Evaluation Comments
Course:Object-Oriented Software Development
            (SE-450-702)

Quarter:Autumn 15/16
Time: Tu 17:45 - 21:00
Location: Loop Campus
James Riely PhD

Professor
jriely@cs.depaul.edu
Instructor homepage

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Summary     1       2       3       4       5       6       

What are the major strengths and weaknesses of the instructor?


1.   He very knowledgeable about the subject.
2.   His strengths are that he is very knowledgeable about the subject, he is fair evaluator of work, he is very approachable , easy to get in touch with, and he is very enthusiastic about teaching the subject. However, he is extremely unorganized and doesn't always use the time he has in class appropriately. We are clearly behind on a lot of material going into the final week. He didn't think over only giving an hour and 30 minutes for a midterm exam which went very poorly for a lot of students. A lot of material presented in the second half of the course wasn't helpful in terms of working on the class project.
3.   absolute the best professor in CDM.
4.   His knowledge, attitude towards subject, interaction, conversation, involvement are his plus point. But exams are really very tough. It messed up my GPA.
5.   Strengths: Very knowledgeable on the subject.Weaknesses: Homework did not seem to reflect the design patterns we were being taught in lecture. The homework re-worked older code to use Interfaces, but this was handed to us, we should have (to an extent) refactor our old code, or create new code which implements these new design patterns learned (Factory, Observer, Strategy, etc...). They seemed to be implemented for us when the refactored code was given to us, but it did not give enough context for what was changed and what it was accomplishing.
6.   I have a feeling that prof Riley doesn't like to teach.. he likes to have a conversations at a specific level and unfortunately most of the people in a class are not on that level...

What aspects of this course were most beneficial to you?


1.   Figuring out how to code with the use of patterns.
2.   Seeing design patterns for the first time really opened my eyes to the benefits of object-oriented programming. Seeing how much easier it is to write code with this framework and how much more understandable code becomes was really helpful. The project was also very beneficial as well because it was nice to see what it's like to work on a decent sized project.
3.   The homework and project are challenge, but I can really learn a lot from doing them.
4.   Homework and Project
5.   Learning what these design patterns are so that they may be referenced later.
6.   None- I'm sorry to say that but I haven't learnt anything in this class. Everything that I needed to do hw or for exams I found online... shame... i just wasted 3K on this class..

What do you suggest to improve this course?


1.   Take a bit more time going over the project
2.   Have this course have SE430 as a prerequisite. Having a good sense of patterns and design and working on a project would make this course a lot better of an experience for many students. Particularly for the many students who really struggle with this course. It really is a lot of work and can easily overwhelm people who aren't good at planning this stuff out. Get rid of the final exam for this course. What is the point of a final exam? Very little to no new material has been presented in the second half and no one even really cares about it because of how much they are focused on their projects. It would be a better idea to have the final project have a higher percentage of the grade and also have homework be a higher percentage. It's where students are doing the most work in this course. Wouldn't it make more sense to evaluate them based on where most of the effort is going?
3.   None
4.   Please please please do not give difficult exams.
5.   Homework needs to directly reflect what was learned/taught in lecture. For each new design pattern, we should have to complete an assignment which uses these patterns. If they are similar/competing patterns, we could re-write the same code using each pattern to see a side-by-side comparison of what these are changing and accomplishing.
6.   Find I teacher that enjoys teaching! I believe DePaul has teachers that could make this class an amazing experience...

Comment on the grading procedures and exams


1.   None
2.   See previous comments.
3.   none
4.   They are fare and awesome. Professor is really good, dynamic and extrovert.
5.   Exam did not seem to test what was learned / we didn't have adequate training on the material tested.
6.   very strange grading system... its hard for me to believe it was fair...

Other comments?


1.   None
2.   
3.   none
4.   All is well.
5.   I enjoyed learning about different design patterns and how they help and organize your code -- If we are going to use the same code for the first few weeks, each assignment should have us refactor the code to reflect the pattern taught that week.
6.   That was the worst class that I have taken at DePaul. It's not because of the material, but because of a teacher who doesn't care about his students. I feel that classes with prof Riely should be 50% cheaper as he doesn't do anything in a class... I understand that we need to do some work on our own... but I don't expect to do all the work... this may work for undergrad but not for grad students who work and have families...Im sorry but i can't put 40hrs for this class each week just because prof Riley doesn't want to do his job that he is paid for... i think it says a lot if after a break half of the class is gone...