Abstract: Higher education has an important role to play in
advocating environmentalism. Given this responsibility, the goal of
higher education should therefore be to develop graduates with the
knowledge, skills and values related to environmentalism. However,
research indicates that there is a lack of consciousness amongst
graduates on the need to be more environmentally aware, especially
when it comes to applying the appropriate knowledge and skills
related to environmentalism. Although institutions of higher learning
do include environmental parameters within their undergraduate and
postgraduate academic programme structures, the environmental
boundaries are usually confined to specific engineering majors within
an engineering programme. This makes environmental knowledge,
skills and values exclusive to certain quarters of the higher education
system. The incorporation of environmental literacy within higher
education institutions as a whole is of utmost pertinence if a nation-s
human capital is to be nurtured to become change agents for the
preservation of environment. This paper discusses approaches that
can be adapted by institutions of higher learning to include
environmental literacy within the graduate-s higher learning
experience.
Abstract: Three-dimensional geometric models have been used
to present architectural and engineering works, showing their final
configuration. When the clarification of a detail or the constitution of
a construction step in needed, these models are not appropriate. They
do not allow the observation of the construction progress of a
building. Models that could present dynamically changes of the
building geometry are a good support to the elaboration of projects.
Techniques of geometric modeling and virtual reality were used to
obtain models that could visually simulate the construction activity.
The applications explain the construction work of a cavity wall and a
bridge. These models allow the visualization of the physical
progression of the work following a planned construction sequence,
the observation of details of the form of every component of the
works and support the study of the type and method of operation of
the equipment applied in the construction. These models presented
distinct advantage as educational aids in first-degree courses in Civil
Engineering. The use of Virtual Reality techniques in the
development of educational applications brings new perspectives to
the teaching of subjects related to the field of civil construction.
Abstract: In this paper is being described a possible use of
virtualization technology in teaching computer networks. The
virtualization can be used as a suitable tool for creating virtual
network laboratories, supplementing the real laboratories and
network simulation software in teaching networking concepts. It will
be given a short description of characteristic projects in the area of
virtualization technology usage in network simulation, network
experiments and engineering education. A method for implementing
laboratory has also been explained, together with possible laboratory
usage and design of laboratory exercises. At the end, the laboratory
test results of virtual laboratory are presented as well.
Abstract: Software engineering education not only embraces
technical skills of software development but also necessitates
communication and interaction among learners. In this paper, it is
proposed to adapt the PBL methodology that is especially designed to
be integrated into software engineering classroom in order to promote
collaborative learning environment. This approach helps students
better understand the significance of social aspects and provides a
systematic framework to enhance teamwork skills. The adaptation of
PBL facilitates the transition to an innovative software development
environment where cooperative learning can be actualized.
Abstract: Virtual engineering technology has undergone rapid progress in recent years and is being adopted increasingly by manufacturing companies of many engineering disciplines. There is an increasing demand from industry for qualified virtual engineers. The qualified virtual engineers should have the ability of applying engineering principles and mechanical design methods within the commercial software package environment. It is a challenge to the engineering education in universities which traditionally tends to lack the integration of knowledge and skills required for solving real world problems. In this paper, a case study shows some recent development of a MSc Mechanical Engineering course at Department of Engineering and Technology in MMU, and in particular, two units Simulation of Mechanical Systems(SMS) and Computer Aided Fatigue Analysis(CAFA) that emphasize virtual engineering education and promote integration of knowledge acquisition, skill training and industrial application.
Abstract: At present time, competition, unpredictable fluctuations have made communication engineering education in the global sphere really difficult. Confront with new situation in the engineering education sector. Communication engineering education has to be reformed and ready to use more advanced technologies. We realized that one of the general problems of student`s education is that after graduating from their universities, they are not prepared to face the real life challenges and full skilled to work in industry. They are prepared only to think like engineers and professionals but they also need to possess some others non-technical skills. In today-s environment, technical competence alone is not sufficient for career success. Employers want employees (graduate engineers) who have good oral and written communication (soft) skills. It does require for team work, business awareness, organization, management skills, responsibility, initiative, problem solving and IT competency. This proposed curriculum brings interactive, creative, interesting, effective learning methods, which includes online education, virtual labs, practical work, problem-based learning (PBL), and lectures given by industry experts. Giving short assignments, presentations, reports, research papers and projects students can significantly improve their non-technical skills. Also, we noticed the importance of using ICT technologies in engineering education which used by students and teachers, and included that into proposed teaching and learning methods. We added collaborative learning between students through team work which builds theirs skills besides course materials. The prospective on this research that we intent to update communication engineering curriculum in order to get fully constructed engineer students to ready for real industry work.
Abstract: This paper presents the result of three senior capstone
projects at the Department of Computer Engineering, Prince of
Songkla University, Thailand. These projects focus on developing an
examination management system for the Faculty of Engineering in
order to manage the examination both the examination room
assignments and the examination proctor assignments in each room.
The current version of the software is a web-based application. The
developed software allows the examination proctors to select their
scheduled time online while each subject is assigned to each available
examination room according to its type and the room capacity. The
developed system is evaluated using real data by prospective users of
the system. Several suggestions for further improvements are given
by the testers. Even though the features of the developed software are
not superior, the developing process can be a case study for a projectbased
teaching style. Furthermore, the process of developing this
software can show several issues in developing an educational
support application.
Abstract: Inadequate curriculum for software engineering is considered to be one of the most common software risks. A number of solutions, on improving Software Engineering Education (SEE) have been reported in literature but there is a need to collectively present these solutions at one place. We have performed a mapping study to present a broad view of literature; published on improving the current state of SEE. Our aim is to give academicians, practitioners and researchers an international view of the current state of SEE. Our study has identified 70 primary studies that met our selection criteria, which we further classified and categorized in a well-defined Software Engineering educational framework. We found that the most researched category within the SE educational framework is Innovative Teaching Methods whereas the least amount of research was found in Student Learning and Assessment category. Our future work is to conduct a Systematic Literature Review on SEE.
Abstract: The primary purpose of this article is an attempt to
find the implication of globalization on education. Globalization has
an important role as a process in the economical, political, cultural
and technological dimensions in the life of the contemporary human
being and has been affected by it. Education has its effects in this
procedure and while influencing it through educating global citizens
having universal human features and characteristics, has been
influenced by this phenomenon too. Nowadays, the role of education
is not just to develop in the students the knowledge and skills
necessary for the new kinds of jobs. If education wants to help
students be prepared of the new global society, it has to make them
engaged productive and critical citizens for the global era, so that
they can reflect about their roles as key actors in a dynamic often
uneven, matrix of economic and cultural exchanges. If education
wants to reinforce and raise the national identity, the value system
and the children and teenagers, it should make them ready for living
in the global era of this century. The used method in this research is
documentary and analyzing the documents. Studies in this field show
globalization has influences on the processes of the production,
distribution and consuming of knowledge. The happening of this
event in the information era has not only provide the necessary
opportunities for the exchanges of education worldwide but also has
privileges for the developing countries which enables them to
strengthen educational bases of their society and have an important
step toward their future.
Abstract: Laboratory activities have produced benefits in
student learning. With current drives of new technology resources
and evolving era of education methods, renewal status of learning
and teaching in laboratory methods are in progress, for both learners
and the educators. To enhance learning outcomes in laboratory works
particularly in engineering practices and testing, learning via handson
by instruction may not sufficient. This paper describes and
compares techniques and implementation of traditional (expository)
with open-ended laboratory (problem-based) for two consecutive
cohorts studying environmental laboratory course in civil engineering
program. The transition of traditional to problem-based findings and
effect were investigated in terms of course assessment student
feedback survey, course outcome learning measurement and student
performance grades. It was proved that students have demonstrated
better performance in their grades and 12% increase in the course
outcome (CO) in problem-based open-ended laboratory style than
traditional method; although in perception, students has responded
less favorable in their feedback.
Abstract: The element of justice or al-‘adl in the context of
Islamic critical thinking deals with the notion of justice in a thinking
process which critically rationalizes the truth in a fair and objective
manner with no irrelevant interference that can jeopardize a sound
judgment. This Islamic axiological element is vital in technological
decision making as it addresses the issues of religious values and
ethics that are primarily set to fulfill the purpose of human life on
earth. The main objective of this study was to examine and analyze
the perception of Muslim engineering students in Malaysian higher
education institutions towards the concept of al-‘adl as an essential
element of Islamic critical thinking. The study employed mixed
methods approach that comprises data collection from the
questionnaire survey and the interview responses. A total of 557
Muslim engineering undergraduates from six Malaysian universities
participated in the study. The study generally indicated that Muslim
engineering undergraduates in the higher institutions have rather
good comprehension and consciousness for al-‘adl with a slight
awareness on the importance of objective thinking. Nonetheless there
were a few items on the concept that have implied a comparatively
low perception on the rational justice in Islam as the means to grasp
the ultimate truth.
Abstract: Collaborative working environments for distance
education can be considered as a more generic form of contemporary
remote labs. At present, the majority of existing real laboratories are
not constructed to allow the involved participants to collaborate in
real time. To make this revolutionary learning environment possible
we must allow the different users to carry out an experiment
simultaneously. In recent times, multi-user environments are
successfully applied in many applications such as air traffic control
systems, team-oriented military systems, chat-text tools, multi-player
games etc. Thus, understanding the ideas and techniques behind these
systems could be of great importance in the contribution of ideas to
our e-learning environment for collaborative working. In this
investigation, collaborative working environments from theoretical
and practical perspectives are considered in order to build an
effective collaborative real laboratory, which allows two students or
more to conduct remote experiments at the same time as a team. In
order to achieve this goal, we have implemented distributed system
architecture, enabling students to obtain an automated help by either
a human tutor or a rule-based e-tutor.
Abstract: In this work the numerical simulation of transient heat
transfer in a cylindrical probe is done. An experiment was conducted
introducing a steel cylinder in a heating chamber and registering its
surface temperature along the time during one hour. In parallel, a
mathematical model was solved for one dimension transient heat
transfer in cylindrical coordinates, considering the boundary
conditions of the test. The model was solved using finite difference
method, because the thermal conductivity in the cylindrical steel bar
and the convection heat transfer coefficient used in the model are
considered temperature dependant functions, and both conditions
prevent the use of the analytical solution. The comparison between
theoretical and experimental results showed the average deviation is
below 2%. It was concluded that numerical methods are useful in
order to solve engineering complex problems. For constant k and h,
the experimental methodology used here can be used as a tool for
teaching heat transfer in mechanical engineering, using mathematical
simplified models with analytical solutions.