2 December 2002
Copyright © 2002 World Expertise LLC – All rights
reserved
A periodic electronic newsletter for engineering education leaders,
edited by Russel C. Jones, PhD., P.E.
1) India has received a $250-million loan from the World
Bank to improve technical education, according to an article in the Chronicle
of Higher Education by Martha Overland. The funds are aimed at revamping the
country’s engineering colleges, technical universities, and polytechnics by
modernizing facilities, upgrading curricula, and training faculty members. More
than 100,000 students attend the colleges that will benefit from the funds.
World Bank officials hope that the loan will allow India to enrich its economy
with technical professionals who can foster greater economic competitiveness and
productivity. India has a large number of software engineers, but concerns about
the quality of their training raise questions about their ability to compete in
the global market. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002111904n.htm
2) The European Commission has encouraged universities to
increase the number of female graduates in mathematics, science and technology
by 2010, according to a note by Alan Osborn in the November 29th Times
Higher Education Supplement. While the EU produces more technical graduates
than the US or Japan, fewer of them go into research careers – and officials
believe that a better gender balance could correct this. The commission says
that efforts to motivate girls to choose science/technology subjects are needed
throughout initial, upper secondary, and higher education. There are two male
students for each female in these subjects in the UK, compared to 4.7 in the
Netherlands – with the best current ratio of 1.6 male students to each female
in Ireland, Portugal, and Italy. See http://www.thes.co.uk/
3) A study suggests that up to 14% of Australian university
students may be pirating material off the Internet for their essays, according
to an article in the Chronicle by Andrea Foster. The study used a
plagiarism service to analyze 1925 essays provided by six Australian
universities. The software detected that 166 of the essays, or 8.6% of the total
examined, had more than a quarter of their material pilfered from electronic
sources. Fourteen percent of the essays had 5% or more of the material
plagiarized. The material was plagiarized from hundreds of Internet sites,
including five well-known cheat sites. Plagiarism from other student’s
electronic papers was also detected. The group conducting the study recommended
that universities establish education programs to help students understand what
cheating and plagiarism mean. One observer noted that students are referred to
Web sites so often that they lose sight of the difference between honest
research and plagiarism. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/11/2002112001t.htm
4) A world forum of UNESCO chairs took place in
mid-November with about 1000 participants from all over the world, including
heads of universities. The UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs program was established in 1992
to boost co-operation between universities around the world. The chairs program
was developed in order to promote inter-university networks as a way to boost
research in higher education. Starting with just 17 such networks a decade ago,
the program now has more than 500 networks in 113 countries. As an example, one
of the networks – the Global Education Network Initiative – teaches people
to live in accordance with sustainable development principles. See http://www.unesco.org
5) US President Bush has proposed setting up a competition
among the world’s poorest countries for portions of a new $5-billion foreign
aid fund, according to a article by David Sanger in the November 26th
New York Times. To get funds, countries would have to demonstrate that
they are curbing corruption, spending more on education, and following free
market economic principles. Under the plan, a new federal corporation will be
set up to administer the aid – rather than have it funneled through existing
Agency for International Development mechanisms – and a Cabinet-level panel
will distribute the money. The proposal has yet to be submitted to Congress, but
has a good chance of passing. Organizations aiding developing countries
generally praised the proposal, saying that if executed well it could begin to
solve the problem of wasted or misallocated foreign aid. See http://www.nytimes.com
6) India has become the largest exporter of foreign
students to the United States, according to statistics from the Institute of
International Education as cited in the Chronicle by David Wheeler. In
the 2001-02 academic year, the number of Indian students in the US shot up by
22.3%, compared with only 5.5% among students from China, which had previously
held the first spot in the statistics. India now has 66,836 students in the US,
compared with 63,211 from China. IIE attributed the rapid growth to an
increasingly large and prosperous Indian middle class, with parents who regard
American higher education as the best available. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002111802n.htm
7) Other highlights from the IIE Open Doors 2002 report
include statistics on the total number of international students attending
colleges and universities in the US: a 6.4% increase, bringing the total to a
record high of 582,996. Asian students comprise over half (56%) of all
international enrollments, followed by students from Europe (14%), Latin America
(12%), the Middle East (7%), Africa (6%), and North America and Oceania (5%).
The most popular fields of study for international students in the US are
business and management (20%) and engineering (15%). Thirteen percent of
international students in the US are studying mathematics and computer sciences,
the fastest growing major – with a 13% increase from last year. See http://www.iie.org
8) Mounting resistance to a plan to merge London’s two
leading research universities -- Imperial College and University College London
– have forced administrators to call off the proposed merger, according to a
note by Keri Page in the November 22nd Science. The vision for
the merger portrayed the combined university as a world-beater that would
attract more research funding and new blood, and one that would operate more
efficiently by eliminating duplication. But many academics balked, arguing that
the merger was too slanted toward business interests. Many faculty expressed
fears that the merger would narrow the range of subjects taught and studied,
triggering staff cuts and a reduced scope of research. See http://www.sciencemag.org
9) Many foreign-born technology personnel who migrated to
the US to work during the technology boom are returning to their homelands,
according to an article by Erin Brown and David Kirkpatrick in the November 11th
issue of Fortune. They are returning either because they were laid off
and no longer have visas, or because they are so disheartened by the economic
downturn in the US that going home is a better option. The number of H1-b visas
issued has fallen from 163,000 last year to an expected 90,000 this year. In
addition to being concerned about this outflow of technical talent, high tech
industry representatives are concerned about domestic production of engineers.
The US graduated approximately 70,000 engineers last year, compared to 600,000
in China. And 54% of US engineering doctorates went to foreign students, many of
whom returned home after graduation. See http://www.fortune.com/indext.jhtml?channel=print_article.jhtml&doc_id=210082
10) Many foreign students trying to reach the US are
experiencing delay after delay, and a lack of information about what is causing
the delays, according to an article in the Chronicle by Daniel Walfish.
And the American universities that seek to attract foreign students, including
graduate assistants to assist in teaching and research, are reporting empty
slots. The delays are the result of an intensified scrutiny of student visa
applicants by the State Department, in light of the September 11th
terrorist attacks. While the list of 26 countries affected is classified,
immigration lawyers report that students from the Middle East and Asia –
including China – and Russia are experiencing delays. Those students who do
obtain visas say that delays have lasted as long as six months. The State
Department says that delays will soon be down to a month. See http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i12/12a04001.htm
11) FBI agents have asked some colleges and universities
for help in amassing extensive electronic dossiers about their faculty and
students, according to an article by Ann Davis in the November 25th Wall
Street Journal. Such requests come as schools are struggling to gather data
for a new system the Immigration and Naturalization Service plans to launch in
January to electronically track information about foreign students. The FBI
requests are raising delicate questions for schools about how much to divulge
voluntarily. Many educators contend that schools cannot release some of the
requested information without a court order. The FBI says that its requests are
legal, because schools can refuse them – and some have refused. See http://www.wsj.com
12) Congress has passed, and the President has signed,
legislation creating a Department of Homeland Security. According to an article
by David Malakoff in the November 22nd issue of Science, the
Department will combine 22 existing federal government agencies and will spawn
an array of new science-related programs. It will take at least a year to set up
DHS, which will have more than 150,000 employees and a budget of $37-billion. It
is estimated that nearly $1-billion of those funds will go to R&D efforts,
under the management of a new undersecretary for science and technology who will
take advice from a 20-member advisory panel. Lawmakers opted not to give DHS
control of some major research programs originally proposed by the President,
such as a $1.5-billion bioterror research program that will stay under the
control of the National Institutes of Health. See http://www.sciencemag.org
13) The National Academy of Sciences has offered a
provisional answer to how to cope with “sensitive but unclassified”
information, according to an article by Martin Enserink in the November 22nd
Science. In dealing with a recent report on agricultural bioterrorism
which it prepared for the Department of Agriculture, NAS excised a chapter which
could have become a terrorist’s cookbook. And the entire report is available
only in hard copy by individual requests from people who have a ‘need to
know’. But the growth of the “sensitive but unclassified” category is
worrisome to the academy. In an October statement, NAS's three president urged
the government to affirm the general principle that there should be no
restrictions on reporting nonclassified research. In a statement to Congress
last month, presidential science advisor John Marburger said that this new
information category is still in the informative stage and is being shaped by
listening sessions with many parties, including scientific societies. See http://www.sciencemag.org
14) The National Center for Postsecondary Improvement has
issued a report highly critical of the current state of education research,
according to an article by Richard Morgan in the Chronicle. The report
asserts that colleges and universities use obsolete operating models that have
provided no substantial reform to how and what students learn, have made little
headway in building a diverse faculty, and have fallen short of fostering an
engaged citizenry. The report, titled “Beyond Dead Reckoning: Research
Priorities for Redirecting American Higher Education” also states that
colleges have increasingly abandoned their social missions for the sake of
profit and market cachet. The authors of the report argue for a major study of
higher education to help college leaders, legislators, and others figure out how
to improve the effectiveness of higher education in serving the full range of
the country’s student populations. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002112603n.htm
15) The Open Doors 2002 report of the Institute of
International Education reports a 7.4% increase in US students abroad in
2000-01, following four years of double-digit growth. Since 1991-92, the number
of US students studying abroad has more than doubled – from 71,154 to 154,168,
an increase of 116%. While Europe (with 63%) continues to be the most popular
region, the percentage of US students studying there has decreased while other
parts of the world – such as Latin America, Oceania, Africa and Asia – have
seen increases. The number of students going to Canada has declined, and those
going to the Middle East are down sharply. The leading fields of study for
Americans abroad were social sciences (20%), business and management (18%),
humanities (15%), fine or applied arts (9%) and foreign languages (8%). The
physical sciences comprised only 7%, engineering only 3%, and math or computer
science only 2%. See http://www.iie.org
16) The number of doctorates awarded by US research
universities in 2001 fell to a level last seen in 1993, according to an article
in the Chronicle by Piper Fogg. A study by the University of Chicago
shows that after reaching an all-time high of 42,654 in 1998, the number of
doctorates granted by US institutions fell to 40,744 last year. The decline has
affected almost every science and engineering field, perhaps as a reaction to
what some viewed as an oversupply of doctorates in the job market in the
mid-1990s. Of the doctorates awarded in 2001, 22,769 went to men and 17,901 to
women. The number of doctorates earned by black US citizens dropped slightly in
2001 (to 1604), and those earned by Hispanics also dropped (to 1119). See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002111101n.htm
17) Congress has passed legislation that would set a path
to doubling of the budget of the National Science Foundation in 5 years,
according to a report in the November 22nd Science by Jeffrey
Mervis. President Bush is expected to sign the bill, which allocates
$5.53-billion to NSF for the 2003 fiscal year. That allocation would grow to
$9.8-billion in the fifth year , contingent on a review by the Office of
Management and Budget to certify that the agency had made progress toward
improving its management. The reauthorization bill does not actually provide the
funds to double NSF’s budget, but sets recommended spending levels for the
House and Senate committees which allocate federal funds each year. See http://www.sciencemag.org
18) Standard and Poor’s has warned that due to the financial problems in higher education, colleges and universities might consolidate in large numbers or close. According to an article in the Chronicle by Martin van der Werf, the report “Weak Equity Markets Hurt US Higher Education Endowments” raises concerns about the stability of colleges as they struggle against stagnant levels of financial resources and substantially higher levels of debt. For a relatively small college with a large endowment, a swing in the value of the endowment from year to year can be larger than the college’s operating budget. At least 31 colleges have closed since 1997, 18 of them four-year undergraduate institutions. There have also been nine mergers of colleges since November 2002. Standard and Poor’s rates about 450 colleges and universities. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002112701n.htm
19) The University of Wisconsin at Madison is developing
online advanced-placement courses for Wisconsin high-school students, according
to a note in the Chronicle by Dan Carnevale. The online courses are aimed
at rural and inner-city students who go to high schools that do not offer
advanced-placement courses. The courses will be available next fall, and prior
to their introduction high school teachers will be trained to administer them.
The program plans to offer 12 different online advanced-placement courses,
enrolling a total of 500 to 700 students. About a quarter of the state’s
public high schools do not offer advanced placement courses, and others provide
only one or two courses. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/11/2002111901t.htm
20) Professors at two colleges have developed a way for
distance-education students to fulfill their science lab requirements, according
to an article by Dan Carnevale in the Chronicle. The basic approach is to
turn the kitchen into a chemistry lab, using measuring cups and saucepans
instead of test tubes and beakers. The experiments, which the professors say are
safe, use items found in a typical household kitchen – milk, nuts, vinegar,
baking soda, and matches. Students also need a good quality scale. Faculty
members at the University of Colorado at Denver and at the University of North
Carolina at Wilmington developed the course. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/11/2002111201t.htm
21) As colleges seek to stem the flood of unauthorized
digital media files flowing across their campus computer networks, students are
devising increasingly sophisticated countermeasures to protect their free supply
of copyrighted entertainment. According to an article by Amy Harmon in the
November 27th New York Times, colleges are imposing a
combination of new technologies and new policies in an effort to control the
pervasive copying. In the most severe crackdown yet, the US Naval Academy has
seized 100 computers from students who are suspected of having downloaded
unauthorized copies of music files over the Internet. Colleges are also
providing educational sessions on copyright law and electronic etiquette. But
some students are developing skills at burrowing through network firewalls and
spreading their downloading activities across multiple computers to avoid
detection. Universities have stepped up efforts to curtail unauthorized file
swapping at the urging of entertainment industry organizations. See http://www.nytimes.com
22) The US House of Representatives has passed a bill
authorizing greater spending for research on protecting computer networks from
potential terrorist attacks, according to an article by Brock Read in the Chronicle.
The Senate also passed the bill, and added a provision which prohibits
certain foreign students from participating in the research. The President is
expected to sign the authorization bill, which has a price tag of $902.8-million
– but the real test will come in the appropriations process. The funds would
be administered by NSF and NIST. Colleges and universities would use the funds
to initiate or expand research projects, develop collaborations, and create
undergraduate and graduate programs in computer security. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002111301t.htm
23) After Internet 2, “grids” may be the next big
advance in high performance computing, according to Florence Olsen writing in
the Chronicle. A grid is a network of computational research centers
whose supercomputer clusters, databases, and specialized programs form a pool of
resources that is more powerful than any single research center on the network.
Universities that have acquired computing clusters in recent years are moving to
this next stage. Grids are expected to make searching remote data bases or
running programs on a distant computer over the Internet as easy as using a
utility service. See http://chronicle.com/free/2002/11/2002112701t.htm
24) The University of Virginia has completed action on a
plagiarism investigation started 19 months ago when a physics professor used a
computer program to seek matching passages in 1500 term papers. According to an
article in the November 26th Washington Post by Michelle
Boorstein, UVA has expelled 48 students for violation of its 160 year-old honor
code. The University pointed out that the vast majority of student’s don’t
copy, and that the ones expelled represented only 2% of those enrolled in the
course over the period examined. The honor system is student-run, and it was
quantitatively challenged by the allegation that as many as 158 students may
have cheated in the physics course. See http://www.washingtonpost.com
25) Transfer students are less engaged in academic work and
college life, according to results from the latest National Survey of Student
Engagement. As reported by Jeffrey Young in the Chronicle, transfer
students reported consistently lower levels of engagement than students who
enrolled as freshmen. For example transfer students were less likely to work
with classmates outside of class to prepare assignments, or to talk with a
professor or advisor about their career plans. Some colleges have been setting
up programs to try to improve student engagement. such as offering workshops for
faculty members on how to increase student involvement in the classroom. See http://chronicle.com/2002/11/2002111204n.htm
26) Hundreds of students at more than 25 colleges across
the country walked out on classes or participated in rallies as part of a
“National Student/Youth Day of Action” to protest a possible US war with
Iraq. As reported by Jeffrey Young in the Chronicle, organizers hoped to
make a large show of opposition to war before students departed campuses for the
holidays. Organizers said that the threat of war was only one concern, and that
they also found fault with much of the US foreign policy that has emerged since
the terrorist attacks of September 11th. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002112106n.htm
27) The class of 2003 faces a bleak labor market, according
to a survey described by Jeffrey Young in the Chronicle. The national
survey conducted by Michigan State University indicates that overall hiring will
be down 1% from last year, but that the job market shows signs of stabilizing
and of improving soon. The market will be uneven, with fields like engineering
and computer science continuing to face slowdowns, while retail and some liberal
arts fields improve. See http://chronicle.com/2002/11/2002112206n.htm
28) Environmentalists and liberal economists have been
trying to get people interested in sustainable development for nearly two
decades, according to an article in the November 25th Wall
Street Journal by Jon Hilsenrath.
Now universities are developing programs in the area, giving sustainable
development new cachet. For example, Columbia University is putting major
resources behind its Earth Institute – which is aimed at dealing with a range
of issues important to the developing world, such as the environment, infectious
diseases, and Third World poverty. The notion of sustainable development first
appeared in the 1980s and was mostly related to a concern that rich countries
were depleting the world’s resources and ruining its atmosphere for their
economic growth. Current proponents want to marry the science which can
address poor-country problems with economic solutions. See http://www.wsj.com
29) Most professors of science, technology, engineering and
mathematics receive little training in how to teach those subjects, according to
a new report from the National Research Council. As described in the Chronicle
by Thomas Bartlett, the report encourages universities to value good
teaching as highly as good research. Professors in these disciplines need more
instruction on how to tell if students are learning, as well as how to evaluate
their own classroom performance. The report states that currently, few programs
exist to help professors improve their teaching. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002111404n.htm
30) A new web site allows students to anonymously accuse
their professors of political bias. According to an article in the Chronicle by
Thomas Bartlett, the site was set up by a disgruntled parent after her son took
a writing course that she found objectionable. The web site allows students to
rate the perceived bias of a professor as ‘noticeable’, ‘objectionable’,
or ‘extreme’. Professors can write rebuttals to student’s accusations, but
only one has so far. Some of the professors named in complaints call the site
‘silly’ and ‘cowardly. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002112605n.htm
31) A recent survey has found that blacks and Latinos are
as likely as whites and Asian Americans to be eager and ambitious students,
refuting an assumption often used to explain the large achievement gap
separating the races. According to an article by Michael Fletcher in the
November 20th Washington Post, the survey by the Minority
Student Achievement Network indicates that black and Hispanic students think it
is very important to study hard and get good grades. But an achievement gap
remains – which some researchers attribute to socioeconomics, such as living
in single-parent households and having less well educated parents. See http://www.washingtonpost.com
32) State plans that guarantee public-college admission to students who rank in the top percentages of their high schools are not themselves adequate to improve the representation of minority students, according to a report from the US Commission on Civil Rights. As reported by Sara Hebel in the Chronicle, the report concludes that the class-rank policies put in place in California, Florida and Texas over the past several years generally have failed to improve the proportion of minority students admitted to public colleges, especially at the states’ most-selective campuses and in graduate and professional schools. The authors of the report urged that states and their public colleges complement admissions policies based on class rank with academic outreach and support programs, more aggressive recruitment of minority students, and greater use of holistic admissions standards. See http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/11/2002111002n.htm
33) “Teaching Entrepreneurship to Engineering
Students”, an Engineering Conferences International program, will be held in
Monterey, California from 12-16 January 2003. Invited speakers will discuss the
importance of entrepreneurs to the US economy, attributes of entrepreneurs,
creating an entrepreneurial culture, interdisciplinary programs, and examples of
successful academic programs. For conference details and registration
information, see http://www.engconfintl.org/3as.html
34) The annual meeting of the European Society for
Engineering Education (SEFI) will be held in Porto, Portugal from 7-10 September
2003. The theme will be “Global Engineer: Education and Training for
Mobility”, and papers are being sought in the following areas: accreditation,
engineering curriculum, global education, world engineering systems, credits,
lifelong learning and mobility, Bologna declaration and implications,
professional recognition, and global trends. The call for papers requests
abstracts by January 15th, sent to francoise.come@sefi.be.
Full papers are due May 1st.
35) The annual conference of the Australasian Association of Engineering Education will be held from 29 September to 1 October 2003 in Melbourne, Australia. The theme will be ‘Engineering Education for a Sustainable Future’. Paper or workshop topics are due by December 13th. For details see http://www.aaee.com.au
36) The November 2002 issue of IEEE Transactions on
Education has been published, with twelve papers on electrical engineering
education. One broad paper discusses Web-Based Learning: Effects on Learning
Process and Outcomes, and another describes A Handheld Data Acquisition System
for Use in an Undergraduate Data Acquisition Course. See http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/transactions/te.htm
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