Software Workshop Team Java 2011-12
Teaching
| Lecturers: | Manfred Kerber |
| Chris Bowers | |
| Teaching Assistant: | Kat Samperi |
News
The first lectures will be Tuesday, 10 January, 5pm, in G29 MechEng and Thursday, 12 January, 4pm, in NG08 Biosciences.
IBM University Team Challenge
Teams will be taking part again in the IBM University Team Challenge!
 |
Through its UK University Relations programme, IBM supports
degrees that develop the skills necessary to become an IT professional
- in particular, the communication, team working and problem solving
skills that are essential for success. The University Team Challenge encourages team-work in 2nd year computer science projects and recognises winning teams from each university. Excellence in team-working is celebrated by an IBM manager who will present certificates to each winning team member and a book voucher of £75 for each member of the winning team (up to 5 team members). |
Getting started
The learning objectives for this module can be found on the Syllabus page for this module.
In the first week we will be releasing the team assignments, please check these and get in touch with all the members as soon as possible. We have tried to make teams as homogeneous as possible (based if possible on the Year 1 software workshop module). Each team is required to organise itself (we do not prescribe a particular approach how to work best as team, but will make suggestions in Week 2), to work collaboratively on the software project, and to have weekly meetings with their assigned demonstrator (who should be thought of as a company manager to whom the team reports).
A 10-credit module is meant to be about 100 hours work, so each one of you should be spending on average 9 to 10 hours per week on Team Java. If you spend less than this then you most likely underperform (and may let your team down). If your timetable allows it, try to set aside a full working day for Team Java. Since this module does not have an exam (and hence does not require any revision), all the work takes place in term 2. It is therefore important to work on it steadily each week. If you do not begin work early enough, it may be impossible to catch up later in the term. Parts of the mark are based on submissions in week 2 (individual specifiaction) and week 6 (prototype presentation and progress log), most of it on the submission of code, report, test report and progress logs in week 10 and the group presentations in week 11. For details, see the schedule of the module.
You should also be aware that the final report is as important for the final mark as the demonstration, so that it is advisable to begin writing drafts fairly early. Although 40 percent of the marks are assigned on the report, this does not mean that your work should focus on it. If, for instance, you did no implementation at all, and wrote a detailed report how you implemented nothing then this report would get most likely a very poor mark.
Email and questions about the module
All routine mail about this module should be sent to
ta-team-java (at the usual cs.bham address). Mail sent
to this address can be seen by the lecturer and demonstrators, but
not by other students. In case of confidential issues
that you do not wish demonstrators to see, the module lecturer can be
mailed directly. We will maintain a FAQ and
plan to set up a Facebook group (where contributions can be seen by
everybody in the group). Please check it before you mail.
For emails, please quote your team number, e.g. B2, in the subject
line. Mails to the address ta-team-java@cs.bham.ac.uk are
only accepted if sent from within the cs.bham.ac.uk
domain. So please use your school account when sending questions.
Mail about Team Java not addressed to this address is not guaranteed
to be answered.
When emailing ta-team-java, you can expect the fastest
response if your email is short, clearly phrased (practise the
standard of correct English required for your report) and in plain
ASCII.
Weekly progress
Every team is required to make a brief progress report each week, and discuss it with their demonstrator in person. If a team member can exceptionally not attend the corresponding weekly meeting he/she must apologise with a good reason. A register will be taken and absences without valid excuse will have a negative impact on the team contribution of the member. The report must be checked into SVN, and should address the following points:
- What team meetings have taken place since the last report, and who attended them? There should be at least one planning meeting with the whole team attending.
- What has been done since the last weekly progress meeting? Have you achieved what you said you would?
- What targets have been set for next week? Are these targets consistent with the current progress velocity?
- Are there any problems that the team has to address, or that the demonstrator or the module lecturer should look at?
You can also show your demonstrator any other evidence that you are making steady progress and are managing yourselves well, such as minutes of team meetings, design sketches, drafts of sections of the final report, etc. You should also see these meetings with the demonstrator as a valuable opportunity to gain feedback.
Each student has to maintain an individual progress log in SVN. This log is a single file that should be updated every time the student has worked on his/her team project. The progress logs must be updated at least weekly. If you do work and do not document it in your progress log AT THE TIME you will not get credit for it. Progress logs are assessed with respect to the submissions in week 6 and week 10.
Page maintained by Manfred Kerber. Last update: 13.3.2012.