DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
MINUTES of the DEPARTMENTAL SSCC MEETING held on 17th November 2011,
in room 404 at 1.10pm
Distributed to all members of the committee,
Dr A Wojcik, Prof N Ladommatos, UCL Union and the Dean of Students.
Posted to the ME intranet and fourth floor notice board
PRESENT:
James Cook (Year 1)
Elizabeth Lawrence (Year 1)
Rehan Shah (Year 1)
Daniel Erkel (Year 2)
Joe Fang (Year 2)
Julianah Fawehinmi (Year 2)
Carmella Friedman (Year 3)
Khalid Kane (Year 3)
Clem Lim (Year 3)
Anish Shah (Year 3)
Adelani Oyawoye (Year 4)
Azam Chishty (Year 4)
Megdi Eltayeb (Research rep)
Dr A P Blackie (Permanent member/Secretary)
Dr B Hanson (SSCC Member
Dr K O Suen (Postgraduate Tutor)
Ms C Lenihan (Undergraduate Administrator)
APOLOGIES:
Alex Ikan (MSc rep)
1. Previous Minutes:
(a) The minutes of the last meeting were approved as a correct record.
(b) Dr. Blackie welcomed all new members of the SSCC.
(c) After a short discussion, Khalid Kane (Year 3) was elected as Chair for the academic year
2011/12, and Carmela Friedman (Year 3) was elected as Departmental Teaching
Committee representative.
2. Matters arising from last meeting:
(a) [Item 4a] The course tutor of Applied Electricity scheduled additional lectures to cover
materials that had not yet been covered in sufficient detail.
(b) [Item 4b & 7a] APB reported an excellent student turnout at both the Departmental
Sports day on 6th June and on graduation day.
(c) [Item 4d] APB would raise the issue of installing vending machines at the next
Departmental Meeting.
(d) [Item 4e] The information leaflet on the Workshop Practice would be amended to
include advice on the travel costs for next year, and the relevant information would be
emailed to all first year students to enable them to arrange collective travel cards.
(e) [Item 5b] The damping device on the door in RB422 has been replaced.
(f) CL emailed all students with full details of the DSSCC Terms of Reference and the
StARs scheme in advance of the meeting, and all present confirmed their receipt and
understanding of the training available as well as the terms of the meeting.
3. Departmental Activities:
(a) Dr. Blackie explained the Icebreaker event for first year students to the new SSCC
members, and advised that we have an Entertainments subcommittee who set the dates for
these events and also organise them. The idea of the Icebreaker event is to integrate the
new first year students with students from the other years, by completing design exercises,
where the second year students act as advisors, the third year students act as referees and
judges and the fourth year students organise the refreshments. It was felt that the new
student mentoring scheme had worked well to integrate the first year students, but after
discussion it was agreed that it would be good to hold both a Christmas party at the end of
the first term and an Icebreaker event in the second semester. The dates would be decided
at the first meeting of the Entertainments sub-committee in a couple of weeks and would
be reported to the next meeting.
(b) It was agreed that the Entertainments sub-committee would be responsible for the
organisation of both the design exercise and the refreshments, and the members of the
committee were agreed as follows:
- Adelani Oyawoye (Year 4), Carmela Friedman (Year 3), Daniel Erkel (Year 2), James
Cook (Year 1)
4. First Year Matters:
(a) Students enquired about the possibility of arranging recordings of lectures and uploading
these to a central resource for students, especially in the case of both Mechanics of Fluids
and Thermodynamics, as these lectures had a high content level and it was difficult to
absorb everything during the lecture.
Actions: APB to raise this matter at the Departmental Meeting as it is a matter for each
individual lecturer to decide – recordings can only be made with the permission of each
lecturer, and are entirely voluntary.
(b) Students requested that all the deadlines from different lectures could be combined into
one list for all students, to ensure that no submission deadlines are missed.
Actions: Students advised that this was possible for them to organise via the medium of
their Facebook groups, and forums, and any additional instructions could be posted by
students on the facebook forums also.
(c) The first year students who were not in the Booster group for Modelling and Analysis
requested permission to organise a clinic with PhD students or students from later years,
as they felt that they could benefit from peer-to-peer tutoring in certain areas. It was
suggested that this could be organised from within the Department in groups, from a bank
of volunteer students.
Actions: APB will arrange this on a selective basis and will approach suitable students to
check if they are happy to volunteer. Students should discuss suitable times, etc. and
advise APB.
5. Second Year Matters:
(a) Students felt that the teaching methods used by IE in Modelling and Analysis II (microtutorials in the course of his lectures) worked very well, but they felt that while MZ was
an excellent lecturer, his course areas needed more tutorial sessions to be covered in
sufficient depth.
Actions: APB to raise this matter with MZ and report back to the next meeting.
(b) Students would like to see some of the theory delivered in the Dynamics lectures related
to engineering applications and preferred a three-week deadline for coursework
submission rather than the newly introduced two week period. Some students were
concerned with the noise levels during the lecture which were often too distracting.
Actions: APB to speak to the lecturer about these issues.
(c) Mice had been spotted in lecture rooms 421 and 422.
Actions: Maintenance have been alerted to this fact and are trying to get rid of these on
an ongoing basis. It is hoped that this will be less of an issue as soon as localised
building work has finished.
(d) Students complained that they could not always access the relevant computer
programmes they need to complete assignments out of hours on their home computers.
Actions: APB explained that full instructions on how to access these services remotely
were available on the Departmental Intranet.
6. Third Year Matters:
(a) Students expressed concerns about the handling of coursework submission and return.
Several lab reports were simply not graded, comments were patchy in a lot of cases, with
no standardised methods of feedback, and students suggested that there should also be
deadlines for the return of coursework, as some assignments were submitted and never
returned.
Actions: The Department is concerned about addressing these points, and it was
suggested that Moodle be the default method for all coursework submission. APB to raise
this issue at the DTC.
7. Fourth Year Matters:
(a) Students were also concerned about the way coursework was organised in the
Department, and in some cases students had not received any of their coursework reports
back at all on the Departmental resubmission day.
Actions: APB asked all affected students to make appointments to see him to see what can
be arranged.
(b) Students would like to have access to the library and computing systems after 7pm if
possible. They would also like more and better access to computing facilities during
daytime hours
Actions: Students should raise the issue of later opening hours with UCL Union, as this is
a College policy. APB advised that students now have a designated Design Project room
for all students in the Department, which has been fitted out with 5 new computers for
student use. There will be specific hours set aside for 4th Year Design students and all
students will be advised to vacate the room during those times.
8. Postgraduate matters
(a) Students in the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering PhD stream requested more access
to work space, as there was not enough space for all 20 students on the course.
Actions: This would be raised with the course leader.
(b) MSc students in general also needed better access to computer clusters, and wished to
know if they could book these in advance.
Actions: Dr Tan has arranged priority access to the PCs in the Upper Basement on
Wednesday from 1-5pm and Friday from 9am – 12noon. This arrangement will be in
place until the end of term.
(c) Some research students complained about the lack of IT support in the Department, and
the attitude of the IT support staff in dealing with complaints or issues, which was
unhelpful and at times intimidating. This issue was considered important as the
Department is recruiting greater numbers of students who are carrying out computerbased research, and they need access to the appropriate support systems.
Actions: This issue has been brought to the attention of the Head of Department and will
be raised by APB in the Departmental meeting.
9. AOB
Students wondered if it would be possible to install a drinking fountain in the Department.
Actions: To be raised by APB in the Departmental meeting.
10. Date of Next Meeting:
Thursday 2nd February, RB404 at 1.10pm.
Minutes prepared by CL