Assignment 3:3 Peer Review of Formal Report Draft

To:                  Razvan Nesiu

From:              Ayazhan Makhambetova

Date:               March 17, 2019

Subject:          Peer Review of Formal Report Draft

Impressions

Your formal report draft on AMS Sponsored Club for Technical Interview Practice for Computer Science Students is very well put within a clean design. I was very intrigued with the items you have chosen to research on. The use of colors, graphs, and clear bold texts help the readers follow through the paper very nicely and it is straight to the point. I hope my suggestions below help you flesh out your outstanding proposal paper.

Introduction

Background information about UBC’s Computer Science courses

• The background portion of the paper outlines the current state of what sort of computer science courses very nicely. The course numbers you have outlined is a great point to make regarding why you are writing this paper. However, I think the lack of job-oriented courses could be written here, instead of the scope section. This is extremely well put, but there is certainly room for improvement.

Information about clubs that focus on Computer Science topics

• Continuing on from the background section, it is a nice Segway as it pronounces what sort of utilities UBC currently offers to CS students. Although well written, there can be an additional portion where it points to the fact that why the existing clubs cannot or will not add additional features like the one that is purposed in this paper. Otherwise, it is very concise and straight to the point.

Scope and Audience

• Straight to the point. I would suggest adding to this section the people and organizations (such as AMS or CS Department) you will be targeting with this Formal Report.

Description of data sources and methods

• Survey as a method of gathering data fits your topic well, and the questions you included are clean and fully follow the guidelines.

Data Section

• Overall, the data is nicely organized and put at the center of the paper. It allows the reader to focus on the raw data with aid from various charts. Very well done.

Overview of resources currently available for students

Project rooms and labs

• You have approximated project rooms at UBC’s availability. Although it may or may not be true, the AMS council would need to check the numbers, as they would be in charge of booking certain areas of the school for any club related activities, making this not a suitable material for a proposal. Perhaps you may focus on the need for rooms or space by the students willing to participate on the new club’s activity, allowing AMS to look up which rooms they can allocate for your new club.

Current clubs that teach programming concepts

• This section of the proposal does not seem to contribute towards a healthy approach for a new club to be initiated. There seems to be a lot of speculations about what the clubs do, and what is helpful during a job interview. I highly recommend gearing the paragraph towards why there is a demand for your new club, and why the existing clubs are not providing students with such material in a short and concise manner.

Discussion of the data collected

• Great presentation of raw data with the visuals. I liked that you have also analyzed and interpreted the data received, rather than just leaving the reader with numbers.

Proposed solution

Structure of the club activities

• The paragraph is well thought out, and there are many good ideas that are very specific, that are executable. However, there are many places within the paragraph that can be modified to better your proposal. There seems to be a bit lack of structure to the paragraph, perhaps a small sentence about the reasoning why you’d recommend the club should be ran the way you have described it. Otherwise, the ideas you have in your proposal are exciting and genuine.

Information about similar clubs in other universities

• Very clear description of such practice at University of Victoria, BC. It would be great if you could find and add some data on the results of such meetings. Did it improve students’ performance on technical interviews?

Conclusion

• Your conclusion neatly describes a problem and why is it important. I would to add some brief interpretation of your findings in this research and recommendations to the AMS to make you conclusion stronger.

Organization & Design

•  The Organization of this paper is a very strong point, it is well put together, straight to the point and with the use of bullet points as well as color-coded charts, and the reader can follow the paper very easily.
• *Page numbers do not follow the requirements. Please refer to the textbook for more guidance.
• *The Table of Content does not follow the requirements. Please refer to the textbook for more guidance.

Content

• The content is stellar. The raw data that you have collected really speaks volume in how there is a big student demand for your new club. However, there seems to be recurrence of the same issue throughout the proposal that perpetuate the same idea. Perhaps you can group them and expand upon them in different ways, increasing the focus of the ideas.

Writing Style and Grammar

• You writing style is great. Your writing is calm and collected while addressing some serious issues that can overwhelm the reader, yet it doesn’t. However, if there was room for improvement, I would recommend that you adjust your curation of the sections to make the reader flow more natural.
• There are very little to address regarding grammar.

Overall Comment

I have enjoyed reading your formal report draft and got inspired to join such club if your proposal goes through. It is refreshing to read the work of someone so passionate about the computer science field and tries very hard to improve student life. Great work!