Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.最新文献

{"title":"Defining, Teaching, and Assessing Engineering Design Skills","authors":"N. Mourtos","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2012010102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2012010102","url":null,"abstract":"The paper discusses a systematic approach for defining, teaching, and assessing engineering design skills. Although the examples presented in the paper are from the field of aerospace engineering, the principles apply to engineering design in general. What makes the teaching of engineering design particularly challenging is that the necessary skills and attributes are both technical and non-technical and come from the cognitive as well as the affective domains.Each set of skills requires adifferent approach to teachandassess. Implementing a variety of approaches for a number of years at SJSU has shown that it is just as necessary to teach affective skills, as it is to teach cognitive skills. As one might expect, each set of skills presents its own challenges.","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76474977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Addressing the Politics of Accreditation in Engineering Education: The Benefits of Soft Systems Thinking","authors":"Henk Eijkman, O. Kayali","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011070101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011070101","url":null,"abstract":"Engineering departments may face a formidable task in conducting effective accreditation reviews of their programs and ensuring that their outcomes meet the demands of the accrediting organisation. Not least of these tasks is walking the political tightrope of academic staff engagement in environments that reward research over and above educational tasks. This is exacerbated if and when existing programs, when reviewed for accreditation, demand a considerable expenditure of time and energy to ensure they at least meet current, let alone future, graduate attributes and standards. This paper confronts the generally ignored ‘elephant in the room’ of accreditation, namely the politics of accreditation reviews in institutional environments that are increasingly pre-occupied with research. The essential point of this paper is this; accreditation involves the whole-of-program engagement of academics with divergent curricular and pedagogic interests, let alone perspectives and work priorities. Therefore, accreditation reviews are much more likely to be successful when they are approached from a soft systems methodology perspective. ing, 2005). To achieve and maintain the requisite standards, professional accreditation bodies and government sponsored quality assurance organizations increasingly subject higher education institutions to quality audits in learning and teaching. Two Australian examples are Engineers Australia and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) respectively (TEQSA replaces the Australian Universities Quality Agency AUQA). Add DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2011070101 2 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 1(2), 1-10, July-December 2011 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. to this mix a highly competitive global higher education environment which prizes research and its associated funding, and we are caught up in a cauldron of complex, competing stakeholder demands and interests. The proliferation of professional and government oversight of higher education programs signals increasing public accountability in which quality reviews of undergraduate programs are no longer the automatic ‘box-ticking’ exercises that uncritically entrench existing practices, as once they might have been. In this context, the term ‘program’ refers to a course of study leading to the award of a tertiary qualification. In this paper we propose to highlight the socio-political nature of the accreditation process in which concerns around continuous quality improvement touch the institutional and personal nerves of its stakeholders. An accreditation process demands that academics used to being ‘owners’ of their individual courses taught in the privacy of lecture halls are now asked to be more transparent about what and how they teach. In addition to peer scrutiny both from within and without, it also means ","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85088484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Enhancing Engineering Education Learning Outcomes Using Project-Based Learning: A Case Study","authors":"M. Debnath, Mukesh Pandey","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011070103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011070103","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a case study of how project-based learning (PBL) can be seen as a pedagogical innovation for Jaipur Engineering College and Research Centre, Jaipur, India (JECRC) for better recruitment drives for on-campus recruitments. The practical knowledge of engineering, basic knowledge of engineering design, soft skills or personal competences can be correlated with the academic performance and recruitment status. Project based learning (PBL) is a learner-centric pedagogy where the learner is expected to take responsibility for his or her own learning. PBL uses in-depth and rigorous classroom projects to facilitate learning and assess student competence. Students have projects as a compulsory course in their curriculum in the final semester of engineering. The challenge to acquire knowledge and skills during their project gives a student an opportunity to develop their weaker skills and enhance their practical knowledge of engineering. This study has been successful in helping students acquire a high rate of actual skill and technical learning. The learning outcomes of the PBL-course can be correlated with their success in recruitment and academic performances. know concepts that they must use technology and inquiry to respond to a complex issue, problem or challenge, understand, and apply in order to complete the project. Project-based education is a learning environment congruent with the principles of student-and competencecentred vision. This has been an ongoing innovation since last 40 years. It can be seen as a pedagogical method which integrates theory and practice by means of problem solving of working life issues (Laynea et al., 2008). DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2011070103 24 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 1(2), 23-34, July-December 2011 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Bransford and Stein (1993) have defined PBL as a comprehensive instructional approach to engage students in sustained, cooperative investigation. The PBL approach is appropriate to acquire generic skills such as problemsolving, communication and teamwork (Wolfs et al., 1997). An important piece of PBL is incorporating technology into projects. The team projects in PBL have a contextual focus enabling students to understand why they are learning the particular content and how it will be applied in the ‘real world’. PBL goes beyond generating student interest. Well-designed projects encourage active inquiry and higher-level thinking (Thomas, 1998). The students’ major challenge is to acquire new understanding. PBL helps to enhance creative thinking skills by showing that there are many ways to solve a problem when they are connected to problem-solving activities. The students are helped to understand why, when, and how those facts and skills are relevant (Bransford et al., 2000). Within the project based learning ","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84258901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mobility of Engineering and Technology Professionals and Its Impact on the Quality of Engineering and Technology Education: The Case of Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe","authors":"F. Chinyemba","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011070104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011070104","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75889765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Relationship between Remediation and Degree Completion for Engineering and Technology Students","authors":"Sally A. Lesik, Robin S. Kalder","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011070102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011070102","url":null,"abstract":"This study investigates whether students who initially began college as engineering or technology majors and who were required to participate in remedial mathematics and/or remedial English programs, were less likely to graduate with their bachelor’s degree in their fourth through seventh years, as compared to engineering and technology majors who were not required to participate in a remedial mathematics and/or remedial English programs. By using discrete-time survival analysis, findings suggest that remediation status does not appear to impact the time it takes to complete the requirements for a bachelor’s degree in engineering or technology. cause this result, perhaps the most frequently cited reason is that recent high school graduates tend to be less prepared for the academic rigors of a four-year university than students of the past decades (Bound et al., 2007; Greene & Foster, 2003; Turner, 2004). This phenomenon is occurring in large numbers in the United States, and although occurring less frequently, it is a growing problem in Europe as well (Rienties, 2008; Rienties, Tempelaar, Dijkstra, Rehm, & Gijselaers, 2008). In the United States, remedial programs are common in community colleges as well as four-year colleges and universities, and are a result of post-secondary schools’ desire to atDOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2011070102 12 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 1(2), 11-22, July-December 2011 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. tract students from low socio-economic status (Attewell, Lavin, Domina, & Levey, 2006; Brants & Struyven, 2009; Rienties, 2008). In Europe, the need is growing due to the increasing numbers of students completing their secondary education in one country and going on with their post-secondary education in another country, causing increased heterogeneity in these institutes of higher learning (Rienties, 2008; Rienties et al., 2008; Van der Wende, 2003). According to the Spellings Commission report (2006), a “troubling number” of incoming college students “waste time mastering English and math skills that they should have learned in high school.” This apparent lack of skills in English and mathematics is often indicated in the United States by low scores on standardized tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and by students’ poor performance on placement examinations. Although most colleges and universities require that incoming students take placement examinations in order to demonstrate their proficiency in mathematics and English, many students do not do well on these assessments (Bettinger & Long, 2006; National Center for Education Statistics, 2003). The result of poor performances on such standardized measures often leads to the requirement that these students enroll in remedial mathematics and/or English courses for which they do not receive credit towa","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85543185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"E-Learning for ICT Group Work in a Blended Learning Environment","authors":"Lisa Soon, C. Fraser","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011070105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011070105","url":null,"abstract":"How does e-learning support group work in university information and communication technology (ICT) education within a blended learning environment? While face-to-face interaction was possible for on-campus student group work, distance education students could only perform their group work online. This research adopted a qualitative case study approach. It explored the e-learning use by students in a core subject ‘Software Development’ in a Bachelor of ICT program with three group work assessments. The findings indicate that, while technology could effectively help students to collaborate in their group work and assessment tasks, some technological features in the learning management system are highly subject to constant enhancement, due to the nature of the subject requirements and the need to facilitate frequent technology-mediated interactions in some situations. A model of group work collaboration is developed to explain the need for a new design and development of features in e-learning tools. Web-CT, Blackboard and Sakai. Blended learning in this article refers to a study environment where face-to-face and technology-mediated interaction happen to members in learning and teaching, whereby students are enrolled in both on-campus and/or distance education mode. Many higher education institutions have now moved to e-learning with a web presence of their LMS (Teo & Gay, 2006). In the early days, LMS generally allowed asynchronous e-learning with communication being highly unidirectional (Papachristos et al., 2010). To facilitate collaboration in learning and teaching, many LMSs have tools that enable interaction DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2011070105 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 1(2), 50-60, July-December 2011 51 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. and communications. Current e-learning allows bidirectional communications, with features like shared learning and teaching materials, collection of online assignments for marking, group email services, assignment results management, learning lessons/modules and online quizzes. In the presence of web 2.0 technology, LMSs are more advanced, with synchronous e-learning features such as chat rooms, wikis, blogs and threaded discussion forums (Oravec, 2003; O’Neil, Singh, & O’Donoghue, 2004; Soon & Sarrafzadeh, 2010a, 2010b). The recent LMSs include evaluation or feedback systems, plagiarism detection software, class announcements, embedded external websites, personalised group work calendar, etc. as additional useful tools. Blended learning has been defined in different ways by various scholars. Bliuca et al. (2007) describe blended learning as learning activities that involve a systematic combination of face-to-face and technology-mediated interactions between students, teachers and learning resources. Driscoll (2002) and Kerres and De Witt (2003) highli","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88394844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Peer Evaluation of Master Programs: Closing the Quality Circle of the CDIO Approach?","authors":"P. Hussmann, A. Bisi, J. Malmqvist, Birgitta Carlsson, Hilde Lysne, Anna-Karin Högfeldt","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2012040107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2012040107","url":null,"abstract":"A quality assurance project was conducted within the framework of the Nordic Five Tech Alliance (N5T), a strategic alliance of the five leading technical universities in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The project concerned the development of a common quality enhancement tool for conducting peer evaluations of educational programs to enable their further development and close the quality circle. In addition, the project will contribute to the consolidation of the N5T alliance by facilitating contacts between faculty members and providing them with an in-depth knowledge of the study programs within their field at another N5T institution. The article describes the quality enhancement tool in detail, its contribution to the development of the involved programs, and how international peer evaluation can contribute to closing the quality circle. Finally, it assesses the value of the approach to contribute to the creation of long-term relationships in educational networks.","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84359245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Higher and Engineering Education Quality Assurance: Past, Present, and Future","authors":"P. J. Gray","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011010101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011010101","url":null,"abstract":"Quality assurance has been defined as a means of “control over the standards, delivery, and validation of higher education” (Brock, 2007, p. 25). Over the past twenty-five years (one could say 2500 years) calls for quality assurance have caused tension inside and with regards to the outcomes of higher education. These tensions stem from differing purposes, perceptions, and processes for quality assurance on the part of the groups that compete to control these elements. In essence, it is a matter of language and power (Ewell, 1989), that is, whoever defines the language of quality assurance purposes, perceptions, and processes has the power to control higher education. Inside higher education those in different disciplines may have quite divergent views of quality assurance. Often these views are divided along the lines of the sciences and humanities, as characterized by Snow (1961). In addition, the more applied or profession-oriented disciplines, such as engineering, business, health professions, and teacher education, have their own expectations related to the standards, delivery, and validation of higher education. It is often the case that faculty and administrative cultures within an institution have differing views related to purposes, perceptions, and processes of quality assurance. At about the same time in Classical Greece pressure for quality assurance occurred in response to the perceived need for the “professional management of the civic, economic, and military affairs of the polis” (p. 25). This was in contrast to the Platonic non-commercial Academy and an emphasis on the quality of individual scholars that is determined by the recognition from peers, ability to attract students, and reputation of graduates. The emphasis on individual scholars and concerns for the polis were combined in the style of Aristotle “who believed in the overall control of education by the state” (Brock, 2007, p. 25). In turn, Rome inherited these state sponsored institutions in DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2011010101 2 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 1(1), 1-14, January-June 2011 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. its conquest of Greek and then spread them throughout the empire. However, with the fall of the Roman Empire it was the Arab institutions of the near east, particularly the Byzantine University of Constantinople established in CE 395, that carried forward the structure of the university and exemplified the combined interests of political, religious, and commercial powers. For nearly 1,000 years these institutions made significant contributions to applied mathematics and science, as well as to academic and intellectual knowledge. In contrast to these complex institutions, scholarship in the West survived during the so called Dark Ages through the efforts of individual scholar monks in remote isolated mo","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85690610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quality Assurance through Innovation Policy: The Pedagogical Implications on Engineering Education","authors":"M. Puteh, K. Ismail","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011010106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011010106","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the role of science, technology and innovation to a country’s economy and examines the extent to which the engineering education field tallies with the national system of innovation.","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79094332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Higher Education Institution Integrated Quality Management System","authors":"A. Chuchalin, A. Zamyatin","doi":"10.4018/ijqaete.2011010103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijqaete.2011010103","url":null,"abstract":"To solve the problem of quality in higher education, many different factors, including controversial ones, must be involved. To achieve the required quality of education at universities, teachers must have enough freedom to develop educational content, as well as to involve the results of scientific research and innovative pedagogical technologies into the process of education. It is necessary to establish certain standards and regulations within the university that help facilitate continuous improvement of the educational process to manage the quality of higher education. The integrated approach to management of Higher Education Institutions’ (HEI) educational activities proposed in this paper establishes the regulations of main processes, conditions and incentives to facilitate diversity and creativity at different levels of a contemporary university. These principles have been applied to form the basis of Tomsk Polytechnic University’s quality assurance approach. process of education, as well as introduction of innovative pedagogical technologies allow graduates to acquire the necessary professional competences and transferable skills that satisfy changing customers’ needs. On the other hand, it is necessary to establish certain standards and regulations within the university that would help to facilitate continuous improvement of the educational process in order to maintain the quality of higher education. It is necessary to a develop Quality Management Systems (QMS) based on contemporary methods of process management. In spite of the great number of QMS models, at present there is no model that would fully DOI: 10.4018/ijqaete.2011010103 International Journal of Quality Assurance in Engineering and Technology Education, 1(1), 30-43, January-June 2011 31 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. correspond to peculiarities of higher educational institution integrating properties of value-based and target-based systems (Pokholkov et al., 2004c). The concept of Total Quality Management, EFQM Excellence Model and ISO 9001:2000 (new version is ISO 9001:2008) implementing a process-based approach to management are popular among Russian universities (European Parliament, 2008). Although the advantages of the process-based approach to quality management of any target-based organizations (e.g., universities) are vivid, there is still much room for improvement. It should be noted that universities’ process management needs some improvement in the field of quality management of the results of scientific and educational activities. Moreover, it is essential to create conditions for generation of new knowledge, students’ practical skills and experience in order to establish the required competencies of graduates (including engineering), academic programmes that include creative and more effective collaboration of students and teachers, and implementation of p","PeriodicalId":13684,"journal":{"name":"Int. J. Qual. Assur. Eng. Technol. Educ.","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83163116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}