Department of Physics and Astronomy

Programme Organiser's Augmented Annual Monitoring Report

The material informing this report is all available at the URL:
http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~markl/teaching/dtc/monitoring/

This contains: programme specifications, detailed programme structures, student

handbooks, module descriptions, the departmental teaching and learning strategy,
statistical data on applications, progression and completion, chair of exam board
reports, external examiner reports, module-by-module internal examiner (lecturer
reports), course evaluations, DTC annual monitoring reports, DTC reports on student
evaluation questionnaires, module statistics, a narrative on the teaching and learning
environment and student survey data and their interpretation.

Since the modules for our MSc students are the same as the 4th year MSci students
and there is a large overlap on module content between the physics, theoretical
physics, astrophysics and medical physics programmes, we report on all these
programmes in this single report. Where appropriate we highlight where comments
pertain to only one specific programme.

A. Any amendments which have been made to the programme (and the
Programme Specification (PS)) since the previous review, including the
reasons for those amendments.

There has been no previous augmented review. In the recent past we have however
simplified our programme structure and removed programmes that were only attracting
a few students. In 2005, we were running 10 undergraduate programmes and now we
are running only 4. We have discontinued the astronomy programme (in favour of a
single astrophysics programme), our Applied Physics programme (in favour of
increasing the applied aspects of our core Physics programme) and discontinued the
joint honours programmes: Astronomy and Physics, Astrophysics and Physics, Physics
and Space-Science. We have also discontinued enrollment into our part-time/evening
Physics BSc that we have been running for many years together with Birkbeck college.
This course has been very successful in furthering our widening participation agenda
but sadly the resource requirements (both financial and personnel) for a handful of
students ultimately meant it was not practical to continue. The programme structure we
now have in place is simpler for students to follow at the admissions stage and also for
the department to administer. We have seen no fall off in student numbers as a
consequence of these changes, indeed numbers have increased. The introduction of
the Natural Sciences programme has been a great success and there are now around
50 students per year taking modules from our Physics and Astrophysics programmes.
In terms of the programmes that we continue to run: Physics, Astrophysics, Theoretical
Physics at BSc, MSci and MSc level there has been no change in the overall
programme specification since 2003. There have however been numerous changes at
the module level and in the fine-structure of the programmes.

1
Having discontinued the programmes attracting a small number of students and
simplifying our offering to three core programmes, we do not envisage any further
changes in the programmes we offer in the foreseeable future.

B. The extent to which the programme has met its stated learning outcomes and
met its student number targets.

The philosophy of the department is that students should become independent

learners and researchers. To a large extent we believe we have been successful in
this. The number of students applying to study our programmes has increased over
the past 5 years and the number of students we accept is limited by laboratory
space and recruitment caps at the Faculty level and not through lack of interest. In
2004 we had 534 applications and in 2009 713 and this year the number is over
1,000. Our intake over the past 5 years has been 130 +/- 20 and has been rather
stable. Each year we have achieved the student recruitment target (in some years
exceeded) specified by the faculty while continuing to increase the UCAS points
tariff on entry. We anticipate admitting 150 students per year going forward plus a
further 75 taking our modules as part of the Natural Sciences and Medical Physics
programme. One programme where we have seen a relative decline in numbers is
the astronomy/astrophysics programme where the fraction of our intake taking
these programme(s) has dropped from 25% (2004) to 12% (2009) such that our
astrophysics intake is now only 20 students. Going forward this could have
resource implications since the astrophysics stream has a rather labour intensive
practical component and running lecture courses for 20 students is not the most
efficient use of resource. The astrophysics components may ultimately be offered
as options to a combined Physics programme that would homogenise the practical
provision and likely see greater numbers in the astro-themed lectures since they
would be offered across the whole 150-student cohort.

In the MSc the number of applicants (36[2004], 77[2009]) and offers (15[2004],
46[2009]) has increased considerably over the past 5 years. However the number
who then actually enroll has remained rather constant: 9 students in 2009,
compared to 7 in 2004. The highest enrollment was in 2007 with 12 students. Again
there are resource implications on the admissions administration since the ratio of
the number of applicants to enrolled students is almost 10, although this is not too
dissimilar to some of the departments PhD programmes but in this case the
enrollment is limited by the availability of funds for the studentships.

Despite the UCAS points of our entrants increasing over the years from 26.6 (A-
level only) in 2006 to 28.0 in 2009, we still continue to see a rate of progression that
we would prefer to be higher. In 2009/10 16% of the students failed to progress to
year-2 and 19% to year-3 and 12% failed to graduate. While this picture is
complicated by re-sits etc., it is still the case that, of our original cohort, around 25%
fail to graduate. The high drop-out rate in year-1 is not significantly different from
other Physics departments and we believe reflects the fact that a significant fraction

2
of the students are, despite excellent A-level grades, not adequately prepared for
the transition to university physics in terms of its emphasis on Mathematics and
problem-solving, and arguably should not be taking the subject at degree level.
These progression numbers have been rather constant over the past 5 years but
are uncomfortably high. The principal problem is the mathematical and problem-
solving ability of the students on entry. The mathematical content of the A-level
syllabus has been reduced substantially and the emphasis on problem solving has
similarly declined. We have countered this trend by increasing our entry
requirements on Maths A-Level and by providing additional Maths courses in year-
1 and moving mathematical intensive physics modules to year-2 and year-3 and
increasing our provision of problem-solving tutorials. This has had some success
but we still observe students with 3As at A-level struggling to pass modules (e.g.
EM, QM) with a high mathematical/problem-solving component. However at the
same time the college continues to move/”harmonise” the goalposts. The college-
wide pass mark per module has risen from 35% to 40% (50% in year-4) and the
number of module passes required for graduation has also increased. These two
effects (more Maths provision/increased requirements on Maths A-Level and
changes in college graduation criteria) have largely cancelled leaving our
progression and graduation rates rather constant. The college requirements are a
problem for Physics and other mathematically based subjects where the entire
mark-range is used. Indeed given the RMS of the mark distribution and the
requirement that 11/12 modules are passed it is now becoming difficult for students
to graduate with 2ii and 3rd class degrees since their average mark (and the large
RMS) invariably means they will fail more than 2 modules if their average mark is
below 55%. We thus observe that the majority of our students (75% of the final-
year) graduate with a 1st or 2i degree with far fewer getting a 2ii or a 3rd class
degree and there remains an uncomfortably high number not graduating.

The data on employment are difficult to interpret. A significant number of students

do not reply with information, particularly those who secure employment a number
of months after graduation. The Guardian data has 68% of UCL physics graduates
securing employment within 6 months of graduation. This is on the low-side
compared to our peers. It is however difficult to determine the veracity of this data.

In the past 5 years, we have introduced or adopted (earlier in many instances)

several initiatives to improve our teaching. These include:

• All courses having a web-presence with a single point of access through the
Moodle system. All courses now have online lecture notes, coursework and
model solutions. Several courses have implemented “chat-forums” which
allows the students and lecturer to discuss problems informally. Several
courses have utilized online quizzes, and graphical demonstrations to make
the learning process more interactive. The students also have access to
their coursework marks through Moodle.
• Videoing of lectures. Many of our core modules are now videoed and
archived for subsequent access on Moodle and iTunes-U.

3
 • A stronger coupling between the lecture courses and the practical courses
(both lab and computing). Many lectures now feature practical
demonstrations (in some cases using the same equipment from the lab
assignments) and the practical assignments are more closely synchronised
with the material being covered in the lectures. Coursework for the lectures
now routinely involve a problem that must be solved by writing a computer
programme utilizing the languages that we teach in the practical computing
modules (Visual Basic/Excel, Matlab, Mathematica, JAVA) thereby
demonstrating the utility of these modules in a practical way and also
preparing the students for their project-work which is often computer-based.
• Encouraging lecturers to mix the use of white-board and powerpoint and to
use skeleton notes in lectures where students fill in the gaps in real time. We
have also had some positive feedback using tablet computers to project
hand-written material in lectures which is then subsequently saved
electronically on Moodle for subsequent reference.
• The merging of tutorials and problem-classes into a single offering: problem-
solving tutorials. This has allowed significantly more classes to be
scheduled, particularly in the 2nd year, and to focus more on problem solving
and providing explicit feedback to students on their coursework which is
returned during the tutorials.
• The use of 'Personal Response Systems' (PRS) in lectures. Such systems
consist of handheld devices that communicate with a central computer and
projector. Each member of class is provided with a handset. Typically these
devices are used by getting class members to register their answer to
specific questions. The lecturer is than able to display a collated record of
the responses, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and allowing the
teaching to be modified in response. These systems also allow other, more
innovative uses, as well as the collection of user-level data, allowing the
lecturer to track individual student learning.
• Communication skills modules. In the past two years we have striven to
improve this provision by holding sessions with the students to determine
which aspects of the course they find most valuable and we now issue
certificates upon graduation which the student can present as evidence of
the skills training they have received to potential employers.

Student survey data on the whole is very positive with 87% of students (in the NSS
survey) satisfied with their programme. However, “Assessment and feedback” is
consistently an area with the lowest satisfaction score (61%), although it is the
same as the average across all programmes at UCL. This is also reflected in the
results of our exit surveys but it is noteworthy in the 2010 exit survey of final year
undergraduates that the issue of poor feedback was only explicitly highlighted by
one student from the 20 who submitted detailed comments. We have endeavoured
to increase feedback to students by returning work through problem solving
tutorials where the marked work is discussed and more personal feedback given
and to ensure that all marked work is returned within 2 weeks which is quicker than
UCL’s upper guideline. We have also added standard feedback sheets from group
and research-projects based on those used in the laboratory practicals.

4
 Along with other departments (and the students union) we have also started to
engage with the students as to what their perception of “feedback” is and how we
can improve feedback. In the surveys, areas with high levels of satisfaction are
“teaching”, “academic support” and “learning resources”. In the exit survey it was
remarked by a number of students that the quality of our teaching (particularly
lectures) was variable and in some cases exacerbated when the lecturer was not a
native English speaker. We will continue to monitor these instances through the
student evaluation questionnaires and peer-observation. In the exit survey the
department was commended for its extensive practical teaching: laboratory
sessions, computing classes, mini-projects, group-projects and final year research
projects. While these are labour intensive to run, it is encouraging that the students
find them rewarding and we have anecdotal evidence that employers also value
this aspect of our provision.

In recent years the department has been very successful in recruiting lecturers on
Royal Society, STFC and EPSRC advanced fellowships and many members of the
department have secured teaching buy-outs through research grants or personal
fellowships. This success has placed a significant strain on teaching resource. Only
50% of the personnel available for full-load teaching actually contribute a full
teaching load due to the aforementioned buy-outs and fellowships. The average
full-load teaching has therefore increased. We have previously endeavoured to
ameliorate this by using PDRAs to assist in the non-lecturing teaching but the
students certainly prefer to be taught by academic staff and welcome the
interaction with their lecturers in practical sessions. We have recently therefore
reduced our reliance on PDRAs and increased the number of academics in the
labs. This has been well received by the students but has come at a cost in terms
of resource. Resource is now tracked on a web-based system
(http://www.hep.ucl.ac.uk/~markl/teaching/dtc/wms) such that teaching duties are
allocated in a fair and transparent way. The dual demands to provide world-class
research (for the REF) and teaching with significant student contact and the
demands of the new fee-system are expected to cause resource issues and we
have recently established a committee to investigate how we can maintain
excellence in both sectors.

C. Responses to recommendations made by the External Scrutineer to a

previous AugAMR.

We have not had a previous AugAMR.

D. Responses over the 4-year period to issues raised by External Examiners’

reports.

The issues raised by external examiners in the past 4-years largely fall in three
areas:
• Scaling of exam marks and the setting exams that are appropriate for the
weakest and the strongest students. We have endeavoured to reduce the

5
 number of exams that require their marks to be scaled (in 2009/10 it was 5
papers from a total of 52) by enforcing a section-A, section-B format on all
year-1,2,3 papers. Section-A is designed to test basic knowledge over the
whole syllabus and section-B explores understanding in greater depth. This
has largely been successful in testing the wide ability range of our students
and not unfairly treating the weaker students but there is still room for
improvement and we remain concerned that further harmoninsation across
UCL with regard to pass marks and the number of permitted module fails
unduly penalizes subjects such as physics that have a broad mark
distribution.
• Students dropping a degree class by not completing the communication
skills modules. This has been a theme for several years. We organized
several sessions with the students to re-design the communication skills
modules to better match what they wanted from the course and for our part
to more effectively communicate with the students the perils of non-
completion and the benefits both in terms of exam score and employability of
successfully completing the modules. This coupled with the introduction of a
communication skills certificate (documenting grades and skills attained)
upon graduation have resulted in a much improved completion rate of the
communications skills modules: it was over 90% in 2009/10.
• The treatment of extenuating circumstances and borderline cases. We have
established a pre-meeting where students extenuating circumstances are
graded 0-3 and at the request of the externals we now provide a complete
history of extenuating circumstances for a student (and not just those
pertaining to the particular exam year). This has allowed a more systematic
approach and has ensured that recurrent problems can be dealt with in the
appropriate manner. With regard the treatment of borderline cases, we now
follow college practice and only consider students within 1.5% of the grade
boundary and we have defined a set of guidelines e.g. student has upward
trajectory in their marks over the years, to assess whether a student should
be promoted across a grade boundary.

E. Envisaged future developments and prognosis.

We do not envisage significant changes in our provision having undergone a period

of significant change in the past 5 years in terms of reducing the number and
administrative complexity of our programmes and introducing extensive problem-
solving tutorials. Our intention is to consolidate and improve the provision we have
by:

• Establishing examples of best-practice and making our provision more

uniform (and improved). There is a variability (noted by students in surveys
and course evaluation surveys) in our provision and differences in teaching
style. Some of these styles and practices have been very effective and well
received by students. We would like to establish examples of these on our
teaching web-pages (this is aided by now having many of our lectures
videoed) and to also run informal sessions at the start of term for lecturers

6
 explaining more clearly the learning outcomes of each type of teaching and
the examples of best practice to follow.
• Improving on student feedback. We hope to achieve this by formalizing the
feedback in the problem-solving tutorials and through consultation with the
students on the type of feedback they wish to receive and by educating the
students on what actually constitutes feedback.

F. Outcomes and responses to any professional accreditation exercises.

We underwent IoP accreditation in Sep 2005. We are in the process of being re-
accredited now. We expect to submit the accreditation material in Sep 2011 and
receive formal accreditation again at the end of 2011. The outcome of the Sep
2005 was very positive; we did however change the content of a number of our
modules to better reflect the balance expected by the IoP, notably in our EM
courses where we increased the aspects pertaining to magnetism and its
connection with the latest research.