Student feedback from evaluation forms - Fall 2015

Below is an overview of the textual comments on the course and course grades given by 24 out of the 27 students that completed (and the 31 that participated) in the fall 2015 Social Network Analysis for Computer Scientists course taught by Frank Takes from LIACS, Leiden University.

I am very grateful for your overwhelmingly positive feedback on this year's edition of the course. Each piece of actually valid and properly motivated criticism will be taken into account for the 2016 edition of this course. Specifically, (1) I will aim for a better balance between presentations and lectures, (2) There will be an evaluation session of the homework assignment and (3) The planning will be adjusted such that there is more time after the second assignment until the code review session.
Thank you for your contributions!

Course	Strong points	Weak points	Lecturer
10	Great lectures, every enthusiastic. Challenging exercises with nice data.	I would have preferred more lectures. Assignments were time consuming and hard to combine with other courses	10
10	The project allowed you to delve into the subject you are interested in while still giving an overview of the other subjects through the presentations.	Assignment 2 deadline and code review are too close together to really have your code ready at the code review.	10
9	Exciting new subject, with lecturer who is obviously the right person to teach it (qualified). Avoids overlap with other courses (redundancy).	I would like slightly more lectures instead of presentations. Might be interesting to coordinate with AiDM to teach high-performance python (scipy, numpy, matplotlib).	10
9	One of the most interesting courses in the field. Lecturer really wants to help and share knowledge. The quality of the study is superb.		10
9	Frank is an excellent lecturer. His lectures are interesting and well-prepared. The optional paper deadline is useful. The structure of the course is clear, so I know what is expected of me.	I want more lectures from Frank	10
9	Lecturer was obviously interest in both the subject and the student's progress.		9
9	The relative freedom in selecting the topics of study within the domain. Student participation/presentations (although some were less inspirational)	The quality of the presentations could be increased by pitching presentations in subgroups and selecting the best to present in a lecture. Distributing and peer reviewing code could improved by using some repository like github and maybe even sonar to compare quality.	9
9	Energieke docent		9
8	Enthusiastic lecturer that clearly explained all concepts. Interesting, relevant, modern subject. Guest lecture was great.	The scope of the course might have been to large, there was a lot to grasp + quite a lot of coursework. Fewer presentations (e.g. not multiple times on the same topic) would be nicer.	9
8	Good introduction and assignment for social networks. I've learnt a lot. Although sometimes this course is beyond my ability...	Should give the answers for the assignments. The task is not easy, maybe provide some demo answers first. It will be much easier to do.	9
8		Maybe a answer for every assignment, I. do not now what I'm really needed. to show.	9
8	Interesting assignments. Guest lecture nice to see other fields of application. Mandatory LaTeX	Not so thight schedule at the end. Too many presentations.	9
8	Lecturer has a positive vice. Assignments were good. It was fun	A little bit to many student presentations for my concentration	9
9	Assignments on practical problems with real data is very nice. Seminar style courses are my personal favorite: especially with such stimulated discussions. Lecturer does his very best at "finding excuses" for giving everyone a good group (in a positive sense)	It remains difficult to encourage people to start on time with the project, many will only start after assignment 2. No interaction with foreign students (language/culture barrier?) As a Dutch student the language barrier makes it difficult to follow their presentations/	9
8	Good, enthousiastic lectures. Lecturer very flexible and reasonable. TA very helpful + fast. Becoming familiar w. topics through presentations.	Comments on the homework a bit silly sometimes. Too little time between last homework set and final assignment, given the dense period around the deadline. Ratio homework/assignment+pres too high in grading imo	9
8			8
8	Lots of topics covered, interesting subject matter, interesting lectures. Presentation format works well.	Evaluation sessions of homework assignments, providing answers for all questions could have been useful.	8
8	The course and project were structured well. Intermediate check of the project paper. Meeting before presentation to talk about presentation.	-	8
8	Interaction, sate of the art research being discussed.	Watching presentations can be a bit tiresome. Work on paper is evenly distributed with work on assignments gradewise.	8
8	Nice course. We have learned a lot a bout networks and there was a high degree of freedom. according to the final assignment.	Student presentations were miserable sometimes. I worked more on this course than my other four added up. Two assignments (large!), a paper and a presentation is a LOT more than other courses. "Dutch" english of lecturer.	7
7			7
7	At the first class, teaher should better explain more specifically about the standard of homework specially for the internationalized students not familiar with the rule of Netherlands universities.		7
7	Good lectures. Good course organization. Good work-classes.	Too little work-classes. Too small classroom.	9
7		The presentations are too much, maybe less presentations from students and more lectures from professor.	9