Sam Gill

knowledgeable, makes class fun and interesting, very easy-going, has so many huge friends in the industry who give guest lectures (like yahoo!'s cio, etc..). he creates an atmosphere that's very conducive to learning. i couldn't speak more highly of him.

Positive: Explains topic well enough to be understood. He could be humorous and he is calm. Handouts are always available online. He shares real-world experience.

Tasks: 1 Midterm (open book, open notes, essay type of exam), some homeworks here and there, 1 Group Project (develop an e-Commerce Site and present it in the class at the end of the semester), 1 Final Exam.

Negatives: He's gone 50% of the semester (maybe doing other gigs on the side such as attending conferences or corporate teaching) and he let Dr. Mak take over. When he's in a bad mood, he can be mean in front of the class. One group did a presentation and one of the members was understandably nervous and was saying a lot of "you know" in his sentences. Dr. Gill actually counted the times the presentor said "you know" and he told the whole class. That was just mean. There was no clear objective and direction for the group project. Because he's traveling majority of the time, it took him months to finish grading our homeworks.

On some instances he would make snide comments to a particular individual -- it's unprofessional. One student I talked to said she went to see him at his office to sign her graduation application or have some questions, he closed the door on her right after. Another student thinks he dislikes talking to students. He seems to have a big ego because he's the ISYS Dept Chair.

I did learn a lot in this class about e-Commerce. The book is easy to read, lots of examples, and interesting business cases. Just attend and participate in the class, do all the homeworks, complete the group project and you'll be fine in the class. You will get an A if you do all the requirements.

Sam Gill is an awesome teacher, and he should be cloned. I took his Business Software Development class from him and his teaching style is totally great. Basically, the course covered the business side of software development. We used a pretty good book that covered the theory, and applied the knowledge by learning Visual Basic .Net. He is friendly, approachable, very willing to answer questions from students and takes the time to teach until the students really understand the material instead of just giving static answers. There is homework due almost every week, but it all builds on itself and is challenging and fun. He really knows his material inside and out too as he has been working with computers since the days of punch cards (or before). But unlike a lot of people from that era, he has really kept his skills up to date. I will be going out of my way to take classes from him next time he teaches. Unfortunately, he is taking Spring 2004 off as he just got promoted to Department Chair.