340 COURSE PHILOSOPHY
( for want of a better name ).

We have found by experience that it is important to make clear from the start of the course that our view of assignments, and particularly of deadlines, is different from those current in the department and faculty, so a brief summary of our position follows. Please read it. For many of you, it's just information; you are sensible people who behave sensibly and don't try to exploit the system. Perhaps for some others, it's a message; we would like you to take note of it. Here goes.

This is a university, not a school. Our job is not to teach more or less unwilling and disruptive children; it is ( among other things ) to help cooperative and willing adults to learn. We accept that this is an idealistic position, but we assert that anyone not a "cooperative adult, willing to learn" shouldn't be here, and we don't see it as our job to provide for such people.

• Adults - particularly intelligent adults - are responsible people who organise their own lives. They know what is best for them better than we do. ( Of course, they could be wrong - but so could we. )

• Cooperative adults will try to cooperate. They will not abuse freedom, and will try to work together with others to make things run smoothly.

• People who are willing to learn will want opportunities to do so, and will not want to have their time taken up by uninstructive activities.

It is your responsibility to decide what you do, not ours. It is not our business to tell anyone to do anything; to do so would be impertinent and offensive. At the most, we can recommend that you do things which our experience suggests will help you to learn.

The primary tools available to us are audible words ( lectures ), visible words ( books, duplicated notes, electronic notes such as these ), and practical work. ( We would prefer tutorials with small groups. If you can tell us a practicable way for two people to run a tutorial for a class of over 100 stage 3 students in close to zero time, let us know. ) The present topic of discussion is the practical work.

Another part of our job is to assess the abilities of students who take the courses we present. We don't much like it, but it has to be done. Our tools for this are examinations, tests, and assignments. The present topic of discussion is the assignments.

We are constrained to allot a portion of the final mark ( 20%, for 340 ) to performance in assignments. This means that you, in turn, are strongly constrained to do the assignments, a constraint which we find distasteful but about which we can do nothing.

Given opportunities to do both practical work and assignments separately, you would perforce give preference to the assignments, which must be more than trivial if they are to yield any information useful for assessment; and, because of pressure from other courses, few of you would have time or inclination to do other practical work.

This being so, it is inevitable that the practical work and the assignments will be combined. We must therefore try to find assignments which double as practical work, helping you to learn.

Now, suppose we impose a deadline. The deadline is - almost always - entirely arbitrary; there's no good reason for deciding on this week rather than next. ( The final deadline might be a bit more rational - we have to get the course work marked before the examinations start. ) What business have we to insist that you conform to our quite arbitrary whim ? Further, what business have we to withdraw any encouragement for you to learn from the practical work once the assignment deadline is past ?

So much for the more or less connected argument. Some other points follow.

• Our concern is that you should learn about operating systems. Our concern in assessment is with what you have learnt about operating systems. If you choose to tell us about it a couple of days later than some other people, why should our assessment change ?

• It is not our function to train you to perform tricks - like meeting arbitrary deadlines. 340 is not a circus ( though it might not always be easy to tell ).

• It has been suggested that we should offer bonus marks for early submissions and increasing penalties for lateness - which is to say, that we should bribe you to do what we want you to do, and give you marks for being open to bribery. No.

That's a lot about us. Now, what about you ?

The whole thing falls flat if you are not a "cooperative adult, willing to learn". Are you ? If not, could you be more usefully occupied elsewhere ?

If you are willing to learn, you will - presumably - want to get as much as you can out of the assignment. This takes time, and we would not wish to penalise someone who has misjudged things by a day or two. ( If it should turn out that the assignment doesn't help you to learn, we'd like to know : the general view seems to be that our assignments are demanding, but instructive. )

If you are adult, you will be ready to accept the responsibility for determining your own timetable, and you might well be impatient if other people attempt to determine it for you. You might also think it a matter of courtesy and self-respect to complete work by the expected date. We try to give you plenty of time.

If you are cooperative, you will understand that everybody involved in the course has all manner of other commitments, and the best way to keep everything going is to inconvenience others as little as possible. Getting the assignment in on time is part of this.

Please think about these comments a bit. They are, obviously, our comments, and the views they embody aren't widely shared among our colleagues. That's all right : we run our course, they run theirs. If you want to discuss these matters, or anything else to do with the course, with us, please do so : we would like to hear your views. You can come to see us, or you can send us electronic mail.

"'That man', said Redwood, 'doesn't know anything. That was his most exasperating quality as a student. Nothing. He passed all his examinations, he had all his facts - and he had just as much knowledge - as a rotating bookshelf containing the Times Encyclopædia. And he doesn't know anything now ... He is utterly void of imagination, and, as a consequence, incapable of knowledge."

( H.G. Wells : The food of the gods, Collins Library of Classics, undated, page 117. )

Go to Alan;
Go to Robert;
Go to the 340 course page;
Go to Computer Science.