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Resources for Directors
of Studies
Summary of Important Changes for
2011-12
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I summarise here some of the changes of the 2011-12 academic year,
relative to 2010-11. There have been a large number of major changes
this year, so please read this carefully.
Major changes to Mathematical Physics degree and
Introduction of Theoretical Physics degree
As you will probably know, in its March meeting, SBoS
approved major changes to the DPT for Mathematical Physics
(hereafter MP), as well as introducing a new Theoretical
Physics (hereafter TP) degree. This has significant consequences
for the advice we should give to existing and incoming students.
I have set up this
separate page to summarise the key features of the new degrees,
and detail the advice that should be offered to students on different
years and different degree programmes. For full listings of
the DPTs of the different programmes, please see the
DRPS.
Change of Yr 1 Specialist Maths courses
As part of a rolling programme of changes, Maths has re-vamped its first
year maths courses (this is one of the drivers of change in the MP degree).
It is important that you look carefully at the advice in the revised
href=http://www.roe.ac.uk/~pnb/DofS/dosmaths.pdf>guidelines for
choice of pre-honours maths courses in order to best advise students
on which choices to make.
"FAP" students
As per College's new guidelines last year
(here), students
need to pass all 120 credits each year in order to have the automatic right
to continue study. If they do not, then they need to be formally given
permission by yourself (allowed if this is the first time that
they are FAP, and they are within 20 credits of not being FAP) or following
a formal FAP interview. DoT wishes to interview any student who has failed
any course in Physic of MfP.
DoT will no doubt have a large number of FAP interviews to deal
with this yea,r so please complete FAP forms and return them to
Helen ASAP.
"Four" strikes
The University's "Maximum three fails of a course" rule has
thankfully been changed to a "four strike" rule, for students
beginning courses in 2011/2. I haven't seen revised
documentation yet, but
here
is the previous documentation on the three-strike rule. Remember
that attempts that get classed as null sits don't count.
As a complication, student who began a course in 2010/11 under the
previous three-strike rule, remain under that rule. Therefore any
student who failed a course last year (and has therefore already
had two sits - the resit counts even if they didn't attend it) has
only one attempt left.
You will need to warn resit fails very strongly about this.
Guidance on what to do if a student
reaches the maximum attempt limit on a course is available in
the FAQs
(Q19).
Honours years
This year there are a few changes for Honours year students:
- The "MPhys Project Preparation" (PHYS11043) course has been scrapped, and replaced by
"Mphys Project Presentation" (PHYS11049) [don't be confused by the similar names!].
MPhys students have been pre-seeded onto the Project Preparation course, and
you will need to edit this.
- The "Tensors & Fields" (PHYS10016) course has changed name (but with little
change of content) to "Symmetries of Classical Mechanics" (PHYS10088). Again, some
students will have been pre-seeded on to the wrong course, so please correct this.
It will run in the same timetable slots as T&F used to.
- The "Parallel Fortran in Physics" (PHYS11005) course has
been de-continued. Comp Phys MPhys students will have been pre-seeded for this, but
that should be removed and they should take 10 credits from the HPC MSc courses instead.
Note that these HPC courses are also available to suitably qualified students on other
degree programmes - DoT will grant concessions for this where appropriate on a
case-by-case basis.
- The "Acoustics" (PHYS10020) course no longer exists as an
outside option (though EUCLID still seems to indicate its
existence).
- All Senior Honours projects have been renamed as "Senior Honours Project (Physics
and Astronomy)" (rather than individual flavoured versions of e.g. Astrophysics Honours
Project), with course codes for Semester 1 and 2 versions being PHYS10086 and PHYS10087
respectively. Most DPTs contain this correctly, but it appears that the Physics MPhys
DPT does not - therefore this will again need to be corrected by hand.
Start of year meetings for Honours year students will be:
- Junior Honours: Monday 19th September, 9am, in JCMB Lecture Theatre B
- Junior Honurs Astrophysics: Additional meeting on Tuesday 20th Sept, 11.30am, ROE Lecture Theatre
- Senior Honours: Wednesday 21st September, 11am, JCMB Lecture Theatre C
- Integrated Masters students: Wednesday 21st September, 10am, JCMB Rm 5327
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