Minutes of Department of Physics Student Staff Liaison Committee
Wednesday 26th February 2014 1 West 3.7
1. Register of Attendance and Apologies
Isaac, William
Ataie, Arian
Griggs, David
Arter, James
Hoare, Daniel
Thompson, Ian
Goold, Steffan
Jones, Dominic
Kuppe, Christian
Zhang, Jiawei
Apologies
Daniels, Alex
Hoye, Sarah
Laughton, Frances
Fredericks, Emma
Banks, Rupert
Williams, Mark
Dodd, Dr Simon
Del Aguila, Ruben
(Acting Chair)
Mathlin, Dr Gary
Randall, Matthew
Sloan, Dr Peter
Remedios, Reece
Knight, Jodie (mins.)
Agg, Katharine
2. Minutes of meeting of 20th November and matters arising
The last SSLC Meeting was the Open Forum on 11th December 2013. The minutes from the
meeting prior to that will be sent under separate cover for information.
3. Items For Discussion
3.1 S1 Student Evaluations
The Chair explained to the Committee that for a point of reference, any question given a score of
less than ‘3’ would raise cause for concern.
It was noted that the Year 1 response rate for 2013/14 is higher than in previous years.
There were no comments in relation to response rates and/or scores for the Y1 units.
Some of the Year 3 units (Simulation Techniques, PH30031 and Computational Physics A,
PH30055 had some worryingly low scores.
James Arter explained to the Committee that there was a timetabling issue with PH30031 which
reflects the low scores. The lecturer was timetabled to that slot when he in fact had other
obligations which meant that he could only attend for around 10 minutes each week.
Dr Peter Sloan explained that the forms which staff are asked to complete if they have other
commitments during scheduled teaching times are taken very seriously, however inevitably
commitments can change during the course of the year. The lecturer teaching this course did
introduce “office hours” whereby students could drop in to speak to him about the course when
necessary as an attempt to counteract this problem. James explained that he had made use of the
“office hours” system and that he had found them helpful, however the actual problems class that
should have gone ahead would be more appealing to a wider group.
Ruben Del Aguila raised the question of whether or not there is a process whereby a replacement
staff member should be introduced should the assigned lecturer not be able to make it, or whether
the “office hours” system is appropriate and sufficient.
Dr Gary Mathlin explained to the Committee that he knew Dr Laughton had approached timetabling
about the issues, but that it had not been possible to timetable an alternative slot.
The point was raised by Ruben that whilst timetabling constraints across the campus could be
appreciated, students should be able to expect their teaching hours to be fulfilled.
Ruben will ensure that the above is raised in time for the next Academic Council.
ACTION- RDA
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The issues surrounding Computational Physics A appeared to be centred around the quantity of
material.
The main problem was that the unit hours are 100, yet many students felt that it was taking many
more to get the work completed. Areas that house equipment needed for the work were often at full
capacity and using remote desktop for ‘MAPLE’ was very slow. It was also mentioned that whilst
the lecturer was helpful when spoken to on a 1:1 basis, this unit lacked any real ‘teaching’ and
students felt quite unsupported.
Dr Mathlin explained that this is a common kind of course design for this kind of unit but can be a
‘culture shock’ if you are used to lecture based courses.
There did not appear to be any feedback from the lecturer to the students about these comments,
however FRL (not in attendance at meeting) may be in receipt of this, so the committee will check
with her to find out.
It was suggested by Ruben that perhaps some kind of statement should be made at the start of the
course by the lecturer to explain the format that it will take and the style of learning that the student
can expect.
Dr Mathin agreed that clear operating guidelines were needed for non-standard units. In terms of
the hours spent on the work exceeding 100, it is the students’ responsibility to work rational hours
and not be tempted to work past the 100 hour threshold in the hope of obtaining higher marks.
There has only been one unit with a response rate below 30%, so responses are much improved.
Most are between 45-60% which shows that the links to the questionnaires on Moodle have
obviously been effective.
3.2 S1 Staff Evaluations- Summary of changes to Units
Ruben asked for any comments about the changes to units and explained at the same time that
not all courses will appear on the summary of changes unless there is an issue/issues to be
addressed.
Ruben has asked FRL whether it would be possible to look at some of the student comments and
also wants to find out how practical skills are taught to see if they match expectations. He will
speak to SSLC reps soon to orchestrate obtaining some feedback to present at an SSLC meeting.
It was noted that one of the lecturers on unit PH30035 received very low feedback and her
response was that she plans to review the content of the lecture. James Arter explained that one of
the main problems were that her lecture notes were not self -contained and that it would have been
beneficial for the lectures to have been recorded using Panopto. The notes that she provided were
merely a summary and not enough to correlate to the amount of Powerpoint slides that she had.
Dr Mathlin explained that the Convenor for this unit would look in to it and take whatever action
may be necessary.
Ruben raised the matter of ‘with lab’ units and whether there were separate online unit evaluations
for these, as if so, some questions would need to be added. Cath Haines recommended that he
contact Shaun McGall to obtain the answer to this.
ACTION- RDA
Questions on assessment- Unit evaluations
Feedback on exams was a topic of discussion for the Committee and the question of when the
best time to open unit evaluations on exams would be. The committee discussed whether
responses may be influenced by performance in exams and if it would be more sensible for the
questionnaires to be completed as soon as the exam has been sat.
Dr Mathlin expressed that he thought that separate evaluation after exams would be a good idea.
Dr Sloan suggested an “exams feedback box” should be established in the Physics Square at
exam time to encourage students to leave feedback after the exams have taken place. This could
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take the format of a slip of paper with set questions on it, and then the opportunity for students to
leave any other comments that they might have. This was supported by the committee and it was
therefore decided that Dominic Jones, Matthew Randall and Peter Sloan would put together a
recommendation for the above by the next SSLC meeting
ACTION: Dominic Jones, Matthew Randall, Dr Peter Sloan.
3.3 SSLC Annual Reports Overview- (to be discussed in conjunction with paper 4)
Recommendation 7 of section 5.2.1 ‘Meetings with personal tutors should be timetabled where
possible in accordance with AQ33.
The above recommendation was discussed with the slight majority of the committee voting against
timetabled slots with personal tutors. Considerations if this were to be implemented would need to
include staffing numbers, Physics and Maths and Physics students time clashes, more unsociable
lecture times etc. Dr Mathlin will explore possible slots for timetabled Year 1 tutorials.
Recommendation 21 of section 5.9.1 ‘University to investigate where anonymous marking can be
implemented and too implement procedures to ensure this happens’.
The above recommendation was discussed and the focus was on this being implemented for
coursework. It was decided that all reps would speak to students to get their feedback on whether
they thought there was any sense of students feeling intimidated when they hand in work that is
identifiable, and how they feel generally about the implementation of this practice.
Recommendation 18 of section 5.6.3 ‘Reading lists to be sent at least 10 weeks before the start of
Semester one to students and to the Departmental Librarian, so that students can have sufficient
time to analyse the list and so that the Departmental Librarians have adequate time to update their
collection’.
Subject Librarian Karina Bradshaw attended the meeting as a guest and discussed the above
recommendation with the Committee. It was her opinion that the 10 week rule needed to be looked
at more closely between the Department and the Library to ascertain their needs. It was the view of
the committee members that lecturers in Physics are generally very good at giving out reading
lists, therefore a lot of students probably aren’t aware that there is a library repository available for
their use.
In response to Karina’s question about whether staff and students are aware when new editions of
books become available, Dr Mathin explained that unless sent a copy by the publisher, he doesn’t
usually know about them.
It was suggested that it needs to be made clearer to students that reading lists are background
reading unless otherwise stated, as it can throw new students in to a panic if they think that they
need to purchase every single book that may be on a list.
3.4 Departmental response to the Students’ Union Feedback Campaign (Paper 4)
The following suggestions were made for the ‘Department Feedback’ section of the Memorandum:
It was observed that Recommendation 1 may be construed as slightly defensive. There is no
mention here of formative feedback. It was suggested that the last paragraph should be changed
to say ‘looking to provide general feedback on exams within three weeks’.
Recommendation 3 was corrected to say that the email is sent on the date that students receive
their results, not at the end of the Semester.
The following response was decided upon for Recommendation 12:
‘The department will send the reading list to the library as soon as it is available but will not be
sent to students 10 weeks in advance due to its non-essential nature. The reading list is available
to students as soon as the respective Moodle course is available’.
3.5 SSLC Open Forum Feedback
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It was decided that due to lack of available time, this matter would need to be discussed at the next
SSLC meeting, however the general thought was that it should still be held on the same day as the
Christmas Lecture.
3.6 Library Matters- Karina Bradshaw, Subject Librarian
Karina explained to the Committee that the quality of computers and wifi connections have
improved and that BUCS should be contacted if anyone identifies any computers that are broken
or defective.
The issue of Library space will be discussed at the next SSLC meeting.
4 Rep Matters
Mailing lists:
It was brought to the attention of the Committee that some Maths and Physics students are not
receiving emails that they should be via the mailing lists. The mailing lists need to be checked to
ensure that students are receiving the correct emails.
COSMOS:
COSMOS have identified the need for more departmental involvement. This will be discussed at a
later date.
Any Other Business:
N/A
Date and time of next meeting
Wednesday 12th March at 13:30 in Wessex House 3.36
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