ICL2016 21-23 September 2016,  Clayton Hotel,  Belfast,  UK

ICL2016 21-23 September 2016,  Clayton Hotel,  Belfast,  UK

Alaa K. Ashmawy
Dean School of Engineering, American University of Dubai - Vice-President International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES)

K-tab - Moving beyond the E-Book and Interactive Textbook Paradigm

The use of traditional books and e-books has been on the decline in recent years among college students. Despite a strong drive in some academic communities for e-books, they suffer from limitations including passivity of the medium and inability to annotate or mark the text. Publishers were able to overcome some of these limitations by supplementing the e-text with dynamic problem sets, interactive graphs, and integrated student-instructor communication. Hesitation by students to rely on e-books is also motivated by additional factors such as the inability to browse, bookmark, and move effectively between pages. On the other hand, e-books carry numerous advantages such as lower cost, ubiquity and ease of access, efficient searchability, and positive environmental impact. In order to provide a viable alternative to traditional textbooks and e-books, it is important to realize that today’s students learn better through snippets, multimedia clips, and collaborative activities, which are the main building blocks of K-tab – an innovative platform for student learning. By focusing on the student experience and adapting suitable technologies to enhance it, the K-tab platform overcomes many of the shortcomings of the conventional textbooks and e-books. It relies on a mixture of text, animations, audio, video, and interactive elements to stimulate learning. Preliminary survey data indicates that the platform is more effective in delivering information than textbooks and e-books among college-age students.

The Speaker – Bio

Photo of Alaa K. AshmawyDr. Alaa K. Ashmawy is Professor of Civil Engineering and Dean of the School of Engineering at the American University in Dubai (AUD). Prior to joining AUD, he had held teaching and research appointments at the University of South Florida and the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA. His technical expertise is in civil engineering, with interests in foundations and earth structures, environmental geotechnics, and earthquake engineering. Dr. Ashmawy’s research has been funded by government and industry sources including the US National Science Foundation and the Florida Department of Transportation. His professional experience includes consulting in the USA and the UAE, and a visiting professorship at the Universidád de las Americas in Puebla, Mexico. He is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in the State of Florida, USA. Dr. Ashmawy earned his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University in the USA, and his Bachelor’s degree with Distinction from Alexandria University in Egypt. He served on the Executive Committee of the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) Executive Committee from 2009 to 2016, and was elected in 2011 as Secretary/Treasurer. In 2015, he was elected Chair of the UAE Engineering Deans Council, and Vice President for Industry-Academia Relations of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES). He is a Program Evaluator (PEV) for ABET’s Engineering Accreditation Commission, and an active member on numerous regional and international committees on engineering accreditation, curriculum, and professional licensure. He is also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society for Engineering Education, the Deep Foundations Institute, and Sigma Xi - the Scientific Research Society. He is the recipient of the 2004 Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award at the University of South Florida, and the ASCE Zone II Faculty Advisor Certificate of Commendation. He has authored three book chapters, and more than 50 technical papers in refereed journals and conferences.

The Speaker – Interview


Céline Loibl
Leader of the Research Program "Sparkling Science", Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, Austria

Interactive Collaborative Learning in Citizen Science and Open Innovation Projects - Experiences within the Austrian Research Program Sparkling Science

Sparkling Science is a 30 Mio € research program of the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, fostering young citizen science involvement nationwide on a very broad basis. Since the implementation of the program in 2007 nearly 25.000 students under 18 years have actively participated in 206 research projects in multiple research fields such as speech synthesis, robotics, semantic technologies, sensor technologies, geographic information systems, human-computer interaction, laser technology and systems engineering, just to mention some examples for the hundreds of involved disciplines so far.

Funding is restricted to projects that take into account state-of-the-art science and research in the fields in question and work towards surpassing this advanced state by gaining innovative knowledge. The students work side by side with academics and make contextually relevant contributions to achieving the research goals. Projects are submitted and conducted by university or non-university research facilities, by universities of applied science or university colleges of teacher education.

The presentation will illustrate the kind of collaborative learning settings, created by the program and focus on tree especially interesting project examples.

The Speaker – Bio

Photo of Marie Céline LoiblCéline Loibl is leader of the Austrian Research Program Sparkling Science implemented by the Federal Ministry of Science and Research in December 2007. Sparkling Science funds citizen science projects working on a very broad variety of research questions and has up to now integrated more than 20.000 students under 18 years in authentic research processes.

Before having taken over the responsibility for developing funding programs in the fields of citizen science, open innovation and RRI within the Austrian Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, Céline Loibl was carrying out research on change processes within the science system. She holds a PHD in Political Sciences and a Master in Regional Sciences.

The Speaker – Interview




Rachel Schroeder
Head of Employment Marketing for Airbus and Airbus Group

Why Collaborate in Tertiary Education with Industry Partners?

According to global research done by consulting companies and governmental bodies, labour shortages are forecast to grow and the skills gap is likely to increase unless appropriate action is taken. One question is what to do about these issues and the other is who should be doing something about it. Do universities have to train students for jobs? What is industry’s responsibility to contribute? Should there be collaboration between Tertiary Education and Industry Partners and, if so, what should be done?

Employers and universities face a shared responsibility to inspire talented young people of all profiles and backgrounds to engage and succeed in their studies, and to support students in their career preparation by providing opportunities to experience and learn from working in diverse teams.

During this session, a proposal in favour of collaboration will be made for the benefit of Industry, the Education sector, students and employees. Collaboration proposals as well as an example of at least one model for this collaboration will be shared.

The Speaker

Photo of Rachel SchroederDuring nine years with Airbus in North America, Rachel worked in Strategic & Business Planning and Investor Relations. She moved to Toulouse in 1995 to join Airbus S.A.S. working in Technical Marketing and supporting the Chief Commercial Officer. In 2003 Rachel became Head of A380 Communications, during the A380’s roll-out, first flight and first customer deliveries. From 2007 to 2009 Rachel combined A380 and Environmental Communications within the Strategy and Strategic Communications department, notably launching the first edition of Airbus‘s Fly Your Ideas challenge - a student competition about aviation and the environment which attracted 2500 participants in the first year and now in its third edition the competition involves over 380 universities worldwide and has received UNESCO patronage.

Rachel is now Head of Employment Marketing for Airbus and Airbus Group, where amongst other things she is responsible for the development of strategic university relationships worldwide and an Employment Marketing team based in 7 countries. In this role Rachel launched in 2012 the GEDC Airbus Diversity Award, an Airbus initiative created to recognize and encourage diversity in the Engineering classrooms and in the Engineering sector.

Portrait © Airbus S.A.S 2008 (photo by exm company/ H. Goussé)


Stephen Lu
David Packard Chair in Manufacturing Engineering; and Director, the Viterbi iPodia Program, Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California, U.S.A. – Founder, the iPodia Alliance

iPodia: Classrooms-without-Borders

Big changes are coming to the academic world! Technology and globalization have pushed the century-old education enterprise over a strategic inflection point, where nothing short of fundamental changes will do. As more digitized courses become free and many college degrees are under-water, what could be the new value proposition that can make brick-and-mortar universities still a relevant player in the future? Having witnessed major changes in learning when distant students are networked to faraway campuses, what could happen when classrooms on distant campuses are interconnected for all students to interact and collaborate with each other directly? As “classrooms-without-borders” becomes a reality, campus learning will forever be different.

Based on the vision of “learning together for a better world,” the Viterbi iPodia Program (www.ipodia.usc.edu) was developed in 2009 at USC, which then established the iPodia Alliance (www.ipodialliance.org) in 2012 to enable global students to learn together in interconnected classrooms across physical, institutional and cultural boundaries. Unlike distance education that uses technologies to enlarge the delivery distance of courseware, iPodia employs technologies to eliminate the collaboration distance between students to realize “no-distance” learning. While MOOCs focus on digitizing course contents, iPodia emphasizes peer-interaction for students to develop contextual understanding of subject contents as well as mutual understanding of each other. As such, learners’ diversity becomes a valuable learning resource for all, and global education experience becomes the right of the many. To date, the iPodia Alliance includes 12 global, universities on five continents, giving the opportunity to a total of over 400,000 students to learn together around the clock and throughout the season.

iPodia, where “i” stands for inverted, interactive, and inclusive learning, is built upon three pillars: (1) technology “platform” that makes it feasible, (2) education “program” that makes it operational, and (3), most importantly, inclusive “pedagogy” that makes it unique and exciting. After introducing the technology platform and current education programs of the iPodia Alliance, this keynote talk will focus on explaining the inclusive pedagogy which enables iPodia students with diverse backgrounds to learn with, and from each other, as cross-campus cohorts to understand the important contexts of course contents of socio-technical subjects.

The Speaker – Bio

Photo of Stephen LuProfessor Stephen Lu is a world renowned researcher, teacher, and an education entrepreneur. He has excelled in both academic and business worlds, holding a permanent endowed chair professorship at University of Southern California (USC) and serving the executive/advisory roles at multiple international organizations. He founded the IMPACT Research Laboratory, directs the Product Development Engineering, and the Viterbi iPodia (ViP) programs at USC. In 2012, he founded the iPodia Alliance - a global consortium among 12 leading universities to promote “classrooms-without-borders.” Dr. Lu's academic interests and technical expertise are in design thinking, collaborative engineering, technological innovation, and education reform. He has published over 340 technical papers, books, and chapters, and served on many high-quality journals’ editorial boards, including the Chief Editor of the International Journal of Collaborative Engineering. He was a visiting professor at MIT, Technical University, Berlin, Shanghai Jiao-tong University, KAIST, and RWTH Aachen. Dr. Lu was the Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the SAVE/JAST program at Lockheed-Martin Co. which developed F-22 Raptor for the U.S. military. He is a senior Fellow of ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and CIRP (International Academy for Production Engineering), and has chaired CIRP Design Scientific and Technical Committee and the CIRP-ECN Working Group. For his professional contributions, he has received many prestigious domestic and international awards, including 2015 Duncan Fraser Global Award for Excellence in Engineering Education from International Federation of Education Societies (IFEES), honorary professorships from six foreign universities, and two Presidential recognitions in the USA and Germany.

The Speaker – Interview


Important Dates

13 Apr 2016Submission of structured abstracts (full, short paper), Special Session Proposals
25 Apr 2016Invitation for complete paper submission (full, short papers)
06 Jun 2016Submission deadline for full and short papers, work in progress, special sessions’ papers, posters, workshops, tutorials
20 Jun 2016Notification of Acceptance
18 Jul 2016Author Registration Deadline & Camera-ready Due
21 Sep 2016Conference Opening

Contact

Carinthia Tech Institute
Villach, Austria
Phone: +43 (4242) 90500-2115
Mail: info@icl-conference.org

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