Pedro Neto

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.

Not so global: a bibliometric look at engineering education research

ABSTRACT It has been suggested that Engineering Education Research (EER) is going global. If this were the case we would assume that the research of EER scholars in different parts of the globe would be informed by literature describing prior work within and beyond their home country/region. The authors set out to test this hypothesis by applying citation analysis to research presented in four publication venues: the annual conferences organised by ASEE (American Society of Engineering Education) and SEFI (European Society of Engineering Education) and two archival journals published by these two societies: Journal of Engineering Education (JEE) and European Journal of Engineering Education (EJEE). Our findings from the analysis of 4321 publications show that citations in ASEE conferences are dominated by sources with US affiliations, whereas the SEFI data show that while US sources are frequently cited, European and other authors are also well represented. With regard to the journals JEE and EJEE, a similar pattern is observed. These results suggest that, in citation terms, European EER is relatively global but US EER is not. The authors conclude by suggesting that if the EER community is to aspire to quality scholarship, there needs to be debate around how such issues can be tackled.

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.

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.