You Said, We Did

You said

Only 49% of BEng Students in the 2019 NSS agreed with the statement “Staff value students’ views and opinions about the course”.

We did

We arranged town hall meetings at all stages of the Undergraduate Chemical Engineering course. These provided a forum for students to engage with staff about the course and how things are going.

You said

There is inconsistency in marking when many staff members mark the same piece of work.

We did

We held a 'marking calibration exercise’. We started by focusing on M1 and M2 reports. This has shown that for 80% of the time, staff are within ±5 marks of the mean mark. We’ll carry out this process again in Semester 2, where we will be looking at the Year 4 research project.

You said

On the 2018 NSS survey, only 46% of students agreed that “good advice was available to me when I needed to make study choices”.

We did

A new timetabled session, What’s Next? Choices beyond Stage 3, runs in Semester 2. Alongside this, we’ve made improvements to the tutorial system. We have introduced group tutorials where these types of discussion can take place.

You said

Bunching of coursework deadlines is problematic.

We did

We have distributed deadlines where possible. We have liaised with the student voice committee to close the feedback loop and encourage any concerns to be raised early.

You said

Screens and facilities in lecture theatres are old, out of date and difficult to read from.

We did

We have replaced projectors in all lecture rooms in the Cassie Building. We have refurbished room CA2.32.

You said

We would like information about careers and how we can integrate into the engineering community.

We did

We invited the Careers Service to give a talk during one of the Stage Tutor sessions. This included information about applying for summer placements, CV and cover letter writing. We also invited one of the Managing Directors at Siemens to give a talk about their career and offer advice for young engineers.

You said

The exams process is complex with lots of rules.

We did

We have included a session on exams as part of the Stage Tutor sessions. We explain what to do before, during and after exams. This will reduce student anxiety in the exam period.

You said

Communication of information needs to be improved.

We did

We now ensure that stage tutors deliver information at the start of lectures.

You said

We have too many deadlines.

We did

We have now reduced the amount of assessment in all stages.

You said

We feel isolated during industrial placements.

We did

An academic now visits every student on placement.

You said

Research seminars should be part of the timetables.

We did

These are now shown in your academic timetables.

You said

CEG2705 Survey Mathematics does not have Recap recordings as the lecturer uses the whiteboard.

We did

We enabled for you the CEG2705 Recap recording from the previous academic year.

You said

We would like more practicals and coursework in Stage 1 to better prepare for Stage 2.

We did

We enhanced the CEG1701 Mapping Fieldcourse submission to include a literature review and will introduce an additional CAD practical in Stage 1.

You said

Some software such as Spyder is only available in ISAAC Cluster.

We did

It is now available in the Philip Robinson Library, NUSU, and Majorie Robinson Library.

You said

Lectures on Wednesday 12:00-13:00 can make it difficult to participate in sporting events.

We did

When possible we moved the time of the lecture to 11:00-12:00.

You said

Stage 2 students asked for more information about the different streams.

We did

We have introduced a Stage Tutor session on the streams.

You said

Stage 2 students asked for information about Stage 3 projects.

We did

We introduced project modules in a Stage Tutor session in Semester 2.

You said

Marine engineers asked for better balance between semesters in Stage 3.

We did

We have moved MAR3038 Dynamic Modelling and Simulation to Semester 1. This gives the same module balance as the other streams.

You said

There is a big gap between lectures.

We did

We worked with timetabling to reshuffle Thursday’s Stage 2 timetable. We have now removed the 9am lecture, avoiding a 3 hour gap until the next lecture at 13:00.

You said

We need more access to specialised software.

We did

We deployed LabVIEW 18 and Arduino to the 24 hour cluster in the Student Union and the Stephenson Tree cluster, as well as RAS (LabVIEW only).

You said

Make the assessment between modules more comparable.

We did

We have updated the assessment content for MEC3022 Introduction to Biomedical Engineering and drastically simplified MEC3019 Structural Optimisation and Crashworthiness assessment, now consisting of one exam and one piece of coursework.