Apropos: Mathematics at Bath.

[Dr John Spackman]

Maths at Bath seems to come high in both research and teaching assessment.
But whether the factor which caused, say Cambridge to lose a single
point on the teaching quality assessment where Bath scored the maximum
*really* means Maths at Bath is better than Maths at Cambridge is
debatable, to say the least.

No it isn't.
Not at all.
Maths at Bath *really* is better than Maths at Cambridge.

Matthew Huntbach should restrict himself to airing his bizarre
opinions on news:soc.culture.irish where they belong.

John

[Matt Johnson]

Post by Dr John Spackman

Maths at Bath seems to come high in both research and teaching assessment.
But whether the factor which caused, say Cambridge to lose a single
point on the teaching quality assessment where Bath scored the maximum
*really* means Maths at Bath is better than Maths at Cambridge is
debatable, to say the least.

No it isn't.
Not at all.
Maths at Bath *really* is better than Maths at Cambridge.
Matthew Huntbach should restrict himself to airing his bizarre
opinions on news:soc.culture.irish where they belong.

I'd be far more inclined to trust Matthew's opinions here, as a
long-time and well-informed contributor to this newsgroup, than yours.

Sorry.

- --M
- --
Matt Johnson <***@doc.ic.ac.uk>

[Dr John Spackman]

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I'd be far more inclined to trust Matthew's opinions here, as a
long-time and well-informed contributor to this newsgroup, than yours.
Sorry.
- --M
- --

Given your listed background as a Junior Systems Programmer in the
Computing Support Group at Imperial College London, and your 2:1 from
the Department of Computing therein, your opinion on Mathematics at
Bath woud seem to even less informed than that of Dr Huntbach - who
coincidentlly also read for his undergradate degree at Imperial
College, London, before moving on to study for a Ph.D. in Computer
Studies at the University of Easy Anglia.

Would the opinion of someone who has actually read mathematics at Bath
not somehow seem more informed ?

John

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by Dr John Spackman

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I'd be far more inclined to trust Matthew's opinions here, as a
long-time and well-informed contributor to this newsgroup, than yours.
Sorry.
- --M
- --

Given your listed background as a Junior Systems Programmer in the
Computing Support Group at Imperial College London, and your 2:1 from
the Department of Computing therein, your opinion on Mathematics at
Bath woud seem to even less informed than that of Dr Huntbach - who
coincidentlly also read for his undergradate degree at Imperial
College, London, before moving on to study for a Ph.D. in Computer
Studies at the University of Easy Anglia.
Would the opinion of someone who has actually read mathematics at Bath
not somehow seem more informed ?
John

I am not at all sure what this is about, as I have not seen any previous
articles in this thread.

However, I'm an admissions tutor in a Computer Science department, not a
Maths department, and I don't have much contact with the University of Bath.
So I quite agree there is nothing I could say specifically about Maths at
Bath.

Please note, however, that I did not move on to "study for a Ph.D. in
Computer Studies at the University of Easy Anglia". After graduating
from Imperial I worked for two years as a research associate in the
Department of Computer Studies and Accountancy (as I think it was then
called) at East Anglia, but did not register to do a PhD there. Following
this, I registered at the University of Sussex to do a DPhil in what was
then the Cognitive Studies division, eventually being awarded the DPhil
after I had returned to Imperial to work as a research associate in the
Department of Computing there.

Matthew Huntbach

[Toby]

Post by Dr John Spackman

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I'd be far more inclined to trust Matthew's opinions here, as a
long-time and well-informed contributor to this newsgroup, than yours.
Sorry.
- --M
- --

Given your listed background as a Junior Systems Programmer in the
Computing Support Group at Imperial College London, and your 2:1 from
the Department of Computing therein, your opinion on Mathematics at
Bath woud seem to even less informed than that of Dr Huntbach - who
coincidentlly also read for his undergradate degree at Imperial
College, London, before moving on to study for a Ph.D. in Computer
Studies at the University of Easy Anglia.
Would the opinion of someone who has actually read mathematics at Bath
not somehow seem more informed ?
John

Have you studied maths at Cambridge?

[Stuart Williams]

Post by Toby

Post by Dr John Spackman

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I'd be far more inclined to trust Matthew's opinions here, as a
long-time and well-informed contributor to this newsgroup, than yours.
Sorry.
- --M
- --

Given your listed background as a Junior Systems Programmer in the
Computing Support Group at Imperial College London, and your 2:1 from
the Department of Computing therein, your opinion on Mathematics at
Bath woud seem to even less informed than that of Dr Huntbach - who
coincidentlly also read for his undergradate degree at Imperial
College, London, before moving on to study for a Ph.D. in Computer
Studies at the University of Easy Anglia.
Would the opinion of someone who has actually read mathematics at Bath
not somehow seem more informed ?
John

Have you studied maths at Cambridge?

What bothers me is Dr Spackman's assumption that one *can* discriminate
between Cambridge and Bath in a subject where both universities have very
strong departments. The lone fact that the Cambridge department is many
times larger makes one wonder what criteria are being applied.

An academic who thinks this sort of comparison is meaningful is hardly to
be trusted. And his typing skills are so poor that I can't decide if
"Easy Anglia" is intended as an insult or shows mere carelessness.

Stuart Williams

[Ian/Cath Ford]

On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:46:24 +0100, Stuart Williams

Post by Stuart Williams
An academic who thinks this sort of comparison is meaningful is hardly to
be trusted. And his typing skills are so poor that I can't decide if
"Easy Anglia" is intended as an insult or shows mere carelessness.

Hmm, I hadn't spotted that one. Carelessness I'd say.

Ian

[JHP]

.. or a Freudian slit.









Hello, Fords....
jhp

Post by Ian/Cath Ford
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:46:24 +0100, Stuart Williams

Post by Stuart Williams
An academic who thinks this sort of comparison is meaningful is hardly to
be trusted. And his typing skills are so poor that I can't decide if
"Easy Anglia" is intended as an insult or shows mere carelessness.

Hmm, I hadn't spotted that one. Carelessness I'd say.
Ian

[Ian/Cath Ford]

On 28 Sep 2004 00:39:35 -0700, ***@dsl.pipex.com (Dr John
Spackman) wrote:

Stuff.

Can I ask why you wrote stuff? I don't really see a reason for you to
write an article to this group. Of course, I'm often wrong about lots
of things. I expect you appreciate that.

Ian

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by Dr John Spackman

Maths at Bath seems to come high in both research and teaching assessment.
But whether the factor which caused, say Cambridge to lose a single
point on the teaching quality assessment where Bath scored the maximum
*really* means Maths at Bath is better than Maths at Cambridge is
debatable, to say the least.

No it isn't.
Not at all.
Maths at Bath *really* is better than Maths at Cambridge.
Matthew Huntbach should restrict himself to airing his bizarre
opinions on news:soc.culture.irish where they belong.

OK, we've had a lot of systems problems at work, and I've been busy
with start of term, so I didn't get to see this message. Now I've seen
it, I think I can guess what's happening from the last paragraph.

My "bizarre opinions on news:soc.culture.irish" amount to messages I
used to send to that group which criticised those (often rather
ignorant Americans) who thought IRA violence was justified. I gave up
posting to that newsgroup some years ago, in part after an enormous
amount of harrassment I got from a fellow who used various aliases. He
apparently believes it is "bizarre" to think that on the whole IRA
violence in the past few decades has been counterproductive and has
not even helped the cause it was done to promote. This same fellow
still occasionally harrasses me, as here by picking up on some old
news item and making some sarcastic comment.

It is clear that my comments in the above news item were actually a
criticism of over-reliance on RAE and TQA assessments used in
university league tables, rather than a criticism of the Maths
department at Bath. I note from the faculty list in Maths at Bath
(http://www.bath.ac.uk/math-sci/staff/) that no John Spackman is
listed. A Google on his name reveals there was a John Spackman there
long ago, and he has posted in technical newsgroups, but has no
history of general newsgroup posting or of any involvement in
soc.culture.irish. Therefore I very much doubt the poster of this
article is the real John Spackman.

Matthew Huntbach

[Samsonknight]

Post by Matthew Huntbach
ignorant Americans) who thought IRA violence was justified. I gave up
posting to that newsgroup some years ago, in part after an enormous
amount of harrassment I got from a fellow who used various aliases. He...

That is so sad and scary....

[Robert Hunt]

Post by Dr John Spackman

Maths at Bath seems to come high in both research and teaching assessment.
But whether the factor which caused, say Cambridge to lose a single
point on the teaching quality assessment where Bath scored the maximum
*really* means Maths at Bath is better than Maths at Cambridge is
debatable, to say the least.

No it isn't.
Not at all.
Maths at Bath *really* is better than Maths at Cambridge.

I've come to this discussion late, so haven't seen most of the preceding
posts, but I thought that I should make some comments from the Cambridge
point of view.

The first thing to say is that the TQA (Teaching Quality Assessment)
scores are extremely unreliable - in fact I would say verging on the
useless except in extreme cases. They may be useful if you're interested
in the sorts of paperwork that the University keeps about its students
and so on; but if you're interested in how good the teaching is, the TQA
score is not a good place to start.

Maths at Bath is very good in all respects, with good teaching and good
research. Like all University Departments, it has some particular
strengths and some particular weaknesses in various research areas.
Ditto for Cambridge; there are different strengths and weaknesses in
research, and the Faculty is much larger. On the teaching side, however,
it's not possible to compare very easily, because the student intake is
very different (Cambridge obviously gets many more extremely bright
young mathematicians applying than Bath) and so the courses are aimed at
different groups: Bath has rather more remedial teaching than Cambridge,
and Cambridge has rather more "very hard proofs" type of courses. Which
one is better for you depends on how good you are!

For those who are interested, the point which Cambridge Maths dropped in
the TQA (it got 23/24) was because the annotations used by examiners on
students' exam scripts in Part III (which is a graduate course, not part
of the BA course at all and not taken by the majority of students) were
regarded as not clearly enough recorded, although this had no impact on
the final marks awarded.

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by Robert Hunt
For those who are interested, the point which Cambridge Maths dropped in
the TQA (it got 23/24) was because the annotations used by examiners on
students' exam scripts in Part III (which is a graduate course, not part
of the BA course at all and not taken by the majority of students) were
regarded as not clearly enough recorded, although this had no impact on
the final marks awarded.

Hence my point. The TQA is not an assessment of what is taught, it is
rather an assessment of whether the correct sort of bureaucracy is
used. Yet the TQA assessment plays a major role in the position in
newspaper league tables, particularly subject league tables. That is
why these league tables should not be given the sort of importance in
decision making over university choice which evidence in this
newsgroup suggests they often are.

Matthew Huntbach