These include capacity building with IIDEA, best practices for academic leaders via the Global Engineering Deans Council GEDC, student engagement with the Student Platform for Engineerin
Trang 110 years of the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies
David A Delaine1, Nival Almeida2, Uriel Cukierman3, Jennifer DeBoer4, Funso Falade5, Xavier Fouger6, Hans Hoyer7, Rohit Kandakatla4, Khairiyah Mohd-Yusof 8, Lueny Morell9, Fatin Aliah Phang9, Seeram Ramakrishna10, Luiz Scavarda do Carmo11, Monique Simon12, and Krishna
Vedula13
1*Department of Engineering Education, The Ohio State University, USA
Delaine.4@osu.edu
2 Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3 Centro de Investigación e Innovación Educativa, Universidad Tecnológica Nacional, Argentina
4 Department of Engineering Education, Purdue University, USA
5 Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Lagos, Nigeria
6 Global Academia Programs, Dassault Systèmes, France
7 College of Engineering, Marquette University, USA
8Center for Engineering Education, Universiti Teknologi, Malaysia
9 InnovaHiEd, Puerto Rico, USA
10 National University of Singapore, Singapore
11Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
12University Relations, TOTAL SA, France
13Francis College of Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
Abstract The International Federation on Engineering Education Societies (IFEES), upon its 10th year of existence, is reflecting on its outcomes and accomplishments across global engineering education In its mission to lead global engineering education into the 21 st century the IFEES strategic plan and several IFEES core areas of collaboration are reviewed These include capacity building with IIDEA, best practices for academic leaders via the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC), student engagement with the Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (SPEED), industry relations with the IFEES Corporate Board, and efforts within Diversity and Inclusion Selected initiatives are presented to illustrate how the IFEES network is leveraged to provide for success within the global engineering community This paper reviews some of the IFEES accomplishments during its first 10 years and shares the vision and milestones set for the next decade Results from a survey are presented to aid the reflection of ongoing practices as well as guide the IFEES and engineering education’s future directions The results of the survey illustrate that IFEES leadership and members agree that they have benefitted most in terms of networking, international
experience, and educational best practices
Trang 2Keywords: Engineering education, community of scholars, global collaboration
Established in Rio de Janeiro in 2006, the International Federation of Engineering Education Societies (IFEES) has worked towards a global consolidation of engineering education activities for 10 years As a federation comprised of many engineering education societies, collaboration and alignment of stakeholder action is leveraged towards the progress of the actors, the institutions, and the field of engineering education IFEES works to mobilize the preparation of the engineering education community within this flattened world [1], within the emergence of the global knowledge economy [2-4], and inline to respond to the National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges [5]
IFEES was established towards providing significant contributions to changing the world through engineering education Through the collaboration of its member societies, IFEES’ seeks to establish effective and high quality engineering education to globally support the development of well-prepared engineering graduates IFEES strives to strengthen member organizations and their capacity to support faculty members, students, and the professional workforce It leverages corporate participation to help connect engineering graduates with international corporations and organizations that have a pressing need for well-trained engineers who can work
in a global environment IFEES aims to enhance the ability of engineering faculty, students, and practitioners to understand the varied cultures of the world and to work effectively within them [6-8]
In the recently modified IFEES strategic plan, discussed more thoroughly later in this paper, IFEES is defined as
“a global membership organization of Engineering Education Organizations, Professional Societies, Student Organizations, Policymakers, Industry and Government Entities with an interest in advancing engineering education throughout the world” with its corresponding vision to “be the collective voice and change agent for achieving relevance, excellence, equity, access and diversity in engineering education worldwide”, and mission
to “advance and advocate for engineering education and engineers worldwide by connecting, sharing resources and leveraging strengths of members and stakeholders.” Through close alignment with its member societies and several important strategic partnerships, IFEES works towards accomplishing this vision and mission by:
Providing a forum for its members to leverage its resources
Providing a community that will identify and advance the issues related to engineering education
Defining the various profiles of the emerging engineer through stakeholders
Advocating and disseminating best practices to external stakeholders
These objectives are approached through delivering opportunities to collaborate and interact with peers and other stakeholders within the following realms: diversity and inclusion, industry university partnerships, e-learning, student retention, R&D collaboration, curriculum collaboration, international experiences, networking, funding sources, and educational best practice
Trang 3This paper presents IFEES’ efforts during its first 10 years as well as its aspirations for the future It begins with
a very brief introduction to the field of engineering education as the setting upon which IFEES acts This is followed by a discussion of the IFEES strategic partnerships and exemplary outcomes The results from a survey conducted in 2016 are presented, providing an analysis of IFEES performance and allowing for discussion on how it may evolve moving forward Lastly, the future vision and milestones set for the next decade are discussed
Engineering Education was established as an area of scholarly interest over 100 years, illustrated by the efforts
of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education [9] Engineering education research has emerged an established field within the last 15 years with centers, departments, journals, conferences, and funding, to provide for intellectual growth A research agenda, proposed in 2006, included five research areas for the discipline of engineering education including: Engineering Epistemologies, Engineering Learning Mechanisms, Engineering Learning Systems, Engineering Diversity and Inclusiveness, and Engineering Assessment [10] To date approximately 30 graduate programs exist in engineering education alongside other institutionalized scholarly units [11] It is within, but not limited to, this field that IFEES, through mobilizing action and collaboration within its member societies seeks to create positive impact on engineering, society, and the world
IFEES activities, as well as those of the field of engineering education, are inter- and multi-disciplinary in nature and often mirror and respond to many societal factors and challenges The local Schools and Colleges of Engineering, as well as the local Societies for Engineering Education had to adjust their actions and even their behavior in order to accommodate the needs for the internationalization of education
IFEES was founded in a moment when several Engineering Education Societies were already mature and had already developed a dialogue among them about local problems The local societies of engineering education played an important role in the development of Engineering Education at local level and provided platforms for necessary communication among the institutions These were essential to the onset of an international community IFEES was founded when it was realized that, beyond similar local problems, other problems of international character were in discussion and also needed concerted action by the several local societies and a community to bring more stakeholders from across the globe was critical
Education Societies (IFEES)
The principles of global collaboration and partnership are at the core of IFEES These guided the creation of a
Trang 4worldwide network of engineering educators and engineering education stakeholders IFEES and engineering educators are seeking to work past the day-by-day engineering education challenges and promoting more education with “actual impact” on the worldwide development and socio economic growth [7,8] IFEES set out with an initial focus on four strategic areas: Engineering Education Infrastructure, Research & Development and Entrepreneurship, Student Attraction and Success, and Lifelong Learning The Federation has prided itself on striving to represent the major engineering education stakeholders (Academia, Students, Government, Industry, and Non-profit/NGO institutions) and establish and build strategic partnerships within and between them These strategic partnerships are presented henceforth
3.1 The Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC)
An early and distinguishable outcome of IFEES resulted when representatives worked together to develop the vision of an international platform for engineering Deans, which resulted in the creation of the Global Engineering Dean’s Council (GEDC) [12] A model for the development of a global-scale council was envisioned in 2007 Engineering deans from all continents gathered in Turkey during the annual Summit of IFEES to formally create the Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC) The GEDC is one of the most successful IFEES outcomes
The GEDC currently serves as the only global network of engineering deans It leverages the collective strengths
of participating deans for the advancement of engineering education, research, and service to the global community of engineering schools and partners [13] Through annual conferences and other meetings the GEDC provides a venue for engineering deans to discuss emerging issues and challenges and to share best practices pertaining to leading an engineering school The GEDC membership has grown from 20 to include over 100 individual members from almost forty countries, with four regional chapters, and with a global network of approximately 300 deans The GEDC membership also includes ten corporate members, who have continually supported the work and mission of the Council [12] Several important outcomes of the GEDC have had strong impact within the global engineering community including the establishment of a global online presence for Deans, regular meetings between Deans, and the creation and support of the GEDC Airbus Diversity award [14]
3.2 The International Institute for Developing Engineering Academics (IIDEA)
Established in 2010, IIDEA is a engineering education leadership training institute focused on establishing a global network of engineering faculty development programs to disseminate learning about the transformation of engineering education worldwide [15] It aims to provide all the engineering education associations, institutions, and other engineering education stakeholders a clearinghouse of high-caliber and world-class engineering faculty leadership training workshops/courses/seminars as well as brokering this offer around the world These workshops, led by globally recognized engineering education leaders, are available to IFEES members and other interested parties as stand-alone or as pre-or-post conference activities IIDEA is a joint initiative of IFEES and
Trang 5SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education), whose leadership recognized the need to create a central place where engineering education institutions could come to search for capacity building opportunities
In its 6-year history, IIDEA has offered many workshops around the world, reaching out to hundreds of faculty, deans, and other engineering education leaders Content and length of workshops are customized to the needs of the participants They can range from 3 hours to 3 days and involve one to three facilitators Presented in a walk-the-talk manner, workshop facilitators practice what they preach and utilize active learning to engage with attendees Industry partners are invited to support, participate, and contribute to IIDEA activities This has promoted strategic partnerships to address regional needs One example is the 6-year long multi-stakeholder, multi-national partnership to enhance engineering education in China [16] With the support and contribution of industry partners, the Chinese Society for Engineering Education (CSEE), the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Tsinghua University (THU) and its Center for Engineering Education (CEE) and Institute of Education (IOE) have partnered with IIDEA to provide leadership and capacity building to more than 600 engineering professors, deans, and leaders through workshops and discussions Various engineering education areas have been addressed in workshops, including learning environments to bridge the gap between how we teach and the practice of engineering, problem-based learning, innovating the engineering curricula, building and nurturing industry-university collaboration, faculty development and accreditation, ethics across the curriculum, teaching/learning excellence centers This unique multi-stakeholder, multi-national partnership focused on catalyzing innovation in engineering education It is a model that other regions and countries are adopting
3.3 The Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (SPEED)
The Student Platform for Engineering Education Development (SPEED) is a global non-profit student organization which includes students into engineering education (EE) discussions, research, faculty roles, and other leadership opportunities [17] SPEED was founded by a group of engineering students in 2006 during ASEE Global Colloquium in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil and was established by students to provide perspectives from one of the primary stakeholders which IFEES and engineering education serve – students SPEED has continually worked closely with the IFEES leadership and member societies growing the student voice, impact, and leadership within the global community
SPEED conducts an annual Global Student Forum (GSF), often alongside the World Engineering Education Forum (WEEF) [18] The GSF brings in students from all across the globe and engages them discussions on engineering education and other pressing societal challenges During the 3-day Forum, students brainstorm solutions to various proposed challenges they face and ideas to overcome them Participants are later provided with tools to develop an action plan These action plans are later implemented in their local regions after the completion of the Forum [19] All action plans are developed from a global perspective and implemented locally Cultural competence, professional networking skills and opportunities, community service and other components are consistently part of the Forum Since its inception in 2006, SPEED has conducted 11 GSF’s: Rio
Trang 6De Janeiro, Istanbul, Cape Town, Bhubaneswar, Budapest, St Petersburg, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Cartagena, Dubai, and Florence The 12th edition of GSF will be held in Seoul
National Student Forums became a part of the SPEED infrastructure beginning in 2014, being organized in Argentina, Colombia, and India [20, 21] by participants of the GSF These national forums were envisioned to impact students in individual countries behaving as satellite activities towards SPEED’s mission Further plans have been chalked out to organize one national student forum in every continent over the coming years
One area of focus for SPEED involves encouraging students to perform research within Engineering Education and also consider the field as a career option SPEED launched the ‘Research Scholarship Program’ which is awarded to two students every year based on student research efforts Students are allowed to apply for the award by publishing a paper at any Engineering Education international conference The winner of the award receives funding to attend the conference to present the submitted paper [22] SPEED has also collaborated with International Society for Engineering Education and Modern Engineering Pedagogy (IGIP) and launched IGIP-SPEED Young Scientist Award This award is awarded to top 3 student papers under this category at WEEF and the winners are sponsored to participate in the following GSF and WEEF Since its launch in 2014, 3 awards were announced for the Research Scholarship Award and 4 for the IGIP-SPEED Young Scientist Award In the coming years, SPEED intends to mobilize more students across all the continents through national and regional student forums to engage a larger ratio of students into this global community
3.4 The Indo Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE)
Over 150 leaders of engineering education and businesses from US and India conceptualized the Indo Universal Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) in 2007 The vision of IUCEE is to improve the quality and global relevance of engineering education and research in India and related benefits to engineering educators in the US and other parts of the world Focus is towards faculty development, student development, curriculum development, as well as improved teaching technologies & research The IUCEE seeks to accomplish its vision through Faculty Leadership Institutes, a College Consortium, Virtual Academy and Research Academies, the International Conference on Transformations in Engineering Education (IUCTIEE), and the Journal of Engineering Education Transformations Financial contributions (over $ 1 million) from distinguished patrons have helped initiate the program
Each year international experts from the US travel to India to discuss global best practices in teaching and research in their field with Indian faculty at Faculty Leadership Institutes (FLI), with 180 workshops conducted thus far Significant positive outcomes from these FLIs have been demonstrated Networks for collaborations have been created between faculty from over 150 Indian colleges and 250 US faculty members from over 50 US institutions resulting in a wide variety of research and teaching collaborations
Trang 7The IUCEE College Consortium, created in 2010, has 70 members as of June 2015 Members receive special assistance in establishing collaborations with US experts and institutions The IUCEE Virtual Academy has been created in 2011, using technology to enable US experts to conduct live Webinars and MiniCourses on-line from the US to faculty and students all over India More than 400 one-hour webinars on teaching, research and general education topics have been conducted online by US faculty to Indian faculty and students 26 MiniCourses of 10 Webinar Lectures each by US experts have been conducted during 2012-13 [23] The IUCEE Research Academy launched in 2013 with the goal of providing mentoring and co-guides for faculty in Indian colleges who are pursuing PhD Three Research Academy workshops have been successfully conducted
In 2014, IUCEE started co-organizing the International Conference on Transformations in Engineering Education (ICTIEE) annually in India At the meeting more than 800 participants attended; 135 papers we were
presented; 35 participants were from around the world Additionally in 2014, IUCEE also started publishing the Journal for Engineering Education Transformations (JEET), as a vehicle for sharing best practices in engineering education by Indian and global engineering educators JEET is also the publisher of papers presented at ICTIEE Conferences
3.5 Corporate Partnerships
Since IFEES’ inception, its relationship with the corporate sector has been a constant subject of discussions, conferences, and business meetings recognizing that employers and the workforce are essential stakeholders in any thought process about engineering education Since its foundation, IFEES and industry have been partners, contributing to rich dialogues, joint action plans, and active support on behalf of excellence in engineering education worldwide Besides sharing their products, services and employment opportunities, industry discussions within IFEES can be classified into two categories: employability of graduates, and inclusiveness and attractiveness, both of which are presented within this section
Industry needs engineering graduates equipped with the adequate competencies necessary to hit the ground running and to be contributors to their enterprises Discussions on the subject include global competencies, curricular and extra-curricular implications, the need for continuing educator’s education, cooperative university-business approaches, and learning models The recurring dimension of this dialog reflects the difficulty of achieving progress given the current education systems The theme of multi-disciplinary competencies and its avatar, the “T-shaped profile”, systems engineering capabilities, and soft skills, all surfaced during debates on learning outcomes [24]
Great results in curriculum enhancements were observed as a consequence of the Indo-US Collaboration on Engineering Education’s (IUCEE) efforts to improve the quality of engineering education in India through educators’ professional development Mobilizing local industry to promote reforms that will lead to massive transformation has already shown encouraging results, and is a remarkable success of the IUCEE initiative to
Trang 8involve employers in India, both local and international.
Inclusiveness and attractiveness to develop a workforce which would be more balanced in terms of socio-economic, gender, racial, and cultural representation amongst other characteristics is another area where IFEES and industry interests align IFEES and the creation of the GEDC have provided a shining result in advancement
in diversity with the establishment of the Airbus-GEDC Diversity award [14]c, an award given annually to a leader that has distinguished him/herself in advancing diversity and inclusion in the engineering education realm
3.6 Diversity and Inclusion in Engineering Education
IFEES has acted in support of diversity and inclusion (D&I) within engineering education since its inception It has recently dedicated more attention and resources in support of equity across the engineering ecosystem [25] Since the WEEF in Dubai in 2014, plenary sessions, special sessions, and other activities have been mainstay at the IFEES’ premiere event In 2013, incoming president Uriel Cukierman reformatted the executive committee structure of Vice Presidents establishing one of the four IFEES Vice Presidents (VPs) to be designated to directly support diversity and inclusion within the community Within this role the VP has been able to more closely support D&I efforts as well as work towards stimulating global alignment and collaboration of D&I initiatives within the engineering education community and engineering ecosystem [26] Efforts to establish a unified front towards further inclusion of underrepresented students and the leveraging of diverse perspectives and abilities has emerged within the United States The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) has issued a letter signed by its member Deans who are in support of this important cause [27], IFEES is seeking
to broaden the acceptance of similar initiatives and promote the development of parallel activities around the world
To evaluate the alignment between IFEES and its constituents/societal needs, a survey was disseminated to the member IFEES societies, individual members of those societies, and corporate partners The mixed methods survey is designed to evaluate the extent to which IFEES is accomplishing its goals and serving its member societies and their constituents The survey was administered electronically and all data maintained confidential
The survey respondents were separated into two categories: “leadership,” for those who hold a leadership or executive position within an IFEES member society, and “membership,” for those who are constituents of an IFEES member society A total of 54 responses were obtained, 6 were discarded as invalid responses by individuals with no link to IFEES or engineering education 28 responses were obtained from the “leadership” of IFEES member societies representing a total of 20 different organizations within the IFEES umbrella 24 responses were obtained from IFEES member society constituents (“memberships”) representing a total of 15 different organizations within the IFEES umbrella The IFEES members represented within the data include both
Trang 9academic and corporate members The composition of the respondents is shown in Tables 1 and 2 Some respondents answered within more than 1 position, hence the positions after the first answer are in brackets Most of the respondents come from the academic sector
4.1 Results and Discussion
The respondents’ country and roles are shown in Table 1 and the stakeholder role and position they hold (leadership vs membership) are shown in Table 2
Table 1 Composition of respondents based on countries
Table 2 Composition of respondents based on stakeholder representation
The extent to which IFEES is accomplishing its Vision and Mission was evaluated It can be seen that most of
Trang 10the leadership perceived that IFEES is effective in achieving its vision and mission compared to the membership respondents as shown in Fig 1 This may be due to the fact that most of the leadership respondents work closely with and within IFEES, where its vision and mission focuses on global network, global community and work to achieve empowerment, advancement, excellence and enabling transformations in engineering education worldwide
Fig 1 Survey Response to the IFEES Vision and Mission
As described above, IFEES set out to impact the 10 different objectives within the global engineering education community Using a 5-point Likert scale the extent to which IFEES is successful in connecting the IFEES societies and their constituent members to opportunities within these objectives is considered The responses from the leadership are seen in Fig 2, while the responses from the IFEES society member constituents are seen
in Fig 3 It can be seen that both leadership and membership agreed that IFEES provides opportunities for them
to network, experience international activities, and learn educational best practices On the other hand, the leadership and membership respondents have different views on the opportunities that are least provided by IFEES, as shown in Figs 2 and 3 The leadership perceived that IFEES provided least opportunities in e-learning and student retention while the membership respondents perceived that IFEES did not provide enough opportunity in R&D and curriculum collaborations