Roach, Steven

CS 4311-14696

Fall 2003

 

 

 

 

Comments:

 

 

 

  1. Very good course. I learned a lot of useful techniques. I believe that some documents in the process take up too much time and only the concepts should be thought to save time for other more important documents.

To which documents do you refer? I try to require only those that are useful in the design, implementation, and testing of your systems.

  1. Too much work, not well for my health. However when you pass the class you feel better. Excellent instructor.
  2. These classes made me feel like if I am never caught up. Would be nice if instructor assure that students understand what is being developed before moving onto other sections in this course. I would have liked more time to code.

We realize you have very limited time to code. The emphasis in this class is on design, and it takes time to develop a workable design.

  1. I’m sure everything taught during both semesters will be useful in the real world when applying them at work. Good instructor, it could help if you get students or involved during class time and thus avoiding some of them going to sleep. Ex. Don’t gives us the whole notes in the notebook.
  2. This is a very time-intensive class. The handout was very useful. There was an incident with Kinko’s where they would not let us photo copy notes for a fellow student who missed class. Perhaps a short paragraph allowing students to copy from other students. It was very difficult to arrange group meetings with other groups. Also since neither group was responsible for the codes general from the meeting I think there was poor follow through.

I was unaware of the difficulties at Kinko’s. Stop by and see me so I can understand how to resolve this issue.

  1. I think there should be a lecture on maintenance since this is such a big part of what computer scientist do. I think this semester that having meetings once a week was a good idea and helped out a lot. There should be a little emphasis on how to organize your code so its more readable and easies to maintain.

I agree.

  1. This semester had been the toughest one I’ve ever had. This class was no exception. I have learned enough to be confident when developing software. One thing I would suggest is to give more examples of the topics being taught for instance examples of actual full blown designs or collaboration diagrams.
  2. The test should be about applying the concepts mostly and not about having to memorize things that should not have to be memorized. There should also be a review of the past material so questions can be asked at that time.

I begin each class with the inquiry, “Are there any questions?” I allow you to bring a page of notes for each exam. Can you suggest specific examples of questions that you think require only memorization of things that do not need to be memorized?

  1. I think the class is pretty good. The problem is that the material to cover is too much. I really think that it would be a good idea if this class is extended at least a month during the summer. Dr. Roach I really think is important and a lot helpful if you include the use of the Microsoft project on each course, I think it is a very good tool and also most companies use it. Thanks.

We have discussed using a project management tool like MS Project. However, we are not convinced that it would assist students enough to justify forcing them to learn to use it. I will take your suggestion under advisement, however. As the curriculum changes, we might have the opportunity to introduce project management software.

  1. Good course, excellent, should I say. Dr. Roach is one of the most competent teachers I know. This is a second degree for me since I finished civil engineering and this CS department at utep seems like and excellent option. I won’t regard ti be here, was a great idea. Thanks for every thing. Francisco
  2. This class is a very challenging class. I t requires a lot of teamwork. It is not hard for each member to complete this own part. But it is very difficult to integrate all the parts together into one piece. I’d suggest Dr. Roach have a workshop about teamwork collaboration. I’ve seen in some team work one member dominates and I don’t think it is a good idea, because teamwork is the essence of this course. I hope Dr. Roach puts more pressure on us and pushes us harder. Communicating with other teams is also important particularly when a subsystem is assigned to each team. We need to enhance the communication between teams more.

We spend the first two weeks of class discussing teams and teamwork. The topic arises many other times during the two semesters. It is true that working on teams is difficult. It is also true that some teams integrate better than others. The Guidance Team works very hard at trying to get the members of each team to work together. We are not always successful. I for one am willing to listen to any advice you can offer. We already have workshops on team work and collaboration.

  1. This class was what I imagine the real world to be like. The purpose of all the work we did in the first semester became clear to me. I thought it was a great idea to break the system into pieces for each group to do. The amount of work we had was almost manageable. (Not quite). I did not like having weekly meetings with Dr. Roach. I would have preferred more writing feed back over the documents rather than basically having Dr. Roach lecture us every week. The design patterns book was not very useful. Overall, I really enjoyed the course. I have learned so much about the development process in a short time.

The purpose of the weekly meetings was to give me the opportunity to evaluate and attempt to help you improve your designs. I wanted you to see that there is no single “right” answer and that a better design is achieved by evaluating and improving a design with weaknesses. This approach allows me to evaluate and discuss designs with you, and the feedback is much faster and more complete than it would be if I had to write the comments down. It also reduces the burden on the students since they do not have to produce a complete design specification for each iteration. I agree that the design pattern book was not as useful as I had hoped it would be. We have changed texts for next year.

  1.  This has been the most challenging of the two software engineering classes. Our software team started off on the wrong track but sure enough Dr. Roach and Monica Miranda helped us out and gave us enough confidence to carry us on. I cannot express how important it is for students to talk to their professor constantly. Luckily Dr. Roach had an open door policy which is always beneficial to the students. The thing I would change most about this class is a bigger emphasis on design patterns. The design pattern question on the exam were hard to figure out and answer. Other than everything else was not bad, but very challenging.