Council meeting minutes from 2026-08-07

minutes of the students' representative council for study programs of computer science

Statslab

+++ intro +++
the Statistics lab is the mandatory introductory course for some Cs related courses of study.
Students use a chat bot for their solutions where some people see problem in its use, especially in the privacy policy.
Alex (FSR LST (Language Science and Technology)) received a very long complaint about this course he now forwarded to us.

Topics mentioned in this complaint:
- Different topics in different years, why same module?
- Assignments are mandatorily solved with AI (experimental, owned by DFKI), you either get pass/fail without objective reasoning. Chatbot was really experimental, not useful for studying.
- Concept was "flipped Classroom", but without a proper possibility to ask questions (was more of a voluntary big tutorial).
- Assignments were rather theoretical, but exam was more practical (practical exercises were only part of the big tutorial).
- Effort larger than >6 CP
- Materials are rather old, on youtube (with ads!), videos and book are non-coherent, book links to wikipedia for information.
- Exam prerequisites: AI assignments, minitests, tutorial exercises ???, inadequate compensation for illness.
- Exam: 32/79 passing rate (105 registered, 149 took the course in total).
- Chair seems rather uninterested in discussion with the students. They seem to be rather defending when receiving negative feedback rather than trying to find an agreement with the students.

Apart from these complaints, students see it as unfair that students taking the course are admitted to the exam if they hand in many solutions worth 0 points, but are only allowed to skip 2 units at all.
The exam inspection is another point of complaint: the date was helt from 8:00 ~ 11:00 while the Programming2 main exam took place at 9:00 ~ 12:00; the lecturers regards this as "accommodation" for the approximately 80 people who take both lectures in this semester.
There are doubts in the room if the course remains according to the module handbook if it changes from year to year as a result of the rotation of the lecturers.
A mock exam was offered, however this, same as the lecture content, was seen more theoretical than the rather practical exam.The chat bot is seen critically, as this might obstruct students' understanding of the topics, especially if it is percieved as simple. The interaction with the chat bot might confuse students.

+++ results +++
For the unfortunate exam inspection slot: students can request it via the examination board.
we forward the complaints of the always changing course contents to the deans at our next deans' lunch (in october/november 2026).
We will work out a statement of our opinion towards the usage of this chat bot and forward it to the chair. We will collect more concrete claims and opinions from multiple students.

Reelections

See meeting 3 weeks ago: the elections this year are officially invalid and we need to vote if we want to have reelections this winter semester. (as we have the option do decide now, as the FSRS has no clear rule what happens in case of a invalid election, as far as the information got forwarded to us). The current council remains in office until the next (valid) election takes place.

Do we want to have students' council reelections (for the computer science students' council only) in November/December 2026, even if we have to put in a little more work into it ourselves?
In favour: 7
Against: 0
Abstain: 0

Ticket request: support for international student

We received a request of a visually impaired student, who will start their studies this winter semester, to show them the campus.

We will reach out to the student.

SummerBBQ aftermath

On 2026-07-02 we had our annual summer BBQ and we think there is room for improvements. For next year, we aim for:
- smaller menu
- a larger quantity of vegan food
- better queue management
- more helpers assigned to each shift (especially those who hand over cooked items to the crowd)
- a better grill for the vegan options
- preproduce for the 12 o'clock rush

math prep course support

Francesco from the math prep course is visiting us.
in the past, we have always donated some amount of the FS Euro to the prep course.

We vote if we want to support math prep course with 300€
in favour: 7
against: 0
abstain: 0

State of the Students' working rooms

We received an email from multiple students that the students' rooms are dirty: trash and food laying around over night and students clean it up for themsselves in the morning if they want to use the room again. (especially room 106).
Another problem are students "reserving" seats for the whole day, even if they leave for mensaar for >1 hour.

+++ discussion +++
The USB-C cable issue is known. We are already in the process of ordering new ones.

Reservations: We try to introduce parkometers (time limit of n minutes -> if you're not back, everyone is allowed to take the seat and move your private items to another (safe) place).

with n = [5;20], we're not sure yet.

+++ conclusion +++
We will hang out posters and get in touch with the department's office to find out more about the cleaning schedules of the rooms.
Our room taskfore will order new cables and reinstall them.

meeting time 16ct or 16st

next meeting(s) will be 16ct (16:15). (in 14 days, because it's the lecture free period) (2026-08-21)

First Aid

The university has first aid courses. We'll contact the department's office for more information