Evaluation Comments
Course:Object-Oriented Software Development
            (SE-450-301)

Quarter:Spring 02/03
Time: Tu 17:45 - 21:00
Location: Loop Campus
James Riely PhD

Associate Professor
jriely@cs.depaul.edu
Instructor homepage

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What are the major strengths and weaknesses of the instructor?


1.   Dr. Riely's big strength is his charismatic and humorous teaching style. Even after working all day, I rarely found myself getting sleepy (which is often unavoidable even with interesting material) and paid close attention throughout the course time.
2.   Strengths=========EnthusiasmTopical coverage is relevant, useful, and deep when necessary.PleasantEngaging in conversationWeaknesses==========Presentation style seems haphazard at times.Tends to jump from topic to topic and veer off-course if given the chance.
3.   Good knowledge of subject, clear and concise lecturesLecture slides were somewhat unclear or missing information
5.   This is the second class I've taken with Dr. Riely. He is on of the best instructors I have had so far at DePaul. He is knowledgeable, well organized, and an extremely effective lecturer.
6.   The major strenght of the instuctor was that he fixed a high merit for the course to be followed by the students to pass the course,but in addition to that if it would 've been the case that the instructor could be a little more helpful in case of exaplaining course materials a little bit in depth and if he would've ben more accessible outside the class for some more days other then tuesdays that would 've been great.I think the being accessible outside the class for some more time would be more beneficial for student and this was the major weakness of the instructor(through emails too)
7.   Dr.Riely is beyond the best.His course is par de excellence.
9.   Humor and tangential thinking patterns much appreciated and kept the class interesting. My mind works just as screwy, so I was very happy.
10.   Strengths - Knowledge of the material. Disarming classroom presence. At least he seems like he has fun.Weaknesses - Tends to be all over the place in lectures. Reading assignments are not posted in time to do anything about them, but yet he expects us to do the reading before class anyhow.
11.   Too much work and very little feedback on projects and assignments.
12.   Strengths:1.Very motivated about the subject material2. Thorough knowledge of the material being presented3. Willing to help students with any concerns or problems
13.   Excellent, dynamic presenter. Able to judge students receptance of a topic and able to provide multiple, good examples to ensure students understand the information presented.The reading outside of the books was highly useful and instructive.
14.   The online slides, demos, and links were extremely helpful in understanding this difficult material. Also the lectures :-) This difficult material was clearly explained.The instructor was also very good at utilizing a class mailing list. Reading other students anonymous questions and the instructor’s answers was a helpful part of this class.

What aspects of this course were most beneficial to you?


1.   To try and see that real-world benefits to object-oriented programming as well as applying the latest methods in OOP.
2.   Covering the nuances of OO implementation was a big deal.
3.   All
9.   Hands down, it would have to be the attention to patterns and their application. Also, for the first time, I believe I have a handle on static versus dynamic behavior and their ramifications.
10.   The coding. I have spent as much time writing programs for this class as I have almost anything else, including my actual job. Hopefully that will be helpful.
11.   Various design patterns used in industry.
12.   Lectures , supplementary reading material and working on the final project(even though it was very painful!)
13.   The class project was highly beneficial, forcing us to apply the concepts that have been presented throughout the course.
14.   Reading again and again about design patterns. I think they have finally sunk in.

What do you suggest to improve this course?


1.   Break it into 2 classes. There is a lot of material to digest rather quickly in this class.
2.   It's hard to preach OOA/OOD and interative and incremental when design, in SE-430, and implementation, in SE-450, are treated separately. Make SE-430 a strict prerequisite for SE-450. Give people some real design skills before SE-450. If more time were given, some useful combination of SE-430 and SE-450 would be taught after some respective ramp-up in skill has been done. As it stands, most students are given a laughable intro to Java fundamentals in 211, 212, or 224, given some time for skills to fade away, and are asked to reconstitute them in SE-450.
3.   Do not skip around topics so much. Seemed to cover intermediate Java programming topics and design patterns haphazardly.
8.   This is a fabulous course, however, there is simply too much material to cover in one term. Perhaps the class could be split into two courses, one covering Object Oriented concepts and the other covering design patterns more specifically.
9.   The final project should address a specific need and not left so up in the air abstract. I have a tendency to way over scope things when not addressing a concrete problem.
10.   Either require a textbook (and use it) or not. Post reading earlier, so that we can be somewhat informed prior to class. And I could use more feedback on my code than I got. At the very least, take a look at the code written for homework solutions, and make some comments as to why you did what you did.
11.   Should revise the syllubus for this class. Too much work and very little feedback is bound to ruin the ethusiasm of the students.
12.   For me it was very hard to grasp the patterns and I think it would have been helpful if we used a problem statement to illustrate the usage of patterns. In this way can think about a concrete problem that we are trying to solve and then see how the pattern can be applied to the problem statement, possible even resuse the same problem statement and illustrate how different patterns can be used to solve the same problem.
13.   More reference to books or material that present design concepts, or examples of how to put together a design from scratch.
14.   The homework was very difficult and there was a lot of it. The early midterm was helpful. Dividing up the first homework assignment was helpful. I only wish I could make more time to cover this material.

Comment on the grading procedures and exams


3.   Fair
5.   Grading was very fair.
9.   Decent, hard on the exams, but decent.
10.   See above. More feedback needed.
11.   Very late feedback so, no use. Defeats the purpose.
12.   All grading was fair and impartialGrader returned homework grades in a timely fashionThe exams though extremely difficult for me reflected the material that discussed in class.
13.   No change needed.
14.   Grading seemed fair.

Other comments?


3.   Interesting course.
4.   I think the assignments before midterm should assign more programs or designs that the class should write their own codes, not just only hacking the teacher's code.
6.   Instructor needs to be more helpful!!!!
9.   For exams, don't have so many questions build one on top of another. I did alright, but I could easily see where someone who messed up on question four of the midterm could progressively dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole.Otherwise, I couldn't be happier to have switched from ECT to SE. Thanks for confirming my decision!
10.   I worked about 30 hours per week on this class. That is too much, but might speak more to my lack of programming experience than to the material itself. There MUST be an additional Java class you can offer to allow folks to get up to speed prior to this class. Even Professor Riely himself advocated dropping the class if you don't have up-to-date Java experience, but this is not an option, since the class is a Core requirement for CS. If he doesn't consider the prerequisites to be sufficient, obviously something needs to be done.
11.   Should give the projects himself rather than to choose on our own. Students are bound to make mistakes in choosing projects. So should give a bunch of projects and ask the students to choose from it. Even teams of 2-3 students should be encouraged to work on projects so that they learn. If i a made a mistake in doing a desig pattern i am doomed in the class rather than learn.
12.   A very challenging course, but overall a good learning experience
13.   Would highly recommend this course / instructor to others.