TUN feedback - Computer Science

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_{Please note: comments and responses may have been edited. Information was correct at time of response but may have been superseded. We publish the comments in the language in which they have been submitted and the University's responses bilingually.}

 23/24 Semester 1

• REF: 66-2310-4157625 - Panopto Transcripts

  Your comment: It would be useful if Panopto had subtitles/transcript. I learn better when I can both read and listen. There is an option to do this on the lecturer side when they upload the recording, but cannot be enabled on student side. 

   

  Our response:

  Panopto does allow us to enable automatic captioning. It’s based on automatic speech recognition and you will know that this works to some extent but it’s not always perfect. The closer the language is to what people often say the better it works. If someone is using unusual terms it becomes less reliable. This means that technical terms used in lectures have the tendency to be systematically wrong, because specialist computer science terms are used less frequently by the wider population.

  
  Unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to have someone go through the captions and correct them.

  
  It would be helpful to know if you think enabling automatic captioning and living with the mistakes which are unavoidable would be a good idea.

 22/23 Semester 2

• REF: 66-2305-1848522 - CS22120: Lesson Scripts

  Your comment: CS22120: 
  One thing I forgot to add in the meq, but was so helpful I thought it'd be worth adding a comment. Having a script for every lecture made my life so much easier in studying, I have bad hearing (and auto cc is awful) so not needing to replay a section 50 times to hear what the lecturer is trying to say was extremely appreciated. It'd be nice if more modules could do the same but I understand that takes a lot of work.

  Our response:

  It is great to see appreciation of the immense work that needs to be invested to create a proper transcript and also that the automatic captioning that is offered is not really fit for purpose, at least not in a subject with many technical terms that will frequently be transcribed incorrectly when done automatically.

  Unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to provide this for all modules. We hope that the slides and additional learning material (either individually created or provided on reading lists) can help to mitigate.

 21/22 Semester 2

 21/22 Semester 1

 20/21 Semester 2

• REF:66-2102-3798605 - Welsh-language interface

  Your comment: Nid oes gan y system fewngofnodi newydd ar gyfer adran Cyfrifiadureg opsiwn iaith Gymraeg. A oes posib ychwanegu opsiwn Gymraeg os gwelwch yn dda? https://openidc.dcs.aber.ac.uk 

  Our response:

  We completely agree with the point of view expressed in this TUN comment: all university IT services should be available in Welsh and English. The specific service pointed to here (https://openidc.dcs.aber.ac.uk/) is no yet aimed at public use. It was installed for one specific student to support their final year project. It is a piece of software that we have not developed ourselves. We are currently working on a translation and will make it available when the service is advertised more broadly.

 20/21 Semester 1

• REF:66-2011-355825 - Difficulty following course content CS25820

  Your comment: Module: CS25820 I have literally no idea what is going to be on the exam for this module, the lectures are basically just anecdotes and the slides are useless. All the videos are super long compared to my other modules and I'm pretty sure lecturers have been told to keep them to like 20 mins at most. Its really hard to stay engaged with the content basically.

  Our response:

  We appreciate the feedback. In general, moving teaching online was challenging for students as well as staff. The different modules have different requirements and characteristics and, therefore, there are no departmental rules for slides or videos. While there is the general advice that shorter videos are preferable there is no strict upper limit for the length of a video and we do not feel that imposing one would be useful. Different students have different styles of study and benefit from different forms of learning material. We always suggest to contact the module coordinator if the material provided does not suit the personal learning style. If this is difficult or seems not to help the personal tutor is often a useful point of contact to get additional advice. Also, the advisory service (provided by students on Discord due to the current circumstances) is a very useful opportunity to ask for help.

• REF:66-2011-2001906 - Length of lectures

  Your comment: Lectures could be done better broken up into separate ~20 minute actual videos, it's annoying to see 50 min lectures when all other modules im taking have shorter videos

  Our response:

  Many thanks for your comment. Every module coordinator has their own teaching style that suits them and suits the specific module. In most modules we are making use of short videos of different lengths. Please feed back directly to the module coordinator in question. I would expect such feedback to be well received. If this is not the case I would suggest contacting the personal tutor or year coordinator.