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Prospective authors are requested to submit new, unpublished manuscripts for inclusion in the upcoming event described in this call for papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions are used to obtain information, stimulate thinking, and redirect reasoning. Academics in higher education use questions on a daily basis to stimulate thinking and reasoning in students. Final examination papers are used by academics to assess the retention and application skills of students. The assumption, however, exists that questions relating to application skills at universities of technology should start to dominate the higher academic levels in education, with a subsequent drop in questions regarding retention skills. These questions may be categorized as either higher order or lower order questions. This article attempts to distinguish between these two types of questions in light of Bloom's taxonomy, with similar concepts such as deep and surface learning being examined. The literature review is applied to an electrical engineering module titled Electronics, which serves as the case study. The results of this study indicate that a high percentage of the final examination papers dealt with the objective "Application," where students had to make use of numerous mathematical equations to solve various unknowns. The results also indicated that academics in electronics are using more lower order than higher order questions in their final examination papers. A balance is suggested between these two types of questions for various academic levels at universities of technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper shows that participating in a year-round program for African–American male middle school students (ages 10–14) can positively impact their attitudes toward STEM, their confidence in problem solving and team work, and their interest in STEM careers, but may not impact the interest in taking STEM classes to the same extent. Background: Increasing the number of under-represented minorities pursuing degrees in science and engineering through formal and informal learning activities has been a focus in the United States for many years. Efforts to diversify the engineering workforce have often targeted students in high school and college (ages 15–22), with varying success. Intended Outcomes: This program was designed to increase participants’ content knowledge, interest in STEM courses, interest in STEM careers, interest in attending college, and improve their attitudes about STEM. Application Design: Approaches used included: 1) introducing software tools that encouraged critical thinking, creativity and independent learning; 2) integrating engineering and software design processes; 3) providing projects that were age- and culturally-appropriate; and 4) using ethnically matched mentors. Findings: After almost two years in the program participants show improved attitudes toward STEM, more interest and career choices in computing and engineering, and increased interest in attending college. These findings suggested that summer and academic year programs can be effective for cultivating interest in computing and engineering careers, but their impact on interest in studying related subjects may need further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of their involvement in several research and development and innovation (R&D&I) projects developed in various companies, the authors acquired knowledge of two basic concepts: quality and innovation. The application of these concepts in the teaching–learning process can help teachers to incorporate informal changes in the curriculum to provide for continuous improvement. This paper presents a simple methodology to apply quality and innovation concepts and tools in the daily teaching activity. In order to show the ease of use, as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of this methodology, the experience of applying it in an engineering course over nine years, the actions undertaken, the results obtained, and the lessons learned are described here. The methodology incorporates reflection, innovation, and decision taking based on objective data. Contact with the companies involved has enabled the teachers to learn continuously and to enhance their motivation when working with students. The methodology applied and the example described in this paper can be a starting point for other teachers interested in improving the quality of their teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a Matlab-based voltage stability toolbox (VST) designed to analyze bifurcation and voltage stability problems in electric power systems. VST combines proven computational and analytical capabilities of bifurcation theory, and symbolic implementation and graphical representation capabilities of Matlab and its toolboxes. The motivation for developing the package is to provide a flexible simutlation environment for an ongoing research conducted at the Center for Electric Power Engineering (CEPE) of Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, and to enhance undergraduate/graduate power engineering courses. VST is a very flexible tool for load flow, small-signal and transient stability, and bifurcation analysis. After a brief summary of power system model and local bifurcations, the paper illustrates the capabilities of VST using the IEEE 14-bus system as an example and describes its successful integration into power engineering courses at Nigde University, Nigde, Thrkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an efficient method of teaching impulse voltage testing of power transformers to undergraduate students of power system groups in electrical engineering departments, as a part of a high-voltage course for senior undergraduate students. The paper shows how to simulate the power transformer and impulse generator to teach students the basics of impulse voltage testing of power transformers and to practice analyzing the test results. In the first part of the paper, the effect of wave shaping of the voltage waveform is simulated to teach the behavior of the impulse generator, and in the second part, impulse voltage testing of a transformer is simulated. Evaluation of the simulation over several semesters with more than 80 students is very positive in terms of their developing confidence in an understanding of this test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An operating system course draws from a well-defined fundamental theory, but one needs to consider how more re- cent advances, not necessarily in the theory itself, can be applied to improve the course and the general body of knowledge of the student. The goal of this paper is to show how recent software engineering developments can be introduced to such a course to not only satisfy the theory requirements, but also make the theory more understandable. In particular, this paper focuses on how students can effectively learn the Unified Modeling Language, the object-oriented methodology, and the Java programming language in the context of an operating systems course. The goal is to form a systematic software engineering process for operating system design and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how HIV/AIDS education is being introduced into the curriculum of the Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. Third- and fourth-year students were provided with an HIV/AIDS Educational CD developed at the university. Their knowledge of the subject was tested via two quizzes -- one written before they were exposed to the material on the CD and one after. In addition, a mathematical HIV/AIDS model is being incorporated into a third-year control systems course. This model is used to illustrate standard control systems engineering concepts, such as linearization, system stability, feedback, and dynamic compensation. This paper is an example of how topical nonengineering material can effectively be made part of a high-level undergraduate engineering course. Students benefit not only from the topical nature of the subject, hut also from an improved understanding of control engineering concepts which can be applied to many different fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a wireless local area network laboratory project that provides senior and first-year graduate students in microwave engineering courses the opportunity to design, build, and test several passive microstrip components and integrate them into a working system. Students design filters, couplers, amplifiers, diode detectors, quarter-wave transformers, antennas, and stub matching networks in weekly labs that parallel-lectures in a one-semester microwave engineering course. This paper also describes simple inexpensive prototyping and testing methods that have been used in this course. Laboratory materials and technical details of the design are provided on the web for students and educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attracting K–12 students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is viewed as a critical element for benefiting both the economy and society. This paper describes an outreach program, conducted in a Brooklyn, NY, USA, public middle school, aimed at educating students in mechatronics, biology, and bioinspiration. The program is designed to foster student interest in STEM subjects, especially engineering-related concepts, by actively demonstrating their application in solving tangible real-world problems. It consists of a series of lectures and practical activities that culminate with a hands-on bioinspiration-based event at the New York Aquarium. Survey results show that students who participated in the program have a better understanding of the relationship between engineering and nature, demonstrate improved knowledge of select STEM topics, and are more interested in pursuing STEM careers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the experiences of using an advanced, low-cost robot in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. It presents three innovations: It is a powerful, cheap, robust, and small advanced personal robot; it forms the foundation of a problem-based learning curriculum; and it enables a novel multi-robot curriculum while fostering collaborative team work on assignments. The robot design has many features specific to educators: It is advanced enough for academic research, has a broad feature set to support a wide range of curricula, and is inexpensive enough to be an effective outreach tool. The low cost allows each student to have their own robot for the semester, so they can work on activities outside the classroom. This robot was used in three different classes in which it was the foundation for an innovative problem-based learning curriculum. In particular, the robot has specialized sensors and a communications system that supports novel multi-robot curricula, which encourage student interaction in new ways. The results are promising; the robot was a big success in graduate, undergraduate, and outreach activities. Finally, student assessments indicate a greater interest and understanding of engineering and other STEM majors, and class evaluations were consistently above average. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses an all-encompassing approach to increase the number of students in engineering through innovative outreach, recruiting, and retention programs. Prior to adopting these programs, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman, experienced a reduction in engineering enrollment similar to the trend that has occurred across the U.S. over the last few years. As a result, the school investigated the key factors that influence selection of engineering as a career path and initiated a corrective program to reverse this trend. The program involves focusing on the present through retention, on the immediate future through recruiting, and on the distant future through outreach. The focus of all of these programs is to mobilize the OU-ECE faculty and student body to present advanced engineering technologies, innovative demonstrations, and hands-on activities at a level that the individual student can understand and appreciate. Student surveys and interviews are used to assess the program qualitatively, and OU-ECE enrollment numbers are used as a quantitative assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the structure and the underlying rationale of a new course dedicated to capability maturity model integration (CMMI)-directed design of wireless sensor networks (WSNs)-based biomedical applications that stresses: 1) engineering-, medico-engineering-, and informatics-related issues; 2) design for general- and special-purpose systems; and 3) the creation of synergistic effects that enable formation of entrepreneurial multidisciplinary teams able to organize and implement the development of these health-related pervasive computing applications. Formal education so far still focuses on treating only strictly separated and specialized topic areas. However, as the need for cooperation and mutual learning between students oriented toward different fields grows, the need for a multidisciplinary educational approach becomes more and more important. For a technical education to be complete, it is no longer enough to train scientists and engineers solely in technical areas. In development and implementation of technology-driven applications, multidisciplinary issues should be properly addressed in the academic sense. The interdisciplinary understanding and synergy achieved are tested through examinations and workshops. The transdisciplinary knowledge improvement is also statistically evaluated, using a system of metrics developed experimentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a multifaceted approach in electrical engineering outreach focused on the area of semiconductor technology. The activities developed can be used in combination for a very wide range of audiences in both age and stage of education, as has been demonstrated with great success. Moreover, the project has developed cross-disciplinary activities designed to engage nonscientific audiences and has used entirely nonscientific venues, such as art galleries. The suite of activities, given the umbrella title Chips for Everyone, includes: Chips for Everyone: drop-in activities for fairs, shows, shopping centers; Chips with Relish: interactive workshops for groups of school pupils; Chips with Flair: an arts-science collaboration in music, art, video, and engineering to present a new perspective on semiconductor technology. To achieve this diverse mix of outreach activities, the Chips for Everyone team represents a very broad spectrum of skills, its members being engineering academics, musicians, artists, education academics, public engagement specialists, and student teachers in technology. The development process is quite generic and could be applied in other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. The subject focus of the project is semiconductor technology, a technology that influences the daily lives of everyone and yet is largely invisible. The activities seek to engage, engender interest, and promote informed discussion about this technology and engineering in general. From modest beginnings as a filler during the setting up of another outreach program, Chips for Everyone has developed into a major program reaching over 25 000 young people and families in school workshops, shopping centers, and art exhibitions in Scotland and across the U.K. The development method for the activities is innovative and creative, using the complimentary skills of research academics and students in both electronic engineering and technology initial teacher education (ITE). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the organization and execution of a summer engineering outreach camp designed to attract and motivate high school students as well as increase their awareness of various engineering fields. The camp curriculum included hands-on, competitive design-oriented engineering projects from several disciplines: the electrical, environmental, mechanical, civil, and chemical engineering fields. The camp also provided additional information on financial aid, the academic programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) offered at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK), as well as various career options for prospective engineers. The implementation of the camp activities and the well-designed hands-on projects not only increased the students' satisfaction, but also improved their self-confidence and their interest toward engineering disciplines. The engineering outreach camp survey results clearly indicated the success of the camp and the effectiveness of the hands-on, competitive engineering design experiences to attract students to engineering professions. Thus, it demonstrated an effective, feasible, and sustainable engineering recruitment approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching Opportunities for Partners in Science (TOPS) is an outreach program using volunteers (the "partners") for: 1) assisting teachers in grades K-8 with preparation and delivery of science and engineering (S&E) lessons in the classroom; 2) providing content knowledge to teachers when needed to teach quality science and engineering lessons; 3) motivating students with career and educational models and information; and 4) educating families through after-school family science events. The outreach program began with partners who were retired scientists and engineers. Currently, the source of volunteers includes scientists and engineers who are employed or on leave as well as retired. The program began in 1993 at the San Joaquin County Office of Education, Stockton, CA, with three Partners at three elementary schools. The program now has 33 Partners at 32 schools in a five-county region in central California. Most partners volunteer to serve a minimum of a half-day per week during the school year; however, the schedule can be flexible to accommodate differing needs of the Partners. The partners attend a TOPS Institute during the summer preceding each school year. The Institute serves as a training course for new partners. This paper covers the history of the TOPS program, the selection and training of partners, the relationship between the partners and classroom teachers, development of lessons, comments from a partner and a classroom teacher, and the results of an evaluation of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflective thinking and learning skills are essential for engineers in the knowledge economy. This paper describes an approach to develop these and other transferable skills through individual and collaborative reflective learning using open-source software. The learning activities and an open-source e-portfolio system called Dotfolio were tested by freshman engineering students. Findings from a survey-based study, which investigated students' beliefs about reflective learning and their expectations and experiences related to the task and open-source tool, are reported. From the be- ginning of the semester the students understood the significance of reflective learning and chose to work with the tool. However, they were less positive about the collaboration with peers during this activity. At the end of the semester, students were significantly more positive about the tool, but even more negative about the collaboration. The main problems encountered by the tutors and learners were plagiarism and a tension between the privacy of students' reflections and knowledge sharing. The open-source modular architecture allowed for the use of student and tutor feedback for the addition of new features that addressed their concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, is deploying a flexible learning scheme for selected pilot courses in engineering education. In such a scheme, traditional lectures and written exercises are combined with additional Web-based learning resources. The main objective of this initiative is to sustain the evolution from traditional teaching to active learning and to better integrate the increasing number of educational resources available online. In engineering education, a key activity to sustain the learning process is hands-on experimentation carried out using either simulation tools or real equipment. This paper describes how a collaborative Web-based experimentation environment has been introduced at the EPFL for providing more flexibility to students performing laboratory experiments in automatic control, biomechanics, and fluid mechanics. It particularly describes the eJournal, a Web service integrated in the proposed learning environment that enables the collection and sharing of preparatory notes and experimental results with both peers and teaching assistants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biometrics is an emerging field of technology using unique and measurable physical, biological, or behavioral characteristics that can be processed to identify a person. It is a multidisciplinary subject that integrates engineering, statistics, mathematics, computing, psychology, and policy. The need for biometrics can be found in governments, in the military, and in commercial applications. The Electrical Engineering Department at the U.S Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, has introduced a biometric signal processing course for senior-level undergraduate students and has developed a biometrics lab to support this course. In this paper, the authors present the course content, the newly developed biometric signal processing lab, and the interactive learning process of the biometric course. They discuss some of the challenges that were encountered in implementing the course and how they were overcome. They also provide some feedback from the course assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the rationale and the content of a two-semester four-hour-per-week course titled Telecommunication Systems. The course covers telecommunications in an overall manner, avoiding the segmentation of the telecommunications subject and introducing the student to the theoretical and engineering aspects of telecommunications in the shortest time possible. The course consists of six consecutive modules (basics, signals and systems, transmission techniques, telecommunication links, networks and services, and market issues). Besides offering background telecommunication knowledge and providing the student with a clear and well-structured overview of the overall telecommunications subject, it aims at introducing the student to the basic methodology for treating practical engineering problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents digital noise in signal integrity and clarifies noise margin issues in digital electronics education. For the static noise margin, the traditional definition violates the basic principle of noise. The embedded rectangle method to define the static noise margin is a more reliable criterion. For the dynamic noise margin (DNM), several approaches have been evaluated. The best way to teach the student DNM is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a controlled experiment concerning the use of a learning aid during the instructional procedure. The core issue of investigation is whether this instructional aid can augment the cognitive transfer of the learners by personalizing the offered knowledge. For this purpose, a controlled experiment was conducted with the participation of 79 undergraduate students. The taught domain was two lessons concerning human-computer interaction: the first in usability engineering and the second in interface evaluation methodologies. A test session was also conducted to collect data on the assessment of the augmentation of the students' knowledge on the domain. Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to the collected data to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that with regard to the transfer of simple information, this "lesson sheet" does not provide any statistically significant advantage, yet for complex information, a significant statistically improved performance was observed for the student group that used the tool. Finally, concerns about the application of the tool and further research in the area are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The utilization of large-scale group projects in early computer science courses has been readily accepted in academia. In these types of projects, students are given a specific portion of a large programming problem to design and develop. Ultimately, the consolidation of all of the independent student projects integrates to form the solution for the large-scale project. Although many studies report on the experience of executing a semester-long course of this nature, course experience at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, shows the benefits of embedding a large-scale project that comprises just a segment of the course (three to four weeks). The success of these types of courses requires an effective process for creating the specific large-scale project. In this paper, an effective process for large-scale group project course development is applied to the second computer science course at George- town University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovative educational methodology adapted to the requirements of a new era with new societal and industrial challenges for electronic engineers is proposed in this paper. This active methodology, known as the Educational Innovation Project (EIP), is eing studied in the Electronic Engineering (EE) degree of the Higher Technical School of Design Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. The main objective of the EIP methodology is to improve the process of teaching and learning in order to increase student success. To accomplish this objective, the Elf method addresses various issues. From an organizational viewpoint, different structural aspects of the EE degree have been adapted, such as balancing and integrating lectures and laboratory sessions, advancing into interdisciplinary studies coordinated among all the subjects of the course, and strengthening the work in teams to tackle real engineer problems. The Industrial Computer Engineering (ICE) subject is taken as a reference to show how these aspects have been applied. Regarding the faculty, lecturers participate in an open and permanent process of further training; attitudes toward cooperation and exchanges of experience among them are promoted; and research and reflection on new methodologies is encouraged. One of the challenges of the implementation of the ELF project is the development of multidisciplinary projects by team workers. The knowledge acquired from all the subjects is put into practice through the development of a common project to undertake real engineering problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of transmission lines is bask in undergraduate electrical engineering education. In relevant courses, a key subject is the Smith chart (SC), which is a graphical device providing insight. This paper develops certain formulas that can further enhance students' understanding, including an unconventional set of conductance/susceptance transformation equations, as well as simplified versions useful for highly mismatched lines, where it is sometimes difficult to use the SC. All formulas are developed from well-known facts of transmission-line theory. sc interpretations of many of the analytical results are provided. The analytical investigations thus supplement the SC. For highly mismatched lines, the formulas bring out certain resemblances to the resonant series RLC circuit, thus providing an interesting connection to the familiar subject of ordinary circuit theory. Lastly, students can also benefit from the mathematical tools used herein; these include simple ideas of asymptotic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a curriculum proposal for an Engineering of Computer-Based Systems (ECBS) Bachelor program from the Working Group on Education and Training of the IEEE Computer Society ECBS Technical Committee. It explains the need for a formal undergraduate education of engineers in this discipline and describes courses required for such a program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a training program that helps students transfer their classroom knowledge to hands-on equipment-operating and device-processing skills in the Microelectronics Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. The program is designed to bring down the barrier between engineering students and well-equipped research facilities, while decreasing the mistakes caused by new users. Since the program started three years ago, more than 500 on-site classes (a one-time class with a maximum of eight attendees per class) have been offered, and more than 3000 attendees have gone through the program. The program has had a strong impact on clean-room operation and the processing capability in the center. More importantly, students are prepared more thoroughly for the real engineering world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software testing is a popular and important technique for improving software quality. There is a strong need for universities to teach testing rigorously to students studying computer science or software engineering. This paper reports the experience of teaching the classification-tree method as a black-box testing technique at the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, and Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. It aims to foster discussion of appropriate teaching methods of software testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a paper on the benefits of introducing first-term freshmen Electrical and Computer Engineering students to digital design methodology, and digital Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools. Indentification of major benefits.

Engineering schools are struggling to maintain or increase the number of engineering students. Most attempted solutions focus on better marketing and publicity of the engineering field to K-12 students. How- ever, a large population of K-12 home-schooled students remains relatively untapped. This paper provides background information about the home- school population and their academic performance. The methods that universities and engineering schools can use to recruit home-schooled students are provided in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]