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Engineering Education News
This page highlights new activities and resources from the Engineering Subject Centre. It also lists other items of news relevant to engineering education. Please see our 'UK and World Media' page for a selection of news from the wider academic community.
You can also get our events details using RSS. Find out how here.
Job opportunity at Engineering Subject Centre (05 Feb 2010)
The Engineering Subject Centre is seeking to appoint a Higher Education Curriculum Advisor (Fixed term until 31 July 2012)
An experienced engineering lecturer is required to facilitate and support innovation within the engineering curriculum across England and Wales. The post holder will be based at the Engineering Subject Centre at Loughborough University and work closely with The Royal Academy of Engineering, the University of Birmingham (host for the National HE STEM Programme) and the six regional centres. Enthusiasm for innovation in learning and teaching in HE is essential.
Curriculum Vitae will only be accepted if accompanied by a completed University application form.
Further details and an application form can be downloaded through the web link below
Engineering a future: Why a new diploma is a hit with the girls (04 Feb 2010)
Not many teenage girls wax lyrical about steam engines and depth gauges, let alone spend their lunchtimes building a model racing car. But the students at Newstead Wood, a selective school for girls in Bromley, south London, are pioneers. Alongside their GCSEs, 20 of them are taking the new engineering diploma – and loving every minute of it. "You do a wide range of things, you go to college and work with machinery.
Courtesy of The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/engineering-a-future-why-a-n...
Call for collaborative proposals to transfer and embed good practice within HEIs (04 Feb 2010)
To support the transfer and wider adoption of proven good practice within the HE STEM sector, the National HE STEM Programme is making available funding to those from HEFCE and HEFCW funded Higher Education Institutions to share proven evidence-based interventions directly related to its three strands of activity.
This funding opportunity is designed to support those within the HE sector who wish to adopt particular approaches, resources or ideas within their own institutions that they have identified exist elsewhere. It is also available to support the transfer and embedding of related good practice identified or disseminated by, amongst others, the Engineering Subject Centre.
http://www.stemprogramme.com/CollaborativePracticeTransferFund/tabid/124/Default...
The British Council summarises and gives access to information on the Bologna Process (03 Feb 2010)
The British Council website has become one of the primary portals for access to information on the Bologna Process. The website includes information on ERASMUS for student and staff mobility, access to summaries of the recent series of regional seminars on the Bologna Process (which was co-organised with the Higher Education Academy), and information on the appointment of a national team of Bologna Experts.
The seminars were held in Dundee, Cardiff, Belfast and recently at Oxford and presentations from each can be downloaded. Bologna Experts presented at each of the seminars, and can be contacted for futher information and support.
Courtesy of the British Council
Thousands 'to miss out on university degree' (01 Feb 2010)
Hundreds of thousands of would-be students will be denied a university place because of spending cuts, says higher education body Universities UK.
Universities' funding body Hefce will later outline how spending on teaching, research and capital will be allocated in England in the next academic year.
Courtesy of the BBC website
Record number of new students, Ucas figures reveal (21 Jan 2010)
A record number of students took up places at university last year but the percentage of applicants who were accepted dropped, figures released todayreveal.
And universities could face a multimillion pound shortfall after taking on 12,000 more entrants than the government said it would fund. Ministers faced criticism in the summer for cutting costs by capping the number of places available despite a 10% increase in applications, fuelled in part by the recession.
Overall, some 481,854 students were given places to start in September, an increase of 5.5% on the year before, according to today's official figures from the university admissions service, Ucas. But while 78% of applicants got a place in 2008, only 75% did in 2009. The number of new students from the most disadvantaged areas rose by 8.4%.
Courtesy of Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/21/record-new-students-ucas
Launch of JorumOpen (21 Jan 2010)
A new service developed by Jorum allows free access to quality learning resources developed by the UK higher and further education community. The Engineering Subject Centre will be depositing learning resources created as part of the Open Engineering Resources project.
Engineering a low-carbon built environment (21 Jan 2010)
The UK will not be able to achieve its target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 unless it urgently addresses carbon emissions from the built environment, according to a report published by the Royal Academy. Buildings currently account for 45 per cent of our carbon emissions but it is estimated that 80 per cent of the buildings we will be occupying in 2050 have already been built.
Many 20th century buildings are totally dependent on fossil fuel energy to make them habitable - in the 21st century buildings must be designed to function with much lower levels of energy dependency. The scale of this challenge is vast and will require both effective Government policy and a dramatic increase in skills and awareness in the construction sector.
Michael Dickson FREng, Chairman of the Happold Trust who supported the report, said: "Under the guidance of The Royal Academy of Engineering, Professor Doug King has delivered a significant report on the teaching of building physics to the engineers of tomorrow and which will help to achieve the low carbon world that we seek for the future."
Courtesy of The Royal Academy of Engineering
http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/releases/shownews.htm?NewsID=542
New Engineering Subject Centre case study (19 Jan 2010)
Case study: A Student-led Design Course Related to Sustainable Engineering by Tom Joyce, Iain Evans and Bill Pallan of the School of Mechanical and Systems Engineering, Newcastle University.
This case study looks at a second year mechanical engineering design course over a four-year period, which has been developed with an increasing emphasis on student-led learning and sustainable engineering. A history of these developments is given, highlighting the latest full academic year and its associated student feedback.
Learning Technologies Special Issue (05 Jan 2010)
A new issue of the Engineering Subject Centre's journal, Engineering Education, is available to read and download. A special issue focussing on learning technologies, it has six papers and three case studies on a variety of topics. The website also has video presentations by the authors.
Engineering Subject Centre Student Award 2010 (11 Dec 2009)
Get your students writing! This essay competition is open to all undergraduate students studying for a degree in engineering. Students are asked to express their views about how they are being taught and have the chance to win £250. This year students are being asked to use their imagination, put themselves in their tutors’ shoes and answer the question ‘imagine you are an engineering lecturer for a day: how would you teach your students?’ As in previous years, we expect to gain some fascinating student’s eye insights!
Former BP head to run tuition fees review (09 Nov 2009)
The former chief executive of BP was today appointed to run a comprehensive review of the top-up fee system amid warnings from students against a hike in tuition costs.
Lord Browne will chair the independent review, which has been charged with examining the impact of tuition charges on who goes to university and the growing cost of universities to the public purse as student numbers expand. It begins today and has cross-party support.
Ministers and their Conservative shadows have all indicated that they expect students to be charged more at the end of the review. The review was promised as a last-minute sop to rebel Labour MPs who, in 2004, threatened to reject the bill introducing the higher £3,000 a year fee. It will not report until after the election, prompting accusations that the government – and opposition – are avoiding making the controversial decision about fees a doorstep issue in the run up to a vote.
Courtesy of Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/nov/09/tuition-fees-rise-review-univers...
NB: Any opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the Engineering Subject Centre. See full disclaimer.