoring hours scheduled. Asking through mail isn"t the same as being able to discuss a question with someone face to face. I think the quality of the course is greatly diminised by not having scheduled tutoring. » (Rather poor)
- Scheduled exercises, would be nice.» (Rather poor)
- It was not clear how to get help in the course. If you asked the lecturer or assistants for help, you got it but there was not much info on if you were allowed to do so. There should probably be opportunities like lab sessions in the schedule to get a proper chance to ask questions. At least make it more clear in class and on the homepage that it is okay to ask questions about assignments.» (Rather poor)
- Lectures was great!» (Rather good)
- You could easily ask questions during the classes or by email, but a two hour class per week where you could get help on the assignments would be good.» (Rather good)
- Would liked to have a helping session or something, it was hard to reach the teachers in person.» (Rather good)
- Good that we could ask questions via email. Perhaps though there also may be a need to actually meet and discuss some specific questions.» (Rather good)
- I guess, when we finally asked questions(!)» (Rather good)
- We had some questions and sent an email to Felipe who spent about an hour of his time on helping us - very nice!» (Very good)
- It was easy to ask question during lectures and the teacher also answer question by email which was a great help.» (Very good)
- The lab assistant I met, mr Filippo, is very educational. » (Very good)
- I had to spend a lot of time on the other course (Agile Development Processes). Did not have the time I would have liked for the algorithms course.» (I did not seek help (comment on why below))
- It would be nice with scheduled workshops.» (I did not seek help (comment on why below))
- At risk of sounding smug and insufferable, this was a pretty simple course and I didn"t need help.» (I did not seek help (comment on why below))

18. How well has cooperation between you and your fellow students worked?

Very poorly»		0		0%
Rather poorly»		3		6%
Rather well»		12		27%
Very well»		27		61%
I did not seek coopeation»		2		4%

Genomsnitt: 3.63

- It"s totally random who you end up working with if you don"t know anyone from before.» (Rather poorly)
- I"ve only really cooperated with my lab partner, which has gone well» (Rather well)
- We did cooperate between the assignment groups to understand some of the concepts. This is a very good asset when we are not able to attend all lectures.» (Very well)

Summarizing questions

19. What is your general impression of the course?

Poor»		1		2%
Fair»		1		2%
Adequate»		6		13%
Good»		26		60%
Excellent»		9		20%

Genomsnitt: 3.95

- NO Supervision!» (Poor)
- The content was good, teacher was good but the I think there should be more help given in the assignments. » (Adequate)
- Just wish I could have given the course more attention. It is a very interesting course and the layout of the course is very good.» (Good)
- Very good course, but why do we have 2 of Algorithm course with two different ways of teaching ?» (Good)
- Känns användbart i framtiden. Inget onödigt.» (Good)
- It"s a good course. I wish it went a little faster and had a little more meat to it, but the topic is interesting and the presentation good.» (Good)
- Missing reference, reference links on website are outdated / broken.» (Good)
- Why two completely different courses but with the same course code? People who took this course earlier described a completely different course.» (Good)
- One of the best courses I"ve taken at Chalmers.» (Excellent)
- It helped me a lot to understand about programming efficiency. In general it was a useful course.» (Excellent)
- This version of the course was better than its autumn-version in communicating the intuition of concepts as heuristics, greed. The overview of algorithm design methods is good -- I missed something like that in the autumn version course. In general, this version is more pedagogic.» (Excellent)
- I think this is a great course, with great content and a great teacher. The assignments were hard, but really good.» (Excellent)

20. What should definitely be preserved to next year?

21. What should definitely be changed to next year?

22. Additional comments

23. The magic number that will answer one exam question:

- A problem with this system is that you can"t give any feedback on the exam. »
- Weird. I don"t quite understand it.»
- :)»
- Good if it motivates people to fill in the questionnaire.»
- 1 point more or less shouldn"t matter. So it"s a good way to get more ppl to fill out this questionaire.»
- Love the idea, but it would be better of you give us 10 points for this :)»
- I like free points :))))»
- Nice idea to get people to answer the questionnaire»
- Should we bring all the numbers to the exam? if yes, it is too many.»
- 33861 Doesn"t this risk violating the anonymous examination? (What if I pick one number which no one else has picked.) »
- Should be 10 points, this is hard work...»
- A little confusing, is this part of the assignment as well? But the principle idea is very nice, motivate us to take time and answer the questionnaire.»
- This is VERY confusing, but I like the idea to make sure people actually do these questionnaires. Should I write the number here? And in assignment 4? Or only in the exam? I am confused.»
- Actually a good idea. Although you should show the numbers after you submit the survey. People are lazy, and people cheat... (not me, of course)»
- I guess that the magic number is not that long as shown above... (I select one of the space-separated five-digit numbers.) »
- Good»
- Thank you :)»
- Inte dumt»
- Not a bad idea, so long as you don"t mind missing feedback on the exam. Which falls under the heading of your problem, not mine :)»
- 42»
- Number is waaaaaaaaaay too long, seriously 500 characters? 42 was much better. This is pure evil! Almost on the level of Calvin.»
- Course evaluation should be done AFTER the exam.»
- Seems "illegal".»

* obligatoriska frågor