School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

Minutes of the 10th meeting 2010/2011 of the Computing and Mathematical Sciences School Board held at 2pm 19th November 2010 in room 075 Queen Anne, Maritime Greenwich Campus.

Present: Liz Bacon (Chair) Phil Clipsham Yasser Ades Veronica Habgood Ala Al-Zobaidie Miltos Petridis Jason Scates Cos Ierotheou Ryan Flynn Peter Morris Kevin Parrott Frank Razaghzadeh

Secretary: Laura MacLeod

10.10.1 Apologies for Absence Bob Dolden Mona Ghassemian Yvonne Fryer Robert Mayor

10.10.2 Minutes from the 6th May 2010 Minutes from the meeting held on 19th November 2010 were a true and accurate record.

ACTION: LM to include Jason Scates to the ‘present’ list in 19th November 2010 minutes 10.10.3.1 Matters arising NSS The NSS planning is taking place at present. LB asked if there were any issues regarding this that the board would like to discuss. The board agreed that a separate meeting regarding NSS should take place.

LB had checked with CC to see if we had changed from annual to module funding and supplied the feedback to the board. The board were unclear on items in this document.

ACTION: TM to clarify the module funding information and circulate to the board.

10.10.3.2 Committee membership and structure for 10-11 LB ran through the 10-11 structure and advised the board that students will now have their own committee in addition to those already in place. This committee will then report to the school board.

LB asked VH if this is final and had been confirmed for this year. VH responded that it had and had been agreed with Academic Council.

ACTION: LB to follow up the structure with BD and update the management structure and terms of reference.

VH added that school officers needed to be appointed. LB asked who is responsible for appointing these. VH responded that school reps are nominated by the student body and then officers are chose from this.

LB asked if HOD’s if officers have been elected and they responded that this has not been done yet.

ACTION: LB and BD to organise the election of School Officers.

LB added that she had checked the updates for this year’s committees except research.

ACTION: Ed Galea to provide information on the research committee.

ACTION: Marilyn Greenaway to provide the ‘from and to’ dates for committees to LB for the elected reps. 10.10.3.3 Surveys LB updated that there had been a lot of activity over the past few months in terms of surveys. The NSS results were presented and the Maths department were congratulated for achieving 100% satisfaction. COS/CST achieved 87% satisfaction and IS achieved 65%.

ACTION: HOD’s to chase NSS action plans

LB invited the board to comment regarding the NSS. YA asked when the surveys are done. NSS is completed mid Jan-April and the school survey is completed at the end of the academic year.

10.10.3.4 First Destination statistics and employability LB discussed the employment figures table. CMS employment was at 66.7% which was up on last year. The rate of employment for computing students is at its lowest rates nationally. The school has plans to support employability by working closely with local companies. LB added that programme leaders should also look at the graduate level employment table figures.

PM asked if the figures were calculated from respondents only which LB confirmed they were. MP added that the school needed a more immediate way of looking at these figures and assessing the information as although they show the Maths department are doing well further education figures should also be looked at. KP agreed.

MP also added that the school should also keep in touch with graduates. LB responded that this had been discussed at a previous meeting and the University do have the Alumni for this. CI commented that whilst the alumni was good he was concerned that it may not be the best way for students to be contacted as the students may be less likely to respond to someone they do not know. It would be better if the school could personalise this themselves. LB asked if Mayur was still managing the schools Alumni. The board were unsure of this.

LB invited the student reps to comment on how the Alumni contact the students. They responded that students receive such a vast number of emails that these often get missed and it would be better if the school contacted them directly.

ACTION: LB to investigate the Alumni’s method of contacting students.

MP added that it may be a good idea for Alumni to be invited to the end of year degree show.

PM reiterated that the school should not burden Alumni with emails. The student reps agreed and commented that a newsletter would a more effective way to contact them. PM also added that social networking sites may also be a better ‘vehicle’ in relation to this. LB asked the reps who they received most emails from. It seemed most were from the GET team. CI advised that the maths department currently have a facebook page which seems to be effective in communicating with students. LB felt to do this as a school may be too complex.

10.10.3.5 School Budget KP represented TM to discuss this. The virtual desktop has been heavily invested in. KP asked the student reps if this was something they had used. They responded that they hadn’t. However, it was realised that the reps were not CMS students and had attended the board in error.

The budget had not been circulated to all board members.

It was identified that recruitment was a risk area for the school and they had over recruited by 155 students (after students had been exited). It was noted that some students were classified incorrectly and that there had been a delay in marketing and recruitment getting data into the system resulting in the over recruiting. Linda Cording had been advised of this at a previous meeting.

KP added that there are new University senior managers and that will result in changes to funding. KP then discussed the rest of the budget information.

YA asked if the projection can be done for 3 years. KP replied that this is done year on year. LB added that the University had not yet confirmed the amount that would be charged for fees which would need to be done soon. YA asked if programmes will lose funding and LB said they would. The government had proposed to cap numbers by CAS points.

10.10.3.6 Planning for the next 3 years LB reported that the planning document is being worked on and will be released once complete. Staffing is being focused on so courses may to be looked at. Collaborations are bringing funding which can be filtered into other areas. LB asked VH to comment on how the planning is going for their school is progressing. She responded that it was still being looked at.

MP commented that the school needed to make itself sustainable in the current environment and should not rely on collaborations as a ‘buffer’. RF added that distance learning may be a possibility particularly as we are a computing school. LB was concerned that the resources for this were not really available and there would also be authenticity issues.

YA added that for MSc programmes the school had a large number of overseas students and that the home market should be looked at. LB added that student performance data had not yet been given to BD. VH added that they had not received this information either. 10.10.3.7 Collaborations PM had circulated a full collaborations report and discussed the main points.

There had been a huge increase in student numbers with collaborations up by 64%. There had been 1756 new registrations. There are 37 approved centres and 48 programmes had been discontinued so 60 programmes are currently running. Copperbelt and CTI have both cancelled their contracts. The multi school partnership meeting will be taking place week 10.

CI asked if CTI opted for the cheaper option because Greenwich were a lot more expensive. PM responded that they were cost conscious and negotiated well with another partner.

The NCC partnership had taken off well and more centres coming on board was helping to make up for loosing Copperbelt and CTI.

There are also some more centres coming onboard including Latitude Varsity but the approvals are still needed.

The new approval cycle is to go through by 15th January. This means that no September 2011 starts will be able to take place. LB commented that this may result in losing potential centres. PM recommended that Head of Schools should approach the committee. LB added that she would approach other Heads of School first. It was also noted that there would be no significant growth for collaborations till 2012 because of the new approval cycle.

PM added that there was no action that could be done regarding this until the collaborations audit in 2011.

PM discussed that there is increasing competition from other Universities undercutting CMS and offering lower student fees.

PM included the collaborations strategy in the report which he said should be looked at and that there were many issues affecting collaborations particularly from a student records point of view and students not being attached to courses. VH added that the multi school partnership meetings will help discuss these issues.

LB asked PM how the issues were raised. PM responded that they were brought to the meetings but had not been actioned. LB suggested a meeting with Steve Wallis to discuss a service strategy as the Universities Business processes have caused problems.

10.10.10 Health and Safety KP commented that the sound level of the Queen Mary fire alarm was too high and that a member of staff was disabled by the sound level during the last fire drill.

RF suggested that this should perhaps be looked at from a broad acoustic view as the volume may not be the issue. ACTION: YA to raise the fire alarm level issue at the next Health and Safety Committee

ACTION: KP to ask TM if he completed an incident form after collapsing from the sound of the fire alarm.

PM commented that the heating in his room (QM 331) was very low. Facilities had came to fix this and advised that the whole corridor was affected by this. LB suggested a heater for staff whose offices were affected.

FR reported that there were a number of issues that facilities had not dealt with.

ACTION: FR to provide LB with a list of tasks that have not been dealt with by FM and when they were raised.

PM asked who he should advise if a faulty keyboard needed to be collected. FR said this should be facilities but the technicians to remove it from his room in the meantime.

YA commented that the QM lift had been out of service for some time. The lift is now working.

ACTION: YA to raise the broken lift at the next H&S committee and query the delay in the repair.

10.10.11 Minutes from the School Learning & Quality Committee No minutes – Pat on leave

10.10.12 Minutes from the School Health & Safety Committee No minutes since April

10.10.13 Minutes from the School Research Committee Ed Galea to check and approve last minutes

10.10.14 Minutes from the Technical Resource Committee No minutes since March

10.10.15 Any Other Business None

Meeting concluded 4.05pm