TDDD56 Multicore and GPU Programming (6 ECTS)

Autumn2 2023

Mid-Term Evaluation with Muddy Cards

The course TDDD56 has been mid-term evaluated with the muddy card method at the end of the second week, Lecture 7, on friday 16 november 2018 08:00-10:00. 32 students attended this lecture, and I received 30 cards.

Summary

By and large, the feedback is overall clearly positive. A few minor issues were pointed out, and are commented below as appropriate.

Contents:
The subject is generally perceived as very interesting, relevant and varied.

Lectures:
Lectures are appreciated in most comments (e.g., well-structured, many examples, detailed, well-explained).
Due to timing constraints, the evaluation had to be done just in the last lecture of the theory block, which of course is reflected in a number of cards.
This course is optional and taken by students coming from many different programs beyond computer science and engineering, and also by a significant number of international exchange students. While several cards state that the lectures are easy to follow, some others comment that they find the theory part a bit hard to swallow, especially if missing background from core computer science courses like algorithms and data structures or operating systems (which are listed as prerequisites in the course syllabus). Others remark on partial overlap with earlier courses, which however is appreciated by those who do not have such courses in their study program.
Lecture slide material is considered to be of high quality and detailed, a bit too dense/too many powerpoints sometimes. Avoiding too much whiteboard writing/drawing is however a necessity to get through with the contents within the given few lecture slots of an advanced-level course. Note also that the slides actually ARE the course book -- and they define the exam-relevant contents, to answer a question on another card. With the new compendium now in place, we could in the future reduce the text on the slides, or even move some contents entirely to the compendium for self-studying.

Labs:
Labs are perceived as fun and interesting so far (well, Lab 2 will be a bit harder but you will manage, too). It is also positively noted on several cards that no lab reports need to be written.
Two cards about partly outdated/late updated lab information: The lab information for the later labs is being updated before the second lab week.
The lab assistants are appreciated on several cards.
Two cards asked for even more assistants to avoid queueing for lab demonstration. Please note that we had just doubled the lab assistant capacity compared to the corresponding course in spring, and due to both cost and staff availability constraints, even higher lab assistant capacity is out of question, both for our course and all similar CS courses at advanced level.
One card suggests including the timing code directly in the lab skeleton, we could consider this for next year.

Schedule:
Three cards complained about the three-hour lecture of the second day being too long. I agree, but this was necessary due to scheduling constraints. For next year we will consider merging the first lesson with Lab 1 instead and splitting lecture 2 in two separate 90-minutes slots.
One card complains about the evening lab hours of group B; due to scheduling constraints there was no choice, the alternative would be to limit the course to 32 students rather than 64. Another student dislikes lectures starting at 8am - me too, but there is not much choice in the given schedule frame.
One student wrote that he/she had difficulties finding the SoB labb. Unfortunately it is not shown under this name on any of the LiU online room maps. This problem will however not reoccur next year, as the lab computers will move from this year's temporary location to their final place.

Thanks to everybody for the overall very constructive and encouraging feedback!

Christoph Kessler, examinator TDDD56

Page responsible: Christoph W Kessler
Last updated: 2018-11-22