Evaluation Comments
Course:Computer Systems I
            (CSC-373-911)

Quarter:Spring 07/08
Time: ::: - :::
Location: Distance Learning
James Riely PhD

Associate Professor
jriely@cs.depaul.edu
Instructor homepage

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Summary     1       2       3       4       

What are the major strengths and weaknesses of the instructor?


2.   disorganized, lack of flow to lectures, was obviously the first time teaching the classsome assignments took upwards of 12 hours to complete, readings to on average 5-7 hours a week if you wanted to do the exercises, I spent an avg of 20 hours a week on this course. VERY DIFFICULT TO DO IF YOU WORK FULLTIME
3.   The major strengths is that he knew what he spoke of, being quite helpful in knowing how to track problems when we did have them on Assignments. However, I didn't like that the material wasn't his own when he taught us. He pretty much tried to fit Carnegie-Mellon's Slides(coming from the author's website of the textbook assigned to our class) into his own style of teaching and lecture, and instead of being effective, he ended up being very confusing. I think that if he would've created his own slides of what he wanted to focus on, instead of relying on another teachers', I would have learned more.
4.   I liked the type of homework and the levels to which it challenged the student. But I think there could have been better resources to help understand the material covered (the text book could be a little confusing at times).

What aspects of this course were most beneficial to you?


2.   the subjects covered in the course were very important to know for a person in the comp sci field
3.   I learned about computer systems and how they work, as well as the assembly language and how to interpret. Also, I have a better focus on reading hex, binary, decimal, and ASCII values, and converting between them.
4.   The homework helped me build a familiarity with some important programming tools such as GDB.

What do you suggest to improve this course?


2.   from an online perspective the use of the dry boards was horrible, the instructor did not use the markers correctly, even after several emails pointing out the problem
3.   Have the teachers use their own slides to say what they want to say - not somebody else's material!
4.   More homework assignments which are a little simpler to help understand the concepts of the Larger homework assignments.

Comment on the grading procedures and exams


1.   State your late policy in the syllabus so students are not surprised
2.   homeworks took hours and hours to complete because of a lack of what was presented in class versus what the homework covered, they did not correlate well would be better to work on teams, but that does not work well with online students, especially those who work fulltimehe is probably used to other undergrad classes where students are on campus more
3.   N/A
4.   Some auto graded homework could not giver partial credit if the student had made his/her way through part of a section but not completed it.

Other comments?


2.   last assignment required the software to be downloaded four times, the server we worked on was down on occasion, fortunately the instructor was up at late hours to fix things,the instructor is very knowledgeable but I don't think he connected well in imparting that knowledge to the class. the extremely poor grades on the midterm were a clear indication that what was being presented was not being comprehended by the class.The instructor might be better with a class that meets 3 times a weeks versus one 3 hours 15 min lecture per week. He is definitely someone I will not recommend for online classes.