Enterprise web programming Modules ENTWA (Level 6) and APSW (Level 7)

APSW feedback 2012-2013

"Official" feedback was good with all questions bar one getting a green traffic light. The one that didn't was because 1 student (out of 8) disagreed (and 2 were equivocal) with the proposition that "the workload for this unit is manageable".

The comments showed the students loved the practical aspects of the course and the "realism" of the examples. Two students asked for more examples – I counted that there were 24 working web applications that I made available to them, plus at least 5 belonging to their colleagues they could look at, but I will try and do more! Two students asked for more practical sessions, but there were periods of nearly every lab session (and both supervised work sessions) when I was under-utilised, so it would be difficult justifying more. The big difference that would affect students would be if their practicals really were cut to one each alternate week, and that is a risk if there are ever more than 20 students on the unit.

One anonymous student sent Jonathan a long email with some detailed comments about the unit. The positive feedback was that "Dr Briggs is clearly very knowledgeable on the subject and has obvious real-world experience. He speaks clearly and provides relevant real-world examples, and is clearly passionate about the subject which is very inspiring." The negatives were about too much time being given to JavaScript (it was only 2 hours, but I think it an essential topic in a unit on web programming), no guidance given on requirements specification (I assume the students get this elsewhere), the need for the students to use Subversion before I had lectured on it (but in fact I had shown them how to use it in a practical), a petty mistake in a link on one of my web pages which the student argued showed my material hadn't been updated, and cancelled lectures (there was only one – the week before Christmas when I had already covered all the TB1 material).

Jim Briggs, May 2013

Student feedback stats