DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENTAL MEETING Wednesday 14th June 2006, 1.00 p.m., Room 130 Minutes Chair: Professor John Elgin Apologies: Dr C Barnett, Dr J-L Thiffeault, Dr P Dellar, Prof A Young, Dr A Walton, Prof J Barrett, Dr G Pavliotis, Mr P Ramsden 1. Minutes of previous meeting 1.(a) Matters arising Item 2: The department made a bid for an EPSRC Innovation award to establish groups in Analysis. Three awards were made. Maths came fourth and was not selected although the department made a strong bid. It is not possible for the Mathematics department to join the joint bid with KCL and UCL. There is a chance that the EPSRC may hold the bid until next year. JE and Roy Jacobs have met with Prof D Nethercot and Prof Julia King to discuss the way forward with Ancillary teaching. IT aided learning was discussed. Prof Nethercot to discuss with other HODs in the Faculty of Engineering. JE had met with Mechanical Engineering to discuss Mathematics teaching. It was agreed that the department would continue with streams A and B but that the Mathematics department would teach in term 1 only and lose term 2. 2. HOD’s report (Prof J Elgin)
JE reported that the recent Planning Round meeting had gone well. Mathematics is one of the few departments in the College that has not had a drop in income and has made a net financial gain. However the Faculty has to balance their books and take all departments into consideration. Dr Dagmar Iber has been recruited from 1st October 2006 as Lecturer for the AMMP section. Interviews will take place on the 15th of June for the Lectureship in Statistics. The recruitment of the Chair in Pure Mathematics is yet to be finalised. Interviews will take place on the 15th of June for a Lectureship in Statistics to replace Dr Dave Stephens. JE thanked Dave Stephens for his contribution to the department. JE congratulated Dr Robert Beardmore, Dr Sofia Olhede and Dr Harry Zheng who have been promoted to Senior Lecturer. Promotions for Readers and Chairs will be announced at the end of the month. The department has been allocated £40K for refurbishment of Level 1. The Faculty has been allocated £1M to refurbish the Huxley building (toilets high priority). RAE: JE will be meeting staff in separate groups. The College will emphasise excellence throughout. The criteria for judging publications is still to be determined.
-23. Examination Matters (Dr J Mestel)
Changes have been made this year to shorten the examination day on 28th of June: On the 26th June – borderline cases will be identified and class boundaries will be discussed at a pre meeting External examiners will arrive on the 27th June. All scripts, 3rd and 4th year projects, and all academic staff should be available to the external examiners 28th June – a.m. meeting for externals – recommendations revealed Opportunity for representation on behalf of students. Physics and Chemistry meeting – information will be available for staff A free lunch will take place in the library The examinations meeting will take place between 2 and 4. This will be shorter than previous years in order to cut out discussion of course by course
There will be two benefits to the new system: there will be an extra week to mark exam papers and the meeting will be shorter. Peter Clarkson will be visiting the department on the 22nd of June rather than the 27th. JE thanked JM for his presentation. JE stated that it is necessary for staff to attend the examinations meeting. 4. Infrastructure Report (Dr D Moore). Please see Appendix 1
The refurbishment will have a major effect on Level 3. DM asked staff for any suggestions. Action: Staff to send suggestions on refurbishment to DM as soon as possible 5. Teaching Matters (Dr F Berkshire)
New arrangements are to be put in place for informing students about their results. There will be a change to the web site which will state only whether students have passed or failed. Further numerical information for each course will be made available so students in August as usual. Staff have access to marks on the Mathematics Scale, and this should not be passed on directly to students, particularly at an early stage. Enquiries should be made through Dr Lynda White. The department is to consider changes to exam rubrics to allow students eg to answer only 4 out of 5 questions, in order to encourage more studies responses. The 2nd year review has been delayed until 14th of June. A document has been constructed for input on what the course contains. College degrees will shortly need to be tied to Bologna requirements. The College will have to be Bologna compliant in any event by 2010. Undergraduates for October 2008 entry and Masters for October 2007 entry will be registered on an Imperial College degree rather than the current University of London degree. The Masters degree is not currently rich enough to be Bologna compliant. This issue for Masters should be resolved soon. Issues are to be discussed at Senate later today. A main issue for the 2nd year review might make more of the 2nd year courses compulsory e.g. 6 courses may become compulsory out of the total of 8. The new Bologna compliant system requires students to pass all courses at each stage in order to progress into the following year and eventually to graduate. The overall failure rate could then
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-3increase in consequence. The Mathematics with Management course is recommended to be withdrawn. SOLE data has been made available on the College website. Comments have been imported by FB and will be distributed to staff shortly. FB has written to the College about the SOLE process since the website and process are supposed to be revamped soon to make the system easier for students to use and the results more reliable. FB has put a copy of his email to Nigel Wheatley (Deputy Academic Registrar) on his office door for staff to see. FB apologised for the lateness of the information being produced but stated that this lateness did not emanate from the department.
6. AOB The college is continuing to look at performance metrics. JE will be reporting further on this at next meeting for increments and salary. Action: JE to report further on performance metrics.
Date of Next Meeting:
To be arranged
JE/ar 14th July 2006
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