School Of Physics And Astronomy

SCHOOL OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

The confirmed Minutes of the Postgraduate Staff/Student Panel Meeting held on 1 February 2016 at 11:00

Present Staff: Dr Stephen Fairhurst, Director for PG Studies, (SF); Dr Richard Lewis Director for PGT and MSc Phys Coordinator (RJL); Dr Bernard Richardson, Director of Undergraduate Studies& Year 3 & 4 Tutor (BER); Dr George Zorinyants, MSc Biophotonics MO; Mrs Louise Winter (LLW), Student Services Admin & Minutes

Students: Chair: Ms Natalie Kilber (NK), PGT Phys Mr Ahmed Sherry (AS), PGT Biophotonics; Ms Helen Usher (HU), PGT Astro;

1. Welcome and introduction RJL welcomed everyone to the meeting and explained the purpose of splitting the SSP into two meetings; the PG meeting will meet prior to the UG and forward items to that meeting.

2. Apologies for absence Apologies for absence were recorded for Gwen Williams.

3. Appointment of chair Natalie Kilber stepped forward as chair and will take items forward to the main UG SSP.

4. Comments from the PGT students 4.1 AS commented that the MSc Biophotonics course for the autumn semester seems to be very condensed with a lot of material to be covered in a limited amount of time, which makes it particularly difficult for those with different academic backgrounds who need to get up to speed as well as learn the material: stats and maths are the most difficult modules.

4.2 HU said the MSc Astro seems to be based on the assumption that students will have undertaken the Cardiff University undergraduate courses, but those from other universities and scientific backgrounds will not necessarily have covered the pre-requisites. More space needs to be created for students with different backgrounds to catch up. It needs to be made clear from the outset what students are expected to have covered. She suggested that Data Analysis should be compulsory.

4.3 HU commented that there needs to be greater co-ordination wrt CA deadlines. Also, it needs to be made clear how much time should be spend on each assessment. BER responded that there is a university standard that for a 10 credit module students should be spending around 7 hours per week including lectures/exercises, equating to 70-100 hours per module per semester. For Year 3 u/g modules BER urges the MOs to publish deadlines but it is difficult to prevent bunching because of the optional modules. He asks MOs to ensure that CA can be started straight away with 2 weeks to complete; if MOs are not doing this BER would like to know. He suggested that if a module is taking more than this amount of time to complete that students should simply down tools and start something else; it’s an issue of time-management. HU said that picking Data Analysis together with Computing Physics may have been a mistake. BER said that we can look at how these issues may be avoided.

1 4.4 HU said that there is a lot of theory in Data Analysis and suggested adding a 1 hour workshop would be useful. There was a workshop at the end of term but by then too much work had backed- up. BER commented that these modules were not designed for the MSc courses and we will need to look at them again in the CC. He received an anonymous letter from students about Data Analysis which made some good suggestions for that course. He responded to Y4 students but didn’t include the MSc students. This will be raised in the U/G SSP. BER also said that the average marks from that course will be looked at for Year 4 MPhys students and MSc students to see whether there is a disparity.

RJL commented that we are aware of the pre-requisite issue in Data Analysis, which was originally intended as a core module. In future, we will make it clear that ideally, prior knowledge would be a pre-requisite. PR said that we were going to put in some pre learning material

PR said that we will need to post on the web pages a list of subjects that students will have needed to have covered before starting the course. GZ said that we need an introductory course of 1 or 2 weeks for the stats course.

4.5 HU finds it hard that there is no break between the two semesters as students are straight into semester 2 following the exams. However, she thinks that the workload looks more manageable because it is assessed by exam rather than CA. She suggested that Data Analysis could be moved to the second semester but there are a variety of reasons why this can’t be done. RJL suggested that he could package his programming module so that it is available to everyone.

4.6 HU said that Instrumentation for Astronomy is a nice course but it needs more worked examples to counterbalance the theory. Students also felt that the 50/50 CA exam/CA split should translate into a longer exam time of 2 hours rather than 1 so that more of the material can be examined. BER responded that the exam time of 1 hour for a 50/50 split is standard. However, the MO recognises that she may have made some of the questions too long for a 1 hour exam and will make adjustments for next year. Noted, the MO didn’t give out a specimen paper, which is what we would expect for new modules. Students asked for worked examples but didn’t get them. It was too late to put these comments on the module questionnaires.

4.7 HU said that GR has a lot of theory but students need more worked examples to translate the theory.

4.8 HU said that overall the course was enjoyable but stressful because of the compression of material into a short time span.

4.9 NK requested that if students are given a reading list could those books be available online; not all are available online. SF said that for a main textbook students should inform the Library if there are not enough copies. Not all texts are available as e-books, however. BER said that lecture notes should be available on LC.

4.10 NK: students would like solutions to be put up on LC before the exams begin but this didn’t happen for all modules. Students would also like past paper solutions to be made available. BER responded to the request for exams solutions that the Board of Studies reached a consensus that Y1 MOs would put one set of solutions on LC but it is essentially down to the MOs whether they do this. BER is sympathetic to this idea and suggested that students should continue to push for this.

4.11 NK: the students felt it was unfair that the Large Molecules and Life exam didn’t have a question on DNA. BER replied that MOs are not obliged to examine all topics covered by the course, so we can’t do anything about this.

2 4.12 NK: re the QIP module taught by Swansea, the students found it difficult to talk to the Physics DMO. The solutions for the last two exercises were posted on Facebook rather than LC by the student class rep, so not all students had access to them. BER responded that the DMO should have taken responsibility for posting these on LC. BER asked whether this was put on the questionnaires, NK said that it happened too late for the questionnaires.

4.13 NK: there were a lot of organisational problems with the Magnetism module, e.g. course material being sent out late, some of the course not being taught, only two of the three CAs being set. BER noted these problems, they will be taken up with the MO.

4.14 NK: Re Data Analysis, there is an imbalance of the work set between Astronomy and Physics with too much work for the last assessment. NK has taken this up with the MO. The MO intends to change it so that there are 4 assessments worth 25% each with the last deadline to come before the Christmas recess. BER said that we will ask the MO about generating assignments in physics/astronomy pairs. It is expected that the MO will address any problems and inconsistencies with the module next year. HU suggested making this into a double module taken in one semester.

4.15 HU found the double lectures were quite difficult in terms of maintaining concentration. BER felt that as long as students have a 10 minute break that this should not be a problem.

4.16 NK suggested that tutorials could be introduced for CA modules to go over material. BER replied that our tutorials are really intended for small group discussions and that slots for worked examples/quizzes in the exercise classes should fulfil this purpose.

GZ said that the Biophotonics Maths module the structure is lecture/tutorial/workshop which works well. AS agreed that this worked well but found that the Optics module was a bit condensed. RJL said that we could look into splitting it up.

The students particularly liked the flexibility of the course co-ordinators.

Action items: BER will take to the Course Committee how we can make the MPhys modules more compatible with the MSc courses, particularly wrt pre-requisites; Data Analysis and computational modules.

BER will raise the problems with the DMO on QIP of solutions being made available only on Facebook.

BER will raise the organisational problems with the Magnetism module with the MO.

Course co-ordinators will look at the computational elements of the course. RJL will look at packaging his computational course so that it is accessible to all.

Course co-ordinators RJL/PR will make it clear to applicants the pre-requisites for the course, with a list on the web of subjects that need to have been taken.

Course co-ordinators to look at whether to set up an introductory course to some elements of the programmes for 1 to 2 weeks prior to the start of the course.

NK to take to the main SSP complaints by students relating to the shared modules.

5. Comments for the PGR student There were no PGR student reps present at the meeting.

3 6. Items to take to the Undergraduate SSP NK was clear about items to take to the main SSP.

7. Dates of meetings LLW will circulate a doodle-poll for suggestions for the date of the next meeting prior to the SSP on 2 March.

8. Any other business. BER invited students to attend a meeting for Thursday to discuss assessment and feedback.

The meeting closed at 12.15 pm.