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List of Special Interest Groups

Online Peer Moderation Special Interest Group

WebPA is an award winning flexible tool for the online peer moderation of group work and has been adopted by over 16 UK HEIs since being made an open source in 2007. Academics can use WebPA to set up, manage and moderate group work assignments. The tool is highly customisable, allowing academics to vary the size and number of groups, the assessment criteria, when and how the assessment is delivered, report types and much more. More information can be found at: www.webpa.ac.uk. The WebPA SIG aims to support and facilitate discussion and sharing of effective practice for the use of WebPA and peer moderation of group work in general, both within and beyond engineering.

Engineering Education Research

The Engineering Education Research Special Interest Group will act as a focus for educational researchers in the UK, particularly as the subject of Engineering Education Research starts to receive attention from all corners of the globe. The SIG will promote high quality research and develop a community that will provide the UK voice into the European, American and Australian research communities, amongst others. The SIG will help to facilitate collaborative opportunities for working and become a forum for exchanging information and promoting communication in the field of engineering education research. This will be carried out by exloring the areas of need, incomplete understanding and common interests.

Foundation Year Leaders Special Interest Group

Foundation Years offer a valuable resource by allowing students without the traditional entry qualifications in mathematics and physics to join engineering degree programmes. They provide entry routes to engineering degrees for a diverse group of students including mature students, international students and students wishing to change discipline after A level. Foundation Year programmes have some special features in educational terms arising from the diversity of the academic background of the students they attract. The Foundation Year Leaders SIG was created to provide a forum for the exchange of good practice in Foundation Year education by developing an active network of those responsible for programme development and delivery.

Internet Accessible Laboratory Experiments (iALE)

Internet accessible laboratory experiments allow access to equipment that may not be available in conventional laboratory situations. They can be made accessible at a time that better suits the individuals both delivering and using them and may provide access to an experiment that an individual would not otherwise have been able to complete, due to location, lack of facilities, illness or disability for example. This Special Interest Group, coordinated by Martin Levesley, University of Leeds, aims to form a network of academics, learning technologists and software developers who deliver and support teaching and learning using internet accessible laboratory experiments in engineering, both in the UK and internationally.

Developing and Sharing Resources for Control Engineering

This SIG aimed to bring together academics across the UK community who deliver control engineering degrees and who are interested in producing and sharing resources, especially those tailored for web delivery and independent learning. Through its networking, the group established a sharing community and started to populate a repository of quality resources as re-useable learning objects (RLOs) that would be accessible and re-useable across the UK community in control engineering. The repository is available to view at the Resources in Control Website. Suggestions for resources that could be added are welcomed.

BLOODHOUND@University Special Interest Group

The BLOODHOUND Super Sonic Car (SSC) Engineering Adventure is an education project initiative aimed at inspiring the next-generation of scientists and engineers. It is an iconic project to break the world land speed record, engaging young people and the public from conception, through development, and ultimately to the record breaking attempts.

The BLOODHOUND@University Special Interest Group, led by UWE, Swansea University and the University of Southampton, will be the main UK HE community activity.

MATLAB Learning, Teaching and Assessment SIG

MATLAB is the programming tool of choice in a wide range of STEM related industry. As a result it is taught by many science and engineering departments and, because programming is a generic skill and is a necessity in most STEM disciplines, it is often taught to the large cohorts (e.g. 80 and 160 at Loughborough, 250 at Liverpool).

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