April 2007

From the Editor

This month we have a bumper Newsletter leading off with our new Executive plus the Conference updates … and a new Newsletter Editor for 2007! Then there is:

AAEE 2007 Executive

The photo below is of the Executive Committee for 2007 at their first meeting of the year in Brisbane on 26^th March. We welcomed Assoc Prof Wageeh Boles from Queensland University of Technology to his role as president for 2007. Wageeh has served on the AAEE Executive for several years and his gracious charm and warmth, coupled with his leadership and experience will be valued as the Executive works to provide services to its members.

The aim of this Executive team is to make the Australasian Association of Engineering Education a positive influence and support, based in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, for all academics involved in tertiary engineering education.

Several initiatives sponsored by the Executive are outlined in this newsletter, such as the reinvigoration of the journal AJEE, and the development of a bibliographic database for those wishing to increase their knowledge of theory and research in Engineering Education.

From Left: Penny Phillips ( Secretary), Gunilla Burrowes (AJEE Editor), David Dowling (Past president), Roger Hadgraft ( Vice president, Web, chair 2007 conference), Wageeh Boles (President), Liz Godfrey ( Awards, Newsletter, NZ rep), Euan Lindsay ( Web, Peer support network), Yvonne Toft ( Awards, asst  with AJEE), Frank Bullen (ACED rep), Holger Maier ( Bibliography, assist with Awards)

Absent: Allan Bradley ( Engineers Australia rep), Xu Huang ( Treasurer)

The current executive thanks Prof David Radcliffe, who stepped down from the executive, for his efforts as a previous President, and particularly for his role in organising the combined AEE/ASEE 2005 Global Colloquium  which raised the profile of Engineering Education, as we do it “Down Under”, with our international colleagues. 

From the President

At the start of every academic year we settle into our usual hectic scheme of affairs. Countless e-mails, many voice mail messages, students at our office doors, phone calls, meetings, and the list goes on and on. Somewhere in this environment, as academics, we are expected to do our research, apply for, and succeed in obtaining, research grants, engage in university administration, make contacts and work with the profession, participate in marketing our programs, and also function as lecturers in them. There are steadily increasing demands on our intellect and time. Some demands can be classified as urgent, others as important. At the heart of how we respond to the demands on our time and intellect is our own definition of what is important; there is probably no universally accepted answer. The choice is ours.

All these demands within the academic endeavour at university can be considered to belong to one or more of three main arenas: research, teaching and service, which include academic and professional leadership. In making choices, there is almost always the suggestion of a tension between the domains of teaching and research. The Research Quality Framework, RQF, can be seen by some as another factor that may increase this tension. As engineering educators, we have the responsibility of addressing the learning needs of today’s engineering students, tomorrow’s builders of the future. We also need to continue to innovate and enhance our effectiveness in this area.

We have choices to make, but these must be informed choices. We therefore need to examine the role engineering education can and must play and how we can face the challenge of transforming scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching to become strong contributors within the RQF environment.

Wageeh Boles, President AAEE

ACED – Carrick Institute Review of Engineering Education

The biggest news in engineering education in 2007 is the Carrick supported review of engineering education – an update of the 1996 review:

Ensuring the supply and quality of engineering graduates with attributes for the new century

The AAEE President, Assoc Professor Wageeh Boles, is representing AAEE on the the project’s steering committee.

Aims

To ensure that the engineering education sector across Australia’s universities produces in a sustainable manner, a diverse supply of graduates with the appropriate attributes for professional practice and international relevance in the rapidly changing, competitive context of engineering in the 21^st Century.

Goals

Over the last year ACED has identified many important issues associated with engineering education in Australia that must be addressed, including the following.

a)     The effectiveness of the 1996 national review of engineering education on ‘changing the culture’ of Australian engineering education, and the organisational structure and culture within engineering schools;

b)     The impacts of the declining high school preparation in the enabling sciences and mathematics, and rapidly developing new technologies, on engineering course structure, standards and duration;

c)      The impact of globalisation and recent overseas reviews on Australian engineering education, including the impact of Bologna protocols, on the export of engineering educational services and the international transportability of Australian qualifications;

d)     The value of engineering education as an enabler to different career options;

e)     The gender balance in engineering education and practice and how it might be improved;

f)       Industry-university partnerships and how they are best developed to produce tangible benefits for all partners in engineering education;

g)     Laboratory facilities in the schools of engineering: provision, updating and maintenance;

h)     Development of an inquisitive and innovative culture in engineering graduates;

i)        The place of a research-active environment, including engineering education research, in engineering education;

j)       The effectiveness of instilling appreciation of social responsibility and sustainability as core graduate outcomes; and

k)      The potential for significantly increased rationalisation of resources among engineering schools.

Clearly all of this list cannot be addressed satisfactorily in a one-year project with limited funding and sharp focusing will be needed.

Comments and submissions are welcome to Wageeh Boles.

AAEE Excellence in Engineering Education Annual awards

Considerable thought is going in to possible amendments to the Award categories for 2007. Feedback from members is welcome. Stay tuned for more information.

Please contact Liz Godfrey or Yvonne Toft

2006 winners

The winners of the 2006 Excellence in Engineering Education Awards were presented at the 2006 Annual Conference Dinner:

·         Excellence in Engineering Education : Teaching and Learning
Assoc Prof Holger Maier, University of Adelaide

·         Excellence in Engineering Education: Curriculum Innovation
Dr Colin Kestell, University of Adelaide

·         Highly Commended for Excellence in Curriculum Innovation
Assoc Prof Peter O’Shea and Dr Bouchra Senadji, Queensland University of Technology

·         Excellence in Engineering Education: Inclusivity
Prof David Dowling, University of Southern Queensland

Details including citations are available at http://www.AAEE.com.au/award/2006/

We congratulate these awardees for the very high standard of their applications and the work they are doing in Engineering Education.

These awards are sponsored by AAEE (with the support of the Australian and NZ Councils of Deans) and Engineers Australia.

People

Congratulations to our new executive member Professor Frank Bullen who has moved from the University of Tasmania to the University of Southern Queensland where he has taken up his new role as Dean and Pro-Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Engineering and Surveying.

Congratulations also to the new Chair of the Australian Council of Engineering Deans, Professor Elizabeth Taylor, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Health at the Central Queensland University.

Congratulations also to Roger Hadgraft who has moved to the University of Melbourne as Director of the new Engineering Learning Unit at an exciting time for that university.  

The Faculty of Engineering at the University of Auckland farewelled Professor Peter Brothers in March after nine years that saw many changes in the physical, educational and research environment for the Faculty. Peter moves to his new role as CEO at the Manukau Institute of Technology in Auckland.

The new Dean at the University of Auckland will be Professor Michael Davies who comes to the Southern hemisphere from the University of Dundee.

Newsletter contributions

Share your good ideas, conference announcements, book titles, great websites, etc with other members.

Send them to Liz Godfrey for inclusion in the next Newsletter.

The 2007 AAEE Conference

After much negotiation, the 2007 conference will be held at the University of Melbourne from 9-12 Dec 2007 (Sunday evening to Wednesday). The theme of the conference is still to be finalised, but is likely to focus on the connection between teaching and research. One dimension of this is the impact of the RQF on our time for teaching; another dimension is the research agenda in engineering education set out by the ASEE in October 2006. We are hoping that this conference will be an opportunity to forge syndicates of researchers across universities to get involved in the many research issues in engineering education.

The conference will also be an opportunity to debate the future of engineering education, with the University of Melbourne having launched its Melbourne Model, a US/European-like move to 5 year degrees in engineering. Details are available here.

A call for papers will be released shortly, with papers likely due within three months, so get your thinking caps on! J

For more information, please contact Roger Hadgraft.

Future AAEE Conferences – 2008 and beyond

Expressions of interest are invited for hosting the 2008 (and beyond) conferences.  A copy of the guidelines for prospective hosts may be obtained from Wageeh Boles at QUT, w.boles@qut.edu.au.

2006 Conference Highlights

Thanks to the AUT University for hosting the conference and the thanks of AAEE go to Darius Singh for stepping in at short notice to the Convenor’s role and the organising team from AUT University and the University of Auckland. It was pleasing to see how many Australian participants and Australian Deans made the effort to attend, and it was also pleasing that the Auckland weather behaved and showed the City of Sails at its best.

Feedback from participants indicated that many of the technical sessions stimulated and challenged their current practice. They commented on the congenial atmosphere and ample opportunities to network and discuss issues with colleagues.

At the closing ceremony, the Programme Chair Dr Gerard Rowe of the University of Auckland acknowledged the dedicated team of over 60 reviewers who made possible a programme with 2 Keynote presentations, 92 Technical papers in 28 sessions, 4 workshops and 2 Panel sessions. 

The common themes across the Technical sessions were:

·         Curriculum-based issues, with accreditation and industry collaboration being significant drivers.

·         Delivery style, including problem based learning and computer assisted delivery.

·         Assessment

·         Sustainability

·         Recruitment

·         Collaborative education

In these days of much more stringent research performance appraisal, it was recognised that presenters needed to be able to document the review process for their papers. The Conference CD provided  the full Technical papers , a separate file with the details of the review process followed and the ISBN assigned to the Conference Proceedings.  Gerard also recognised that the review process wouldn’t have worked without the on-line review software developed by Josh Humphries & David Radcliffe which worked superbly. On line submission software is now in process for the 2007 conference and we applaud the provision of this software as an AAEE project.

Two Innovations at this Conference were awards for Best Paper (selected from those referred from reviewers) and Best Presentation (voted on by conference participants).

Winner of Best Paper was:

Sheryl Sorby of Michigan Technical University, with her paper ““Developing 3-D spatial skills for engineering students”

Highly commended was Les Dawes and Gary Rasmussen with their paper “Activity and Engagement - Keys in connecting engineering with secondary school students"

Winner of the Best presentation was:

Colin Kestell who presented the paper co-authored by Colin and H. McBain “A student based learning approach to sustainable engineering and alternative fuel technology” (and this, presented after a self-confessed very late night out after the Dinner

Highly commended was Holger Maier with his paper "Meeting the challenges of engineering education via online roleplay simulations"

Upcoming Conferences 

First Year in Higher Education, Brisbane, July 2007

Past papers from this series of conferences are available at: http://www.fyhe.qut.edu.au/past_papers.html from 1998 onwards.

ASEE Annual Conference, Hawaii in June 2007

Full access to past papers at

http://www.asee.org/about/events/conferences/annual/2006/index.cfm

ICEE 3 – 7 September 2006 in University of Coimbra, Portugal

http://icee2007.dei.uc.pt/index2.htm

The 2007 Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE 2007) – Oct 2007

continues a long tradition of disseminating innovations that improve computer science, engineering, and technology (CSET) education. FIE is a major annual international conference devoted to improvements in CSET education. It is an ideal forum for sharing your ideas, learning about new developments in CSET education, and interacting with your colleagues.

10 – 13 October 2007 in Milwaukee

Further information at: http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2007/

EA accreditation workshop + AAEE workshop

On 27 March, AAEE provided a development workshop following Engineers Australia’s accreditation workshop in Brisbane. The intent was to provide participants at the workshop an opportunity to interact with some experienced engineering educators, with the focus on how to develop sound practice in engineering education in ways that are consistent with the aims of accreditation and the development of graduate attributes.

The two speakers were Holger Maier from the University of Adelaide and Roger Hadgraft from the University of Melbourne. Holger addressed the issue of Assessment and how to use it to achieve the learning objectives. Roger spoke to the topic of developing a research ethos in the classroom – bringing teaching and research together. There was lively discussion around both topics. Future EA accreditation workshops will incorporate other AAEE experts.

If you would like more information, please contact the authors as above. If there is enough interest, the PowerPoint slides could be made available via the AAEE website.

AAEE Journal (AJEE) Update

After considerable thought and discussion seeking a way to ensure that the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education continued as a vehicle for the publication of peer reviewed papers the

Executive committee of AAEE is pleased to announce the agreement that has recently been signed with Engineers Media to support the administration of the AJEE (Australasian Journal of Engineering Education).

Engineers Media Journal Editor, Paul Woolnough (pwoolnough@aapt.net.au)  currently administers other Engineers Australia Transactions and AJEE will be added to this list. Paul will work with the volunteer editors of AJEE who will continue to organise reviewers and make final decisions on paper publications. Paul will also maintain and oversee the online subscription and review process which will be available for submission of AJEE papers in the next few weeks.

The  online system to which our journal will be added,  Editorial Manager, can be viewed at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/eatj/mainpage.html

The Journal will remain an online publication until its next review in two years. Archived publications will still be available through the AAEE web site :http://www.AAEE.com.au/journal/index.htm. By mid year the current publication will be available through http://www.engineersmedia.com.au/transactions/pub_index.asp. As a member of AAEE you will have access to papers from this site and non members will now need to pay per article as detailed on this site.

The first publications on this new site will be the 'best papers' from the 2006 Conference which have been resubmitted for Journal publication.

Gunilla Burrowes, Co-Editor AJEE

The Bibliography of Engineering Education Project - Update

Last year we also alerted AAEE members to the new initiative from AAEE aiming to develop a working bibliography for educators extending their practice in engineering education through engagement with 'new-to-them' concepts and ideas.  At this stage, the project aims to identify key, introductory material across a range of broad domains.   Ideally, these references would provide educators with exposure to key aspects of pedagogy and/or their application within engineering education.  

References have been provided to us across the following areas:

·         The journey: from engineering expert to engineering education expert; scholarship in learning and teaching, education theory, reflective practice, writing 'teaching philosophy' portfolio materials

·         Assessment: self, peer, group, attributes

·         Learning: styles, adult learning theory

·         Teaching Methodologies: PBL, groupwork, roleplay, 1st year, design, lecturing to large classes

·         Diversity: gender, inclusivity, international/globalisation, culture

·         Curriculum design: pbl, attributes, integrated curriculum, professional development/practice; flexible curriculum design

·         Multidisciplinary: sustainability, workplace learning, ethics

A review by members of the Executive of the suggested references is almost complete and members will be able to access the Bibliography very shortly. Watch this space!

Any further contributions would be welcomed by Holger Maier who is collating the Bibliography.

New Academics Toolbox is coming!

For the past two years, AAEE has had a Peer Support Network for New Academics.  This network has sought to support new staff in Australian Universities through the provision of resources and networking opportunities.  Whilst interacting with other new academics is important, contacts with established academics - potential mentors and collaborators - are also essential.  For this reason we will no longer be separating our networking efforts - we will be encouraging all members to interact, regardless of how long they have been academics.

From now, our New Academic support will be focussed more towards the provision of resources, through the development of our New Academics Toolbox - a range of resources intended to get staff new to universities off to a flying start.

We would welcome any and all ideas for tools to go into our toolbox, so if you are a new academic, or you know one in your department, then get in touch with us and let us know what resources you would like to see.

Ideas / requests / feedback can be sent to the Toolbox Coordinator, Euan Lindsay.

First Year EWB Design Challenge

Last year we alerted our members to the EWB Design Challenge which was to be a national design competition for first year university students. The competition aims to develop students’ learning experiences and key attributes through team based design on inspirational sustainable projects.

The 2007 Challenge requires students to design projects to assist the sustainable development of Uluru Children’s Home which is located south of Chennai in India.  Engineers Without Borders Australia [EWB] is hosting this competition, and universities wanting further details can contact Lizzie Webb.

Over 20 universities are now involved in with the EWB Challenge in the first semester with more than 100 teams and 4000 students participating.

In addition to the 4000, several more universities will be using the EWB Challenge as a teaching resource in semester 2 for their first year engineering students. Participation has also widened beyond first year engineering with multi-disciplinary teams now being formed and final year students adopting the Challenge as a resource for detailed sustainable infrastructure design.

CDIO – Conceiving - Designing - Implementing - Operating

Formation of a CDIO^Ò ANZAC Regional Centre and Inaugural Workshop.

The University of Sydney and the University of Auckland are currently participating in an international collaborative programme which is developing and applying an innovative educational framework aimed at producing the next generation of graduate engineers.

This framework, called CDIO (Conceiving - Designing - Implementing - Operating), provides undergraduate students with an education which stresses engineering fundamentals set in the context of real-world systems and products. The framework includes learning experiences that lead to the acquisition of personal, interpersonal, product and system building skills, integrated strongly with the learning of disciplinary specific material. It provides a holistic framework for a robust engineering education incorporating a complete set of desirable graduate attributes.

CDIO is universally adaptable by all disciplines in engineering as the framework for their curricular planning and outcome-based assessment, and was developed through an International Collaborative Initiative with input from academics, industry, professional engineers and students.

A consortium of 23 Universities around the world, led by MIT in the US, is committed to setting their engineering programmes in the CDIO context and the framework is becoming increasingly widely adopted. Essentially, the collaborators are joining together in a drive to improve engineering education to complement the efforts of many national bodies such as Engineers Australia, IPENZ, and corresponding bodies in the USA, UK and Europe.

Further information about CDIO and the collaborating Universities, programmes and standards may be found at www.cdio.org

We are now establishing an ANZAC Regional Centre for CDIO, jointly organised by the Universities of Sydney and Auckland, and seek your participation in this exciting and innovative approach to Engineering Education.

Our first event, planned for 17-18th July this year, will be a CDIO Workshop, to be run at the University of Sydney. It will be led by Prof. Daryl Boden of the US Naval Academy and Prof. Kristina Edstrom of KTH. The workshop will be followed immediately by an inaugural regional collaborators meeting in which we will establish an agenda for future regional activities to share ideas and experiences of active learning, design and build projects, first year experiences and many other aspects of the CDIO Standards. Although there is no fee for participating in CDIO activities or for joining the ANZAC Regional Centre as a collaborator, we anticipate that there will be a small charge of A$100 for attendance at the workshop and meeting, to cover the costs of teas, snacks and materials.

Further details of the workshop and regional meeting will be forwarded to those expressing an interest by completing and returning the information requested below, by mail or email, to either:

A/Prof. Dave Levy, Head of Electrical and Information Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006. email: dlevy@ee.usyd.edu.au
or
A/Prof. Des Tedford, Mechanical Engineering Dept., School of Engineering, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142. email: d.tedford@auckland.ac.nz

Name:
University:
Address:
Email address:

I am interested in attending the CDIO workshop (Yes/No)
I would like to be on your CDIO ANZAC Region email list (Yes/No)
I wish to join as a CDIO ANZAC regional centre collaborator (Yes/No)

Books

Discussion of the (Engineering) Method by Prof. Billy Koen

“The engineering method is the use of heuristics to cause the best change in a poorly understood situation within the available resources”.

If this is what engineering is, how do we teach this method to our students? What is the role of science and mathematics in this? What else do students need to know? It seems that they’ll need to know something about:

·         What is best – for whom?

·         How to make change happen.

·         How to deal with situations with limited information.

·         How to muster and use various kinds of resources – both human and material.

This is a different approach to curriculum design than to start with Calculus 1 and finish with Design 4.

Comments welcome to Roger Hadgraft.

See the book or some of the material on the web.

Websites

MERLOT

Not just a red wine, but also a Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching: http://www.merlot.org

Here you’ll find resources in every discipline. Check out the Engineering index at: http://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.htm?category=2651 and click on your subject area on the left.

METTLEweb

METTLEweb Guide to Teaching & Learning with Technology at The University of Melbourne

Overview of services and resources related to the use of technology in teaching at the University of Melbourne. A good starting point for new staff in particular.

·         http://mettleweb.unimelb.edu.au/

EdNA

Latest EdNA web-based resources for teaching and learning

EdNA (Higher education) Online: http://highered.edna.edu.au/

Hot Topics in Higher Education: http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/highered/hot_topics

Very useful pointers to resources on HE Learning, Teaching, Technology in education, Professional development and Research.

Recently added higher education resources: http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/highered/highered_resources

Assessing Learning by Students

See the ideas, strategies and resources at: http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/index.html

International Journals in Engineering Education

·         Chemical Engineering Education

·         Journal of Engineering Education (ASEE)

·         European Journal of Engineering Education (SEFI)

·         International Journal of Engineering Education

Carrick Institute

See http://www.carrickinstitute.edu.au/carrick/go for more information. The Australian Awards for University Teaching are now available.

Other EE and HE organisations

See the AAEE Links page.

Seminars

Challenging how knowledge is created –
Education.au National Seminar, Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia)

The first education.au National Seminar for 2007 will feature Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia as the keynote speaker.

The seminar will be held in four locations: Adelaide 23 April, Perth 24 April, Sydney 26 April and Melbourne 27 April.

Jimmy's seminar presentation will discuss critical issues such as:

·         The culture of the online community and the implications for education

·         The opportunities for collaborative learning in a globally connected world

·         What it means to be discerning in the online world

·         If content can be created and distributed cheaply, what is the future for entrepreneurs?

·         Who has the knowledge in today's global community?

·         Creative Commons and the public good – what are the barriers to knowledge sharing?

To access information about the seminar online go to http://www.educationau.edu.au/seminar/challenging; to register for the seminar go to https://secure.educationau.edu.au

The Melbourne location is ZINC at Federation Square, 9:30am - 4:00pm. Cost is $300.

Contact dbullen@educationau.edu.au if you have questions.

Professional Development

Masters degree in Problem Based Learning

Anette Kolmos, Professor in Engineering Education and PBL  and UNESCO Chair in Problem Based Learning in Engineering Education  based at Aalborg University has notified us about the Master in Problem Based Learning (MPBL) degree available in Engineering and Science. This faculty development programme offers a unique opportunity to receive formalised educational training and to become part of a growing community of innovative academics who are going to train the next generation of engineers and scientists.

·         The MPBL is a full distance programme and using various technologies and resources to support the distance learning process. To get an idea of how the distance programme is organised, please visit the demo version of one of the courses here: http://www.mpbl.aau.dk/mpbl/demo/

·         You can either choose the full master program http://www.mpbl.aau.dk or choose among several single subject courses: http://www.mpbl.aau.dk/singlesub/

·         The next start of this part time and online MPBL programme is September 1, 2007 – and deadline for application is June 15, 2007.

·         There is a special offer of the following single subject courses:
* PBL models in Engineering and Science (3 ECTS)
* Learning Theories (3 ECTS)
* Work Based Learning (3 ECTS)
* Facilitation (3 ECTS)
* Intercultural Learning (3 ECTS)
* Development of Process Competencies (3 ECTS)
* Scientific Methods in Engineering (3 ECTS)
* Engineering Competencies in a Global Society (3 ECTS)

Brochure and application form: http://www.mpbl.aau.dk/pbl/2006%20brochure_mpbl.pdf

Further information and printed brochures can be ordered by e-mail to: Secretary Marianne Nyborg mariannen@plan.aau.dk