🐕 End of week 1 updates

Posted by Yuchao Jiang Saturday 03 June 2023, 03:16:50 PM, last modified Saturday 03 June 2023, 03:18:06 PM.

Hi everyone!

It was great meeting you online and in person! 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 .
  • We had some internet issues during the Wednesday lecture and the recording was unfortunately cut short with some information missing out. We used Hayden's great video recording from the 22T3 lecture to ensure your learning is not influenced. We are currently working with the UNSW AV Technologies team to ensure your learning experience in future weeks.
• Week 1 tutorial and lab content links can be found on this page .
  • Week 1 tutorial solutions were released yesterday (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 (check out 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 in 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 will be released on week 2 Monday morning.
  • You should email your tutor if you're unsure what group you're in.
• If you're still a bit unsure about any of the software or tools to set up for the course, check out the getting started guide .

Project groups

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

A reminder that whilst you aren't required to communicate via the Microsoft Teams channel, it's important to note that if teamwork disputes arise or you make claims about other team member's 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 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 makes it unfair to consider reasonable evidence. However, anything in your Microsoft Teams chats we'll happily take into account. If you're uncertain about anything here or aren't agreeing with your group on how to communicate, talk to your tutor in week 2; they will help you figure it all out! :)

If you don't have your group sorted, please email your tutor ASAP.

Project release

As of Monday morning of week 2, a group project repository will be created for each group. The repository is called " project-backend ". You can find your group repository (if you haven't already) on the homepage of nw-syd-gitlab.cseunsw.tech. 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 project's first stage is iteration 0, and due next Friday night - week 2. It's a very easy stage. You will have 4 days to complete it - but that is OK! It should only take a couple of hours!

Please watch the introductory video from the project .

Next Monday, the most important thing to do is to start messaging or emailing your group members and reading through the project specification. 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 expect groups to follow a more rigid meeting as we move onto the project's next stage.

Over the coming days, there may continue to be slight changes to your group, primarily due to students potentially dropping the course before the 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. 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 !
• Sometimes we push updates to your repos (e.g. labs or projects) 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.
• Lectures next week:
  • Hayden will be lecturing on Weeks 2-4. I (Yuchao) will be in Spain for an academic conference, presenting my research on how to support better education, and I will also be learning from other education experts. I will still be available online if you need any help! Feel free to reach out! :)

Other than that, have a great weekend!

😍 Welcome to COMP1531 23T2 🎉🎉

Posted by Yuchao Jiang Sunday 28 May 2023, 11:42:43 AM, last modified Sunday 28 May 2023, 11:46:41 AM.

Hi everyone! Welcome to COMP1531 23T2 :)

The fundamental aim of COMP1531 is to help you on your transition from being a solo programmer into being a collaborative software engineer . We have a teaching staff team of more than 30. Feel free to i ntroduce yourself in the forum and we're all super excited to get to know you!

About the course

Getting ready for week 1!

Lectures

• Week 1 lab questions aren't worth marks - 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 week 1 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 yet.
• Your tutor will finalise your group allocations for the major project during your class.

See you soon!

🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀 🚀

🐼 Welcome to COMP1531 & Important information before term

Posted by Yuchao Jiang Tuesday 23 May 2023, 10:32:49 AM.

Hi everyone,

A very early welcome to COMP1531 for 23T2. This early welcome is predominate to give you time to fill out the group preference form below.

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

1. 🐼 (Read below) Complete the group preference form for the major project* (DUE IN ~5 DAYS!!)
2. 😽 Go and read the course <u>outline.</u> You should also watch the welcome video .
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 <u>page.</u>

❗️*(IMPORTANT) Group Preference for Major Project

As specified in the course <u>outline,</u> 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 <u>form.</u>

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 27th of May at 11pm!! That's about 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 number 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, 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 full class, and we aren't accepting more than one 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.