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Recent technologies are offering the power to share and grow knowledge and ideas in unprecedented ways. The CogEx software platform was developed to take advantage of the digital world with innovative ideas to support designers work in both industrial and academic contexts. This paper presents a qualitative study on the usage of CogEx during capstone design projects in mechanical engineering. It explores its potential to eventually supersede a paper logbook. This study combines three pilot projects where 15 undergraduate students used CogEx for one semester and discussed their experience in a final interview. The focus is limited to individual usage in this study. Results support that the platform has a good potential for engineering design education by replacing the paper logbook. The "extended concept mapping" structure was efficient to organize design work, and although the "concept-knowledge" separation needs refinement, it has good potential in building designer knowledge base.

Nursing, dance and studio-based arts, engineering, and athletic therapy are viewed as practice-oriented professions in which the teaching and situated learning of practical skills are central. In order to succeed, students must perform a series of performance-based assessments, which seemingly require an "able" body to enact complex tasks in situated and/or simulation-based contexts (for example, "safe nursing practice"). Our interdisciplinary research seeks to intervene within the culture of professional learning by investigating what we know about the use of smartphone video recording for situated, practice-based learning, and for supporting interactive video-based assessment as a means of accommodation and extending access for students, including students with performance anxiety,mature students, ESL learners, students with disabilities, and students in remote communities. In this paper we employ a scoping review methodology to present our findings related to students' and instructors' perspectives on the use of smartphone video to demonstrate and document practical knowledge and practice-oriented competencies across fields in the arts and sciences. We also examine broader research, as well as the ethical and design implications for the development of our technology-based toolbox project -- an online resource created to advance pedagogies deploying smartphones as tools for practical skills acquisition -- and for accommodation -- within multidisciplinary practical learning environments.

This paper presents the assessment items that were developed by science and technology teachers in Québec to explore their students' alternative ideas about engineering design technology and technological systems. These assessment items were administered to Secondary Cycle One students in Francophone and Anglophone schools in Québec to elicit their ideas about the foundational technology concepts included in the science and technology curriculum. Students' responses are presented to share their alternative and scientific explanations. In addition, various approaches to facilitate a deeper understanding of scientific models and mechanistic reasoning in students are also discussed.

A summer academy is held for grade 9-12 high school students at the University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, every year. The academy, dubbed the Da Vinci Engineering Enrichment Program (DEEP), is a diverse program that aims to attract domestic and international high school students to engineering and sciences (and possibly recruit them). DEEP also provides them with the opportunity to experience the university setting. This paper discusses the organization of DEEP and presents the details of a DEEP course developed to introduce students to electrical engineering. This course is designed for junior (grades 9 and 10) students and includes lectures, hands-on activities (both in a team and individually), and a field trip. The survey results, collected as both formative and summative feedback, indicate the success of the course. This paper also provides recommendations for future offerings of the course. (Contains 6 tables, 3 figures and 1 footnote.)

Academic consulting is a form of knowledge and technology transfer largely under-documented and under-studied that raises ethical and resources allocation issues. Based on a survey of 2,590 Canadian researchers in engineering and natural sciences, this paper explores three forms of academic consulting: (1) paid consulting; (2) unpaid consulting for companies and; (3) unpaid consulting for government agencies. The results of this study show that academics tend to engage simultaneously in paid and unpaid consulting. Two patterns of consulting emerged from the results: a first pattern regarding engagement in paid consulting for companies and government agencies, and unpaid consulting for companies is positively associated with industry funding, size of research laboratories, large-sized research universities, technical validation of knowledge, protection of IP, and strong ties with people in companies. By comparison, a second pattern regarding engagement in unpaid consulting services provided to government organizations is positively associated with size of research laboratories, teaching, large-sized research universities, technical validation of knowledge, and with strong ties with people in government organizations. Knowledge and technology transfer policy should pay more attention to the contribution of academics engaged in consulting activities because they likely significantly contribute to help companies and government agencies solve practical problems that improve their productive and innovative capabilities.

Educational institutions pay careful attention to the design of program curricula, which represent a framework to meet institutional goals and missions. Of course, the success of any institution depends highly on the quality of its program curriculum. The development of such a curriculum and, more importantly, the evaluation of its quality are complex and time-consuming processes. This traditional approach requires many cumbersome manual iterations, making it a long and error-prone process. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a new curriculum support engine as an alternative approach. The proposed curriculum support engine is a Web-based application that helps in designing any program curriculum in real time. The engine incorporates several important features, allowing the verification of the proposed curriculum coherence and the generation of statistics necessary for academic and accreditation purposes. Useful viewing and editing tools are also provided. The proposed curriculum support engine is flexible and allows additional criteria that the curriculum designer can specify to be incorporated. In particular, the engine covers the Accreditation of Canadian Engineering Programs (CEAB), the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), and the Commission of Academic Accreditation of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research of UAE (CAA-UAE). (Contains 10 figures.)

Laptop learning programs have been developed to create ubiquitous online learning environments. Given the infancy of many programs, there is little understanding of aspects of the program are perceived to provide value to faculty and students. This paper focuses on the value proposition (with respect to perceived benefits versus capital investment) for undergraduate students in a mandatory, campus-wide, comprehensive laptop learning program. Results indicate that the perceived value of the laptop for technical programs such as science, engineering, and information technology, and liberal arts programs such as business and criminology, justice, and policy studies are significantly different. This difference results in a clear need to use different laptop learning models for each type of program and that a single campus-wide model will likely prove unsatisfactory for most students. A need to better communicate the true value of industry-specific software and skills acquisition is also highlighted. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering--channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter--proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (and, more briefly, Canada). In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors.

Engineering has long been a male-dominated profession, with a reputation of being less than welcoming to women. In Canada and other Western countries, efforts to attract more women into the field date back decades. As a result of such initiatives, women entering engineering today could experience their work differently than those who preceded them. This paper draws on the life course paradigm to determine whether there are gender differences in engineering across age cohort. Analysing data from a survey and in-depth interviews with engineers in Ontario, Canada, the paper explores whether gender intersects with age cohort to determine experiences of employment, opportunities, and work-family conflict. Although women share some experiences across age - such as concerns about pay and recognition - differences by cohort emerged. Young women are disadvantaged compared to young men and others with respect to securing stable employment in engineering. Older women report more challenges with work-family conflict and have less decision-making authority at work. Interviews further suggest that young women both have it 'easier' and harder than others. The findings demonstrate how the life course paradigm can also be used to shed light on the intersection of gender and age in professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impacts of climate change and development present significant challenges and complexities that require new solutions, wise choices, and multi-disciplinary integration. In this context, emotional intelligence (EI) plays a crucial role. However, traditional engineering education and practice overlook the importance of understanding and managing emotions. This research aims to determine the impact of EI as a tool to enhance proactive decision-making and implement sustainable measures within the engineering profession.The study makes three main research contributions. First, it confirms a positive relationship between EI and proactive sustainable decision-making among engineers. This means that engineers with high EI are more likely to consider the impacts of their decisions on various stakeholders and dimensions of sustainability. Second, it suggests that EI can enhance creativity and innovative thinking in engineering, helping engineers to develop effective solutions for challenges related to climate change. Third, the study advocates for incorporating EI training and assessment into engineering curriculums to foster a sustainable and ethical engineering culture. By improving EI, engineers can enhance their interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and emotional management, which in turn can significantly improve teamwork in addressing challenges related to climate change. • Innovative Approach: The paper introduces emotional intelligence (EI) as a novel factor in engineering decision-making for climate change adaptation, which provides a fresh perspective within the realm of sustainable practices. • Relevance to Sustainability: It emphasizes the role of EI in fostering proactive and strategic decision-making, which is crucial for mitigating and adapting to a changing climate, aligning with the journal's focus on sustainable solutions1. • Multidisciplinary Integration: The study bridges engineering, psychology, and environmental science, reflecting the journal's interdisciplinary approach to addressing sustainability challenges. • Practical Implications: By exploring the attitudes of engineers and their decision-making tendencies in relation to EI, the paper offers insights that can lead to targeted interventions, contributing to the journal's aim of promoting sustainable practices. • This paper does not constitute a bibliometric study; rather, it provides empirical research on the impact of EI on sustainable decision-making among engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of patenting and spin-off creation using survey data of 479 researchers in engineering and 449 researchers in life sciences funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The results show that research novelty and laboratory size are the only two variables significantly explaining patenting and spin-off formation in both engineering and life sciences. Network capital explains spin-off formation in engineering and in life sciences as well as patenting in life sciences, but not in engineering. Furthermore, the results suggest that many categories of resources explain patenting and spin-off formation in engineering and in life sciences, but that the combinations of resources required differ for patenting and spin-off formation and between engineering and life sciences. The results of this paper suggest that customized policies would be required to accommodate differences between spin-off formation and patenting as well as between engineering and life sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research has been conducted on reliability-based design (RBD) for the ultimate limit state (ULS). Several RBD codes have been developed and implemented around the world that calibrate the ULS design for a target ULS reliability index (βuls). However, the serviceability limit-state (SLS) design still is considered using conventional deterministic approaches with an unknown SLS reliability index (βsls). This paper presents a relationship between βsls and the βuls that is specified already in the RBD codes. This relationship is linear, and a key variable in it is the ratio (R) of the SLS capacity (Qsls) to the ULS capacity (Quls). Both closed-form approximations and Monte Carlo simulations are used to characterize R probabilistically. For illustration, the relationship then is used to estimate βsls for augered cast-in-place piles designed in accordance with the RBD methodologies in the National Building Code of Canada. The results are highly dependent on the statistics of the limiting tolerable foundation settlement (ylt). For larger ylt values, the calculated βsls>βuls, which means that ULS designs automatically satisfy SLS criteria. For smaller ylt values, SLS criteria begin to control the design. The importance of sound ylt criteria is stressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with different backgrounds such as engineering, medicine, industrial design, business, healthcare management and computer science often contribute to the design of a medical innovation. But how do such heterogeneous design participants actually combine their expertise to develop a medical device? Adapting Bucciarelli’s concept of “object worlds”, which recognises that those who contribute to a design process inhabit different worlds and see the object of design differently, this paper examines the perspectives of 8 design participants who contributed to the design process of three Canadian medical devices. In-depth analyses of semi-structured interviews clarified what design participants saw through their particular “lens”, how their responsibilities, knowledge and motivations combined and how they engaged into the design process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article pays tribute to Canadian engineer, researcher and educator M. Saeed Mirza. It offers information on his family and professional background. It also describes his accomplishments and his contributions to the field of civil engineering in Canada. It also lists some of his awards and affiliations.

This report is based on a survey of power engineering education resources in the U.S. and Canada similar to 12 earlier such efforts. This survey is conducted to determine the electric power engineering education resources available in Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredited engineering programs in the U.S. and Canada for the 2001-02 academic year. The report is limited to colleges and universities that replied to a questionnaire on a voluntary basis. For the 115 colleges and universities (107 U.S., S Canadian) that submitted data on their power programs, the report contains a list of faculty active during the 2001-02 academic year with academic participation and professional experience, each school's research area and funding levels, Ph.D. and MS student enrollment by type of support and by domestic versus international, and each school's power course offerings with enrollments and other data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the Engineering and Society degree program (E&SP) offered by McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario in response to calls to broaden the education of engineers beyond the technical aspects. Role of inquiry and inquiry courses in E&SP; Electives of the program; Features of the learning community developed under E&SP; Opinion of engineering students on the program; Significance of the program.