Bill Williams

Engineering Education Research in "European Journal of Engineering Education" and "Journal of Engineering Education": Citation and Reference Discipline Analysis.

The authors, citations and content of European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE) and Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) in 1973 (JEE, 1975 EJEE), 1983, 1993, 2003, and available 2013 issues were analysed. Both journals transitioned from house organs to become engineering education research (EER) journals, although JEE transitioned first. In this process the number of citations rose, particularly of education and psychology sources; the percentage of research articles increased markedly as did the number of reference disciplines. The number of papers per issue, the number of single author papers, and the citations of science and engineering sources decreased. EJEE has a very broad geographic spread of authors while JEE authors are mainly US based. A ‘silo’ mentality where general engineering education researchers do not communicate with EER researchers in different engineering disciplines is evident. There is some danger that EER may develop into a silo that does not communicate with technically oriented engineering professors.

How authors did it – a methodological analysis of recent engineering education research papers in the European Journal of Engineering Education

ABSTRACT We investigated research processes applied in recent publications in the European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE), exploring how papers link to theoretical work and how research processes have been designed and reported. We analysed all 155 papers published in EJEE in 2009, 2010 and 2013, classifying the papers using a taxonomy of research processes in engineering education research (EER) (Malmi et al. 2012). The majority of the papers presented either empirical work (59%) or were case reports (27%). Our main findings are as follows: (1) EJEE papers build moderately on a wide selection of theoretical work; (2) a great majority of papers have a clear research strategy, but data analysis methods are mostly simple descriptive statistics or simple/undocumented qualitative research methods; and (3) there are significant shortcomings in reporting research questions, methodology and limitations of studies. Our findings are consistent with and extend analyses of EER papers in other publishing venues; they help to build a clearer picture of the research currently published in EJEE and allow us to make recommendations for consideration by the editorial team of the journal. Our employed procedure also provides a framework that can be applied to monitor future global evolution of this and other EER journals.

Strategy and technology management: An innovation-leader case study

This paper studies a Portuguese academic start-up company, an acknowledged innovation leader in its sector, in two critical phases of its strategic development: • the founding of the company by a group of successful university engineering researchers in 2000 • its bid for internationalization in 2010.

Taxonomical classification of engineering education research publications - an IT perspective

In recent years, bibliometric analysis of publications has been receiving growing attention in engineering education research (EER) as a research approach that can bring a number of benefits. In this paper a taxonomical analysis of papers published in two EER journals is used to create a characterization of the work published in these two publications from an IT perspective. The analyzed papers are from the first 2011 number of IEEE Transactions on Education, (21 papers) and from the two 2011 numbers of the ASEE-published Advances in Engineering Education (22 papers). Applying an existing framework, seven taxonomical dimensions are used to characterize the papers. In addition this data is compared with that from an earlier taxonomical analysis of computing education publications. We conclude that from an IT research point of view, both of these journals represent attractive publication channels and we note some indications of a developing maturity of engineering education research as a field of scholarship.

Engineering practice - inputs for course design

This paper presents empirical data from a study of the practice of recently graduated engineers working in Portugal and situates the findings in ongoing work to find an appropriate model to categorize the practice of engineering professionals and to draw out useful conclusions for the design of engineering courses and the competences to be developed in them.

Interaction in the engineering workplace: Examining a network of actors representation

The paper presents a grounded theory model of engineering practice and describes how a theoretical model was obtained through the application of the Gioia Methodology to interviews of engineering practitioners. It then presents data on workplace interaction obtained from an online survey of 247 engineers and shows how the data obtained support propositions derived from the theoretical model.

L'ingénierie hétérogène portugaise: À la découverte de solutions viables

En appliquant le concept de John Law d’ingenierie heterogene a l’etude de l’activite d’ingenierie au Portugal, l’article montre que l’interaction sociotechnique represente une part importante de l’activite journaliere des ingenieurs. Utilisant une methodologie mixte (un mix de differentes methodes d’analyse), l’enquete suggere que le cœur de l’activite des ingenieurs consiste a trouver des solutions viables, generalement grâce aux negociations et a la coordination de flux d’information et d’acteurs en contextes technologiques. Les auteurs suggerent que la formation de futurs ingenieurs doit se projeter au-dela de l’approche ingenierie/sciences, en developpant des competences sociotechniques. Ces competences sont essentielles pour l’activite technique elle-meme, mais aussi pour l’activite de coordination. [1]

More activity, less lectures: A technology stewardship approach applied to undergraduate engineering learning

Technology Stewardship in engineering education can be characterized as a process in the service of teaching and learning that involves the design, adoption or adaptation of educational technology and the subsequent facilitation of its use. In this paper the authors present five applications of this concept in undergraduate engineering teaching and learning. These applications represent exemplars of how IT tools can fruitfully be applied to help students assume a more active role in their learning. The exemplars illustrate decision making with regard to the design, adoption and adaptation of IT technology for pedagogical purposes and provide pointers for appropriate facilitation processes.