RO KU: The results of 2018

See above the results of this year’s “Konstruktionsübungen” in “Rechnerorganisation”. On the right, you can see the distribution of the grades for those students who have made it all the way to the final presentation. I would like to thank you for all your efforts in getting the job done. I hope that you got a fair grade.

The chart below shows the amount of registered students over the past years. For almost every year since 2012, the amount of registered students has risen. This year we had 393 registered students.

44 students have registered, but did not show any activity at all. These students get no grade at all. Another 155 students gave up before the final presentation. These students fail the practical. Roughly half of the registered students were busy until the end and most of them passed the practical. Only 12 students failed despite handing in all exercises. We also had 6 cases where students did not hand in their own work. They get the grade “U”.

In the following chart you can see the distribution of the grades for all active students, i.e. those who made it all the way to the second presentation. Compare this year’s results with the previous years’ results: The relative amount of the grade “Sehr gut” was never higher.

We have evaluated you. Now it is your turn give us feedback (“to evaluate us”). Thank you for letting us know about your opinion about the KU Rechnerorganisation. Please, take the effort to fill the form on TUGrazOnline.

Finally, let me express a huge “thank you” to the finest of all teaching assistants around: Stefan, Andrea, Martin, Lisa, and Vedad. I hope that you also got the impression that these five really RO-cked.

I wish you all a pleasant summer break.

KC Posch

KU RO: The results of 2017

See above the results of this year’s “Konstruktionsübungen” in “Rechnerorganisation”. On the right, you can see the distribution of the grades for those students who have made it all the way to the final presentation. I would like to thank you for all your efforts in getting the job done. I hope that you got a fair grade.

The chart below shows the incredible increase of registered students over the past years. For every year since 2012, the amount of registered students has risen. This year, we can see almost 400 students registered.

44 students have registered, but did not show any activity at all. These students get no grade at all. Another 144 students gave up before the final presentation. These students fail the practical. Roughly half of the registered students were busy until the end and most of them passed the practical. Only 7 students failed despite handing in all exercises.

In the following chart you can see the distribution of the grades for all active students, i.e. those who made it all the way to the second presentation. Compare this year’s results with the previous years’ results: The sum of the grades “Sehr gut”, “Gut”, and “Befriedigend” was never higher.

“Rechnerorganisation” is a compulsory course for bachelor students of Computer Science and for bachelor students of Information and Computer Engineering. In the chart below I dare to compare these two groups with respect to performance. Apparently these two groups differ in size and performance. From the first chart you can see that there are approximately 270 CS students and 100 ICE students.

It is also interesting to have a look at the relative distribution between these two groups:

CS students have a higher rate of being inactive and a higher rate of failing. I am curious about the reason for this difference.

We have evaluated you. Now it is your turn give us feedback (“to evaluate us”). Thank you for letting us know about your opinion about the KU Rechnerorganisation. Please, take the effort to fill the form on TUGrazOnline.

Finally, let me express a warm “thank you” to some of the finest of all teaching assistants around: Alexander, Andrea, Martin, Rene, and Vedad. I hope that you also got the impression that these five really RO-cked.

I wish you all a pleasant summer break.

KC Posch

KU RO: The results of the class of 2016

See above the result of this year’s “Konstruktionsübungen” in “Rechnerorganisation”. You can see the distribution of the grades for those students who have made it all the way to the final presentation. I would like to thank you for all your efforts in getting the job done. I hope that you got a fair grade.

313 students have registered for the course. Out of these 313 students, 78 students did not hand in any of the 5 assignments. These students get no grade. In the chart below you can see the distribution of grades. Moreover, you can see in detail the various reasons for getting a “Nicht genügend”. 13 students quit the course after handing in assignment A0. 41 students gave up after handing in A0 and A1. Another 31 gave up later. This results in 85 students who did not make it all the way to the final interview with the teaching assistants. According to the rules of the university, these 85 students get a negative grade. Another 8 students failed the course despite the fact that they have handed in all assignments. Check out the following pie chart. It shows all cases.

“Rechnerorganisation” is a compulsory course for bachelor students of Computer Science (CS, 194 student this year) and for bachelor students of Information and Computer Engineering (ICE, 99 students this year). In the chart below I dare to compare these two groups with respect to performance. Apparently these two groups differ:

In the following chart I have tried to make this difference even clearer. The chart shows the difference between CS students and ICE students who made it all the way through the practical:

It is also interesting to have a look at the distribution with respect to the first year of registration, i.e. the first two digits of the registration number. The two groups differ significantly:

In the following chart, I compare the performance with respect to the immatriculation year from a different point of view: How many register versus how many actually start acting in order to get a grade. It is interesting to see that students with older immatriculation numbers do not seem to perform better with respect to “needless course registrations” than first-year students.

Let me finish this short research with a comparison of the grades of 2016 with respect to the immatriculation year. The younger a student is in terms of immatriculation year, the higher is the likelihood that this student is a good student. Yes, your potential future employer knows about this distribution also. Keep going strong.

We have evaluated you. Now it is your turn to evaluate us. Thank you for letting us know about your opinion about the KU Rechnerorganisation. Please, take the effort to fill the form on TUGrazOnline.

Finally, let me express a warm “thank you” to some of the finest of all teaching assistants around: Alexander, Andrea, Martin, Rene, and Vedad. I hope that you also got the impression that these five really RO-cked.

I wish you all a pleasant summer break.

KC Posch

Why I want you to decide whether you want to attend the tutorium?

In the course “Konstruktionsübung Rechnerorganisation” we get support from 5 teaching assistants. These teaching assistants offer weekly tutorials where you can get assistance for solving your assignments.

Attending the first “Tutorium” — we call it “Tutorium 0” — is compulsory for all registered students. We require you to meet your teaching assistant during the first week in the semester in class.

Check out the schedule for your “Tutorium 0” in TUGRAZonline; do not miss it.

If you have a just reason for not attending “Tutorium 0”,  you are required to let us know before the “Tutorium 0” takes place. In this case, please send me (Karl.Posch@iaik.tugraz.at) and/or your teaching assistant a mail.

You will meet the teaching assistant at least two more times later in the course, when you present and defend your work within the two so-called “Abgabegespräche”.

In “Tutorium 0”, we ask you to decide whether you intend to attend all weekly tutorials or whether you do not want to attend at all. We do not want you to attend the meetings occasionally. Definitely not.

In case you initially decide to attend all meetings, and later figure out that you cannot attend, or do not want to attend any longer, you can drop out. No problem — just let us know by writing a
mail to me and your teaching assistant. However, this is a one-way move.

Why do we come up with such a seemingly harsh scheme?

There are several reasons for this:

(1)
First of all, the teaching assistants would like to work with a group in weekly meetings in a continuous and predictable manner. They would like to be sure that they talk to students who show continuous interest in the seminar-like meetings. With a mutual agreement between
motivated students and motivated teaching assistants to meet regularly, the overall result gets a lot better; this we draw from previous experience.

Thus, we do not want to have students attending weekly tutorials only occasionally — typically just before a deadline. Handling such emergency situations hinders a successful work with all others attending regularly.

(2)
We would like to educate you to learn “professional behavior”. An important aspect of this is that you learn to plan your immediate future. A typical time frame for a plan is the duration of a “project”. Consider this course as a project lasting for 15 weeks. In the beginning, you plan with your work partners how you intend to successfully work within this project.

Who are your partners? First of all, it is your “Tutoriumsgruppe”, led by your teaching assistant. Later, within assignment 4, you will more closely work together with your group members. Finally, I would also be part of this partnership.

(3)
I can imagine many reasons, why you would not want to attend the weekly meetings in your “Tutoriumsgruppe”. It could be that you have no time due to working in a company; it could be that you know all the material well enough and you therefore would just get bored in the weekly meetings. And there are many more reasons, I guess. In such a case, I would like you to decide in the beginning during “Tutorim 0” that you will not attend. Just tell your teaching assistant. That’s all. No problem.

Let me summarize:

• Do not miss “Tutorium 0” without telling your teaching assistant or me in advance. Check out the slot for your “Tutorium 0” in https://online.tugraz.at/tug_online/wbTvw_List.lehrveranstaltung?pStpSpNr=173803. It is on the 5th or 6th of March.
  

I hope that with reading the text above you understand the rationale behind our thinking.

Finally, I wish you all possible success for working in our project “KU Rechnerorganisation” together with your class mates and your teaching assistant. I am sure that you will like the course, once you get going.

We see each other in class on Tuesday, 4th of March, 9:00 am. Don’t forget this either.