We’re already halfway through the second quartile, so it’s time for the first Educational Update of this academic year! We would like to keep you updated on everything!

TCS Module 1: Pearls of Computer Science

Pearls of Computer Science was the module about which we got the most complaints. Due to the large number of participants for the module and the new ‘Houses-system’, some issues arose. Below you will find a list of the issues with their solution:

• Grades for Pearl 1 were late. This was because a large number of plagiarism cases were detected, which needed to be handled by the examination board before the grades could be published. Soon after contact with the module coordinator about this, the grades were published.

• Multiple issues occurred during the Intelligent Interaction pearl. Lectures were rushed and chaotic and the material was not explained during the lecture. Due to this, the teachers for the pearl had been asked to give a recap lecture/Q&A session for the wednesday lecture. Next to that, they were also asked to join the practical sessions so they could see the issues for themselves and so that the pearl could be improved. After this, multiple students thought the test given was not representable for the week, as there was a lack of example tests as well as multiple issues with the testing system. This has also been brought to the attention of the module coordinators and will be evaluated for next year.

• An announcement made by the pearl teacher of week 8 regarding the test results was found insulting by numerous students, as it implied that they could not read and needed professional help. The teacher later clarified this with an announcement on Canvas that it was not her intent to insult anyone, but that students could have gotten a lot more points if they had read the questions properly.

TCS Module 5: Computer Systems

The Computer Systems module also had some hiccups, mostly concerning Operating Systems and IT&Law:

• The Operating Systems lectures were changed into Q&A sessions as the lectures had all been videotaped before and were available on the Canvas page of the course. The reasoning behind not having the conventional lectures again was that students are actively participating in a Q&A and not passively listening during lectures. As this change was not well received by all students, the module coordinator has discussed how to improve the lectures with these students.

• A pass/fail criterion for a VHDL crash course was added to the curriculum without being in the module description. This was later changed so that the crash course was no longer a requirement for passing the module.

• The grades for the IT&Law test were published half a day late. The teachers tried to get the resit to be moved back, however this was not possible and it was decided that the resit would still take place on the same date and time.

Remindo (Digital Testing Environment)

Starting from this year both TCS and BIT are making use of digital testing more than the previous years. This is done in the form of having tests on Chromebooks in the digital testing environment Remindo. Because we have just started using Remindo, there are still some startup problems. One of these is for example the calculator, which does not allow the use of logarithms, which were needed for pearl tests. When you take a test with Remindo and have issues with the system the team working on Remindo would like to know these issues as to solve these as soon as possible. You can send these issues to the e-assessment team by emailing to e-assessment-ces@utwente.nl!

Basic Machine Learning

Multiple issues regarding this Master course were brought to our attention. Officially this course is not run by our programme, but as a large amount of students following the course are Computer Science students the programme director still decided to pick up on this complaint. Evaluations and meetings have been held with the responsible teachers of the course and a plan is being made to make the organization of the course better for the upcoming year. A special OEC evaluation has also been held for this course.

What was noticeable with all the complaints filed during the last weeks was that most of the times, the module coordinator did not know about the issue at all before they were contacted by us. Usually module coordinators are very helpful in solving these issues and often it does not need involvement of Inter-Actief to solve the issue. If contacting the teachers and module coordinator does not work then we can of course help you! If you are unsure on what to do or if you have questions you can always come by the Inter-Actief room!

Next to all the negative points regarding different modules that are usually discussed, we would also like to showcase some positive points! The results of the NSE (Nationale Studenten Enquête) are in and both Technical Computer Science as well as Business Information Technology are scoring above the national average for their fields!

Another awesome thing you can do is to nominate someone for an educational bouquet! You can nominate a teacher, module coordinator, study advisor or any other staff member from our programmes for an educational bouquet if you feel like that person has gone above and beyond for the students! Nominating a person can be done through ictsv.nl/bouquet! Each quartile we will be handing out a bouquet, and the bouquet for last quartile will be handed out soon!

Good luck with studying and if you have any questions feel free to come by the Inter-Actief room or send an email to education@inter-actief.net!