International Network for Engineering Education and Research (iNEER)

General Secretariat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMORANDUM

 

DATE:            January 30, 2003

 

TO:                 iNEER Community

 

SUBJECT:      iNEER Report for 2001-2002

 

 

Dear Colleagues:

 

We are pleased to forward to you the attached “iNEER Report for 2001-2002”.

 

This report is closely linked to information posted on the iNEER website.  In order to get the full story, we recommend that the two be used together. 

 

Please let us know if you have any question.  As always, your advice and suggestions are welcome. 

 

Thank you for the opportunity of working with you during the past year.  We are deeply grateful for the privilege.  We look forward to seeing you in the near future.

 

Sincerely,

 

Vaclav Roubicek

Chair, iNEER Board

Rector, Technical University of Ostrava (1997-2003)

VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

 

Che-Ho Wei

Past-Chair, iNEER Board

Chairman, National Science Council

Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China

 

Win Aung, Ph.D., P.E., Dr.h.c.

Secretary General

iNEER, Potomac, Maryland, USA

 

 

___________________________________________

 

 

 

International Network for Engineering Education and Research

(iNEER)

General Secretariat

 

                                               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iNEER REPORT FOR 2001-2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

General Secretariat

 

iNEER/ICEE-ISC

e-mail: ineer@ineer.org

http://www.ineer.org

 

 

 

 

 

January 30, 2003

 

 

___________________________________________

 

 

 

 

iNEER REPORT FOR 2001-2002

 

 

January 30, 2003

 

 

 

A.        Introduction

 

The past year was a busy and productive one for iNEER.  The Retreat held in Taipei in February helped lay the ground work for a number of new directions.  The iNEER Board voted to incorporate iNEER as a non-profit organization.  After discussion and review over a 9-month period, the iNEER By-Laws were adopted by the iNEER Board in November 2002.  iNEER and ICEE-ISC collaborated with UMIST in the planning and implementation of ICEE-2002. 

 

With personal visits and through e-mails, we expanded our outreach and networking to the worldwide engineering education and research community. 

 

The iNEER/SEU International Engineering Education Partnership Workshop was convened in Nanjing, China, in June. 

 

The first iNEER Special Volume, an archival publication giving a voice to the iNEER community, entitled “Engineering Education and Research – 2001: A Chronicle of Worldwide Innovations”, was published in August.  The second volume is scheduled for publication in July, 2003.

 

We also initiated an iNEER regional workshops series.  Each workshop will be interspersed between two successive ICEE.  The first such workshop will be held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in March, 2003.  It is called: Ibero-American Summit on Engineering Education: A Regional Conference of the iNEER Network.

 

A 39-item listing of iNEER’s programs and activities undertaken during 2002 is given at:

http://www.ineer.org/AboutUs/ITEMPOSTEDDURING2002-2.htm.  This listing also provides the links to further details on each item.  (Please bookmark this link as you will need to re-visit this page several times to get a complete picture of what took place in 2002.)

 

B.                 iNEER/ICEE-ISC Retreat and iNEER Board Meeting, Taipei

 

An iNEER/ICEE-ISC Retreat, the third in the series since 2001, was held in Taipei, Taiwan, ROC, during February 19-23, 2002.  Ahead of the Retreat, the iNEER Board held a Board meeting on February 20.  Minutes of the Board meeting and a summary of the discussion held at the Retreat are posted at:

http://www.ineer.org/Events/WorkshopInfo/MinutesofiNEERBoardMeeting2-19-022.pdf

 

An important outcome of the Board meeting was the decision to incorporate iNEER as a non-profit corporation.  The first draft of the by-laws was circulated in advance of the meeting and discussed during the meeting.

 

The Retreat was held under the auspices of Dr. C.H. Wei, Chair of iNEER and ICEE-ISC.  Concurrently, Dr. Wei is also Chairman of the National Science Council (NSC) of R.O.C. on Taiwan.  In addition to being the primary funding agency for education and research at academic institutions, NSC is also responsible for driving Taiwan’s economic development through technology innovations.  It also has oversight on two science-based industrial parks with a third one under consideration.  Attendees visited the first of these, the Science-Based Industrial Park in Hsinchu, one hour’s drive from Taipei.  This high tech park has been given much of the credit for Taiwan's economic surge in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

 

Chaired by Dr. Wei, the Retreat was an informal event that focused on future plans for global partnerships in higher education, especially engineering education.  Of particular interest were emerging trends in regions around the world as represented by the attendees; new potential iNEER partners; new partnership forums; meetings where iNEER representation was needed, influential people we should invite to future iNEER/ICEE meetings, etc.

 

Attendees were assigned as lead discussers for selected items in the agenda. To facilitate communication, it was suggested that attendees consider framing their remarks in writing in advance of the Retreat. 

 

The list of attendees, Retreat agenda and a photo journal of the event is available at: http://www.ineer.org/ISCMeet/Welcome.htm#TAIPEIRETREAT. 

 

 

C.        iNEER/SEU International Engineering Education Partnership Workshop

 

The main purpose of this workshop was to initiate interaction between the iNEER community and the engineering education community in China.  China has just started to reach out to the international community through its membership in WTO; Chinese engineers are increasingly noted for their contributions to technology innovations; and multinationals are increasingly employing Chinese engineers in their new R&D centers in China.  Still, the engineering education community there has not started to develop any meaningful collaborative activities in engineering education with educators in other countries.

 

The iNEER/SEU workshop represented a major effort launched to develop possible future linkages between iNEER and Chinese universities.  The workshop pulled together 19 leading educators from outside of China, and 14 official delegates from leading universities in China.  In addition, a number of local participants were also present.  Academician Gu Guanqun, President of SEU, and Prof. Wu Jieyi, Senior Vice President of SEU, attended the workshop.  This workshop was held in conjunction with the 100th anniversary celebration of the founding of Southeast University in Nanjing, China. 

 

The proceedings of the workshop was jointly edited by Win Aung, Wu Jieyi and F.K. Tsou.  This report, which includes a description of the scope of the workshop, the agenda and the list of attendees, is posted at:

http://www.ineer.org/Events/WorkshopInfo/SEUWorkshopReport5-30-02.pdf

 

A photo journal documenting the event is available at: http://www.ineer.org/ISCMeet/Welcome.htm#SEUWORKSHOP

 

D.        ICEE-2002

 

John Garside and Peter Hicks, Vice Chancellor and Principal, and Dean, respectively of UMIST, and their associates are to be congratulated for their leadership in planning and execution of this successful event.  An evaluation of the conference is provided by Robin King of the University of South Australia at: http://www.ineer.org/Events/ICEE2002Info/RobinKingReport.pdf.

 

The 9/11 attacks did not seem to have a significant negative impact on abstract submission to ICEE-2002.  Per agreement with UMIST, the host for ICEE-2002, iNEER again helped with program development and abstract generation, leading to 15 technical sessions being proposed and accepted by UMIST.  These 15 sessions targeted specific emerging areas in engineering education.  Volunteers from 10 nations stepped forward to organize these sessions.

 

The Calls for Papers were forwarded to the iNEER community in December, 2001.  By the closing date in February, 2002 a record total of 484 abstracts were received from 47 countries.  The 15 targeted Calls received over 200 of the abstracts.  Over 90% of all the abstracts came from the iNEER community. 

 

The iNEER Secretariat had direct access to the ICEE-2002 abstract and paper submission database and, with the help of two assistants linked through the iNEER computer network, helped monitor the rate of abstract submission and later the rate of paper submission. 

 

The results are shown below:

 

# of

Session #

Title/

 

TOTAL:

484

 

Abstracts

 

 

Theme

 

SUBTOTAL Sessions 1-15:

209

      43%

 

 

 

 

 

SUBTOTAL Sessions 16-24:

275

      57%

11

1

 

Outreach to Increase Diversity

 

 

7

2

 

Educational Robotics

 

 

1

3

 

Educational Challenges in Nanoengineering

 

 

11

4

 

Short/Modular Courses for Ind. & Prof. Dev.

 

 

21

5

 

Innov. In Virtual & Remote Lab.

 

 

18

6

 

Eng. Ed. In Dev. Countries

 

 

4

7

 

Network-Based Control & Ident. Ed.

 

 

24

8

 

Innov. Web.Based Teaching

 

 

31

9

 

Unique Design Experience

 

 

12

10

 

Supplementary eLearning Materials in Eng. & Com. Sci.

 

 

11

11

 

Tech. & Society: Eng. Ed. In Age of Digital Tech. & Globalization

 

23

12

 

Assessment of Stud. Learning

 

 

6

13

 

International Ed. & Accreditation

 

 

14

14

 

Ed. In Com. Disciplines

 

 

15

15

 

Impact of IT on Ed. And Res.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

29

16

 

Facing the Global Challenge

 

 

40

17

 

Changing Structures for Delivery

 

 

37

18

 

Partnership for Progress

 

 

2

19

 

Funding Opportunities

 

 

21

20

 

E-Universities

 

 

 

22

21

 

Meeting the Needs of Ind.

 

 

5

22

 

SciFi Engineering

 

 

 

28

23

 

Best Practice

 

 

 

91

24

 

New Methods & Techniques

 

 

 

 

ICEE-2002

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOTAL ABSTRACTS RECEIVED AS OF 4/16/02:

 

484

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

131

 

USA

 

25

3

 

Slovak Republic

2

53

 

Taiwan

 

26

3

 

Korea

3

43

 

Brazil

 

27

2

 

United Arab Emirates

4

41

 

UK

 

28

2

 

Mexico

5

25

 

Australia

 

29

2

 

Lithuania

6

19

 

Czech Republic

30

2

 

Japan

7

14

 

Norway

 

31

2

 

Hungary

8

12

 

Spain

 

32

2

 

Greece

9

11

 

Ukraine

 

33

2

 

Croatia

10

11

 

Russia

 

34

2

 

Colombia

11

10

 

Poland

 

35

2

 

Bulgaria

12

9

 

Singapore

 

36

2

 

Trinidad

13

7

 

Turkey

 

37

1

 

Thailand

14

7

 

Portugal

 

38

1

 

South Africa

15

7

 

India

 

39

1

 

Slovenia

16

7

 

Germany

 

40

1

 

Saudi Arabia

17

6

 

Zimbabwe

 

41

1

 

Rwanda

18

6

 

France

 

42

1

 

Romania

19

6

 

China

 

43

1

 

Pakistan

20

5

 

Malaysia

 

44

1

 

Mauritius

21

5

 

Canada

 

45

1

 

Lebanon

22

4

 

Switzerland

46

1

 

Israel

23

4

 

Sweden

 

47

1

 

Iran

24

4

 

Puerto Rico

48

1

 

Algeria

 

 

E.         iNEER Special Volume

 

We initially planned and proceeded to implement an agreement with an international journal to help edit a special issue of the journal.  Per signed agreement, our responsibility was to be strictly technical as was the case for all past special issues of the journal.  There would be no financial or any other responsibility on the part of iNEER beyond paper solicitation, review and final selection of 15 papers.

 

We assembled a panel of 5 co-editors.  Work on advertising the paper solicitation, peer review and selection of the final papers was completed in February, 2002.  Final editing and, going one step beyond what was called for the agreement with the journal, pagination were also completed and the CD, containing the complete file for book production was ready for shipment to the chief editor of the journal.  At this point, however, new conditions cropped up in which the journal required the authors to pay excess-page charges, and iNEER to pay for printing and then, to recoup expenses, to do the marketing of the special issue.  In March, the iNEER Board decided that iNEER itself should undertake to publish the papers in book form, choosing a hardcover book format. 

 

We increased the number of papers to 19 and partnered with Begell House Publishers in the venture, getting the book out just in time for distribution at ICEE-2002 in August, 2002.       

 

The new hard-cover publication, the only one of its kind and the first in a series started by iNEER this year, is aimed at (a) highlighting the benefits of and disseminating the results of international collaboration; (b) serving as a voice for the iNEER community; and (c) furthering the ideals of international partnership in engineering education. The series is intended to complement, not compete with, the existing archival publications in engineering education. 

 

The preface, table of contents, and preface of the book have been posted on the iNEER website and may be accessed through the link:

http://www.ineer.org/iNEERPapers/Welcome.htm

 

F.         iNEER Announcements

 

During the past year, we continued our practice of posting items related to international in engineering education and research, including summaries of funding announcements concerning international cooperation in engineering education and research.  Each posted item contains either the complete information of the item or a summary with a hyperlink to the original source.  The item could be a major speech or an announcement concerning new funding opportunity.  In each case, we sent a short e-mail to members of the iNEER community who are on iNEERLIST, the e-mail address database of the iNEER communication system.  This alerts the members to the presence of, and with a link to, the summaries. 

 

Based on feedback from the community, posting of the summaries is especially helpful for iNEER members from non-English speaking countries, which means about ˝ of the current 6,808 member roster.  For these people, going through a full blown announcement that sometimes run 30 pages long is not an easy undertaking.

 

We posted on the iNEER website more than 3 dozen items related to international cooperation in engineering education and research.  For easy reference, a listing (a “Contents” list) of these items is posted at: http://www.ineer.org/AboutUs/ITEMPOSTEDDURING2002.htm

 

G.        The iNEER Community and iNEERLIST

 

We believe that our focus on international cooperation, involving all countries on an equal footing, is one of the reasons why the iNEER community is interested in iNEER.  Another reason is the free, open structure.  Thus the iNEER e-mails and website deal not just with organizing an ICEE, but with many other aspects related to international cooperation in engineering education and research. 

 

As a result, we receive a steady flow of e-mails from persons who have heard of iNEER and who have looked at our website and perhaps have seen our e-mails forwarded to them, requesting us to put them on iNEERLIST, now comprising 6,808 members in about 100 countries.  Some existing members also send us lists of individuals interested in being on iNEERLIST.  In 2002, the iNEER website received up to 2,499 visits per month.

H.                iNEER Awards

 

The iNEER Awards Committee, comprised of V. Schutz and V. Roubicek, received 12 nominations from various countries.  These were sent out to 7 judges, each from a different country.  Based on comments provided by the judges, the Committee selected 3 awardees.  Awards were given out by representatives of the iNEER Board during the ICEE-2002 banquet on August 20, 2002.  The awardees were:

 

Malgorzata Zywno, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ryerson, University, Toronto, Canada.

 

Fu-Kang Tsou, Ph.D., Professor of Mechanical Engineering – Emeritus, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

 

Laurence Legg, Ph.D., Professor of Product Design and Manufacturing Technology, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom.

 

I.          Facilitating Partnership MOUs

 

In 2002, the iNEER Secretariat helped develop formal linkages between universities in the U.S., U.K. and Puerto Rico and Southeast University in Nanjing, China.  Draft agreements were first signed during the workshop held in Nanjing in June, 2002, followed by the final agreement being signed during the banquet at ICEE-2002.  Photos of the signing ceremonies have been posted on the iNEER website for the respective events. 

 

The universities signing the four agreements developed under the auspices of iNEER and the names of the heads of the respective institutions, or persons representing the heads, that represented the universities at the signing with Southeast University (represented by Gu Guanqun, Academician and President) are:

 

1.                  New Jersey Institute of Technology (Robert Altenkirch, President) and Southeast University (Gu Guanqun, President);

2.                  University of Puerto Rico – Mayaguez (Ramon Vasquez, Dean of Engineering);

3.                  University of Florida – Gainesville, FL (Winfred Phillips, Vice President for Research); and

4.                  University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, Manchester, England (Peter Hicks, Dean of UMIST).

 

J.         ICEE -- Past and Future Conferences

 

With the conclusion of ICEE-2002 in Manchester, England in August 2002, eight ICEEs are behind us.  This year, the venues for ICEE-2005 (Gliwice, Poland) and ICEE-2006 (Mayaguez, Puerto Rico) were selected jointly by the iNEER Board and the ICEE-ISC.    iNEER inked agreements with the heads of the respective institutions this year. 

 

The upcoming and past iNEER events, including ICEEs, workshops and retreats, are listed at: http://www.ineer.org/AboutUs/LOCATIONSANDDATESOFICEE12-11-02.pdf.

 

K.        Outreach and Networking Visits and Courtesy Calls

 

We carried out networking visits to and paid courtesy calls on leaders of several institutions during the past year, including (the most recent visit is listed first):

 

1.         Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland (W. Zielinski, Rector)

2.         VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic (V. Roubicek, Rector)

3.                  Polytechnic Technical University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain (J. Nieto, Rector)

4.                  Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, Australia (S. Lever, Deputy Rector)

5.                  Australian Research Council, Canberra, Australia (Stephen Walker, Executive Director, Engineering and Environmental Sciences)

6.                  Australian Council of Engineering Deans, Canberra, Australia

7.                  University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (Geoff Barton, Associate Dean of Engineering)

8.                  University of Western Sydney, Sydney, Australia (V. Ilic, Senior Lecturer)

9.                  U. of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand (P. Brothers, Dean of Engineering)

10.              University of Manchester Institute of Technology, Manchester, England (J. Garside, Principal and Vice Chancellor)

11.              New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, USA (Robert Altenkirch, President)

12.              Tsinghua University, Beijing, China (Guo Zeng-Yuan, Academician)

13.              Natural Science Foundation, Beijing, China (various officials)

14.              Southeast University, Nanjing, China (Gu Guanqun, Academician and President)

15.              Shanghai Chiao-Tung University, Shanghai, China (Tao Ai-Tzu, Vice President)

16.              Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

17.              U. of Florida – Gainesville, Florida, USA (D. Colburn, Provost and Senior Vice President)

18.              Southern Illinois U., Carbondale, Illinois, USA (W. Wendler, Chancellor)

19.              New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, USA (S. Fenster, President (April, 2002))

20.              U. of Missouri – Rolla, Rolla, Missouri, USA (G. Thomas, Chancellor)

21.              Yangon Institute of Technology, Yangon, Myanmar (Hla, Than, Pro-Rector)

22.              National Science Council, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC (C.H. Wei, Chairman)

 

In addition, the Secretary-General attended the annual conference of the Australian Association of Engineering Education (AAEE), where he was a plenary speaker, and addressed the annual meeting of the Australian Council of Engineering Deans (ACED).     

 

He presented seminars at the University of Auckland, University of Missouri – Columbia, and the University of Missouri – Rolla where he spoke at the meeting of the Chancellor’s Council.   

 

A short photo journal of some of these visits and seminar presented are posted at:

http://www.ineer.org/ISCMeet/Welcome.htm#VISITS

 

M.              Vaclav Roubicek Elected Chairman

 

Following election held by e-mails, Vaclav Roubicek has been elected as the new Chair of the iNEER Board and the ICEE International Steering Committee.  His term will begin on January 1, 2003.

A co-founder of iNEER and currently the Rector of VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic, Professor Roubicek is a member of the Senate of the government of Czech Republic.  He is the author of a recent book on mining and mineral resources.  For a photo of him in action during the recent ICEE-2002, please click on: http://www.ineer.org/Events/ICEE2002Info/ICEE20020583.jpg. He is standing on the left.

 

The results of the recent voting by the iNEER Board and the ICEE-ISC that led to his election as Chair are as follows:

 

Votes for Professor Vaclav Roubicek:

 

iNEER Board members:                                   13 – 0

 

ICEE-ISC members:                                        80 – 1 (one write-in vote)

 

We look forward to working with Professor Roubicek in his tenure as Chair. 

 

We also thank Profesor Che-Ho Wei for his leadership and friendship as Chair during the past 1-1/2 years and look forward to his continued guidance and support.  

 

We also express our appreciation for the work of the Nominations Committee (Vic Ilic and Vic Schutz).

 

N.                New Member of the iNEER Board

 

Vojislav Ilic, Senior Lecturer in Mechatronic Engineering at the University of Western Sydney, has been elected to the iNEER Board for a two-year renewable term.  He has had extensive industrial experience as a Research Engineer in multiphase thermofluid problems associated with nuclear, petroleum and solar engineering while with the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research  Organisation, Dartmouth College and the University of California, Santa Barbara.  His current research interests include engineering education, biomedical engineering, polymer processing and cooling of packaged systems.

 

Acknowledgements

 

The programs reported herein were made possible through the support of our sponsors and numerous volunteers of the iNEER community.  We wish to gratefully acknowledge the generous support of Hewlett-Packard Company (through Wayne Johnson, Executive Director of University Relations Worldwide); Microsoft Corp. (through Randy Hinrichs, Group Research Manager); and UMIST - University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (through Prof. John Garside, Vice Chancellor and Principal; and Prof. Peter Hicks, Dean).  New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is the host of the iNEER website and communication system, and home to the iNEER Secretariat.  VSB – Technical University of Ostrava, through Radim Farana, supported the continued development and maintenance of the iNEER website.  We are grateful to Jason Ng, Hemal Shah, Gedaliah Wolosh, Angela Vega and Arminta Skipper of NJIT for help with various aspects of iNEER website and communcation system at NJIT.  Robert Aung and Linnea Hasegawa provided all-around technical and office support for the iNEER Secretariat. 

 

Last but not least, we express our sincere appreciation to the worldwide iNEER community for their support and participation in iNEER programs.