Research Methods in CSAI

Second time round and the Research Methods in CSAI course I lead for incoming DPhil students in Informatics is now over.  As ever the students in this class were a pleasure to work with - I don't think I shall ever miss working with those behavioural-problem teenagers that kicked-off my teaching.

We just managed to squeeze in a class in the CETL (probably my last, as the space is now booked up for teaching right through to January 2009) and had lovely talks from Blay Whitby (on research ethics) and Mike Herd the director of the Innovation Centre.

If I do this again next year I need to remember not to presume knowledge in advance.  I was astounded to discover that I had made the mistake of presuming that everyone knew the distinction between qualitative and quantitative research.  It presumed a lot of underlying philosophical knowledge that CS students might never have been exposed to.  My shock when I realised was tangible, and resulted in some restructuring of the course.

Now all I need to do is face the marking (and possibly spend some time designing clear lesson plans, based on my experiences, to follow for next time).