Hi all,

Because there is a larger enrolment this year compared to previous years, I have instituted some changes to the CITS5501 lab material.

It has always been the case in CITS5501 that lab attendance is not compulsory; that model answers to exercises are provided the following week so you can gauge your progress; and that students are welcome to turn up to any timetabled lab where there is room available.

This year, in addition,

• Labs will be run on a drop-in basis. This means that once a worksheet for the lab has been released, you can work through it at your own pace, either at home or on campus. If you run into difficulties or have questions, you are welcome to attend any lab session to get them resolved – but if not, then there is no need to physically attend.
• The first two weeks of labs (weeks 3-4) will be a fairly gentle introduction to the tools and concepts used, and should be pretty easy to follow regardless of what operating system you use on your laptop or other computer.
• In later weeks, there will occasionally be topics where it's useful to have group discussions or get feedback from other students. Before we get to those labs, I'll assign groups and make the group details available on the CSSE department's Moodle server. Those groups can then arrange to meet online (e.g. via MS Teams) or in person at any time and place convenient to them – there is no need to physically meet on campus (unless you wish to).

So if you aren't allocated to a lab in CAS, don't panic! Just work through the lab material once it's posted in week 2, and if you have queries, feel free to turn up to a lab session in order to have them answered.

It is important to keep up with the lab material, so try to ensure you do some work on the lab materials every week (from week 2 onwards); but you don't necessarily need to be doing it on campus or in one of the timetabled labs.

I hope that helps! If you do have additional questions about the labs, feel free to post them here.

Cheers,

Arran