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Contribution: This paper introduces the real-world limitations and non-technical aspects of power electronics (PEs) projects to students through innovative tutorial activities. Background: Many electrical engineering curricula offer a PE courses (PECs) for third- or fourth-year undergraduate students. Prior research on PEs education mainly focused on improving students’ experimental skills through developing practical experiments, laboratory activities, and problem/project-based learning. An instructional approach that instead employs real-world knowledge and skills is worth evaluating. Intended Outcomes: Students should be able to consider real-world technical and non-technical limitations when applying theory to design PE circuits and converters, and be able to select and carry out appropriate tests to troubleshoot circuits. Application Design: Prior research on engineering education emphasized the importance of introducing real-world limitations to the students as part of their curriculum. This paper suggests that the tutorial activities presented in a PEC can help students acquire skills in designing and troubleshooting a circuit or system according to desired technical aspects, real-world limitations, and available data. Findings: Evidence of the validity of this approach in a PEC at two Australian universities, over four academic years, is provided. Students receiving the new tutorial activities had percentage scores some 10–15 points higher than those who had traditional tutorials. Another evaluation reveals the students’ vibrant participation in the activities during the new tutorial sessions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper demonstrated on a large scale that explicit articulation of creativity-related learning goals on engineering syllabi is quite limited, and primarily limited to the first year of study. Engineering educators may need to do more to ensure creativity is explicitly addressed as an expected learning outcome within engineering syllabi. Background: Prior studies have shown inclusion of creativity within engineering syllabi and course activities are generally limited. Students may perceive educators do not value creativity, and their studies have limited influence on their creative skills. Studies conflict on whether creativity skills increase over completing an engineering degree. Creativity has been demonstrated to be an important skill for engineering professionals, but one not necessarily appropriately addressed in engineering programs. Few studies have attempted to quantify coverage of creativity material on a nation-wide scale, as opposed to in a single or select few institutions. Research Questions: 1) To what extent do engineering educators explicitly articulate creativity and innovation-related learning goals and material on their course syllabi? and 2) To what extent do engineering educators explicitly articulate exposure to, or instruction in the use of, creativity heuristics within their course syllabi? Methodology: The online publicly accessible course outlines of 1109 compulsory courses from 42 degree programs accredited by two national engineering accreditation bodies were qualitatively analyzed in a two-stage approach using document analysis. Findings: Approximately 2% of compulsory electrical engineering course outlines explicitly articulate creativity-related material; only one course articulated engaging students in using creativity heuristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper introduces the real-world limitations and non-technical aspects of power electronics (PEs) projects to students through innovative tutorial activities. Background: Many electrical engineering curricula offer a PE courses (PECs) for third- or fourth-year undergraduate students. Prior research on PEs education mainly focused on improving students' experimental skills through developing practical experiments, laboratory activities, and problem/project-based learning. An instructional approach that instead employs real-world knowledge and skills is worth evaluating. Intended Outcomes: Students should be able to consider real-world technical and non-technical limitations when applying theory to design PE circuits and converters, and be able to select and carry out appropriate tests to troubleshoot circuits. Application Design: Prior research on engineering education emphasized the importance of introducing real-world limitations to the students as part of their curriculum. This paper suggests that the tutorial activities presented in a PEC can help students acquire skills in designing and troubleshooting a circuit or system according to desired technical aspects, real-world limitations, and available data. Findings: Evidence of the validity of this approach in a PEC at two Australian universities, over four academic years, is provided. Students receiving the new tutorial activities had percentage scores some 10-15 points higher than those who had traditional tutorials. Another evaluation reveals the students' vibrant participation in the activities during the new tutorial sessions.

This paper describes the process of review, design, and delivery of a course in modern embedded systems, an international collaborative teaching project involving the University of New South Wales (Australia), Manchester University, and Imperial College, London University (United Kingdom). This project, being the first of its kind anywhere in the world, provides a learning environment that replicates the current industrial practice in embedded systems design in an easy and comprehensible setting, an environment where the processor, dedicated coprocessors, and software are all integrated to create a functional system such as used in sophisticated electronic devices, including mobile phones, Web phones, televisions, digital cameras, and personal digital assistants. Such collaborations are important in both reducing development costs in developing up-to-date, and increasingly sophisticated, courses and in addressing pedagogical issues that are common between computer and electrical engineering programs in all academic institutions. To assist students' learning experience, the course is supported with purpose built state-of-the-art programmable hardware and software development platforms, carefully planned laboratory experiments, lecture notes, weekly online quizzes, tutorials, and a companion CD-ROM as a learning tool. Since the introduction of this complete package, students' satisfaction, assessment results, and skills obtained through evaluation and assessment methods have improved markedly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates the application trends for information technology, science and engineering awards in Australia. Increase of awards given to qualified undergraduates; Offer of awards by higher education institutions; Review of awards by institutions to be attractive to students and industry.

Engineering education is undergoing a restructuring driven by the needs of an increasingly multidisciplinary engineering profession. At the same time, power systems are transitioning toward future smart grids that will require power engineers with skills outside of the core power engineering domain. Since including new topics in the existing curriculum while maintaining the existing requirements is difficult, this paper proposes a project-based cooperative learning approach to promote soft skills in an engineering course. This paper then shows how to construct a realistic open-ended multidisciplinary problem whose solution requires a wide range of skills, which is not a trivial task. The design and technoeconomic viability assessment of a small-scale photovoltaic battery system is used as a case study. The effectiveness of the approach and students' satisfaction were assessed over two years. Survey results after the first year revealed that the students did not feel sufficiently prepared for multidisciplinary work. After appropriate adjustments in the second year, the survey results improved noticeably. Statistical analysis reveals that the project teaches skills that are complementary to the core domain skills, which confirms the validity of the approach.

Global software engineering education (GSEE) is aimed at providing software engineering (SE) students with knowledge, skills, and understanding of working in globally distributed arrangements so they can be prepared for the global SE (GSE) paradigm. It is important to understand the challenges involved in GSEE for improving the quality and experience of educators and students. This paper reports the findings of an empirical study on the socio-cultural aspects of GSEE. A case study was conducted involving 14 participants from ten different universities in eight countries. The data was analyzed using grounded theory's open coding procedure. The key contributions of this paper are the identification and description of seven dimensions of socio-cultural distance that caused several significant challenges in the courses: 1) language differences; 2) concept of time; 3) attitude toward grades; 4) assumptions about national culture; 5) differences in autonomy; 6) influence of the course lecturer; and 7) work habits. Recommendations from this paper that are expected to benefit GSEE educators and students include: cross-cultural orientation of students prior to the course; use of various strategies to support better comprehension of different English accents (e.g., speaking slowly, replaying recorded video messages, and text chatting); and educators familiarizing themselves and their students with the relevant GSE and GSEE literature.

Project-based learning is a widely used pedagogical strategy in engineering education shown to be effective in fostering problem-solving, design, and teamwork skills. There are distinct benefits to be gained from giving students autonomy in determining the nature and scope of the projects that they wish to undertake, but a lack of expert guidance and of a clear direction at the outset can result in confusion, frustration, and unfulfilled goals. Moreover, engineering schools face the imperative of providing students with opportunities to engage with industry during their courses, which can be difficult to accomplish due to logistical and time constraints. This paper reports on a case study in which undergraduate students of electrical, computer, mechatronics, and telecommunications engineering interacted with representatives from industry to obtain feedback at the inception phase of their design projects. Students pitched their ideas to the industry guests at a virtual "trade fair" held within a hybrid video conferencing and three-dimensional (3-D) virtual world environment, in preparation for the assessable pitches that they had to deliver on campus to a faculty audience. Survey and assessment results attest to the participants' satisfaction as well as to the effectiveness of the approach in improving student self-efficacy and performance. The paper concludes with recommendations for engineering educators looking to implement similar initiatives and a brief outline of the authors' plans for the future.

This paper presents several methods for motivating students taking a power system protection (PSP) course. The paper reviews the laboratory activities developed for the PSP course at Curtin University, Australia; these methods are applicable and can be used for PSP course instruction at any institution. These activities were developed to improve the learning experience of the electrical engineering undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in this course. Initially, the PSP course at Curtin University consisted of lectures and tutorials accompanied by two sessions of software-based simulations and one session of laboratory demonstration. To motivate the students, several computer-based simulations and practical laboratory experiments were developed. PSCAD and ETAP power system analysis software tools are introduced and used to demonstrate the performance and coordination of different protection relays from steady-state and dynamic points of view. Also, a practical setup composed of a LabVolt power system simulator and industrial relays is used to carry out several practical experiments. The experiments help students observe the performance of protection systems for transformers and induction motors during faults and abnormal operating conditions. Finally, the concept of relay testing and commissioning is introduced by relay standalone experiments using a secondary injection relay test set. The results of these activities were evaluated according to the students' satisfaction, comments, total scores, and interest in PSP.

This paper describes in detail a successful training program developed for sessional (part-time or nonpermanent) laboratory demonstrators employed in the Electrical Engineering Department of an Australian university. Such demonstrators play an important role in teaching practical concepts and skills in engineering. The success of the program relies on a centralized approach coordinated by a carefully selected Laboratory Manager responsible for the recruitment, allocation, training, and development of sessional teachers, and for assessing student satisfaction with them. The paper examines the overall impact of the program on these teachers': 1) introducing laboratory material; 2) preparation; 3) communication; 4) interest in student learning; 5) ability to respond to questions; and 6) overall effectiveness. Sessional teacher satisfaction with the training program is also examined, and the data were used to inform the program's further development. The results show that the training program successfully improved the demonstrators' teaching skills and thus led to greater satisfaction and hence learning experience of both students and demonstrators.

This paper presents a new photovoltaic (PV) power systems laboratory module that was developed to experimentally reinforce students' understanding of design principles, operation, and control of photovoltaic power conversion systems. The laboratory module is project-based and is designed to support a renewable energy course. By using MATLAB real-time software tools in combination with digital signal processor (DSP) hardware tools, the module enables students to: 1) design and build dc-dc and dc-ac power converters; 2) design and implement control algorithms for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and voltage and current regulation; and 3) design and fabricate a printed circuit board for voltage and current sensing, isolation, and gate driving. In these hands-on experiments, by designing and building their hardware and software integrated systems themselves, students learn by doing and experience the engineering transformative process of building a product out of an idea. This paper is motivated by the dearth of literature on the application of project-based learning methodology to PV systems. The module description, the pedagogical and evaluation methodologies adopted, and reflections on the implementations are discussed.

Contribution: This article provides evidence that perceived learning has a relationship and influences the way students evaluate laboratory experiments, facilities, and demonstrators. Background: Debate continues on the capability and/or reliability of students to evaluate teaching and/or learning. Understanding such relationships can help educators decode evaluation data to develop more effective teaching experiences. Research Question: Does a relationship exist between student evaluation scores and perceived learning? Methodology: Perceived learning across the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains was measured using the Laboratory Learning Objectives Measurement (LLOM) tool at an Australian (344 students) and Serbian (181 students) university. A multilevel statistical analysis was conducted. Findings: Statistically significant relationships were found between student evaluation scores and perceived learning across the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains with some differences found between the two universities. This provides evidence that perceived learning plays a role in influencing student evaluation scores. Students perceived an improvement of learning across all three domains confirming the multifaceted benefits of the laboratory for engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper demonstrated on a large scale that explicit articulation of creativity-related learning goals on engineering syllabi is quite limited, and primarily limited to the first year of study. Engineering educators may need to do more to ensure creativity is explicitly addressed as an expected learning outcome within engineering syllabi. Background: Prior studies have shown inclusion of creativity within engineering syllabi and course activities are generally limited. Students may perceive educators do not value creativity, and their studies have limited influence on their creative skills. Studies conflict on whether creativity skills increase over completing an engineering degree. Creativity has been demonstrated to be an important skill for engineering professionals, but one not necessarily appropriately addressed in engineering programs. Few studies have attempted to quantify coverage of creativity material on a nation-wide scale, as opposed to in a single or select few institutions. Research Questions: 1) To what extent do engineering educators explicitly articulate creativity and innovation-related learning goals and material on their course syllabi? and 2) To what extent do engineering educators explicitly articulate exposure to, or instruction in the use of, creativity heuristics within their course syllabi? Methodology: The online publicly accessible course outlines of 1109 compulsory courses from 42 degree programs accredited by two national engineering accreditation bodies were qualitatively analyzed in a two-stage approach using document analysis. Findings: Approximately 2% of compulsory electrical engineering course outlines explicitly articulate creativity-related material; only one course articulated engaging students in using creativity heuristics.

The laboratory plays an important role in teaching engineering skills. An Electrical Engineering department at an Australian University implemented a reform to monitor and improve student satisfaction with the teaching laboratories. A Laboratory Manager was employed to oversee the quality of 27 courses containing instructional laboratories. Student satisfaction surveys were carried out on all relevant laboratories every year, and the data were used for continuous improvement. This paper will investigate the reforms that were implemented and outline a number of the improvements made. It also examines the program's overall impact on: (1) overall satisfaction; (2) laboratory notes; (3) learning experiences; (4) computer facilities; (5) engineering equipment; and (6) condition of the laboratory. Student satisfaction with the laboratories increased by 32% between 2007 and 2013. The results show that the laboratory notes (activity and clarity) and the quality of the equipment used are among the most influential factors on student satisfaction. In particular, it is important to have notes or resources that explain in some detail how to use and troubleshoot equipment and software used in the laboratory.

Entrepreneurship is a novel course in the curriculum for students in the Information Technology (IT) degree program at La Trobe University, Bundoora, Australia. In comparison to other IT-related courses, the Entrepreneurship course seeks to develop business management knowledge and skills; its learning design is thus different to that of other courses in the IT program. The concept of constructive alignment for curriculum renewal suggests that there are several components of good course design. In this paper, we use the principles of constructive alignment to analyze and redesign several components of the Entrepreneurship course. The focus is on reviewing and aligning the assessment tasks to ensure an effective evaluation and the achievement of student learning outcomes. Since assessment drives student learning, we describe the innovative assessment tasks that were implemented to enhance student learning, provide the rationale for the design of these tasks as supported by the current literature, and reflect on possible future improvements. The course redesign process and the constructive alignment and innovative assessment can be applied to other courses in the field, and more broadly to curriculum, teaching, and learning in higher education. (Contains 6 figures.)

Project-based learning (PBL), a learning environment in which projects drive learning, has been successfully used in various courses in the educational programs of different disciplines. However, concerns have been raised as to the breadth of the content covered and, in particular, whether PBL can be applied to specialized subjects without compromising the coverage of the required technical content. This paper discusses the advantages and drawbacks of using the PBL methodology in teaching specialized subjects in electrical power engineering, based on the authors' reflections and student feedback. The design and delivery of a PBL-based course in power system modeling and analysis is used as an example. It is asserted that proper usage of PBL makes it possible to deliver both technical content and generic professional skills in a specialized course. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

This paper describes a course in programmable logic design and computer architecture as it is taught at the University of Newcastle, Australia. The course is designed around a major design project and has two supplemental assessment tasks that are also described. The context of the Computer Engineering degree program within which the course is taught is presented, and some student outcomes are discussed. (Contains 2 tables, 4 figures and 1 footnote.)

This paper presents the strategies used for effective teaching and skill development in integrated circuit (IC) design using project-based learning (PBL) methodologies. It presents the contexts in which these strategies are applied to IC design courses at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia, and the National Institute of Applied Science (INSA), Toulouse, France. Collaborations among the faculty members of the two institutions have produced a set of learning resources and design tools to support the development of industry-relevant design skills and lifelong learning skills. At the pedagogical level, the emphasis is on the development of practical circuit design, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills rather than the mastery of complex circuit design tools. The courses enable students to learn about the most recent technological developments and their implications, using a set of user-friendly tools. The PBL methodologies, intuitive design tools, and latest technology models have consistently produced high levels of student satisfaction with the overall quality of the courses at the two institutions. (Contains 25 figures and 3 tables.)

This paper reports the integration of supplementary training in academic literacy, for those without the assumed entry standard, into a standard electrical engineering program without compromising any other educational objectives. All students who commenced an engineering degree were tested as part of their first session's assessment activities. Those identified as having inadequate academic literacy were directed to study a specifically designed credit-bearing course, which is controlled by the Engineering Faculty but was designed and is taught in collaboration with academic literacy teachers. Students who completed this course responded positively and also demonstrated measurable improvement in their communication skills. The approach has alleviated the skepticism about teaching academic literacy usually found amongst engineering faculty staff and has been adopted by the wider Engineering Faculty. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Remote and virtual laboratory classes are an increasingly prevalent alternative to traditional hands-on laboratory experiences. One of the key issues with these modes of access is the provision of adequate audiovisual (AV) feedback to the user, which can be a complicated and resource-intensive challenge. This paper reports on a comparison of two studies of remote and virtual access to hardware, one with rich AV feedback and one without. The comparison shows that the learning outcomes of the remote access mode are dependent upon the richness of the feedback; the learning outcomes of the simulated access mode are largely robust to an absence of feedback. The students' preferences are affected by the feedback, with a clear preference for richer feedback. (Contains 4 tables and 14 figures.)