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The Australasian Association for Engineering Education

NEWSLETTER - March 2009

Contents

  • President's Message
  • This year's conference
  • The 2008 Awards
  • CDIO
  • ERM
  • Other News

President's Message

It is a great honour to be elected President of Australasian Association of Engineering Education as the first New Zealander in this role. I look forward to working with the other members of the Executive Committee to serve the members of the association and the wider Engineering Education community for the next year. In particular, I would like to recognize the enormous contribution of Roger Hadgraft to the Association. He steps down as President, after several years on the Executive, but to my great relief is staying on the Executive as Past President. Roger's standing in the international community is exemplified by the request for him to chair the 2009 gathering of the Research in Engineering Education Symposium to be held in Queensland in July.

The Association has matured in the 20 years since its first conference in 1989, and the recent Annual Conference in December at Yeppoon demonstrated the level of experience and expertise we now have amongst our members. The papers presented, all peer reviewed to a high standard, provided insight into examples of exemplary best practice teaching methods, and leading edge engineering education research. The presentations by the finalists for the AAEE Teaching Awards, included in the programme for the first time in 2008, were inspirational and fully justified their selection. Thank you to Anne Gardner of UTS who organized the Award submission and selection processes.

The Educational Research Methods special interest group held a workshop and Invited speaker session which were both standing room only - a pleasing response, and a special thank you to Lesley Jolly who initiated both of these. Another Special Interest Group was formed for those interested in First year programmes and support, and I take pleasure in being able to co-ordinate that group myself.

The 2008 conference isolated us all in the delightful setting of the Capricornia resort in Yeppoon, where the weather and the hospitality was warm - many thanks to Prue Howard and her team. The sense of community was commented on as a special feature of the conference and we look forward to reviving those friendships in Adelaide in December.

The coming year is filled with promise. My main focus as President might loosely be termed communication and dissemination. As a starting point, the executive committee has been putting material that will be of interest to our members on a wiki site at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com. Please visit the site. Your comments and feedback on any of the wiki material is welcomed.

I encourage you all to share our enthusiasm, print our newsletters, or articles of interest, talk about them over coffee and leave them lying around for your colleagues! Enjoy the last of your summer, and I leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

"There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning" (Krishnamurti)

Elizabeth Godfrey
President

The 2009 Executive - The Team

The 2009 Executive (with their areas of responsibility in brackets) are: Frank Bullen from USQ (ACED); Prue Howard from CQU; Duncan Campbell from QUT (CDIO); Narelle Folkard, Secretariat Engineers Australia; Gerard Rowe from Uni of Auckland (Bibliography); Lesley Jolly from UQ (ERM); Euan Lindsay from Curtin (Vice President, Treasurer, Remote Labs, AJEE Assoc Editor); Liz Godfrey from Uni of Auckland (President, 1st Yr Programmes, IFEES rep); Colin Kestell from Uni of Adelaide (Website, newsletter, 2009 Conference); Anne Gardner from UTS (Awards); Les Dawes from QUT (AJEE Editor); Roger Hadgraft from Uni Melbourne (Past President, chair REES, AEESEAP rep, JEE rep).

2009 AAEE Annual Conference

2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of AAEE and the 20th conference will be held at the University of Adelaide and proudly hosted by the Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences. The campus lies in the heart of the 'City of Churches' with an abundance of accommodation and dining opportunities in easy walking distance. The South Australian vineyards, world famous for their excellent wine, are only a short trip North, East and South of the City. To the West (a tram ride away) lie the golden sandy beaches. For more details please visit the conference website at: http://www.plevin.com.au/aaee2009/

Adelaide is a remarkable city and we ask you to consider extending your stay to enjoy the beauty of its surroundings. For more information about South Australia, please visit: http://www.southaustralia.com/. To help us organise the program, please submit your abstracts as soon as possible.

Wrap up of the 2008 AAEE Annual Conference

The 2008 AaeE Conference was held at Rydges Capricorn Resort at Yeppoon in Queensland. The organisers tried to showcase the tropical environment, and provided lots of sun and even a tropical storm. The resort pool was well used and proved a popular place for networking opportunities. Along with showcasing the local wildlife (a visit during one of the lunches by local crocodile handlers and a couple of their young charges for everyone to pat), there were 3 keynotes, 10 workshops and 98 papers along with invited papers, panel sessions and, for the first time, presentations from all the AaeE Award finalists.

The Awards dinner saw the awards winners presented with their trophies and citations. The theme for this conference, To Industry and Beyond, was intended to encourage delegates to think about a number of issues that impact on the future of engineering education. What is engineering? What do the various stakeholders want from an engineering graduate? How is the engineering workplace changing?

The discussions following the keynote speakers - Robin King (the future of Engineering Education), Graham Scott (the future of Engineering Practice) and Shanna Daly (about Beyond Engineering) - and the comments on the daily evaluation showed that many of the delegates were doing this. Engineers Australia supported the conference through the participation of the Local Group. The conference had about 170 delegates.

2008 AAEE Prize Winners

In 2008 there was an increase in both quantity and quality of applications for the AaeE Awards. In 2009 we will be looking for applicants' contribution to the engineering education community.

Teaching Excellence: Andrew Ooi was awarded the 2008 prize for teaching excellence and Lydia Kavanagh and Syed Mahfuzul Aziz were highly commended.

Programs that Enhance Learning - Innovation in Curricula, Learning & Teaching: awarded to Lyn Brodie, John Worden, Mark Porter and Thiru Arivinthan for the "USQ Problem Solving Strand".

Programs that Enhance Learning - Educational Partnerships & Collaboration: awarded to Richard Hopkins for the "Master in Water Resources Management Program".

Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in Engineering were awarded to: Duncan Campbell, Tamath Rainsford, Warren Smith, Selvan Pather, Ali Saleh and Rafael Calvo.

Anne Gardner

CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate)

Welcome to the second year of the CDIO Special Interest Group. In 2008, we saw AAEE become formally recognised by the CDIO Council as an Affiliate, the first of such a relationship with CDIO around the world. This year, we would like to promote greater membership and interaction of CDIO type activities around Australia and New Zealand. The ANZ CDIO Regional Group is chaired by Dave Levy and co-chaired by myself. To date, the University of Sydney, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Auckland have been recognized globally as CDIO collaborators. We have made a further step in developing an AAEE CDIO SIG web-site which is now residing at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com/CDIO-PBL. Registration for the 2009 CDIO Conference in Singapore is now open. Further details at http://www.sp.edu.sg/cdio2009.

A/Prof Duncan Campbell, Chair, AAEE CDIO Special Interest Group

Educational Research Methods (ERM) Group

Educational research methods were quite a focus of the 2008 conference with an invited speakers session, two other ERM paper sessions and a well-attended workshop. The aim for this year is to spread the word and develop the group through more member input. Check out the aaee-scholar wiki at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com.

Regional workshops: Later this year the AaeE Executive and the Councils of Engineering Deans will be sponsoring workshops in all major centres around Australia and New Zealand entitled "Education Research and Your Career". We're hoping for the first workshops to take place in Sydney in April and Auckland in May.

For the 2009 conference we hope to build the ERM activities around the theme of "interdisciplinarity" so please think about submitting an abstract about your experiences of working across disciplines.

Dr Lesley Jolly, Chair, ERM interest group.

Bibliography Project

One of our more ambitious projects in recent years was the collation of the AAEE bibliography. Led by the University of Adelaide's Holger Maier, this project brought together the key publications on a number of relevant topics. We have recently changed the format of this resource so that we can keep it as up to date as possible. Please visit our new Wiki at http://aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com. We are always looking for new contributions - please forward suggestions to bibliography@aaee.com.au.

Dr Gerard Rowe, Bibliography editor

Remote Laboratories Special Interest Group

The Remote Labs SIG has been quiet of late, with work continuing on at individual institutions around the country. 2009 will see a review of laboratory education in Australia - a snapshot to see what laboratory facilities are being used, what new facilities are being built, and what old facilities are being phased out. This will help identify opportunities for increased sharing of facilities, and directions for cooperation in the future.

Dr Euan Lindsay, Remote Labs SIG

Other News

A list of forthcoming conferences and brief information will be kept updated on the aaee-scholar.pbwiki.com site. These currently include:

  • Women in Engineering Survey - an anonymous prize survey of engineers from around the world, about the position of women in the profession, run by the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) and EPCglobal.
  • International Symposium on Engineering Education and Educational Technologies: EEET 2009 - Orlando, Florida, USA, July 10-13, 2009. http://www.ICTconfer.org/eeet/Organizer.asp
  • Enhancing Project Based Learning in Engineering - 23-24 June 2009, engCETL, Loughborough University, UK. http://www.engsc.ac.uk/nef/events/project-based-learning.asp
  • SEFI 2009, Attracting Young people into engineering - Rotterdam, July 1-4 2009. http://www.sefi2009.com
  • ASEE Global Colloquium on Engineering Education - Budapest, Hungary, October 12-15, titled "Cultures, Markets and Regulations: Shaping Global Engineering Education." http://www.asee.org/conferences/international/2009/index.cfm
  • ASME Asia-Pacific Engineering Education Congress (APEEC) - Taipei, April 9-11, 2009. http://apeec2009.ntu.edu.tw/introduction.asp
  • ALTC Leading Change Symposium - a report on the symposium held in Sydney 27-28 November 2008 is available at http://www.altc.edu.au/carrick/go/home/pid/586.

Watch the wiki site for more conference announcements!

Roger Hadgraft, Past President