Author:
Olof Hagsand, KTH CSC.
Date: 2011-05-31
Online version of course analys: http://www.csc.kth.se/utbildning/kth/kurser/DD2490/ipro1-11/kursanalys/
Number of credits: 7,5p
Written examination: 3
Laborations : 3
Home assignments 1.5
Course date: period 4, 2011
Course examiner: Olof Hagsand KTH CSC
Course assistants:
Oskar Lindström
Alexander Malmstedt
Number of Lectures: 11 (22 hours)
Number of Homeworks: 4
Number of Labs: 7 (28 hours)
Number of Lab groups: 2
Literature:
Standard documents (IETF RFC:s and drafts)
Lecture slides and lecture notes.
Lab instructions
Registered students: 49
Number of students taking first exam: 44
Number of students passing first exam: 38
Number of students passing lab course: 42
Number of students passing homework: 34
The course went well. The course content was similar to previous years. In comparison with last year, there was a reduction in number of students from 65 to 49. Most students came from international master programmes, in particular Internetworking. Other students were from D and F.
There is still a course overlap for students that have taken routing courses in Kista. However this is expected to be reduced when the courses are re-organized next year.
The exam result was very good with 40% having grade A.
Only four students made the course evaluation (appended).
This was the last time DD2490 was given. Next year it will be a part of the new course DD2494.
Eleven lectures were given. One new lecture was made, with extended material for routing algorithms, including constrained shortest path being used in MPLS networks.
There was one guest lecture (Netlight) where they described (from an overview perspective) how they used OSPF and BGP to build enterprise networks.
Four homeworks were given. Three regular and one programming exercise. Bonus points to the exam were awarded if the homeworks were submitted before deadlines. The regular homeworks gave one bonus points each while the programming exercise in C gave three points. An advanced programming exercise was introduced which awarded two extra bonus points.
As an alternative, studnets could write a report instead of the programming exercise, but this did not award any bonus points.
Twenty-eight students completed the programming exercise. Only one student completed the advanced programming exercise. Seven students wrote the alternative report.
As before the focus of the course is a thorough lab course with the aim of making the students understand how Internet routing works in practice.
Labs were supervised by the lab assistants. We re-introduced the RIP lab, and fitted the OSPF lab into one occasion instead of two. The labs went very well and were popular among the students.
Some students think that the course grades being completely based on the written exam do not reflect the work they put down on the labs. Students that perform well on labs but not in theory are not rewarded.
This observation is correct. We made an effort to make a practical exam some years ago, but this involved a lot of work for teachers and assistants, and was also experienced as very stressful by many students. Although the idea is good, we have not come to a good solution on how to make this in practice.
A written exam was made with 44 participants. The course grade was based on the written exam together with bonus points from homeworks.
The results of the exam was very good, better than last year. We did not experience the exam as easier.
The bonus system and the homeworks may have made the grades increase, this trend was seen also last year. The exam is also well aligned with the homeworks and the exam follows the same pattern as previous exams, making it easier for students to study for the exam. From a subjective point-of-view, the quality of the students seemed somewhat higher this year.
The distribution of grades were as follows:
A re-exam will be given August 18.
The course evaluation is appended to the course analysis
Homework assignments have also worked well. In particular to make the students study early for topics included in the exam.
The course overlap that has been experienced for Internetworking students is expected to be reduced next year, when the BGP course is not given in Kista.
Lack of litterature. A couse book is needed.
Really interesting!
Very helpful!
Preparing and making *seven* labs as well as four homeworks were really time consuming, so there were really not that much time during the course to prepare for the exam early. There should be a practical exam of some kind. As for now, the ones good on memorizing will get a higher score on the exam than the ones who enjoyed the labs and succeeded well on these, which in itself is a proof that you've learned something. Where's the reward for that?
Don't have that many questions on the written exam, many of which only grants one point.
Practical exam.
Reward students doing well on the labs. They are the ones that learned the most about routing. (3 hp is not good enough. Better to have a 6 hp practical exam.)
Denna sammanställning har genererats med ACE.