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 Course number: COP 3330

Course name:   Object-Oriented Programming with C++

Course review committee members: Robert Myers, Andy Wang, Chris Lacher, 
Melina Myers

Report submitted: Spring 2018

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1. Were there any problems with the course last year? If Yes, describe 
the problems.


One concern is that the level of students entering the course 
(especially noted in the PC and online offerings) is often disparate.  
Some of this is due to the students' prior backgrounds -- some are 
already working professionals with programming backgrounds, and others 
are transfer students who have no prior experience when taking COP 3014.

However, the prior preparation of students entering COP 3330 for the 
on-campus sections does seem to me more consistent recently, as COP 3014 
instructors on campus have more closely coordinated their 
course offerings.

One other issue noted in the on-campus classes is the higher occurrences 
of honor code violations, given the ease of students posting code 
online, joining private facebook groups, etc.

Another issue noted in the Distance Learning version is in the case of 
students who previously failed a face-to-face offering of the course, 
then enrolling in the online-only version.  Such students are typically 
less self-motivated and struggle more in the Distance Learning version. 
To address this, the PC Campus instituted a policy that does not allow 
such a student (who failed the face-to-face version) to enroll in an 
online offering of the course.


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2. Course committee recommendations to current/future instructors.

Follow the university's curricular file syllabus to ensure consistency
of topic coverage (this seems to be getting done for the most part in
COP 3330).

Use software plagiarism detection software (such as MOSS) regularly to 
detect and prevent honor code violations, and follow up on such cases. 
Another recommendation from a committee member was to require students 
to document things like when they worked on a project, on what machine, 
bugs encountered, how bugs were resolved, etc.

Coordinate with other COP 3330 instructors more regularly to better 
align how the required ABET/SMALCS program outcome A is assessed (i.e. 
at the same level of material / rigor).

Give more examples in class on the process of developing code.

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3. Course committee recommendations to department/UCC regarding this 
course.

- Recommend annual meetings of course instructors assigned for each
coming year, to better coordinate between current and new instructors of
COP 3330, and to prevent drift between main and PC campus offerings.

- Consider using one coordinated assignment for satisfying the ABET
measurement to use across all offerings in a given semester, so as to
make the ABET measurement more consistent across various course sections
(including between main and PC campus offerings).  Such an assignment 
could be designed in an annual meeting of course committee (to include 
all COP 3330 instructors for the upcoming year).