Computing (CIS and CC)
News
Relevant Links
Computing (CIS and CC) students should check here at least once a week. This is because some items may need to be utilised immediately. An example might be when a Booklist book, referenced in a coursework, changes edition during the session.
Change to examination format for Creative computing I : image, sound, motion (CO1112) (May 2012)
This year, there well be a change to the examination format over previous years, and we want to give students advance warning of this.
In previous years, you had a choice of four (4) out of six questions.
This year, you must complete Question 1, as well as three (3) other questions out of the remaining five.
So, you must complete four questions out of six, but one of them must be Question 1.
Question 1 is made up of multiple choice questions. For Question 1, you need only write down the answers for each of the multiple choice questions.
So for Q1 (b), if you believe that the correct answer is (iii), then you need only write (b) --- (iii)
in your answer booklet, under Question 1. The same applies for all the other questions in Question 1.
Please note that some of the multiple choice questions may have more than one answer. You are expected to choose all of the correct answers. However, if you do choose incorrect answers, marks will be subtracted.
You will never get a negative number of marks for each multiple choice question. For example, if Q1 (a) has correct answers (i) and (iv) (worth say 2 marks each), and you chose (i) (ii) and (iii), you would get 2 - 2 2, which is -2, but your total for Q1 (a) would be 0. If you chose (i), (ii) and (iv), you would get 2 + 2 - 2, which is 2. Note that not all subparts are worth 2 marks, nor is 2 marks always deducted for an incorrect choice. This is only to illustrate how marks might get allocated, and to demonstrate that for each question, the lower limit is zero.
As with all examinations, it is important that you read the rubric on the front cover, which gives instructions as to how to answer the paper.
Change to examination format - Project (CO3320) (May 2012)
This year, there will be a change to the examination format over previous years, and we want to give students advance warning of this.
In previous years, students were asked to attempt all four questions.
This year, you are expected to complete three (3) out of four. So, you are given a choice as to which questions you complete. All questions are worth equal marks, and the paper itself is out of 75 marks.
Please note that if you complete all four, we will only mark the first three that you answer, as explained in previous messages about examinations in which you have a choice of which questions to answer.
As with all examinations, it is important that you read the rubric on the front cover, which gives instructions as to how to answer the paper.
Changes to rubric in examinations - 08/11/11
From this academic year onwards, we are regularising the way choice is managed in examinations.
If you have a choice of (say, n out of m) questions in an exam, examiners have been
instructed to mark only the first n answers you give. So, if you are asked to answer 4
out of 6, and you attempt all 6, the examiners will only mark the first 4 answers, and you will only
get the marks for the first 4 answers you give. By 'first', we mean the order in which they appear
in the answer book(s).
If you answer all 6, and want questions 2, 3, 4 and 5 to be marked, you need to make sure that you clearly
cross out the answers to questions 1 and 6.
If any of this is unclear, please contact me and I will clarify further. It is important that you
understand this when you sit your exams.
Dr Sarah Rauchas,
Deputy Course Director, International Computing Programmes,
Goldsmiths, University of London
s.rauchas@gold.ac.uk
Assignments for the 2011-12 session - 20/10/11
These are available on the VLE, with the exception of some of the units, where we are still waiting for some clarification of details (108, 112, 227, 326 and 348).
They are not in the individual courses, but in the main resources section on the VLE.
Please access them from there.
The remaining courseworks will be published as soon as they are available. Apologies for the lateness; please get working on those subjects that are available.
2011 CREATIVE COMPUTING COMPETITION RESULTS - 18/08/11
We are pleased to announce the results of the 2011 Creative Computing Competition. The judges were impressed by the technical and artistic achievements of the entries, and had a hard task in picking the overall winner.
The final result is as follows:
WINNER: Phil Larby, "Flitter"
Flitter is an interactive visualisation of social activity on
Twitter.
First prize: an iPad2 Wi-Fi 32GB
RUNNER UP: Eran Eldar, "City Night"
City Night is an elegant presentation of a cityscape at night, and set to music, achieved using
simple generative coding techniques.
Runner-up prize: a 16GB iPod Nano
HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
In addition to the winner and runner up, the judges gave honourable mentions to the following two entries,
both of which were of a very high standard:
* Stephen Halpin, "1234"
* Daniel Schembri, "The Gut"
The judges would like to thank all of the entrants for submitting their work, and will be supplying individual feedback to everyone. We were really pleased to see such a variety of entries.
The winning entries will be posted onto our website in the near future. A further announcement will be made when these are available.
Thank you to all entrants, and congratulations to Phil and Eran!
Tim Taylor & Sarah Rauchas
(on behalf of all of the judging panel)
Creative Computing Competition: Win an iPad2! - 23/06/11
We are excited to announce the launch of a competition to showcase the abilities of our Creative Computing students. The competition is open to all past and present students of Creative Computing, and the deadline for submissions is 1 August 2011.
2910343 Computing Art and Image Effects - 17/05/11
We are grateful to a lecturer in Malta for detecting an error in the 343
subject guide.
The last sentence of the penultimate paragraph of page 43 states
'For any point dp of the triangle surface p+q=1 and dp=dv0 + p.dv01 +
q.dv02'
This should read
'For any point dp of the triangle surface p+q<=1 and dp=dv0 + p.dv01 +
q.dv02. Further, it is necessary that p>=0 and q>=0'.
NB the condition p+q=1 is met only for points on the edge opposite to dv0,
that runs from dv1 to dv2.
Correction to 226 Study Guide, volume 2 - 05/05/11
On page 110 of the guide, there is a comment
"Such a tree is called a splay tree."
This is incorrect, and the tree concerned is not a splay tree. Please remove
that sentence.
Correction to 320 Study Guide - 05/05/11
There is an error on page 28, section 6.3 of the project subject guide.
The statement
"All items referred to in your research must be included in a reference list and no
items
in the reference list must be referred to (see 6.1.1 above)."
should read
"All items referred to in your research must be included in a reference
list and all items in the reference list must be referred to (see
6.1.1 above)."
Referencing Style for the 320 Project Report - 04/05/11
It has come to our attention that there are inconsistent instructions in the 320 Project Subject Guide on how to present references in the Project Report.
Section 6.2 of the Guide talks about "a numbered list in alphabetic order by author", whereas Section 6.4 says that you can use any of the widely used standards (e.g. Harvard or Vancouver).
Please follow the guidance given in Section 6.4 of the guide, and choose a style of referencing that suits you (which could be Harvard, Vancouver, or another commonly used style). The important point is that your referencing style is clear and consistent.
Apologies for any confusion, and thank you to those who pointed this out.
Deputy Course Director Visiting Trinidad on Friday 15 April - 12/04/11
The Deputy Course Director, Dr Tim Taylor, will be in Trinidad to attend the SBCS Graduation Ceremony on Saturday 16 April. He will be there all day on Friday (15 April) too, and is happy to meet with any students who would like to discuss anything. If you would like to talk to Tim, please email him to arrange a meeting.
222 Coursework 4, correction - 4/04/11
In response to a query from some students, I have the following correction from the setter:
The units should have been given as kbit/s.
The specification says to design a non-resilient private circuit solution, but the price list link was for Frame Relay, which is not correct.
This link should be updated to:
http://www.bt.com/pricing/current/Private_Cir__boo/sectoc.htm#0132-d0e1-section
for private circuits.
Please correct, and apologies for the error.
209 Coursework 4, clarification - 4/04/11
For questions 5 and 6, they should be read as "deliveries of Tin ore"
not "deliveries of Tin".
Electronic submission of final assignments - 31/03/11
The links for electronic submission of the final assignments of the following units are now available: 108, 110, 112, 209, 227, 326, 343 and 346.
This time we are not allowing late submissions, so that you get some practice in making sure you submit by the deadline, which is midnight GMT on FRIDAY 8 APRIL.
For 108, 110, 209 and 326, you are only allowed to upload 1 file. For 112, 227, 343 and 346 you may upload up to 10 files, for the submission of your code, example artefacts and your discussions.
We'd appreciate feedback after you've completed your uploads on whether anything was problematic, and whether the limit of a single file (which can be a zipped file containing other files) is a major limitation.
Again, this upload exercise is optional for these units, but is good practice for all of you, especially given that there is now one unit (310) where electronic submission is compulsory this year, and there may be more next year. We have seen in the electronic submission trials for previous assignments this year that not all students have managed to successfully upload, so we strongly encourage you to give it a try.
And again, YOU ALSO MUST SEND YOUR ASSIGNMENT AS HARDCOPY (printout with CD or memory stick if required) to Stewart House as well, to be postmarked or courier collected by the due date.
Coursework submission deadline in April - 31/03/11
Please remember that the deadline for submission of the final assignment, for ALL units (except the 320 Project), is FRIDAY 8 APRIL (and not on the 15th as in previous months).
310 Artificial Intelligence : Coursework submission - 28/02/11
This year, students taking the 310 half-unit must submit their courseworks via the VLE. This is only for this unit - for all other units you need to submit in the usual way, via post or courier.
For 310, you will have to upload your coursework for both the first and second submissions. You do not need to post or courier them. You should scan the Plagiarism Declaration page, and include this in your submission. You will be able to upload more than one item, so you don't need to incorporate the declaration into the rest of your submission.
Please upload your written documents or reports as PDF if possible. Any code to be submitted should be submitted as a separate item or items.
Uploads need to happen by the deadline for sending in courseworks, which in the case of the VLE is midnight GMT on the date of submission.
You will be able to change an uploaded submission until the deadline. This will allow you to practice uploading in advance of the deadline if you wish to.
If you have not already done so, make sure now that you are able to log on to the VLE, and are able to access the area for 310. If you are unable to do this, you need to immediately contact the support team for the VLE to get this resolved: uolia.support@london.ac.uk.
If you have any problems or concerns with this changed submission procedure for 310, please email Sarah Rauchas: s.rauchas@gold.ac.uk.
PLEASE NOTE THAT FOR ALL OTHER UNITS YOU ARE TAKING, YOU NEED TO POST OR COURIER YOUR SUBMISSION TO LONDON AS USUAL.
311 Neural Networks - 31/01/11
A resource that is mentioned in the CD-ROM for this unit has moved.
http://cse.stanford.edu/class/sophomore-college/projects-00/neuralnetworks/
can now be found at
Thank you to the student who alerted us to the fact that the tutorial was no longer in the original place.
352 Operations Research and Combinatorial Optimisation - 11/01/11
Due to some problems with the print process, the printed version of the 352 study guide has blanks
in places where it should not. A new print version is being produced and will be posted to students
registered for the course.
The version that is on the CD is complete, so until you receive your new print copy, you should
make use of the one on the CD.
Apologies for this inconvenience.
Electronic submission of coursework - 04/01/11
This year we are again trialling electronic submission of courseworks, for a selected number of units, as indicated below.
Electronic upload is optional, but we would appreciate it if you would upload your assignments as well as posting them to Stewart House in the normal way, so that you get practice in this.
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST SUBMIT YOUR ASSIGNMENT IN HARD COPY AS INSTRUCTED IN THE ASSIGNMENT BOOKLET. AN ELECTRONIC ONLY SUBMISSION WILL GAIN NO MARKS.
For 320, students who submit electronically their PPR will receive feedback.
The courses in the trial are
108: Information systems
110: Introduction to computing and the Internet
112: Creative Computing I
209: Database systems
227: Creative Computing II
Level 3 units will be advised in early March.
For Creative Computing I and II, it is preferred that your essays and descriptive work are submitted as PDF.
Please note that you may submit the different sections of the upload as separate files for Creative Computing I and II.
For Information systems, Introduction to computing and the Internet, and Database systems, if you have more than one file, you should put all files into a single zip file and upload that.
Upload your coursework by going to the VLE, and choosing the course you are submitting for. Choose the option for Assignments, and click on the link that says "submit electronically here". There are instructions to follow that tell you how to upload.
Courses not listed above are not included for upload.
Preliminary Project Report for 320 - 04/01/11
Students are required to submit their preliminary project report for this unit by 15 January 2011.
This must be sent in hardcopy to Stewart House, as normal, and must be postmarked
as sent by 15 January. However, students also have the option to upload their report to the VLE
as well.
Upload, which is optional, must take place by midnight GMT on 15 January 2011. We will provide
feedback on their PPR to those students who upload to the VLE. Uploads must be
in the form of a PDF.
220 Graphical Object-Oriented and Internet Programming in Java - 09/11/10
Coursework 3 correction.
Thank you to those students who have identified the ambiguity in coursework 3.
The following clarification has been made by the setter; please use this as the basis of your response.
Please replace parts (c) - (e) with:
(c) Add a JButton to your class that displays the text "Click me" [1 mark]
(d) Implement ActionListener in your class and register the JButton with the ActionListener [2 marks]
(e) Using the BorderLayout manager do the following:
(i) add the JButton to the SOUTH region [1 mark]
(ii) add a NewDrawPanel object to the CENTER region [2 marks]
Apologies for the confusion.
Postgraduate study option at Goldsmiths - 02/07/10
Please see the letter [pdf: 1pg, 196KB] detailing information on a new postgraduate study option at Goldsmiths for graduating Computing students.
318 Information Systems Management: Converting references from edition 7 to edition 6 of textbook - 19/03/10
A new version of the Turban edition 6 to edition 7 conversion table is now available on the computing VLE . The publishers, Wiley, have given their kind permission for us to reproduce several pages from the 6th edition of the book which are not available in the 7th edition. These are included in this latest version of the conversion table which replaces the table made available on 19th January 2010. If you are using Turban edition 7, please log-on to the Computing VLE and download the new copy of the conversion table.
If you have any difficulties in accessing the Computing VLE, please email: support@my.londonexternal.ac.uk . Please remember to include your SRN (student registration number) in all correspondence as this will help us to deal with your query more quickly.
Correction in Creative Computing II (2910227) Vol 1. - 03/02/10
p. 47: Paragraph starting: "The perceived intensity..."
The middle section of this paragraph should read:
"For example, dividing the sound by 10 will result in an amplitude that is 10 times smaller. However, the sound that is heard will be perceived as approximately a quarter as loud. This is due to the way the ear responds non-linearly to changes in a sound's amplitude."
226 Software Engineering, Algorithm Design and Analysis - 22/01/10
Correction to subject guide volume 1.
Please download a corrected version [pdf: 1pg, 17KB] of Figure 12.4: State machine for the class Event.
318 Information Systems Management: Converting references from edition 7 to edition 6 of textbook - 19/01/10
As you are probably aware, the essential reading text book for 2910318 is Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy by Turban and Volonino. The subject guide refers to the 6th edition of the book, but this has recently been replaced by a 7th edition.
If you have a copy of edition 6 then please continue to use this together with the subject guide. However, if you have a copy of edition 7, then please download this conversion table [pdf: 2pgs, 68KB]. This will tell you which pages in the 7th edition you should refer to when reading the subject guide.
For a small number of references in the subject guide, to pages in the 6th edition of the textbook, we are unable to give an equivalent page reference for the 7th edition. We have therefore sought permission from the publishers, Wiley, to reproduce these pages. Unfortunately we are unable to do this without permission without infringing copyright laws. As soon as Wiley responds to our request, we will make the remaining pages available to all 318 students.
343 Computing art and image effects: Note on code in the subject guide - 19/12/09
The code may work differently according to the version of Processing you are using, which is a feature of Processing. The code was developed under version 1.0.5 An edit that needs making if using a later version is to listing 3.18, where between lines 51 and 52 the following line should be added the declaration int width, height;
(essentially such later versions do not accept width and height being set, undeclared, in scene(), and take the default valus of 100 on rendering the scene)
Also, as two small edits, make line 32 and 58 of listing 3.43 comments (by inserting // at the
start of line) or delete them (the text was originally part of the preceding line in each case).
222 Data communications and enterprise networking: Correction to coursework 1 2009/10 - 19/12/09
Please note that there is an error in this assignment.
In question 3 the sentence: "Draw the trendline and calculate the correlation between RTT
and distance." should read "Draw the trendline and calculate the correlation between
RTT and packet size." NB Question 4 IS about correlating RTT and distance.
226 Software engineering, algorithm design and analysis: corrections to subject guide, volume 2 - 17/12/09
Please download a booklet [pdf: 10pgs, 98KB] containing corrections for volume 2 of the subject guide for 2910226B, published 2006.
318 Information Systems Management - 18/11/2009
Please note that we are aware that the current subject guide for 318 (published 2009) refers to the 6th edition of Turban et al, Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy, whereas the booklist recommends edition seven of the same book as the 6th edition is no longer in print. The two editions of the book are quite dissimilar and we are currently in the process of making a table which students can use to see which sections of the 7th edition can be used in place of the material the subject guide refers to in the 6th edition.
Where possible, please try to obtain a copy of the 6th edition of Turban as the subject guide
follows this book closely. However, please note that the examiner is aware of the problems being
caused by the two different editions of the recommended text and will ensure that students are
not disadvantaged in the examination by having either one edition or the other.
227 creative computing media resources - 08/04/09
These .wav audio files, reverb1.wav [size: 2MB], piano1.wav [size: 2MB] and echo1.wav [size: 2MB], are downloadable for use in some of the exercises involving impulse response.
We also include a number of room responses [zip: 2.8MB] that you might find useful. The room responses, kindly provided by Rebecca Stewart, Department of Electronic Engineering, Queen Mary, University of London, are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical 3.0 License. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ [external link] for full license.
227 Creative Computing study materials - 27/01/09
Additional reading to help you with the material in chapter 3, Information Retrieval, is the following:
Witten, I. H., A. Moffat and T. C. Bell, "Managing Gigabytes: Compressing and Indexing Documents
and Images by Ian H. Witten"
Morgan Kaufmann Publishing, San Francisco, ISBN 1-55860-570-3.
van Rijsbergen, C. J., "Information Retrieval".
Available at http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/Keith/Preface.html [external
link].
Deadline for submission of assignments 2011
You are reminded that the deadline for submission of assignments 1 for Level 1 and 2 units is 15 January 2011. Please note that the deadline is a ‘sent by’ not a ‘received by’ deadline. Students should ensure that envelopes are postmarked or that courier documents clearly state the date the work was sent by. Please refer to the Coursework Assignment Guides for further information about submission.
Students should also note that the deadline for examination entry is 1 February 2011.
Appropriate quoting and referencing in summitted work
Despite instructions and advice in the Student Handbook and other documents, examiners are still detecting some instances of unreferenced copying (plagiarism). All passages taken from sources must be demarked (in quotation marks and inset) and identified at the point of use together with a full citation in a reference list.
For example, using text from elsewhere (including a subject guide) without demarcation is plagiarism, even if the source is included in a general reference list later. It is plagiarism because the copied text is not distinguished from the other (student) work and so is falsely represented as the student's work.
Only by a proper demarcation and identification of what has been copied, AT THE POINT OF USE, can plagiarism be avoided and good academic practice maintained.
As a general guide, quoting has no value in itself, beyond for comparison or illustration of a point in a discussion. Thus long quoting should be avoided (even if properly referenced), as worth no marks in itself. The examiners are looking for answers, in the student's own words, that show understanding as well as basic knowledge.
CIS320 Project supervision, and referencing practice
in all work
The Visiting Examiners have asked that students are reminded of the importance of proper referencing
practice to avoid plagerism, and also that students are reminded of the value of supervision on
the project. Advice on proper referencing practice is given in the Subject Guide for the Project,
which is online on the CIS student site. See Subject
Guides.
This advice is applicable also to courseworks.
Analysis of student performance shows that the project pass rate for students using a supervisor
is very significantly higher than that for those without, and so students are very strongly recommended
to find a supervisor if at all possible
For the attention of all Project students
| External Examiners for the CIS programme have noted that Project students with
a supervisor do better than unsupervised students, and have asked the University to publish
statistics on pass rates for supervised and unsupervised students, in order that students can
judge for themselves the importance of finding a Project Supervisor. The course Director analysed last year's Project results, as far as was possible, and reports the following: |
|
| Supervised Project students: Unsupervised Project students: |
pass 75.3% fail 24.7% pass 58.2% fail 41.8% |
| This comes from a small sample size, as it is not always possible to determine
if a student is supervised or unsupervised, and so not all Project results for 2004-05 are
included in the calculations. Nevertheless the statistics seem to support the conclusions of
the External Examiners that supervised Project student achievement is on average better than
unsupervised. Students are urged to seek supervision whenever practicable. |
|