Minutes
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Department of Economics
_____________________________________________________________________
UNIVERSITY OF BATH
Meeting:
Undergraduate SSLC
Date and time:
Wednesday, 11th December 2013 at 1.15 pm
Venue:
CB 3.10
_____________________________________________________________________
Present:
Prof John Cullis (Chair)
Dr Lucy O’Shea
Dr Cathy Winnett
Kate Hamilton-Boarder
Year 1
An Vu
Year 2
Mitali Reid
Tim Haber
Final Year
Ainaa Azhar
Jennie White
Secretary:
Hannah Welton
_____________________________________________________________________
1. Apologies
Apologies were received from Aidan Stringfellow, Samuel Fox and Ludi Wang
2. To Approve the minutes for the previous SSLC
Minutes were approved
3. Matters arising from the minutes
Actions from the last meeting will be put in place for the next academic year.
4. DoS Report
Revisions to the programme descriptions for all three degree programmes were
agreed. As of 2014/5 some changes will be made to some final year units. It is
expected that three new units, Game Theory, Political Economy and Monetary
Economics will be introduced into the final year. Economics of Education will move
from having a mid-semester test to a written piece of coursework. Microeconomics
and Macroeconomics will switch semesters with some revised content, to better dove
tail with options. Public choice will become a first semester unit to be followed in
semester 2 by Political Economy; Public Finance 2 in the second year is now Public
Economics. The reasoning behind these changes is to make possible, sequences of
units e.g. Public sector in the second year, Public Choice and Political Economy in the
Final Year, Likewise, Macroeconomics and Monetary Theory. There will also be
some small changes to Environmental Economics, Natural Resource Economics and
Introduction to Econometrics. More material on Game Theory will be added to
Intermediate Microeconomics and Game Theory material that is currently in
Advanced Microeconomics will be taken out (in line with the new unit), the
department is currently working on the details of what will replace this material. It is
possible that the department will choose to suspend the International Trade option for
2014/5 while the content for the unit is being revised.
In the first year, material will be moved from Core Skills for Economists: Statistics to
Data Analysis and computer packages such as Excel and Stata will be used more in
Data Analysis. Minor changes will be made to Core Skills for Economists:
Mathematics 2, Modern World Economy and Introductory Microeconomics. It is
possible that a new unit Probability and Statistics will be introduced to Economics
students; the current Statistics unit ES10003 will still be available to BAF students in
the School of Management
5. Year Group Reports
The Second Year reported that students found the Intermediate Microeconomics and
Economics of Politics unit very interesting. Some students found the Development
Economics unit to be different from that expected, this could be due to a change in
lecturer. The Intermediate Macroeconomics unit is taught by two lecturers, and as the
unit moved into the second half of the semester many students felt that the unit had
lost focus and did not join up with the first half of the unit. Comments were made
regarding the coursework for this unit, the coursework had typos when it was released
and they only had a week to complete the work and some students did not feel they
had learnt much by doing the assessment. Students taking the Introduction to
Econometrics unit have just had an ‘in class’ test and the Second Year Reps reported,
students did not know much about the format of the test. There was a question on each
lecture. It was noted that students should revise all work as it is a test of their
knowledge of the subject. The Final Year reported that they did not have a test when
they took this unit and having been on placement some of them are finding
Econometrics 1 quite difficult. This unit was reformatted in line with comments that
were made from the unit evaluations in 2012/3. Student reps were encouraged to
highlight the importance of unit evaluations to other students as only 1/3 of students
have currently completed them. The unit evaluations opened on the 2nd of December
and will close on the 12th of January.
The Final Year reported again, than many students are unhappy with the way
coursework deadlines are released. Coursework for Advanced Microeconomics was
originally going to be a multiple choice questionnaire submitted on moodle, this was
changed a week before the deadline to be a normal ‘take home piece’. Health
Economics had a rolling deadline for coursework this year. There was a final deadline
set for the 22nd of November but students could create their own deadlines before this
if they wanted, if the deadline was missed the same penalties as a normal coursework
deadline applied. Students were pleased with this as it allowed them to manage their
own work load.
Some Final Year lecturers do not put their graphs on moodle with the lecture notes.
The Final Year commented that this would be useful if you needed to miss a lecture
for an interview. The panopto recording cannot always capture this. The First Year
also commented on the use of panopto as a useful tool when it comes to revision,
however in some lectures attendance has slipped when the lecture recordings have
been put on moodle. Financial Theory and Application is down by 20% and this is a
unit which uses panopto and have all lecture notes on moodle. Some units do not put
the problem sets on moodle before the seminars so it is difficult to complete the work
before the classes. Students were reminded that they can use lecturer’s office hours if
they would like work looked at. The final comment was that some lecturer’s take a
while to respond to emails. It is understood that lecturers are very busy and do not
always have time to respond quickly. Over the Christmas break, one teaching fellow
will be having E- office hours, where student can use skype into order to contact him.
Another lecturer is going to do a Q&A session at the end of each week, to cover all
questions rather than responding to each individual as many students have the same
questions. Students seem very happy with both these approaches.
6. Year Tutor Reports
The Year Tutors did not have anything to report.
7. Any Other Business
Both the Final Year and Second Year Socials will be in the first week of the second
semester but the reps will make sure they are not held on the same day. The First Year
Social will be held later in the semester.