 | The Australasian
Association for | August
2008
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Welcome to the second 2008 newsletter of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE). It's been four months since the last newsletter and four months nearer to what promises to be yet another exciting anual conference. I'm hoping that this edition of the newsletter helps to bring our community up to speed on what's been happenning and I've tried to ensure that I've included all that has been passed to me. I'm always on the lookout for relevant material, so if you have something, please forward it onto me and I'll do what I can to get it into the next edition. So lets start off with a few words from our president, Roger. .
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From the President
| The Review of Engineering Education: Robin King's review was published earlier this year, with a series of recommendations for us all. Some of these recommendations are being picked up by some successful ALTC (formerly Carrick) projects. There are, however, many areas for improvement. The Associate Deans (T&L/L&T) are getting organized through David Jorgensen at CQU to address these issues and others. Journal of Engineering Education (JEE): The Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) is the number one research journal in engineering education. We have reached agreement with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) to make the JEE a member benefit for AAEE members. The cost is $30 per annum for four issues per year delivered via airmail to your door. This will also give you access to the online site where you can download any of the past papers electronically: http://www.asee.org/publications/jee/index.cfm. This compares to a normal cost of $120+ to be a member of ASEE as the normal way of receiving JEE. To subscribe, please contact Narelle Folkard at EA as: enquiries@aaee.com.au. We are hoping to have the September issue delivered as the first for Australasian subscribers. |
Northern Hemisphere Conferences: In June-July I had the chance to take a northern tour through four engineering education conferences in three weeks: ASEE in Pittsburgh, the PBL08 conference and the SEFI 2008 conference in Aalborg in Denmark and finally REES08 in Davos, Switzerland (loved the scenery). REES is the Research in Engineering Education Symposium. Having sampled all these conferences, I can report that the standard of the annual AAEE conferences is on a par with ASEE and SEFI. For those who have the chance, ASEE is a great chance to see a wide range of EE activity, with 3,000 registrants, 1,400 papers and up to 40 parallel sessions. The exhibition is a great place to see the latest books, software and lab equipment. The next one is in Texas. The next REES conference will be in our backyard since I've volunteered to chair it. Likely destinations are Singapore or Darwin. I'll soon be looking for volunteers for the organizing committee.
Some of the issues that emerged for me at these conferences included:
- The future is interdisciplinarity - at first year and final year. So, we need common final years as well as common first years.
- We will increasingly use e-portfolios to help students track their attainment of graduate attributes. This will lead to a truly student centred curriculum.
- Cyberinfrastructure is the next buzzword.
- We need to make better use of shared resources. See, for example, http://www.engineeringpathway.com/ep/hEd/coursePrep/
- Classroom Presenter for tablet PCs is a more useful presentation tool than PPT in that environment. Virginia PolyTech has required each student to have a Tablet PC since 2006 (and a PC since 1984!).
- Check out Google Sketchup and also http://www.engineergirl.org/ and http://www.engineeryourfuture.org/
- If you�re into LEGO mindstorms, check out the LEGO Segway at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V40ScvJeFxg&feature=related
Project Handbook: When I was at RMIT, we developed a small handbook to help students get started with project work. We've now uploaded it to a wiki: http://project-handbook.pbwiki.com. Thanks go to the School of Civil, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at RMIT and there are also contributions from old colleagues in Civil Engineering at Monash. Recent changes come from Engineering at the University of Melbourne. We would like this to become a community resource, so please refer your students to it and also suggest changes and additions. I am happy to send chapters to anyone who wants to make changes for upload.
The 2008 Conference: Make sure that you set aside time to get to this year's conference in fabulous Yeppoon for the annual recharge of enthusiasm and the latest news in engineering education. More news below.
Roger
Hadgraft,
President
( roger.hadgraft@unimelb.edu.au)
AaeE Awards - URGENT
The AaeE Engineering Education Excellence Awards have stimulated some outstanding applications in the last few years. To further widen the pool of those who could be recognised for their contributions to the education of our future engineers, the Awards and criteria were slightly rearranged in 2007. In particular the Award criteria more closely matched those identified in the Carrick Awards , which prevented a duplication of effort in application preparation.
The Awards for 2008 will be:
- One AaeE Teaching Excellence Award of value $2000
- Three AaeE Awards for Programmes that Enhance Excellence in Learning. Each of value $2000
The term "Programme" encompasses a whole degree programme, a specific course or group of courses,
a project, or educational module and will be comprised of one Award in each of the following categories:- Innovation in curricula, learning and teaching
- Educational Partnerships and collaboration with other organisations
- Services supporting student learning
- For this Award .
- Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in Engineering.
Up to Five will be awarded, with a trophy but no monetary Award.
Applications close August 29th. All applicants should familiarise themselves with the Application Process & Selection Criteria.
Please visit our website for more details
Joining AAEE and
the benefits
While this section
was in the last newsletter, it makes sense to leave it in to reitterate
the member benefits. AAEE has a growing community of people who are deeply passionate
about the quality of engineering students' learning experiences. For a full set of
instructions on how to become a member of AAEE and join this expanding network,
go to
http://www.aaee.com.au/join / and download an application
form.
In brief, students and members of Engineers Australia and students can join for free . With a deal like that who needs to throw in a set of free steak knives? Others are asked to part with a very small fee that goes towards some of the administration costs.
The expected length of acceptable contributions will vary considerably, but 5000 to 6000 words or equivalent for papers would be the norm. Technical notes should not exceed 1500 words.
AJEE is currently published as an online journal only with two issues per year (May and December). This means that papers are uploaded and able to be accessed as soon as the review and formatting processes are completed. We do, however, have a one off publication of several papers in May each year of the best of the conference papers presented at the Annual Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference, which is held in the December of the previous year. We are also endeavouring to produce special themed sets of papers each year. The editors and editorial panel would be pleased to accept suggestions for these themes.
The Australasian Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE) is run using the Engineers Australia Technical Journals Editorial Manager online paper submission and tracking system. Submissions can be made via the website at http://www.editorialmanager.com/eatj. We welcome manuscripts, volunteers to be reviewers, suggestions for special issues, and any and all suggestions on how to make our journal better serve the engineering education community are welcome. You can reach the editors via email at journal@aaee.com.au.
To submit a paper, authors need to register themselves at www.editorialmanager.com/eatj. The system will then walk them through the necessary steps to complete their submission. During this you will be asked if you are prepared to be a reviewer. There is also a step by step guide at: http://www.engineersmedia.com.au/journals/em_author_tutorial.pdf PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tick yes. The journal can only function effectively if there is a healthy network of reviewers. Papers can be submitted in any electronic format, as Editorial Manager automatically converts them into a PDF for easy viewing by editors and reviewers. The journal presents a means of exchanging current work and ideas, predominately from Australasian engineering education faculties and as a resource for Continuing Professional Development for our community. |  |
The editor of the journal is Dr Les Dawes, and assistant editors are Dr Euan Lindsay (MIEAust) and Dr Yvonne Toft. The members of the editorial board are Dr Clive Ferguson, Prof Robin Ford, A/Prof Roger Hadgraft, Prof Robin King, Dr Stuart Palmer and Prof John Simmons.
Papers from 2007 onwards are available at the Engineers Media AJEE site. You will need to enter either your Engineers Australia membership number or your AAEE membership number to gain access. Papers published prior to 2007 can be accessed at Australasian Association for Engineering Education site.
The 2008 Executive Committee
Since our last newsletter the AAEE executive committee met twice.
The minutes are available upon request from the committee EA secretariat,
Narelle Folkard (nfolkard@engineersaustralia.org.au) who
has stepped in to replace Christine King.
Prof Jorg Steinbach (President SEFI and 1st Vice President TU Berlin), one of our keynote speakers, will be addressing engineering education beyond Australasia and talking about the outcomes of the Bologna Process and the accreditation issues that arise from this process. Our other keynote speaker, Dr Clive Graham, is concurrently CEO of The Centre for Working Futures Pty and the futures1brand products. He has worked in advertising, education, marketing, and broadcasting consulting for multinational corporations and government enterprises. His academic and research interests lie in transdisciplinary knowledge production, entrepreneurial thinking, and the economic impact of the creative industries. Dr Graham has written a number of books. His most recent, Enterprise Education: Connecting Schools with the Creative Knowledge Economy was published by Pearson Education in 2005. He is well known to ABC audiences for his many years as a radio commentator on the future of work. He will be addressing "beyond Industry"
Registration for the conference will soon be open so please check the website www.events.rockhamptoninfo.com.au/aaee2008 regularly for updates.
| 2009
Conference The committee has just anounced that the 2009 AAEE Conference will be held and hosted by The University of Adelaide( http://www.adelaide.edu.au). Those wishing to plan their trip early might want to browse the South Australian tourism website at http://www.southaustralia.com/. Subsequent issues of this newsletter and the website will anounce the details as they unfold. |
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Future Conferences and Congresses
- 22nd to 25th October: Frontiers in Education Saratoga NT
- 29th November to 4th December: NZARE/AARE Brisbane
- 7th to 10th December: AAEE Yeppoon, QLD
- April 9-11, 2009. ASME Asia-Pacific Engineering Education Congress,
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, http://APEEC2009.ntu.edu.tw
CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate)
Duncan Campbell | CDIO activities continue to percolate away. There has been at least one Carrick Institute proposal submitted by Carl Reidsema (University of New South Wales), Roger Hadgraft (University of Melbourne), Dave Levy (University of Sydney) and myself (Queensland University of Technology) in the latest Priority Projects Program round. We have recently been informed that this bid was successful. We look forward to steaming ahead on that project. Development continues around the CDIO Special Interest Group area on the AAEE Edna website. We are trying to get the structure of the AAEE Group configured so that it is easy to navigate around this and the other SIGs. There promises to be lots going on in these areas. You can look forward to seeing some CDIO activities at the
upcoming AAEE Conference in Yepoon, hopefully including a CDIO workshop.
Those of you involved in CDIO activities are encouraged to share your
experiences at the conference. A reminder that you can find out more about the global CDIO Initiative at http://cdio.org Duncan
Campbell |
| The AAEE website ( www.aaee.com.au ) has undergone a number of significant changes and is well worth a visit. If you have any news worthy items, or links that you believe to be relevant please notify our webmaster, Euan Lindsay (e.lindsay@curtin.edu.au). |
Useful Links and Other Sites of Interest
CASEE - a favourite site, a one stop shop: AaeE is affiliated with the Center for the Advancement of Scholarship in Engineering Education (CASEE) based inWashington DC under the sponsorship of the US National Academy of Engineering. This is not a university based research Center but a center sponsored by the professional body to encourage and enable engineering educators to access the best of research, innovation and practice. The website for CASEE http://www.nae.edu/nae/caseecomnew.nsf is a link to a wealth of information and resources. I would strongly recommend exploring this site - whether your interest is in educational research, or research -based good teaching practice. Three portals link from the front page to: Engineering Education Researchers, providing resources, both CASEE and external, for the engineering education researchers exploring the content, contexts, delivery, and people of engineering education. |
Elizabeth Godfrey |
You want to publish but are not sure where to start in the area of Engineering education? From this portal I very much appreciated the link to Listings of Journals on Engineering and Science education - with comments about style, publication frequency etc...
You are thinking of an innovation? Don't reinvent the wheel, save time and check out what is already available. The portal for Engineering Education Innovators has a collection of resources, both CASEE and external, for innovators translating contemporary research from a variety of domains into educational modules and new paradigms in engineering education.
You just want to improve your teaching but not sure precisely what to do? Check out the Engineering Education Practitioners portal where tools and references for current engineering faculty, instructors, and teachers to implement in the classroom and to improve their teaching styles, methods, and aptitude are provided.
CASEE also sponsors ongoing projects which are well worth putting on your Favourites list for dipping in to when (if?) you have a spare moment - I especially like AREE which enables me to update myself on summarized versions of current research and issues. Especially good for those who don�t have time to browse the journals on a regular basis.
Annals of Research on Engineering Education (AREE):
AREE is a CASEE sponsored online resource of journal articles aimed at the dissemination of findings to the classroom environment. In cooperation with numerous participating journals, extended summaries, abstracts and discussion essays regarding relevant engineering education publications are presented. The core function of the site is then to promote discussion between readers and authors in identifying best practices, successful case studies, and refer to other useful resources
Peer Reviewed Research Offering Validation of Effective and Innovative Teaching ( PR2OVE-IT):
The PR2OVE-IT website is an evolving digital clearinghouse that summarizes the available research on educational interventions designed to enhance student learning, retention, and professional success in post-secondary engineering and other allied sciences. The online tool is divided into two major categories for searching and viewing information about articles: interventions (instructional practices) and outcomes (the main result(s) of the study). Each article chosen for inclusion in the database meets all five of the following criteria:
- it had an educational intervention;
- the intervention was at the undergraduate level;
- the intervention was in a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) field;
- it discussed an outcome (no matter how anecdotal);
- the outcome was related to improved learning or performance, retention, or assessment (and not simply student satisfaction).
There is probably something for everyone on this site � ENJOY ! Be stimulated!
Many Universities require that their students complete a period of work experience as part of the program requirements. For your students to have a great and exciting opportunity to complete this overseas, please ask them to visit: http://www.swin.edu.au/iaeste or email australia@iaeste.org