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Background: The personal epistemologies of engineering faculty are an important and as yet underinvestigated aspect of engineering education. In this study, personal epistemology is defined as the stances an individual takes on issues related to knowledge and knowing, such as what it means to know, what counts as knowledge, and what makes some knowledge true. Purpose (Hypothesis): This research characterizes the personal epistemologies of engineering faculty members with particular emphasis on contributing to the development of a theoretical framework to support and guide future research. Design/Method: Semistructured interviews explored broad epistemological issues but were individually tailored to ensure open discourse. The interviews were situated in the domain of the participants' own research in civil engineering; this domain provided a familiar and rich research site in which to explore their epistemologies and allowed for richer interpretations through reference to other research linking research practice with epistemology. Results: The participants expressed a stance that assumed an objective reality and verified the truth of their knowledge through observation, which assumes access to that objective reality. Participants simultaneously evaluated their knowledge based on its truth and usefulness. The participants' discussions reflected their perceptions of the complexity and wide scope of the "real" world -- thereby moving beyond simplified categorizations such as positivist, into new and unexplored epistemologies. Conclusions: The participants' epistemologies are discussed in terms of their implications for engineering education practice and research, as well as personal epistemology research.

The Threshold Concept Framework is used to initiate a dialogue on an empirically supported pedagogy that focuses on students' conceptual understanding required for solving application-based problems. The present paper uses a triangulation approach to identify the threshold concept in a third-year undergraduate civil engineering course on open channel hydraulics. Evidence from teachers, students, and assessment data point to "critical flow" as the threshold concept--a concept that is transformative, integrative, and troublesome. Identifying the threshold concept by engaging various course stakeholders in a dialogue about conceptual understanding and capabilities makes learning visible for all participants in the process. Implementing this approach can result in an empirically driven rationale for adjusting pedagogies and assessments to foster enhanced student learning outcomes.

In this paper, we present a teaching proposal used in an Introductory Physics course to civil engineering students from Porto's Engineering Institute/Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP). The proposal was born from the need to change students' perception and motivation for learning physics. It consists in the use of an integrator element, called the physics elevator project. This integrator element allows us to use, in a single project, all the content taught in the course and uses several active learning strategies. In this paper, we analyse this project as: (i) a clarifying element of the contents covered in the course; (ii) a promoter element of motivation and active participation in class and finally and (iii) a link between the contents covered in the course and the "real world". The data were collected by a questionnaire and interviews to students. From the data collected, it seems that the integrator element improves students' motivation towards physics and develops several skills that they consider to be important to their professional future. It also acts as a clarifying element and makes the connection between the physics that is taught and the "real world".

The use of audience response systems (ARSs) or "clickers" in higher education has increased over the recent years, predominantly owing to their ability to actively engage students, for promoting individual and group learning, and for providing instantaneous feedback to students and teachers. This paper describes how group-based ARS quizzes have been integrated into an undergraduate civil engineering course on foundation design. Overall, the ARS summary quizzes were very well received by the students. Feedback obtained from the students indicates that the majority believed the group-based quizzes were useful activities, which helped to improve their understanding of course materials, encouraged self-assessment, and assisted preparation for their summative examination. Providing students with clickers does not, however, necessarily guarantee the class will be engaged with the activity. If an ARS activity is to be successful, careful planning and design must be carried out and modifications adopted where necessary, which should be informed by the literature and relevant student feedback.

This paper presents the structure of an undergraduate course entitled "programming techniques and the use of specialised software in structural engineering" which is offered to the fifth (final) year students of the Civil Engineering Department of Aristotle University Thessaloniki in Greece. The aim of this course is to demonstrate the use of new information technologies in the field of structural engineering and to teach modern programming and finite element simulation techniques that the students can in turn apply in both research and everyday design of structures. The course also focuses on the physical interpretation of structural engineering problems, in a way that the students become familiar with the concept of computational tools without losing perspective from the engineering problem studied. For this purpose, a wide variety of structural engineering problems are studied in class, involving structural statics, dynamics, earthquake engineering, design of reinforced concrete and steel structures as well as data and information management. The main novelty of the course is that it is taught and examined solely in the computer laboratory ensuring that each student can accomplish the prescribed "hands-on" training on a dedicated computer, strictly on a 1:1 student over hardware ratio. Significant effort has also been put so that modern educational techniques and tools are utilised to offer the course in an essentially paperless mode. This involves electronic educational material, video tutorials, student information in real time and exams given and assessed electronically through an ad hoc developed, personalised, electronic system. The positive feedback received from the students reveals that the concept of a paperless course is not only applicable in real academic conditions but is also a promising approach that significantly increases student productivity and engagement. The question, however, is whether such an investment in educational technology is indeed timely during economic recession, where the academic priorities are rapidly changing. In the light of this unfavourable and unstable financial environment, a critical overview of the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats of this effort is presented herein, hopefully contributing to the discussion on the future of higher education in the time of crisis.

The development of degree profiles is an important art which has become quite specialized in recent years. This article concentrates on the analysis of the importance of the role of degree profiles in the design of degrees and, as a consequence, in Higher Education in general. It analyses, particularly, the work of the Tuning Project and its main processes in relation to profile building. It also gathers together and systematizes the specific contribution of four main components which should be taken into consideration at the time of the creation of new qualifications: two of the components relate to the analysis of social and professional needs and the future trends in the area. Both of these elements provide the relevance which a degree profile should strive to attain. The third component, the reference to the meta-profile, provides a capacity for recognition throughout an entire region and also in relation to the global context. The last element in profile development takes into consideration the university where the programme is anchored, its mission and strengths.

This design/problem-solving activity challenges students to design a replacement bridge for one that has been designated as either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The Aycock MS Technology/STEM Magnet Program Virtual Bridge Design Challenge is an authentic introduction to the engineering design process. It is a socially relevant stand-alone STEM-centered activity that engages both male and female students. The history of the role of bridges in society and researching ways to fund the rebuilding of U.S. bridge infrastructure are just two examples of potential for cross-curricular collaboration.

Using data from the survey of the Ministry of Education, Nepal-2005 for school leaving certificate (SLC) exam, this paper attempts to estimate the impact of private school competition on public school performance for the case of Nepal. The study uses the number of private schools in the neighborhood as a measure of competition. The identification problem is that private school enrollment is likely to be correlated with public school performance. To address this, the study uses the existence of a motorable road within an hour's walking distance from the sample school as an instrument for number of private schools in the neighborhood. The OLS results show no significant relationship. In contrast, the IV method indicates a positive and significant impact of private school competition on public school performance, which holds true for the continuous and binary measure of private school competition. (Contains 4 tables.)

Much criticism exists concerning a lack of focus on real-world problem-solving in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) infrastructures. Many of these critics say that current educational infrastructures are incapable in preparing future scientists and engineers to solve the complex and multidisciplinary problems this society will face. Engineers must be trained to meet these challenges by incorporating a combination of learning paradigms to solve real-world, multidisciplinary, multifaceted problems. To assist in understanding how to solve these problems, Cost Engineering and Analysis and Project Management knowledge, integrated into an undergraduate Engineering Economy Course will provide students with additional knowledge necessary to produce quality Capstone design projects and obtain useful skills for today's engineering work environment. The content was designed as additional content embedded into the Engineering Economy course to introduce students to Cost Engineering and Analysis and Project Management. The method of introduction was through instruction, case studies, and ultimately application into a final group project that mimics the thought process of the Capstone experience and then, further used as a holistic approach to Capstone design projects. Integrating Cost Engineering and Project Management into an undergraduate Engineering Economy course proves to be a valuable addition to the engineering curriculum. This supplemental knowledge provides matriculating students with the skills necessary to successfully manage Capstone design projects and prepares them for project management activities in the real world.

Extant research on social movements has highlighted activists' discursive tactics to challenge the state, yet little analytical attention focuses on elite efforts to dominate the discourse arena through the deployment of oppositional frames. This paper analyzes elite oppositional framing surrounding the placement of a highway bypass in the Czech Republic. Our research examines how democratic states deploy oppositional frames and enlist elite countermovement support for their efforts to obstruct challenges. Using a range of data sources, we delineate the mechanisms used by these elite actors to vilify and stigmatize environmental activists, paving the way for more violent forms of public harassment. The concept we initiate, "discursive obstruction", adds the critical dimension of power relations to analyses of both framing processes and discursive opportunity structures. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for social movement research.

This paper asks a fundamental question: what is happening inside the mind of the undergraduate during teaching and learning experiences, and how should curricula be designed to support it? A number of concepts lend themselves to providing an answer, principle among which is the relatively recent idea of Threshold Concepts. In this paper we attempt to critically evaluate both the "product" and "process" of Threshold Concepts and subject the idea to a stress test by comparing it to the longer established Schema Theory of Learning. This mapping enabled a novel empirical study involving undergraduate civil engineering students to be performed. The methods derived from Schema Theories of learning provide a set of findings that compliment and strengthen certain key areas of Threshold Concepts, as well as leading to the development of some interesting principles of curriculum design.

We report the results of a pilot study aimed at developing, implementing, and assessing an educational module that integrates remote major research instrumentation into undergraduate classes. Specifically, this study employs Internet Web-based technologies to allow for real-time video monitoring and execution of cutting-edge experiments. The students' activities within the module are centred on building a model of a shallow foundation on a sand deposit utilising a centrifuge facility and using this model for: (1) visual observation of the response of soil-foundation systems, (2) learning the use of instrumentation, (3) interpretation of acquired data, and (4) comparing experimental results to theoretical predictions. Testing a soil-foundation system helped the students identify the lab experiments needed to analyse and design the system. A survey was used to gauge students' perceptions of learning as a result of introducing the module, which were found to be positive. (Contains 4 tables and 6 figures.)

English for academic purposes (EAP) has established itself as a considerable part of English as a foreign language (EFL) instruction in Iranian universities. Considering the Internet as a major educational source in EAP reading courses, it is highly important that the stakeholders have positive attitudes toward it and be aware of promises and challenges. This study was conducted to investigate the participants' attitudes toward the Internet in EAP courses for undergraduate students of civil engineering (CE) in Iran. To this end, 723 undergraduate students, 67 EAP instructors and 105 CE instructors participated in the study. Instrumentation included a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation. Our analysis of the data revealed that the majority of EAP instructors, CE instructors and undergraduate students have positive attitudes toward the Internet. However, the results showed that EAP instructors do not make use of any types of Internet-based activities in their classes. Moreover, the majority of limitations in using the Internet in EAP courses were identified. It is concluded that undergraduate students of CE need training in various Internet-based skills. The findings promise implications for renewing the EAP programs. (Contains 4 tables.)

With the introduction of key information sets (KIS) for all university programmes in the UK from 2012, the character, content and delivery of university degrees may be increasingly used by potential students to differentiate between degree programmes. Therefore, developments in curricula and the relationship to the profession are of growing importance. In this paper, we explore the role of programme content in prospective students' decision-making and describe the prevalence of interdisciplinary content in civil engineering curricula. Following this, we detail student perceptions of interdisciplinary content. It is found that universities currently operate a varied approach to transparency regarding curriculum; students pay little attention to programme content before embarking on their chosen degree; and engineering students view interdisciplinary content in the curriculum with ambivalence, usually ascribing its necessity in the preparation for post-university employment.

Policymakers and education scholars recommend incorporating mathematical modeling into mathematics education. Limited implementation of modeling instruction in schools, however, has constrained research on how students learn to model, leaving unresolved debates about whether modeling should be reified and explicitly taught as a competence, whether it should be taught holistically or atomistically, and whether students' limited domain knowledge is a barrier to modeling. This study used the theoretical lens of "legitimate peripheral participation" to explore how learning about modeling unfolds in a community of practice--civil engineering--known to develop modeling expertise among its members. Twenty participants were selected to represent various stages of engineering education, from first-year undergraduates to veteran practitioners. The data, comprising interviews, "think-aloud" problem-solving sessions, and observations of engineering courses, were analyzed to produce a description of how this professional community organizes learning about mathematical models and resolves general debates about modeling education.

A methodology for design based research (DBR) into effective development and use of Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVE) in vocational education is proposed. It blends software development with DBR with two theories selected to inform the methodology. Legitimate peripheral participation LPP (Lave & Wenger, 1991) provides a filter when thinking about vocational education because moving towards being work ready increases the student's legitimate practices within the vocation. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006) provides framework to link content and pedagogy with the MUVE technology. Software development techniques necessary in the development of simulation based MUVEs are shown to have characteristics compatible with development research. A design based methodological process that introduces software development within phases is described. The authors reflect on the methodology after the first phase of research into a MUVE that simulates the hazardous situation of temporary traffic management.

Few people truly recognize the influence of modern transportation on society. In the United States, that includes the influence of highways that allow the citizenry to travel freely, the strength of the economy, and the country's national security. In all cases, the geography of the United States influenced the evolution of transportation and transportation technology. The U.S. is the third largest country in the world and includes a vast area of land (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012a). In 2008, the U.S. had the most kilometers of roads in the world--6,506,204 km--almost twice as many as China with the second most (Central Intelligence Agency, 2012b). The U.S. continues to construct highways because they are vital to the country's national security and economic growth. What are the costs of building, upgrading, and maintaining America's highways? What are the costs of not building and maintaining highways? How does the U.S. highway system compare to the highway systems of other countries? Why has the U.S. highway system evolved the way that it has? These questions are discussed in this article. A classroom activity about highway construction is also offered. (Contains 5 figures.)

It is obvious that engineering played a significant role in the development of the world. Many contributions engineers have given are visible in the world and in people's daily lives. Unfortunately, humans often learn through trial and error, and much of the world has been developed in ways that did not contribute to the well-being of the planet or future generations. Poor planning as well as economic and political gains have played critical roles in how much of the world has been developed. Today, however, many engineers are learning from the past and making amends for these mistakes. Civil and environmental engineers are playing a particularly important role in new development. Predominantly beginning in the 1990s, civil and environmental engineers have stressed the importance of sustainable development. They understand that future economic growth and stability, as well as the health of nations and people, heavily rely on the health of the planet. Sustainable development promotes this well-being, and will aid in preserving the environment and securing a healthy future for generations to come. (Contains 5 figures.)

Infrastructure is a worldwide policy priority for national development via regional integration into the global economy. However, economic, ecological and social research draws contrasting conclusions about the consequences of infrastructure. We present a synthetic approach to the study of infrastructure, focusing on a multidimensional treatment of indicators of connectivity and resilience. As our study case, we adopt a tri-national frontier in the southwestern Amazon being integrated by a highway, and use survey data for rural leaders to evaluate the relationship of community connectivity to market towns and social-ecological resilience. The findings show varying relationships among different dimensions of connectivity and resilience, which bear implications regarding indicator approaches to the study of infrastructure impacts.

The case touches on several areas of marketing: ethics, sales issues, conflicts of interest, marketing forecasts, and issues of pricing. Joe Brice, the visionary and real estate broker for a 36-lot subdivision of moderately priced single-family homes targeting the $190,000 to $260,000 range, seems to have identified an unmet housing market, supported by preliminary agreements with three participating builders and written sales contracts for five predevelopment lot sales. However, Steve Crone, part owner of a successful road construction business and Brice's primary investor, had his construction staff's land planner generate a 22-lot plan that resulted in lot-and-house packages starting at $380,000 and going much higher. Brice has been asked to revise the marketing plan and to revamp the financial projections based on the 22-lot plan, even though his builder contacts and his analysis of the market for larger, more expensive homes suggests that the market is currently overcrowded and may be showing signs of slowing. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

Science and engineering libraries have an important role to play in preserving the intellectual content in research areas of the departments they serve. This study employs bibliographic data from the Web of Science database to examine how much research material is required to cover 90% of faculty citations in civil engineering and computer science. Bearing in mind the importance of access to current as well as past research, as well as the issue of space in libraries, the study evaluates citations from one year's worth of research output from faculty in three prominent Canadian universities with departments in civil engineering and computer science: University of Toronto, University of British Columbia and McGill University for the purpose of best aligning collection development activities with science and engineering research needs. The findings for all three institutions combined show that 25 years of computer science literature is needed to cover 90% of researchers' citations, whereas 30 years of materials are needed for civil engineering. We also found that the citation data is not only discipline specific, but also location specific, and a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate when making collections and retention decisions.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show a practical case of dialogic web-based learning that has provided a set of questions analysing two complex technological projects in "southern" countries with effects on multicultural equity. Design/methodology/approach: Structured online review processes in multicultural and systems science curricula allow for high density of literature-based reflection and analysis. Findings: The entirety of the set of over 50 questions developed by the proposed web-based dialogic procedure represents a starting point for an in-depth assessment of the effects of deploying "northern" technology in "southern" countries. Research limitations/implications: The present case study concentrates on energy technology, notably on two hydroelectric plants presently under construction in Ilisu, Turkey, and Belo Monte, Brazil. Practical implications: The multitude of questions calls for complex technological construction projects that have to undertake sound interdisciplinary in-depth analysis of technological, environmental, economic, cultural and social consequences in order to secure a necessary level of economic, environmental and social sustainability. Social implications: Application of widely accepted planning tools such as technology assessment, environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment are useful but have to be complemented by analogous tools at a cultural and social level. Originality/value: This case study operates through questioning, largely in the Socratic tradition. Questions may trigger a broad discussion process within civil societies: which is the intention of the present text. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

This paper presents an investigation of how experience-led content in an engineering degree can be strengthened by creating opportunities for engineering students to benefit from the knowledge, skills and resources of students with current professional experience. Students who study civil engineering part-time at Coventry University (while also working in the industry) are being used as mentors for full-time students, and careful attention is being paid to the input they can make to group project work. This paper reviews the results of evaluations of these two initiatives. The clearest enhancement to learning provided by the part-time students in these settings is the access they provide for the full-time students to real examples and the provision of actual physical artefacts such as drawings, photos, example documents and templates. Full-time students also gain an awareness of the value of the professional skills. The study confirms the value of these initiatives and points to future improvements. (Contains 3 tables.)

Information technology (IT) professionals face markedly different kinds of challenges in developing countries from the ones in developed countries. Based on the research literature and our fourteen years of fieldwork in Iringa, Tanzania, we have identified eight groups of technical characteristics of IT work that significantly affect the work of IT service management professionals in that particular developing country context. Those groups are "climate conditions on the site," "physical security on the site," "characteristics of premises," "characteristics of rooms," "quality of electricity," "local area network," "peripherals," "and ICT users." Even though the characteristics of IT work in developing countries are a challenge for any IT professional, they all can be overcome with appropriate education and preparation. However, scarcity of capable IT professionals who can effectively manage IT systems is an issue in East Africa. Although the situation is widely acknowledged, there are no reports of educational initiatives to address this issue. We show that without a broad understanding of environmental effects, physical security, power related issues, and characteristics of premises for ICT equipment, IT professionals cannot maintain ICT services of organizations on a sufficient level. Our identified solutions to practical challenges lead us to conclude that IT service management education must include some topics from the fields of electrical engineering and civil engineering in the IT curriculum. Those topics prepare students to overcome context-specific challenges in their future working milieu. Besides technical topics, organizational support for IT work plays a central role in the self-sustainability of ICT services. Hence, IT professionals should be able to advocate other members of an organization. Advocacy work demands good management and communication skills and strong commitment to IT professionalism. Education for IT service management has to recognize these issues and emphasis, in its curriculum design, the role of management and leadership skills in a culturally sensitive way. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to focus on a number of initiatives in civil engineering undergraduate programmes at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG) that allow students to complete engineering projects in the community, enabling them to learn by doing. Design/methodology/approach: A formal commitment to civic engagement was undertaken by the NUIG in 2001 with the establishment of the Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI) to work on mainstreaming civic engagement (service learning) within the curriculum across the institution. Today, the majority of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes in the College of Engineering and Informatics at NUIG have embedded service learning into their curriculum. These initiatives allow students to work with and in local communities, international communities and multi-disciplinary groups as part of their academic courses. The paper investigates and shows that community-based projects can enhance student learning and engagement in a number of ways. At NUIG, these projects are framed by a research orientation, commitments to civic engagement and building university-community partnerships, city-university partnerships and partnerships with other official agencies, so that community users can provide real learning problems and contexts for students and researchers and benefit from the results. Findings: It was found that the students got a sense of pride and satisfaction out of the knowledge that their work may be helping communities and that learning is not just to get marks to pass the exam! The projects can increase the students' sense of ownership of their own learning. Learners are more motivated when they can see the usefulness of what they are learning and when they can use that information to do something that has an impact on others. Research limitations/implications: The work represents work done in one institution affecting a region in a country. This can be extended to include more institutions and other regions. This paper presents evidence from the aforementioned projects that by creating service-based learning the students' energy in learning can have a positive impact on the community. Practical implications: The energy and enthusiasm of learners can be better utilised (and increased) by setting assignments as real community-based projects. Originality/value: This lies in the design of projects and assessment involving education providers and public for the benefit of learners and the society at large. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This study uses a new approach to assign individual marks from a team mark using individual contributions to a teamwork product. A team member's contribution to a teamwork product, in the form of an individual weighting factor, is calculated using team members' co-assessment. A comparison of the proposed approach with existing methods has been discussed with the help of a typical teamwork example. The approach has been refined to make it applicable for the Australian grading system at universities. It has been implemented in a large undergraduate engineering course to observe its effectiveness in practice. The results show that the method encourages teamwork, penalises below-average contributions and rewards above-average contributions. An analysis of a students' perception survey shows that students prefer the approach over alternative approaches. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

This study investigates the use of "this" and "these" as pronouns versus determiners in a corpus of research articles in Applied Linguistics and Materials and Civil Engineering. The study reveals that authors in the two disciplines use both structures in a similar manner, with pronominal uses constituting one-fifth of all occurrences. Five types of nouns were found to follow "this/these" as determiners: concrete, deictic, shell (Hunston & Francis, 2000; Schmid, 2000), adverbial head, and other abstract nouns. Shell nouns constituted over 40% of all nouns following "this/these" as determiners. The functions of shell nouns and their high frequency of occurrence lead to the conclusion that "this/these" + shell noun is a frequently used cohesive structure in academic research articles. The knowledge gained by this study can increase awareness of these demonstrative structures in composition instructors and L2 writers, leading to clearer, more cohesive texts. (Contains 2 tables and 4 figures.)

This paper describes the use of project-based learning to teach design skills to civil engineering students at University College Dublin (UCD). The paper first considers the development of problem-based leaning (PBL) as a tool in higher education. The general issues to be considered in the design of the curriculum for a PBL module are reviewed. Consideration of the literature on the application of PBL in civil engineering suggests that, because of the hierarchical nature of engineering education, PBL is best applied in a hybrid form known as Project Based Learning. A detailed description is given of how hybrid PBL was implemented in the final year of a civil engineering degree programme. In the final section, the results of an evaluation process designed to gain an insight into students' perceptions of the PBL process are reviewed. The module, which was developed at UCD, provided an excellent mechanism for developing many skills, including problem-solving, innovation, group-working and presentation skills desired by graduate employers. It was clear that the students enjoyed the peer to peer teaching and increased interaction with staff and external experts, which the problem-solving nature of the module facilitated. (Contains 4 figures.)

This study presents an evaluation of the centres of excellence in higher education in Finland. This approach is an example of enhancement-led evaluation aiming to improve the long-term development of education. The study presents the Degree Programme in Civil Engineering of the Turku University of Applied Sciences, which was awarded the distinction as a centre of excellence. The pedagogical development of the degree programme is essential to achieve high quality in operation and outcomes. The methods of active learning are efficient in engaging students in working life and improving learning outcomes. The results of this study are useful for those who want to improve the quality of higher education. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

Purpose: Despite the popularity of existing course management systems, they do not consider the management of course material changes, particularly courses that require more than one instructor. The main purpose of this study is to instantly communicate course material changes to all instructors teaching the same course and to communicate approved changes to students registered on the course. Design/methodology/approach: The fundamental hypothesis tested was whether the developed system effectively communicates changes in a timely manner. The level of students' acceptance to this new system was also tested. A dynamic course material change-management system was developed using visual basic programming language and an Access database. The system was applied to a hypothetical case study and to a currently running undergraduate civil engineering course. Findings: Results indicated that changes made to a course material were instantly communicated to all instructors teaching the same course. It also indicated that approved changes were instantly communicated to affected students. As a result, students were satisfied with the instant notifications they receive whenever a change takes place. Research limitations/implications: The proposed system does not include a methodology for online tests, course grades, and course assessment. The system needs to be integrated with these important features. Developments pertaining to integrating the system with these features will be considered for future investigation. Originality/value: The novel aspect of the developed system is the effective management of challenges made to course material and communicating these changes to instructors and students in a timely manner. The system can benefit any institution at different educational levels. (Contains 10 figures.)

This study aimed to investigate the models that co-existed in students' cognitive structure to explain the interactions between electric charges and uniform magnetic fields. The sample consisted of 129 first-year civil engineering, geology and geophysics students from a large state university in western Turkey. The students answered five diagnostic questions, testing their understanding of the interactions between electric charges and magnetic fields. For each question, the students had 100 points to divide between the options in order to indicate the ones that were attractive to them. The study found that many students possessed more than one model competing to explain the phenomenon in each question and they found these models plausible. This study provided further evidence that students' reasoning was context-dependent. However, employing teaching approaches like the learning cycle during the instruction might help students to grasp a more coherent understanding of the interactions between electric charges and magnetic fields. Encouraging students to use metacognitive strategies in science courses might help them to develop the habit of thinking about their thought. This, in turn, might reduce the adverse effects of the cues presented in questions on their reasoning. (Contains 2 tables.)

Over the past few years many universities worldwide have introduced a common first year for all engineering disciplines. This is despite the opinion of many academics that large classes have negative effects on the learning outcomes of first year students. The University of South Australia is also faced with low motivation amongst engineering students studying non-major courses. In 2006, a project-based laboratory was successfully introduced for first year students enrolled in electrical disciplines, which increased student satisfaction, reduced the attrition rate and improved students' success rate. This paper presents the experiences with the project-based laboratory's implementation in three different projects in the common first year course, Electrical and Energy Systems, where each project aims to increase the motivation of students in one of three disciplines: electrical, mechanical or civil engineering. (Contains 1 table and 8 figures.)

This manuscript describes faculty and student experiences and future activities of a multidisciplinary group of university faculty who are implementing inquiry-based learning (IBL) in their classrooms for the first time. This opportunity to implement the IBL instructional method was provided to the faculty through a grant from the university's Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). The goal of this paper is to provide a discussion on the implementation of IBL in the classroom and students' responses to IBL. The multidisciplinary group was from the following disciplines: philosophy, journalism and mass communications, business and technology education, public health, civil engineering, and social work. This manuscript describes the (1) fundamentals of the CTE inquiry grant, (2) fundamentals of IBL, (3) IBL strategies and implementation, (4) students' responses to IBL, and (5) the implications of IBL for higher education.

In 2006 UCL implemented new scenario-centred degree programmes in Civil and Environmental Engineering. The new curriculum can be characterised as a hybrid of problem-based, project-based and traditional approaches to learning. Four times a year students work in teams for one week on a scenario which aims to integrate learning from lecture and laboratory classes and to develop generic skills including team working and communication. Student experience of the first two years the old and new curricula were evaluated using a modified Course Experience Questionnaire. The results showed that students on the new programme were motivated by the scenarios and perceived better generic skills development, but had a lower perception of teaching quality and the development of design skills. The results of the survey support the implementation new curriculum but highlight the importance of strong integration between conventional teaching and scenarios, and the challenges of adapting teaching styles to suit. (Contains 3 figures.)

Recent years have witnessed an expansion in international investment in large-scale infrastructure projects with the goal of achieving global economic integration. We focus on one such project, the Inter-Oceanic Highway in the "MAP" region, a trinational frontier where Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru meet in the southwestern Amazon. We adopt a resilience approach as an integrative framework to understand various types of road-paving impacts. We focus on migration activity as an indicator of retention of collective memory, a concept associated with resilience. We pursue a comparative analysis of the three sides of the MAP frontier as well as subregions within each side. Since road paving may be mediated by other factors, we distinguish among the effects of multiple explanatory factors. Data come from a multinational survey of rural communities. The findings show considerable net migration and turnover, both indicative of eroding collective memory and a lack of demographic resilience to externally induced change in the MAP frontier. The findings indicate variation across the frontier, which road paving helps explain, along with some of the mediating factors. These findings contribute to the literature on the impacts of new infrastructure and integration as well as the study of social-ecological resilience.

This paper describes the design of the curriculum for a Master of Engineering programme in civil engineering at University College Dublin. The revised programme was established to meet the requirements of the Bologna process and this paper specifically considers the design of a new, second-cycle master's component of the programme. In addition to considering the content required to meet the learning outcome specified by the professional accreditation body, the paper presents details of attempts to move from a traditional instructor-centred model to a student-centred model of education in order to promote reflective (deep) learning. Although the paper presents a model curriculum for a civil engineering programme, the holistic approach to curriculum design outlined, which considers the organisation, sequence and evaluation strategies adopted, is applicable to all subject areas in higher education. (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)

The effects of highways on transforming human society and promoting population change have been investigated in several disciplines, including geography, sociology, economics, and planning. Currently, the primary highway construction activity in the nation is highway expansion; however, this expansion has not been the focus of much of the existing literature. This research examines the role that highway expansion plays in the process of population change. Specifically, this research proposes an integrated spatial regression approach to study the impacts of highway expansion on population change in the 1980s and 1990s in Wisconsin at the minor civil division level. The integrated approach thoroughly considers the factors that influence population change, appropriately examines the spatial variations of their impacts, simultaneously incorporates spatial lag and spatial error dependence, and systematically selects the optimal neighborhood structure. The findings suggest that the impacts of highway expansion on population change differ across rural, suburban, and urban areas: There are only indirect effects in rural areas, both direct and indirect effects in suburban areas, and no statistically significant effects in urban areas. Overall, highway expansion serves as a facilitator of population change within the framework of growth pole theory and location theory. (Contains 3 figures, 4 tables and 10 footnotes.)

This paper describes two case studies where problem-based learning (PBL) has been introduced to undergraduate civil engineering students in University College Dublin. PBL has recently been put in place in the penultimate and final year transport engineering classes in the civil engineering degree in University College Dublin. In this case study, the paper describes how PBL was introduced, the impacts of its introduction and the feedback received by students regarding PBL. PBL was introduced in these years to help students to become deep and active learners and to help them in the transition from passive note taker to researcher and lifelong learner.

Debates on improving performance in science and engineering at higher education institutions have stressed the need for institutions to adopt pedagogic practices appropriate for the setting. In this paper we contribute to this debate by presenting the results of empirical research conducted in a first-year foundation mathematics course for Civil Engineering students at a University of Technology in South Africa. Using the perspective of learning as participation in a community as a theoretical framework, the paper focuses on a particular type of student learning community, that is, small group work for the learning of mathematics. We use individual interviews to investigate students' perspectives on small group work in support of their learning of mathematics at high school and in the foundation mathematics course. The results suggest that students have considerable experience of working in groups inside and outside the classroom at school, and they identify conditions conducive for group work, including having a sense of belonging in a group. They value group work for providing support that may not be provided by the lecturer, for example, by obtaining alternative explanations (often in their home language), sharing ideas on problem solving, and getting immediate feedback. We argue that higher education institutions should draw on students' experience of group work and create the space for this type of student learning community both inside and outside the mathematics classroom. We also use the empirical results to develop the notion of "community" as described in the theoretical perspective of learning.

Reward has been, and continues to be, subject to significant changes in developing economies; the industrial relations model prevalent being driven by the complex socio-economic and cultural paradigms and the increasing demands of globalisation. The issue of reward in developing economies is therefore central and dependent on numerous contextual factors. The research presented in this article focuses on emerging trends in reward management practices in a developing economy, like Nigeria. Nigeria, with a population of about 140 million people and the economic opportunities derivable from its oil wealth, provides substantial opportunities for industrialisation. Consequently, the country continues to attract investment by multinational corporations. However, because of its evolving industrial relations setting, reward management is complex. This can be seen in the context of the interlocking roles of national institutions, culture, socio-economic factors and employee engagement in developing an appropriate framework. The framework of the research is based on both qualitative and quantitative analysis of data collected from 11 companies, through interviews and questionnaires. The conclusion points at the significant role industrial relations must assume. In particular, it highlights how essential contextual factors and employee engagement are in generating a supportive framework for the challenges facing multinationals in reward management. (Contains 4 tables and 4 notes.)

In this paper, we describe an approach to analyze 2D truss/Frame/Beam structures under Flash-based environment. Stiffness Matrix Method (SMM) module was developed as part of ongoing projects on a broad topic "Students' Learning Improvements in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Related Areas" at Old Dominion University (ODU), and funded by National Science Foundation (NSF). In this internet web based simulation, 2D Civil Engineering models for Truss, Frame and Beam structures can be created and analyzed with appropriately specified material properties, boundary conditions, and loads. The entire process for creating and analyzing structural models can be done online with user friendly web based tools. The module can be viewed at http://www.lions.odu.edu/~amoha006. Tutorials and demonstrated movies of the actual implementation of the models should make learners/users more comfortable. Theoretical description provides detail explanation of the theories behind the developed module. After the analysis is completed, the deflected shape of the structure and its' member stress intensities are also plotted. A self-assessment test module was developed which automatically grades the student's answers by comparing them with the computer generated solutions. The student's graded test score and the corresponding correct answers were automatically sent back to both the instructor and student through their email addresses. A survey was conducted between two classes in Spring '07 (without students being exposed to the developed SMM module) and Spring '08 (with SMM module) in Structural Analysis-I course at ODU. Preliminary results from the surveys have indicated that significant improvements in students' performance have been realized through the developed on-line SMM module. (Contains 2 tables and 9 figures.)

The new objects of public and open prejudice are Hispanics, primarily Mexicans due to their large population and their proximity to the United States. Because the Iraq War is such a disaster on all fronts, conservatives and reactionaries have shifted their patriotic fervour from invading foreign countries to inveighing against brown-skinned foreigners who come in the United States. In this article, the author talks about America's xenophobia which goes back a long way past 1928 when it was alleged that Al Smith, the Democratic candidate and first Catholic to be nominated for the presidency, would build a tunnel from the Vatican to the White House so that the Pope could secretly run the country. The author also talks about interstate highways which were specifically created to aid evacuation in case of a Soviet attack. The interstate highway in the crosshairs of the xenophobes is I-69 or sometimes conflated with I-35. Anti-immigrant organisations see expansion of I-69 as a plot to create a NAFTA (North American Free Trade Association) superhighway stretching 1600 miles from Mexico to Canada; this would be the first step towards the creation of NAU, the North American Union, resulting in "the disintegration of these countries as sovereign nations." Although the interstate highway is considered as treason to some Americans, the author was astonished to find that to some Christians, it is deemed the road to salvation.