🎉 Thanks for the term

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Wednesday 14 December 2022, 11:36:04 PM, last modified Thursday 15 December 2022, 08:27:05 AM.

Hi everyone!

I hope you're having a nice beginning to your holiday period. I am emailing for just a few things!

In terms of your performance this term - students overall did an amazing job in the project, labs, and exam. I have to say this is one of the highest performing cohorts I've seen, so congratulations on that front. You should all be really proud of what you've managed to learn and achieve this term.

Tomorrow you'll receive your final mark for the term. You can calculate your exam mark pretty easily but seeing the difference between your project + labs, and your final mark. If you are concerned that your exam may have been marked incorrectly or unfairly, you can complete this form for us to review it . You must complete it no later than January 2nd 2023 . Please note that reviews of your exam may result in your mark going up or down depending on the review.

In terms of MyExperience, we'll receive that feedback tomorrow :) I won't be teaching COMP1531 in T1 so I'll be passing that straight onto the teaching team for them to work with :)

Thanks again to the incredible team of tutors. They keep the lights on and everything running wonderfully.

Other than that, it's been a pleasure to meet so many of you this term. For those I haven't met, I hope I can meet you in the future. Add me on LinkedIn .

Thanks everyone!

🍉 End of week 11 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 24 November 2022, 07:15:59 PM.

Updates below!

🤖 Final Exam Time

Based on the MyExperience score, and another 5 minutes I'll add on, we're going to have the final exam start at 2pm and finish at 5:29pm (an extra 29 minutes!).

Any times for ELS or other adjustments will be communicated separately.

🍁 Iteration 3 Marks

By Sunday night at 10pm we will have released your iteration 3 marks and final project mark.

You will (not yet, but on Sunday) see a number of grades available:

• Iteration 3 marks
  • iter3_manualmark - the mark your tutor gave your group for non-automarking
  • iter3_bonus - the mark your group for the bonus marks
  • iter3_finalmark - the sum of manual mark + automark adjusted for contributions
    • NOTE THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE BONUS MARKS
• Overall Project marks
  • project - the sum of iterations 0, 1, 2, and 3, as well as the bonus marks
• Figuring out if you've passed already
  • total_marks_before_exam - this is the sum of your labs and project mark
    • If you have 50/70 or higher, you have passed the course
    • If you have 40/70, you need to score at least 10/30 in the final exam to pass the course

These marks are subject to change if new information comes to light or mistakes were made in the determinations (happens from time to time).

If there are issues with your project mark, please reach out to your tutor. Whilst their response won't be necessarily quick, we will be thorough. Don't stress about "marks being locked in" as I have the ability to update marks until something like Christmas, so we have plenty of time if you're a particularly tricky case.

🌚 Extra Help Sessions

Two extra week 11 help sessions have been added to Sunday. Check them out .

🌻 Re-running of labs/project

If you would like to talk to your tutor about reruns for labs or project, you have until the end of Sunday the 27th of November to produce the new commit and email your tutor the branch name that you'd like to re-run. This is the cut-off for re-runs for T3. This doesn't mean they have to have it resolved by the end of Sunday night, but we need you to at least start the conversation.

💆🏼‍♂️ End of week 10 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 18 November 2022, 10:02:48 PM.

Hi everyone!

Hope everything has gone well with iteration 3. It's been incredible seeing everyone pick up the work and tackle the challenge. The term has flown by. It's crazy how much you've all managed to learn this term.

🐢 General Updates and reminders

• Tutorial 10 solutions are being released this weekend.
• All of the information about the exam was covered in the final exam lecture. The info page is here .

🍹PEER REVIEW ITER3 - you have only a few days to complete.

Everyone is required to complete their first peer review for iteration 3. This is invaluable feedback for your tutor to track how your group is performing together. You need to complete this by Monday @ 5pm!

FILL IT OUT NOW!!

🍄 Iteration 3 Wrap-up

Now that iteration 3 is done, some reminders about what is next:

• We will endeavour to get your marks back to you before your final exam - maybe 1 day out. It depends a bit on your tutors availabilities, but we will do our best.
• For your automarking, we will push the detailed results to your repos before Sunday night. If you would like to talk to your tutor about reruns, you have until Sunday the 27th of November to produce the new commit and email your tutor the branch name that you'd like to re-run. This is the cut-off for re-runs for T3.

Have a great weekend - you have some time before the exam and realistically most of you are pretty much ready for the exam, so things will be OK! :)

🙉 End of week 9 updates - week 10 lecture in person

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 10 November 2022, 08:24:01 PM.

Hi everyone!

We're wrapping up week 9 - keep your heads down and keep focused. No more labs. No more new content. One tutorial. Make this weekend count, and keep steady next week. Updates below:

📣 Week 10 lecture IN PERSON

Our week 10 exam lecture will be in person . It will only take about an hour.

It will be in Mathews Theatre A (the place we had our very first lecture) as well as streamed online like normal.

💡MyExperience - more exam time??

Filling out MyExperience is one of the most helpful things you can do for the teaching team here in COMP1531. It would really mean a lot if you could just take 5 minutes to fill it in. The information is extremely useful for us in understanding how we're doing and where we need to focus attention.

We really need to hit 50% completion of the survey at a minimum for the results to be useful :)

Click here to fill it in!

⚠️ ALSO!‼️ For every % that we score over 50% I will add 1 extra minute onto the final exam!! A quick example summary below is:

🐢 General Updates and reminders

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Tutorial 9 solutions is being released this weekend.
• For lectures next week we will only have a Monday lecture to talk about the exam. There is no Wednesday lecture, but there are two pre-recorded BONUS (not assessable) lectures you watch if you are super curious!

🦃 Iteration 3 - Leaderboard & 1 week to go

Iteration 3 is due on Friday of week 10. Super soon. Good luck - you'll figure it out.

We will be running the leaderboard on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday of week 10. Don't forget we will take the commit you made at around 9am on that day, so if you want it run on that day commit it in time!

Have a great weekend - so close! 1 week to go until the bulk of it's over :)

🦄 End of week 8 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 04 November 2022, 07:28:24 PM.

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the end of week 8. Things are starting to wrap up soon! Your last lab is about to be submitted, the tutorials start to get quite light, the lecture content is also quite light. Buckle down and get through the next 14 days and we'll be there in no time.

🐢 General Updates and reminders

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Lab08 is due on Monday (last lab!)
• Tutorial 8 solutions have been released.
• We will talk about auth / tokens on Monday, first thing! It's the only part of iteration 3 we still have to talk about.

🍉 Iteration 2 results

Your iteration 2 marks and comments have been made available to you on the grades page of Webcms3. Some tutors may not have finishing marking yet so your results may still be 0 - but these tutors should have emailed you already about this. If you have any follow up questions about your grades after this time, please email your tutor directly .

More details about your automarking result will be pushed to your repo on a branch that should be called iter2-results. This will be pushed by 2pm tomorrow (Saturday). If you would like a re-run (as per the spec) you must start this conversation with your tutor within 7 days of the results release.

It's important to remember that these marks are tentative, and whilst very rare, are still subject to change as new information comes to light.

Only 2 weeks to go until you've completed 70% of the course. You're on the home stretch, and the best part about this period of the course is you're more equipped than ever to tackle the challenges in front of you. Let's keep going.

🌻 End of week 7 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Thursday 27 October 2022, 09:08:10 AM.

Hi everyone!

Good luck submitting your second iteration tomorrow :) Most groups seem well on their way - congratulations for pushing through. And for the groups that started quite late or are struggling, good luck and use our teaching team to help you were you need.

And of course, to the minority of those dealing with some genuine group issues, please reach out to your tutor :)

🐢 General Updates and reminders

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Because we were late with the leaderboard yesterday (Wednesday), we will run it again today after lunch and have it up no later than 10pm.
• Lab 5 marks have been released on grades page .
• There is no lab due on Monday, yay!
• Tutorial 7 solutions will be released on Friday.

🍹PEER REVIEW ITER2 - you have only a few days to complete.

Everyone is required to complete their first peer review for iteration 2. This is invaluable feedback for your tutor to track how your group is performing together.

You need to complete your peer review by Monday afternoon of week 8.

FILL IT OUT NOW!!

🦃 Iteration 3

Iteration 3 will be released by 8pm on Saturday night! Similar to iteration 2, you have 3 weeks to complete it before it's due.

Iteration 3 for most of you will be a tone down from iteration 2. It will be a chunk more work to do, but with a much smaller set of new concepts.

We're getting closer to the end of the journey.

❄️ End of week 6 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 21 October 2022, 11:43:28 AM.

Hi everyone!

We hope your flex week is going well. Very straightforward update this week.

🦃 Iteration 2 - Leaderboard & 1 week to go

Iteration 2 is due on Friday of week 7. One week! Keep working away and use the course staff as necessary :)

We will be running the leaderboard on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday of week 7. Don't forget to check it out! You will need to select iteration 2 from the drop down next week.

Enjoy the rest of flex week(end)!

🎩 End of week 5 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 14 October 2022, 04:52:10 PM.

Hey everyone!

Congratulations for making it through to the end of week 5. Flex week is coming up next week! We're excited for you all to have a week without any classes. Your tutors have generally said that your performance in iteration 1 has been quite impressive overall - so congratulations for that.

I will also remind you of two things:

1. By now you need to have watched week 4 lectures.
2. By end of flex week you need to have watched week 5 lectures.
3. Make a strong start on iteration 2 this weekend if you haven't. We see a lot of students fall behind between iteration 1 and 2.

🐢General Updates and reminders

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Lab 4 marks have been released on grades page . We are still working through some issues for 10% of students who got -0.1. If your mark is -0.1 please wait until Sunday night before posting on the forum or reaching out to your lab assist.
• Tutorial 5 solutions have also been released.
• Lab 5 is due on SATURDAY WEEK 5 AT 10PM. That is tomorrow.

🍉 Iteration 1 results

Your iteration 1 marks and comments will be made available to you on Webcms3 by 10pm tonight (Friday). If they are not available, your tutor should have emailed you with an update.

Your marks will be able to be found on the grades page of Webcms3. If you have any follow up questions about your grades after this time, please email your tutor directly.

More details about your automarking result have been pushed to your repo on a branch that should be called iter1-results. If you would like a re-run (as per the spec) you must start this conversation with your tutor within 7 days of the results release.

🌈 Enjoy your flex week

Stay safe and stay well everyone!

🌷 End of week 4 updates (important peer review)

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 07 October 2022, 04:12:19 PM.

Hi everyone!

Iteration 1 is due tonight (basically now). Congratulations to everyone who pulled through on this one. There are some groups who were smooth sailing - congratulations to you. For the groups that struggled a little more, keep your chin up and take on the lessons for the next iteration. The last two iterations of the course are 3 weeks instead of two. That breathing room will help. Thank you for the hard work and we hope you can enjoy a bit of your weekend :)

Don't forget to catch up and make sure you're on top of the week 4 lectures by end of weekend.

🐢General Updates and reminders

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Tutorial 4 solutions have been released
• Lab 4 is due on Monday week 5 at 5pm.
• Lab 5 is due Saturday week 5 at 10pm ! This has an earlier due date.. please keep an eye on it.
• Lab 3 marks have been released on grades page . Remember to read the lab mark guide .

🍹PEER REVIEW ITER1 - you have only a few days to complete.

Everyone is required to complete their first peer review for iteration 1. This is invaluable feedback for your tutor to track how your group is performing together.

We have extended the peer review deadline is 5pm on Monday the 10th of October (week 5). You have a few days to complete the survey. It should be quick.

FILL IT OUT NOW!!

🔥 Iteration 2 released on Saturday at 2pm

Iteration 2 will be released by Saturday at 2pm . Keep an eye out for it and get started next week.

Remember that iteration 2 is where you will need topics from lectures:

• Static Verification
• Linting
• Advanced Functions
• HTTP Servers
• Persistence (next week) - but this is easy

Advice is to start iteration 2 early next week. The very beginning of it (particularly in adjusting to Typescript + Linting + HTTP) will feel like a hurdle. But just focus on getting over that hurdle so that you can get into the more interesting stuff.

✨Iteration 1 marks

Your iteration 1 marks will be released next Friday!

A reminder that this weekend (Sunday) is the last day you can drop the course and make it as if your enrollment never happened. If you do drop the course just shoot your tutor or team members a quick email letting them know (1 minute of your time saves everyone a bit of pain). Since you've dropped right after an iteration everyone will be fine and tutors figure things out :)

Other than that please have an amazing weekend and look after yourselves! Stay steady, we still have a bit of term to go.

✈️ End of week 3 updates + lab03 extension

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 30 September 2022, 05:09:16 PM.

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the end of week 3. Nearly a third of the way through the course. Keep it up!!

Please don't forget to stay up to date with the lectures. By the end of Sunday you should have watched all of week 1, 2, and 3 lectures. A reminder that last term we found that the majority of students who struggled with the course had also fallen behind on lectures :(

🐢General Updates and reminders

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Tutorial 3 solutions have been released.
• [Extension] Lab 3 is due on TUESDAY of week 4 at 10am . Solutions will be released on the solution branch at that time.
  • The lab due time has been extended 17 hours to avoid the public holiday.

🍜Lecture adjustments - week 4

• Because of the public holiday, week 4 Monday lecture is moved to Tuesday 4pm-6pm instead of Monday night
• The Wednesday lecture will be held IN-PERSON as well as streamed online, and will be in Ainsworth G03.
• This is reflected on the lecture timetable page .

😻 Lab02 Marks

Your lab02 has been marked, and your marks can be seen on the grades page .

Your mark has been awarded between 0 and 1. If your mark appears as "-0.1", it is because there was an error whilst marking (this could be our problem or your problem). This is just a place holder mark. You have not gotten negative marks. It's kind of like a "null" We're still double checking a number of these "-0.1" cases so if you got this please check again on Sunday morning as it may be fixed.

You can read our detailed info about looking at your lab marks here - this is a very useful guide !! If you have any issues you can follow up with your lab assist in your lab time during week 4.

🍉 Iteration 0 results

Your iteration 0 marks and comments have been made available to you on the grades page of Webcms3. If you have any follow up questions about your grades after this time, please email your tutor directly.

🦃 Iteration 1 - Leaderboard & 1 week to go

Iteration 1 is due in 7 days (Friday of week 4). If you haven't yet started, get to it!

We will be running the leaderboard (as per section 9.2 in the spec) to have your tentative marks available on Tuesday , Wednesday , and Friday of week 4. The leaderboard will be updated around lunchtime - assume at 12pm. We will not be running the leaderboard more often and won't be doing individual re-runs for students. This is a new initiative of the last 12 months that is aimed to give you more support by giving you an indicative of your progress without telling you exactly what is wrong (which would undermine the nature of the assessment).

You will be able to access the leaderboard here on Monday (before then it might have a 404 error).

🏀Pearler Tech Talk

My company is running a tech talk next week - both in person and online! I will be there but won't be presenting.

Curious but intimated by the idea of investing? Interested in web-tech and products? THIS EVENT IS FOR YOU! Take one step closer to overcoming that fear of the unknown surrounding investing by attending CSESoc’s Pearler Tech Talk.

There will be giveaways for the Kahoot quiz! $100 worth of money to invest in for the first prize, $50 for the second or third prize.

🌈 Next week

In week 4 the content we learn will focus mainly on web servers, with a bit of advanced Javascript function features. All of next week's content isn't relevant until week 5 (for both labs and for next project iteration).

So if you're feeling under the pump with iteration 1 just catch up on the recordings next weekend before week 5.

See you Tuesday!! :)

🦓 End of week 2 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 23 September 2022, 11:34:23 AM.

Hi everyone!

We hope you've had a great end to your second week! Lots of positive stories coming my way from tutors who are enjoying the groups in their class.

Good luck submitting iteration 0 tonight - it should be relatively easy, and then you can take a little bit of a breather this weekend before things start to progressively pick up next week.

Some key updates and reminders for you:

• Please don't forget to watch lectures. Some students start to fall behind. Students who fall behind lectures tend to on average get lower marks in the course. Ensure that by Sunday night you've watched all of week 1 & 2 lectures .
• Tutorial 2 solutions have been released.
• Lab 2 is due on Monday at 5pm.
• Please regularly check for merge requests and spec updates on your labs and project! Every day or two check out the git commit history or any course-pushed pending merge requests.
• Complete this quick 30 second survey about the next in-person lecture time
• Next Friday (week 3) from 1:30pm-2pm I will host a Q&A on zoom just in case anyone wants to pop in and ask questions about the project, labs, course - anything. I won't be helping individual students with issues (that is for forum and help sessions) but it's a chance to essentially have some extended lecture Q&A time.

🌳 Lab01

Your lab01 has been marked, and your "theoretical" marks can be seen on the grades page . Remember, these marks don't count for anything! It was just a trial run.

Your mark has been awarded between 0 and 1. If your mark appears as "-0.1", it is because there was an error whilst marking (this could be our problem or your problem). This is just a place holder mark. You have not gotten negative marks. It's kind of like a "null" We're still double checking a number of these "-0.1" cases so if you got this please check again on Sunday morning as it may be fixed.

You can read our detailed info about looking at your lab marks here - this is a very useful guide !!

🦃 Iteration 1

Iteration 1 will be released on Sunday evening at 8pm, keep an eye out for merge request in your project repo. Introductory video is contained in the spec. Take your time to really read the spec and watch the video, as it will all be very helpful in getting started.

Iteration 1 is due on the Friday of week 4, so you have around 2 weeks to complete it.

Now that you've seen the week 2 lectures, we expect to see engagement with standups, meetings, task boards, etc from everyone between now and iteration 1 being due.

⏰ Next week

In week 3 we will learn about continuous integration (an exciting and critical part of software engineering) as well as touch on a lot more static verification. These are exciting topics.

Next week's lectures are all online. See you Monday :)

🐕 End of week 1 updates

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Friday 16 September 2022, 06:05:28 PM.

Hi everyone!

Now that we're wrapping up week 1, it's a great time to summarise the key things that happened this week and give you some pointers for week 2.

Week 1 recap

The key things that happened in week 1 are:

• Week 1 lecture slides and recordings can be found on this page .
• Week 1 tutorial and lab content links can be found on this page .
  • Week 1 tutorial solutions are released today (always released on Friday). They are on the solutions branch in the tutorial's repo.
  • Week 1 lab solutions will be released shortly after the deadline next week (checkout the "solutions" branch on the repos)
  • Week 1 lab marks will be released next Friday (Friday of week 2)
    • Next Friday, to see more about the marks you got the lab and other information, check out the bottom of the Labs page under "Lab marks"
• Your project groups were formed during class and the project specification is being released tonight (see below).
  • If you're unsure what group you're in you should email your tutor.
• If you're still a bit unsure about any of the software or tools to setup for the course check out the getting started guide .

Project groups

During your week 1 class your tutor will have finalised your project groups in your lab time.

A reminder that whilst you aren't required to communicate via the Microsoft teams channel we make for you, it's important to note that if teamwork disputes arise or you make claims about other team members contributions later in the course - the only places we will look to for evidence of how you interact with your group are:

1. The project check-ins and iteration demonstrations
2. Gitlab contributions (code you push)
3. Peer reviews at the end of the iteration
4. Any UNSW emails sent between group members
5. Conversations that occur on Microsoft teams

If we need to analyse group communication, we simply won't be able to look at things like Facebook, Discord, Slack, etc, as these are out of our control and are open to tampering etc that make it unfair to consider reasonable evidence. However, anything in your Microsoft teams chat we'll happily take into account. If you're uncertain about anything here or aren't agreeing in your group how to communicate, talk to your tutor in week 2 and they will help you figure it all out! :)

If you don't have your group sorted, or weren't added to your groups Microsoft teams chat, please email your tutor ASAP.

Project release

As of Friday night week 1 (tonight) a group project repository was created for each group. It's being released over the coming hours. The repository is called " project-backend ". You can find your group repository (if you haven't already) on the homepage of gitlab.cse.unsw.edu.au . If you can't find your repository, please post on the forum. If you can find the repo, but you're in the wrong group, please email your tutor ASAP.

The first stage of the project is iteration 0 and is due in 7 days (next Friday night - week 2). It's a very easy stage.

Please watch the introductory video from the project . This was recorded for last term, but only very few things have changed in iteration 0 and I have edited the video accordingly.

The most important thing to do right now is to start messaging or emailing your group members and to start reading through the project specification. During your class time this week you can sync up about it and start some early planning, and I would strongly encourage you to organise times to meet next week. From week 3 onwards we will be expecting groups to follow a more rigid meeting as we move onto the next stage of the project.

Over the coming days, t here may continue to be slight changes to your group primarily due to students potentially dropping the course before census date. Your tutors will always support you and find solutions that will make things OK :)

Things to keep an eye on for week 2

• Your week 1 lab is due 5pm on Monday the 19th of June. Remember that lab01 does not count for any marks.
• Your week 2 tutorial + lab is critical for you to spend time with your group and tutor to get stuck into the project.
• Help Sessions start running in week 2.
• Sometimes we push updates to your repos (e.g. labs or project) that may appear as merge requests in the left hand sidebar. Keep an eye out for it. Your tutor(s) can always help out if you're confused.
• For students with class on Thursday (the public holiday) your tutor should have already reached out to you about new arrangements.
• Lectures next week:
  • Our next lecture is Monday evening! It will be online .
  • Don't forget that we have a second lecture every week that UNSW made a mistake in not timetabling. It might move around slightly week by week but remember these are always recorded! So if you can't make it live just watch the recording :)
  • Next week's second lecture will be on Wed from 3pm-5pm due to a conflict of timing.
  • If in doubt just look at the lecture timetable page .

Other than that, have a great weekend!

😍 Welcome to COMP1531 22T3 🎉🎉 + in person lecture for all!

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Sunday 11 September 2022, 11:05:37 AM.

(The first lecture will be both in-person and streamed. You are welcome to come in person regardless of if you enrolled in the in-person or online stream. We won't do many in-person lectures this term so if you're interested now is the time to come).

Hi everyone!

Welcome to COMP1531 22T3 :)

The fundamental aim of COMP1531 is help you on your transition from being a solo programmer into being a collaborative software engineer . We have a teaching staff team of nearly 40 and we're all super excited to get to know you.

I know that many of you are tired at this time of year, but we'll get through the term together and support you however we can. Hopefully it will all be over in a flash with a lot of good learning along the way.

About the course

We would encourage you all to take a moment to read the COURSE OUTLINE , because it highlights virtually everything. These topics are also touched on in the pre-recorded course lecture . It's assumed you've watched the course structure lecture before the week 1 lectures as we won't go over it in too much depth tomorrow.

Getting ready for week 1!

Here is the quick summary of getting ready for week 1.

Lectures

Our first lecture is on Monday between 6pm-8pm . It will be both in person in Matthews Theatre A as well as well as streamed on YouTube. The link is here , and all lecture links are here . Please note the lectures in week 1 we will probably run slightly overtime by 30 minutes. This just happens in week 1 as we have a lot to get through.

Class (Tutorial/Lab)

Your first class this week is 1 hour tutorial and 2 hour lab. Make sure you have looked at where your tutorials and labs are (and if you're not sure, email your tutor).

There are lab questions to complete this week! However:

• Week 1 lab questions aren't worth anything - we mark them for practice but don't actually count your marks.
• Week 1 lab is due on MONDAY of week 2. So for late enrolments you have this weekend to sort that out.
• Your tutorial and lab material for week 1 can be found here ! The tutorial links will work, but the lab links might not work for you until 5pm today.
• During your class is when your tutor will finalise your group allocations for the major project.

See you soon!

It's a pretty relaxed week and things will really start to pick up next Friday where we'll send another notice. The main update on Friday is going to be information about the very first & easy milestone your group will have for the major project.

If you have any questions you can just post on the forum.

We'll see you on Monday evening!

🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀

🐙 Welcome to COMP1531! + IMPORTANT Group Preference

Posted by Hayden 🎉 Monday 05 September 2022, 11:07:14 PM.

Hi everyone,

A very early welcome to COMP1531 for 22T3. This early welcome is predominately to give you time to complete the group preference form below .

A more detailed introduction with information and summaries will be sent out next week, but for now here are a few things to get you prepped for term.

1. 🐼 (Read below) Complete the group preference form for the major project* (DUE IN ~5 DAYS!!)
2. 😽 Go and read the course outline . You should also watch the welcome video . It's the one from last term, but the course is basically the same except that:
   1. You only need to score 10/12 for labs to get full marks for the term, instead of the previous 12/12. Yay!
   2. The project/exam is worth 60%/30% now, instead of 70%/20% from last term.
3. 🙊 Join the forum and introduce yourself ! (you were invited on your email z5555555@unsw.edu.au)
4. 👨💻 Our first lecture will also be in-person during week 1! This is shown on the lecture timetable page .

❗️*(IMPORTANT) Group Preference for Major Project

As specified in the course outline , COMP1531 has a major project component that is a 5 person, 9 week group project that constitutes 60% of the course assessment. The successful and equitable formation of amazing groups of students for this major project is a priority for us. And we need to finalise these groups before week 1.

For us to form groups effectively, you are required to complete the preference form .

This form asks you to:

• Optionally preference 1 other student to be in your group of 5.
  • If you preference someone, to avoid us disregarding the preference, they must:
    • (1) Be enrolled in the same class at the same time (i.e. same code on MyUNSW)
    • (2) Fill out the form preferencing you as well (we disregard preferences if it only goes one way)
• Answer a few further questions that help us form groups, regardless of whether you have a person-preference

The form is due on Saturday 10th of September at 11pm!! That's a little over 5 days from now.

We sadly aren't in a position to accept late preferences, so please fill it in prior to then. Preferences are not guarantees that you will be in a group with that person, however, in nearly all cases we make it work.

If you don't have anyone to preference, or only have one preference, don't even worry! That's very normal. You might hear murmurs from other students that you could end up with a "horror group" for COMP1531. Believe it or not, typically about 50% of student's don't provide preferences, and we just randomly match students in the same class.

We can assure you that while groups that struggle do exist, they only make up a small numbers of groups. We have structured the course and assessment very intentionally to have processes in place to ensure that if you work hard and follow the rules, that your accomplishments should reflect your mark, even if you end up with some challenging group situations.

Lastly, a reminder that we can't manually enrol you in a class that is full, and we aren't accepting more than 1 preference per person as this ensures equitable group formation.

We'll reach out again next week with much more information about getting started and first classes!

🎃 Until then, enjoy your week and stay safe. The entire team can't wait to meet you.