TDDC93 Software Engineering

Muddy-card evaluation

Date: 2008-09-09

Time: Interval on lecture 8-10

Place: A1

Total number of student on the mail-lists: 193

Total number of received cards: 40

Number of cards also containing comments on TDDC88: 10

Number of "OK" cards: 8

Issues for improvement

Very theoretical course

Use more concrete examples 3

We should take notes ourselves

The Design Patterns lecture was too much performance 4

Use "good" and "bad" instead of "pros" and "cons"

Closer connection to the book, more detailed reading instructions 2

More interactive learning, perhaps lectures 4

Start with a summary of previous lecture

The pace of the lectures is too slow

Slides should be available in power-point

Relate all lectures to a large case-study, and to project roles 1

Earlier notice of the quiz-example

Would like a guest lecture from industry

Focus more on the hard stuff, not just commenting the slides

More concrete things for bee-hives

Hard to stay awake

Appreciated things

Interesting course, good lectures 6

Good to practice the English

Good slides 3

Good guest lecture in Design Patterns 3

Beehives are good

Good pace at lectures 2

Some comments from the course leader

Thank you very much for the feed-back, I was also discussing some topics in the interval with some of you. On the whole I draw the conclusion that the theory part works fairly well. I agree that it is a general and broad course. Software Engineering is about bringing many different pieces together; I think it is fascinating, but I understand it is hard in the beginning. I am currently trying to find the times for guest lectures from two different companies, hopefully they can help you making things a bit more concrete.

I must really thank you for two ideas:

1. The first is to have lectures to stimulate more interactive learning, we don't have the personnel to do so this year, but I will use it in the negotiations for next year's resources. Do you have any suggestions for topics? I'm immediately thinking of UML.
2. The second is to have a case-study related to roles. Last year we introduced the V-model early to coordinate the different sub-topics, a case-study related to roles can perhaps do more. An interesting side-effect is that I and the leader of the TDDC88 project will have to coordinate our views of roles in the project. I look forward to the debate.

Last I realize that I and the students might have a different view on the relation between the lectures and the literature. A lecture shall point out the most central areas, complement and criticize the literature by examples and hints for student projects. The literature is for more detailed studies, and it is important to develop the skill to find the most important material in the literature. Sometimes it is also necessary to read some more peripheral material to understand the whole picture. That's why I'm always nagging about planning the reading.