Imperial College London

What is the integrated lab?

In other Engineering Departments there is a lab programme that runs alongside the lecture programme and supports the lectures. In order to ensure an even workload on both students and staff most of our practical work follows this model. The first and second year labs run throughout the entire teaching year. The MSc in Computing Science and the MSc in Advanced Computing have integrated labs for only the first term. Each lab has a Teaching Fellow responsible organing these. If you think that your lecture course ought to be supported by the integrated lab then talk to the appropriateTeaching Fellow about it. Third and fourth year programmes do not contain an integrated lab.

How are labs organised?

Each lab course (first year, second year, MSc Computing Science, MSc in Advanced Computing(MAC) MSc in Computing (Specialism) is the responsibility of a Teaching Fellow who devises the lab timetable in conjunction with the Lecturers who teach the courses being supported by the lab. The assessment of labs is the responsibility of the Teaching Fellow. If the question has been set by an Academic this person may determine a marking scheme, model answer (but is not responsible for getting the work marked).

Who are the lab organisers?

Teaching Fellows responsible for year groups and labs are as follows:

Year 1 : Dr Brian Mitchell

Year 2: Dr Mark Wheelhouse

Years 3 & 4: Dr Anandha Gopalan

MSc Computing Science: Mr. Fidelis Perkonigg

MSc in Advanced Computing(MAC) MSc in Computing (Specialism): Dr Timothy Kimber

Senior Tutor (Years 1 & 2): Dr Maria Valera-Espina

I Want to set up a lab session for my course how do go about this?

You need to approach the relevant teaching Fellow and discuss with them what you want to do in your lab session/ sessions - they will then coordinate this for you. However you must give them plenty of notice - so they have sufficient time to organise this successfully for you and ensure that there isn't a work overload for the students..

What is a CBC (Computer Based Coursework)?

If you decide that you would like a coursework associated with your course to be computer based, but not part of the integrated lab program you can get help with this. The Teaching Fellow for your year can set up an automatic submission system for your practical work and with your help may even run it against a model solution you provide. They will not mark it though. This is for you and your tutorial helpers to do.

Throughout the year there are different calls for project supervision. How many projects should I be supervising?

If you divide the number of students/projects by the number of academic staff each member of staff should do about eight projects a year. (This includes ISOs , Computing Topics , Individual and Group Projects). Different members of staff like different groups of students to do projects with them. In general most people get their best project students from students they have taught, but sometimes a project description will catch the imagination of students they have never taught.

When do undergraduates do their individual projects?

From October - Project proposals are posted on the web and by the end of October students who are in their final year need to have chosen which project they would like to do. In November students are allocated a Project Supervisor and are informed if they have been successful in their choice. From then on they can start working on their projects.

In February students are asked to see a Second Marker who will check the progress of the students project and inform their Supervisors if there are problems. A considerable part of the Summer term is set aside for project work and students are expected to submit their completed projects in June. More details can be found at https://wiki.imperial.ac.uk/display/docteaching/Undergraduate+Projects. The call goes out in September for project descriptions, they choose by November. Although third year (BEng) students are allocated projects by November they start working on their projects in January after they finish their group projects. Everyone else starts immediately. They finish a week before the examiners meeting. They are expected to work one day a week on their project until March and then and then full-time after their March exams. If you want to see the level of the work of the best of the projects look at:

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/computing/teaching/ug/ug-distinguished-projects and http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/computing/teaching/pg/pg-distinguished-projects

When do MSc students do their individual projects?

The call goes out in January and they choose before the end of the term. They work on their projects full-time from after the exam period until mid September.

I want to be away for much of the summer. Can I supervise MSc projects?

MSc students work out what they are going to do and how they are going to do it before the end of the Academic year. After that you need to be in email contact and see them occasionally so it is possible to supervise MSc projects and be away much of the time.

What kind of projects should I propose?

Look in the database of project proposals to see the wide variation and types of things that get proposed. Have a range from speculative and open ended research ideas, concrete pieces of software you would like to have implemented for your research through to software about a topic you are interested in (e.g. our organ player has a student building an electronic organ) or would like to make your admin easier. If students do not chose projects with you then you will eventually get allocated projects proposed by other members of staff. This is something to be avoided if possible, because it tends to be the weaker students who are in this position and frequently you are not very interested in the problem they are trying to solve. If you cannot excite students with working on your research ideas then put up projects to help with any admin or teaching you have (e.g. a workshop paper submission system, a Ph.D. admission system, a simulation to demonstrate something you teach) in which case you are the customer and you aren't expected to give them the technical help you might have wanted to in your research area.

What is a group project?

It is a project primarily designed to give students experience working in groups. It is not supposed to be at the frontiers of their research understanding. The kinds of things proposed can be seen at http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/lab/thirdyear/group-project/ and include teaching tools, games, admin tools amongst other things. The group project, unlike the individual project has a customer and it is about delivering to spec. Many group projects come from industry. These projects have a DoC supervisor as well who is responsible for the assessment, even though they didn't provide the problem.

Which students do group projects? When do they do them?

Undergraduate Computing and Joint Maths & Computing (JMC) students do a group project in the first term of their third year. MSc in Computing Science (generalist MSc) and MSc Computing (Software Engineering) (Specialism MSc) students do group projects in the second term.