Evaluation Comments
Course:Object-Oriented Software Development
            (SE-450-803)

Quarter:Winter 05/06
Time: 01:00 - 01:00
Location: Distance Learning
James Riely PhD

Associate Professor
jriely@cs.depaul.edu
Instructor homepage

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What are the major strengths and weaknesses of the instructor?


1.   Strengths: knowledge of topic; keeps students interested;Weaknesses: none
2.   Organized, prepared, emails a lot to class list.
3.   Strengths -> Very intelligent, experienced, and passionate about the material.Weaknesses -> Sometimes too abstract. I would prefer more concrete examples of each pattern, instead of the one or two examples done in class. I would also like small assignments where I can learn the patterns hands-on instead of just listening and reading about them.
4.   Difficult to understand the concepts.
5.   This is the most solid professor I have enountered at DePaul thus far, and I am nearing the end of my program. I am a DL student, and I actually looked forward to the lectures.
6.   The instructor knew the information well.
7.   He was really knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and wanted us to learn. Wanted us to learn was also a bit of a weakness because we had a tendancy to get bogged down in details. For example we have spent a lot of time dealing with subtleties in Java and C# instead of dealing with "design patterns, application frameworks, architectural design, and the applications in the software development process to improve the extensibility, maintainability, and reliability of software systems" (from course description).
8.   Interesting, well laid out lectures.Good explanations of abstract concepts.

What aspects of this course were most beneficial to you?


1.   Lectures and lecture notes are excellent. They include plenty of sample code that the students can experiment with in order to understand the material to a greater depth.
2.   The hw assignments and final project
3.   The design patterns will help me in my career greatly.
4.   I really think patterns are important, I just wish they were better explained.
6.   Learning programming techniques I didn't know before.
7.   The why part of 'why on design is more advantageous' the the other.
9.   homework assignments

What do you suggest to improve this course?


1.   Make the Personal Softare Process a larger component of the course/project.
2.   have homework that will be like the midterm & final. Not programming homework, but small written homework assignments
3.   There was only one practice exam with no answer sheet to prepare for the midterm. The homework only applied to the midterm in an abstract way. I didn't think it was fair to be tested on material that we had very little chance to work with. Sure, there was homework, but it was not related at all to the exam in terms of structure and format.Please provide either an answer sheet to the practice exam, or some homework that is similar to the midterm.
4.   Feedback on the project as we're progressing. Are we on the right track?
5.   A lot less homework. I spent the majority of my first 4 weeks doing homework, instead of studying the design patterns and other material in the course. I found doing some of the examples from head first design patterns and some of the class examples very helpful, but honestly there is only so much time and homework sucked it up. So I would say either reduce the homework, or keep it at the same level but make it much more focused on each of the design patterns. The next point is my fault for inattention, but it was a little annoying to spend that amount of time on the homeworks and then realize that the homework was only 10% of the course grade. All that said, this class was excellent, and the professor is a good teacher. This is the first course I have taken at depaul where I felt that the difficulty of the material in the course was actually graduate level.
6.   For distance learning this class was especially difficult because the white board didn't show up readable most of the time, the question for the class were missed, and the instructor went too quickly over most things and left me to figure everything out on my own.
7.   Spend more time discussing the 'whys' of patterns in class. I could read them on my own without taking this class.
8.   I would have liked more time to select a project. Maybe lay out the project parameters at the beginning.
9.   follow some text book. Seemed like we were all over the place.

Comment on the grading procedures and exams


1.   Fine.
2.   tells you how it's going to be graded. Maybe not enough feedback on homework programming, as you always get full credit (if it works)
3.   I thought he was very fair on the grading. My concerns about the exams versus the homeworks are tempered by the fact that the professor graded based on his determination of the students understanding rather than exact answers.
6.   Studying for exams was hard since the topics covered were vague. Some of the topics covered in the exams were only brushed over in class.
7.   Fair.
8.   OK
9.   grading was fine. Test too hard

Other comments?


1.   None.
3.   Thanks!
6.   This has been one of the more frustrating classes I have taken at Depaul due to the difficultly with the distance learning and grasping the concepts taught in class. I feel I could have just read the books and saved the couple of thousands of dollars I spent on tuition.
7.   Despite being somewhat critical of the focus of this course, this has been the best class I have taken as a graduate student.
9.   none