| 1. |
- Achuthan, Krishnashree, et al.
(författare)
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Internationalizing Engineering Education With Phased Study Programs : India-European Experience
- 2014
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Ingår i: 2014 IEEE FRONTIERS IN EDUCATION CONFERENCE (FIE). - : IEEE. - 9781479939220 ; , s. 295-301
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most of the critical challenges seen in the past decades have impacted citizens in a global way. Given shrinking resources, educationists find preparing students for the global market place a formidable challenge. Hence exposing students to multi-lateral educational initiatives are critical to their growth, understanding and future contributions. This paper focuses on European Union's Erasmus Mundus programs, involving academic cooperation amongst international universities in engineering programs. A phased undergraduate engineering program with multiple specializations is analyzed within this context. Based on their performance at the end of first phase, selected students were provided opportunities using scholarship to pursue completion of their degree requirements at various European universities. This paper will elaborate the impact of differing pedagogical interventions, language and cultural differences amongst these countries on students in diverse engineering disciplines. The data presented is based on on the feedback analysis from Eramus Mundus students (N = 121) that underwent the mobility programs. The findings have given important insights into the structure of the initiative and implications for academia and education policy makers for internationalizing engineering education. These included considering digital interventions such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and Virtual Laboratory (VL) initiatives for systemic reorganization of engineering education.
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| 2. |
- Hansson, Henrik
(författare)
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How to produce quality theses at universities in a large scale. SciPro IT system – Supporting the Scientific Process
- 2014
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Education conference (FIE). - : IEEE Communications Society. - 9781479939220 ; , s. 1-
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Problem: To manage and supervise large number of theses at bachelor, master and PhD level, with increased quality of both processes and product. Based on 995 publications, Jones (2013) identified four main problems in PhD thesis production; attrition, supervisor relationship, supervisor quality, social isolation. These issues also apply to theses at bachelor and master level. In theses applied research methods are used in order to solve a problem. Theses end an education level and constitute a bridge into work or further studies and even an academic career. This core activity at universities requires a lot of resources and is very time consuming. The thesis quality varies and topic relevance to societal needs is often weak. Another problem is the high dropout and inefficient administrative procedures. Furthermore the digital resources for autonomous learning of research methods aren't optimally provided. The European Union’s approximately 4000 Higher Education Institutions and about 20 million students need better support in this area. The demand for better mass scale support systems in higher education is also a global need with 1200 Higher Education Institutions worldwide (listed by ARWU). The number of higher education students is about 178 million (2010) and are forecasted to increase to 262 million by 2025.The online IT-support system, SciPro (Supporting the Scientific Process), has been developed during five years at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University. During the period 2012-2013 706 bachelor and master theses was managed through the SciPro system. In 2014 91 PhD students are included as well. This study summaries the experience and results during five years, including and going beyond our previous studies (17 publications). The focus of the SciPro project is technical implementation of pedagogical processes leading to quality learning and quality theses. The SciPro online system is modular and unique, consisting of: 1) Idea bank; with students, supervisors and business organisation’s thesis topic ideas, 2) Matching; students paired with supervisors based on ideas and research area, 3) Objective (Milestones) and subjective (Project state) progress indicators, 4) Meta-supervision; instructions and cues for all students and supervisors, 5) Real-time statistics; for monitoring, quality assurance and evaluation, 6) Communication module; forum, notifications, shared files, checklists, 7) Peer Portal; peer review process and peer interaction 8) Multimedia resources for autonomous learning of research methods, and 9) Anti-plagiarism control; integrated and automatic. The SciPro system works on all devices connected to Internet. It significantly reduces administration of all thesis related tasks for all involved. SciPro can manage theses at a whole University fulfilling administrators’, supervisors’ and student’s needs. With minor adaptations and development SciPro can be useful at most universities. The presentation will include live demonstrations and evaluations from all stakeholders’ points of view.
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| 3. |
- Jobe, William
(författare)
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No University Credit, No Problem? : Exploring Recognition of Non-Formal Learning
- 2014
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Ingår i: 2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference Proceedings. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781479939220 - 9781479939213 ; , s. 2420-2426
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are disrupting traditional, higher education and redefining how learning takes place online. These open courses typically offer some form of recognition, such as a certificate of completion and/or digital badge, to recognize, validate, and in some cases even accredit learning. A general problem with MOOCs is the uncertainty regarding the use and goals of recognition, validation, and accreditation (RVA), and participants’ acceptance and perception of such techniques. This research effort addresses this problem by exploring course partici-pants’ attitudes and levels of acceptance of non-formal learning recognition compared to traditional university credit in both devel-oped and developing countries. The actual study uses both certifi-cates of completion and digital badges to recognize and validate learning in an introductory, university level course in web pro-gramming using HTML5/CSS. The course is available to anyone, but was specifically marketed to participants from Sweden and Kenya. Empirical data was gathered using interviews and online surveys in the course. The preliminary results are that participants from developing countries value digital recognition to a greater extent than their counterparts in Europe. However, both Swedes and Kenyans see open courses with digital recognition as a com-plement to traditional learning to individually construct an educa-tion.
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| 4. |
- Mobini, Pooyeh, 1983-, et al.
(författare)
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E-Participation in higher education : The importance of non-technical factors as identified in the EU-project MyUniversity
- 2014
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Ingår i: 2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference Proceedings. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781479939220 - 9781479939213 ; , s. 63-70
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- E-participation not only covers the general participation of citizens, but also enables higher education decision makers to communicate with all involved stakeholders. EU has funded projects in the area of e-participation in order to respond to this emerging requirement. Lots of studies have been published about these projects. But they have mainly covered technical aspects and less about non-technical challenges. In the present study, we have been trying to identify the non- technical factors. The EU-funded project MyUniversity has been selected as a case study. Data collection was conducted by means of recorded semi structured interviews with stakeholders. Data-analysis was done using a systematic coding of audio files. The following non-technical factors were identified and analyzed as crucial for the success of e-participation in higher education: 1) The socio-cultural context, 2) Identification of users, 3) Usability, drivers and motivation. The study showed that deeper needs assessments locally at each university and "cultural studies" should not be neglected. Moreover, each educational institute should use its own motivational techniques based on their cultural studies. This study concludes that the "business strategies" used by EU for introducing e-participation projects in higher education, need to be revised taking into account the identified issues.
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| 5. |
- Tedre, Matti, et al.
(författare)
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Methodology Education in Computing : Arrangements and Results from Two Courses
- 2014
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Ingår i: 2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference Proceedings. - : IEEE Computer Society. - 9781479939220 - 9781479939213 ; , s. 668-673
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Methodology education is one of the less studied and discussed areas of computing education. Underplaying methodological education starts from computing curricula, which discuss methodology to different degrees, depending on the branch of computing. In computer science education research, programming courses have been analyzed through and through, but methodology courses in computing are largely devoid of course descriptions, analytic studies, and experimental studies. This paper presents the learning objectives, contents, and arrangements for a fully online graduate level course on methodology and research design in computing. The course was run twice in a relatively large school of computing (5700 students) and it included students from a neighboring institution of the same size. Students' (N=136) learning was analyzed from multiple viewpoints. Their final work was analyzed qualitatively by course facilitators as well as scored on a 90-point scale. Their coursework was qualitatively reviewed and graded by their peers and facilitators. The effect of students' learning approaches to course results was analyzed using Biggs' R-SPQ-2F questionnaire. Student feedback was collected using a slightly modified course feedback questionnaire of the university. This paper presents the course arrangements, course results, and analysis of students' learning.
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