Official evaluation of the course "Efficient Route Planning, SS 2011"
Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Hannah Bast; Tutor: Mirko Brodesser; Number of active participants: around 40; Number of evaluation forms returned: 26.
The evaluation form was made availabe to the participants of the course in the second to last lecture. Students were explicitly encouraged to submit the form. There was an additional incentive of 10 exercise points (out of a total of 90) points granted for the (anonymous) submission of the form. 26 forms were returned at the end of the course.
In the following the complete list of all comments given in one the free-form fields on the evaluation form are given. The comments were copied verbatim, except for a few corrections (wrt orthography, grammar, etc. ... no change of meaning). If you see a comment from yourself which you do not want to appear in this list or if you find a comment that you think was inaccurately transcribed, send a corresponding anonymous post, naming the comment, by replying to this post in the course forum.
The feedback from the evaluation forms was also summarized and discussed (over a period of about twenty minutes) at the beginning of the last lecture (slides, video recording).
Nominations for teaching award (12 out of 26)
The lecture was like a lecture should be: short, abstract and interesting. The content was explained very well and one had to implement the interesting stuff. Therefore one learned a lot!
Sehr gute Vorlesung mit klassischen Tafelanschrieben (nur auf Folie), was das Lernen durch die Live-Entwicklung des Stoffs stark unterstützt. Motivierter Vortrag, interessantes Thema. Einfach toll.
[Ein Kreuz ohne nähere Begründung]
Good and easy explanations of difficult algorithms. Always interacts with students and adapts the lecture to questions...
Sehr interessanter Stoff, der auch sehr gut von der Professorin erklärt wurde. Auch die Stimmung in der Vorlesung fand ich super. Es kann sogar sein, dass es die beste Vorlesung war, die ich je besucht habe.
Illustrative teaching methods, encompassing knowledge of the subject area, availability / willingness to clarify questions via the forum, etc. In general, the lecturer shows a great deal of commitment not only to the subject area in question, but also to the students in general as well as to the quality of their produced work. This is evident from the amount of available tools/options such as the forum, the lecture recordings, or even the recurring opportunities for further research through the references at the end of each lecture. The structure of the course is coherent and well crafted. Last but not least, the lecturer also has a good sense of humor.
The lecture was very interesting, the topics were quite fascinating. The subject was taught at a very high level yet remained understandable. There were good opportunities for participation like the publishing of the test results and the forum.
[Noch ein Kreuz ohne nähere Begründung]
Sehr angenehmer Vortragsstil. Thema wird interessant und ansprechend präsentiert. Meinungen der Studierenden werden in hohem Maße ernst genommen und berücksichtigt.
Great explanations, up-to-date status of the research, interesting practical exercises, extended programming skills.
Frau Bast hat die Vorlesung spontan angeboten, um den Studierenden noch mehr Auswahl bei der Fächerwahl zu bieten. Die Vorlesung wird sehr ansprechend gehalten und der Stoff anschaulich erklärt. Die Übungen werden gut und praxisnah durchgeführt.
Well structured lecture and a good idea writing a program bottom-up during the course. Also the spontaneous decision of the prof to lecture this course because of so few "Spezialvorlesungen"
What do you like about this course
The practical background and the possibility to implement the learned algorithms. In addition there was a lot of new stuff (working with large datasets, maintaining code for a "long" time in a good infrastructure!)
This lecture was just perfect (even though it was the first time it was held!)!
It was nice to make up a lecture on the spot, since there are way to few (interesting) lectures. Thanks for that.
Moreover, it was a good thing that the evaluation of the exercises wasn't that strict and more designed to involve the students rather than make us work for no apparent reason - like so many other lectures do.
The video recordings where extremely helpful.
Algorithmen sehr interessant und sehr gut erklärt. Alles logisch herbeigeführt und aufeinander aufgebaut. Dass nicht immer alle Folien fertig sind und auch mal etwas in der Vorlesung gezeichnet und erarbeitet wird, macht es nochmal interessanter.
The topic was very interesting and not as abstract as other course. I like the abstract stuff also, but it is a welcome change.
Viele praktische Übungen.
Das nicht vergessen wird (wie in so vielen anderen Vorlesungen), dass Informatik irgendwo auch Handwerk ist (das Zeug programmieren und nicht nur beweisen).
Und die wirklich sehenswerte und lehrreiche Vorlesung.
Kompetente Professorin, die auch keine Angst hat live zu programmieren, beweisen, und nach Fehlern auch im Publikum zu fragen.
Learning algorithms on this interesting topic.
The implementation exercises helped very much for a better understanding of the algorithms.
Very, very interesting topic.
Quite easy to understand.
Topic is relevant in a lot of applications nowadays.
The practical and pragmatic approach. Learning by doing.
Entspannt gehaltene Vorlesung.
Sehr guter Praxisbezug.
Lot of practical exercises
Get to know interesting algorithms
Explanation of algorithms were good
Recording
Praxisbezogen
Gute Materialien
Dozentin hatte Ahnung
Praxisbezug.
Gute Struktur des Inhaltes.
Rücksichtsnahme bei Überforderung der Studenten.
Feedbacks wurden ernst genommen und beachtet.
Tolle Aufzeichnungen der Vorlesung.
Viel Praxis.
Gute und geduldige Erklärung des Vorlesungsstoffes.
The exercises are interesting and practical orientated / the learned algorithm and the conection between them.
I very much enjoyed the equilibrium between the theoretical approach to efficient route planning and its application in the field. I think its absolutely fantastic that state-of-the-art procedures and algorithms are presented and thoroughly explained in context. I enjoyed the high level of freedom given, in the sense that one is free to continue researching and potentially come up with some new concept or improvement to the concepts introduced in the lecture. I enjoyed learning to how to program efficiently, always keeping runtime and space consumption in mind. I very much liked the contact with professional research as presented in the references throughout the course. I greatly enjoyed working with Google maps as a tool and research environment.
Das Forum, im dem einem schnell auf Fragen geantwortet wird
Das Thema der Vorlesung
Topics and algorithms well explained, the subject was taught at a high level, yet remained understandable.
By implementing all the algorithms you really learns something for lifetime.
Interessantes Thema, sehr gute Dozentin.
See nomination explanations.
Praxis- und forschungsnah.
Viele Toolkits verwendet.
Übungen konnten auch noch nachgereicht werden.
Developing a program bottom-up and reusing old code.
I liked that we were able to see the process of the different algorithm.
The course was well structured and the code examples were helpful and had good comments.
What do you not like so much about this course
Well only some small things, which will be - I'm sure - improved the next time it is held ...
There was a lot of unnecessary code to write in the exercises. While it was stated that it was considered to be a valuable part of the learning process, it felt more like a an excuse for not having prepared anything on the lecturers part. More to the point, the value of implementing the algorithms stems in part from the comparision to other peoples algorithms (including some form of master solution). Some tables where everyone puts down his results without any clear parameters on how the results are to be obtained makes the comparison basically useless. This could have easily been avoided by providing a framework for everyone to use, including the same 
dataset for everyone to work on (instead of having data which changes on a daily basis).
The whole "not being prepared" part wasn't only a problem of the exercises though, watching someone for 30 mins trying to fix the code is a waste of everyones time. If it doesn't work, fix it until the next lecture and show it then or don't show it all.
It felt like we are doing one algorithm after another.
To complete the exercise sheets you have to invest a lot of time.
Als Javanutzer fühlt man sich ein wenig wie der Depp, alle vorgearbeiteten Sachen gibt es nur in C und Lösungen genauso. Das ist ein wenig schade, denn gerade wenn die Sachen aufeinander aufbauen, und man sich kaum an C Lösungen mal eben copy-paste Anregung holen kann, um das nächste Übungsblatt dann zu machen, weil man partout den Fehler nicht findet.
Viele Implementierungsvorschläge gehen ebenfalls nur in C. Wenn man BaWü in eine HashMap in Java drückt, dann braucht man schon eine imposante Menge RAM.
Ich verstehe, dass C die Sprache der Wahl ist hier, aber müsste man neben der Vorlesung her noch C von "ein wenig können" auf "mal eben die Aufgaben damit machen" bringen, dann müsste man noch viel mehr Zeit investieren. Das geht aber schlicht nicht.
Some algorithms were not so clear after the lecture, but in most cases they were explained well and slow in the next session.
Nothing.
Having an exam for this kind of lecture seems odd.
Manchmal etwas zu viel "Späße".
Exercises consume too much time.
Viel zu viel Aufwand
Übertriebener Umfang.
Kein Rahmenwerk gegeben.
Aufgaben auf Blättern bauen teilweise zu stark aufeinander auf.
Wenn ein altes Blatt nicht funktioniert, ist es teilweise schwer mit dem neuen weiter zu machen.
Bad timing with other courses but thats not a problem of this course.
The amount of unorganized code at the end! Working on a project of such magnitude obviously has its consequences, of which the constant need for refactoring has a major impact on the overall progress rate. Depending on the design decisions made, refactoring can be a painful and time consuming process, and at certain times I felt this need was not met due to the general time constraints of the course. Obviously, this is not an aspect of the course that requires "fixing", as the course itself only aims to introduce and discuss the algorithms used to build the code.
Dass die Aufgaben soviel Zeit in Anspruch nehmen.
Teilweise sehr aufwändige Übungsaufgaben. Allerdings wurde bei entsprechender Rückmeldung die Abgabe verlängert, was sehr gut war.
Implementation advice in-time would be nice, but since it was the first time the course was given, it's ok.
Manche Teile von Algorithmen werden nur zu kurz überflogen.
Hints for writing the program were too late (have program already written) and so it was to late for refactoring (to much time consuming).
Students choosing C++ got more hints and at the end even a complete written parser class. It would be fair to offer both groups (java and c++) the same materials/hints.
Sometimes a code example was missing and if you had problems with the last exercise you were not able to make the next ones.
Any suggestions how to improve this course
1. Fix the above problems and streamline the process. 2. Hire some more tutors which can actually help with the code (and do). 3. Please make an editable evaluation-pdf or give us the latex src.
Am Anfang evtl. Vorschläge geben wie man den Source Code aufbauen kann. Vielleicht Klassendiagramm gemeinsam erarbeiten? Anfangs war das Implementieren noch recht einfach, aber gegen Ende wuchs und das Ganze ein bisschen über den Kopf und wir haben uns zu lange durch den alten Code gewühlt.
Consider the Java Programmer a bit more 
Mehr Hilfe für Javaraner.
Weniger direkt aufeinander aufbauende Aufgaben, damit man, wenn man eine oder zwei Wochen wirklich keine Zeit hat, nicht komplett ins Straucheln gerät.
No.
The grade should depend on the exercise solutions.
Give some (more) source code to start with for the exercises (also in Java!)
Vielleicht mehr Vorgaben beim Programmieren, Framework oder so
Wenn man hinten dran hängt hat man verloren
Kleines Framework anbieten, damit die Programmierung sich mehr auf die Algos konzentriert
Often, I felt the lectures failed to place emphasis on small but critical details that later had a large part to play in the implementation. Granted, sometimes certain improvements were not known a priori, but I felt that the occasional shift of focus to known problematic implementation issues would have been a more effective preparation for the implemenation. Fortunately, the forum was a great help in answering questions such as these.
It would have been interesting to see other's people's code as well, possibly seeing code for a certain exercise sheet after the deadline has passed (maybe with some time buffer).
More competition between groups.
Programming and architecture hints at the beginning of the course.
Your feedback concerning the exercises and the tutorial
Very good!
Exercises waren in Ordnung, der Umfang war manchmal ein bisschen hoch, aber das wurde abgefangen, indem die Zeit um eine Woche verlängert wurde.
Die Übungen haben auch Spaß gemacht es es war wirklich interessant solche Algorithmen nicht nur zu hören, sondern auch zu implementieren.
Zu Beginn der Vorlesung könnte man eventuell noch mehr Ratschläge geben, um das Netzwerk effizient aufzubauen. Das spart viel Zeit und ersparte viel Refactoring.
I know it's not that easy but feedback about how we solved the problems / implemented the algorithms would be nice.
Implementierungshilfe der Professorin sehr gut.
Die Antworten die im SVN hochgeladen wurden waren eher unhilfreich.
Some tasks were not too hard to implement in one week (but in most cases there was an extension of the exercise sheet)
In general, implementation of the algorithms is good for the understanding and is more practical then some theory tasks.
The exercises were sometimes too much but overall they were ok and fitted the lecture.
Good exercises, sometimes very time consuming. There was no tutorial.
Zu Beginn besseren Überblick geben (Klassendiagramm, ...) => später hoher Aufwand mit Refactoring, hätte durch zusammen erarbeitetes oder grob vorgegebenes Design vermieden werden können.
You may offer a tutorial where we can meet and ask a tutor if we have problems with the exercises. Sometimes questions are too complicated to ask in a „Forum“.
Teilweise zu umfangreich Aufgaben.
Algorithmen coden wäre sinnvoll aber das Drumherum sprengte oft den Rahmen
Benchmarkrechner wären wünschenswert gewesen.
Aufgaben waren interessant, wenn auch manchmal kompliziert.
Ich fand auch toll, dass man nach jeder Aufgabe seine Testresultate veröffentlichen konnte.
I was actually quite satisfied with the tutorial system, in the sense that there essentially was none. For me, it was enough to get written feedback from the tutor each week, although sometimes more feedback with respect to design decisions would have been useful. I would also recommend this system for the future. It gave me a certain sense of freedom in the sense that even very early on in the course the focus shifted from accumulating points towards writing an efficient, clean, and correct program as a result of scientific experimentation.
"Implementation Advice" war immer hilfreich.
Exercises were quite time-consuming, but also quite interesting.
Personally still had some problems with C++ language and its complexities.
But otherwise quite interesting also learned quite some new stuff.
Übung macht wesentlichen Teil der Vorlesung aus, da man hier die Prinzipien anwenden lernt. Daher sehr sinnvoll.
Übungen sehr interessant. Man lernt nicht nur Routenplanungsalgorithmen, sondern auch C++ inklusive einiger C++ Tricks und gutem Stil.