August 30, 2000
Dear Colleague:
On behalf of the ICEE International Steering Committee (ISC) and the International Network for Engineering Education and Research (iNEER), I wish to thank you once again for your participation and contributions at ICEE-2000. I have received a number of very positive comments about the conference and have relayed them to Prof. Che-Ho Wei and his colleagues in Taiwan.
If you have not done so, please give me your feedback concerning the conference so that the organizers may hear about what aspect of the conference that you liked, and in which areas things could be done differently in future conferences.
It might also be beneficial to do a little follow-up on the technical discussion held on specific issues during the conference, particularly at the workshop.
Looking over the various issues discussed at ICEE, I have identified the following short list. I would appreciate it if you would kindly provide me, by e-mail, with a brief summary of your input. For items 2-5, I would like for you to cast your input into two sections: (a) Introduction; (here, please indicate whether in your opinion this is an important issue in general and in the context of the conference in particular, and state the reasons for your views); and (b) Recommendations. (In this section, please state what your suggestions are with respect to what we should do collectively to address the issues; for each suggested action item, please also state how the actions should be implemented and who should provide the needed resources.)
Items for which your input is requested:
(1) Your impressions on ICEE-2000, its positive attributes and areas for improvement for future conferences. Please also address: How frequently should ICEE conferences be held and why? Since the annual ICEEs are being proposed up to Year 2008, should we alleviate the long wait by scheduling regional workshops, perhaps identifying them as iNEER Workshops?
(2) Your feedback on how the international engineering education community can cooperate more broadly in education (as opposed to research), with special reference to the language barriers, other than the usual exchange of students and faculty. Should funding agencies in selected countries get together and support a limited number of test cases involving bilateral or trilateral experiments dealing with joint development of courseware and/or modules using advanced language translation software as test cases? What are some of the appropriate topics?
(3) Your feedback on how we can make distance education a more effective tool in the international community. Again, should there be some test cases funded?
(4) Your feedback on the iNEER test website, currently at http://ineer.engr.siu.edu/welcome.htm but soon to be migrated to http://www.ineer.org. Please focus on the aesthetics but but more importantly on its functionality. Will you be able to volunteer some help to further develop it?
(5) Your input on other cross-cutting issues that need follow up by iNEER/ICEE as a result of ICEE-2000.
Your feedback will not be individually identified but will be summarized and integrated into an ICEE-2000 report under preparation.
In addition to providing me with your feedback, may I also ask you to pass this request along to at least one ICEE-2000 attendee that you know and ask him/her to give me the feedback as well?
Finally, for your feedback to have maximum impact, I would like to ask you to send me your feedback within the next two weeks but no later than September 25, 2000.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Sincerely,
Win Aung
Secretary-General
iNEER/ICEE