2009 Excellence in Engineering Excellence Awards The AaeE Engineering Education Excellence Awards have stimulated some outstanding applications in the last few years. While our Award criteria still generally matches the ALTC criteria, a few changes have been made to our Awards for 2009: Applicants for the Teaching Excellence Award will be expected to be able to demonstrate how they have contributed to the engineering education community. One of the Program Awards will be for Outreach Services, One of the Citations will be reserved for a ‘new’ academic ie. someone who has been teaching for less than 5 years. As with last year’s conference, nominated finalists will be required to make a presentation of the material in their application, at the AaeE conference in December. This year’s conference will be in Adelaide from 6-9th December. The Awards for 2009 are: One AaeE Teaching Excellence Award ($2000) Three AaeE Awards for Programmes that Enhance Excellence in Learning ($2000) - This will be comprised of one Award in each of the following categories: Innovation in curricula, learning and teaching Educational Partnerships and collaboration with other organisations Services supporting student learning For this Award the term "Programme" encompasses a whole degree programme, a specific course or group of courses, a project, or educational module. Up to five citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning in Engineering will be awarded, with a trophy but no monetary award. Applications close August 14th. All applicants should familiarise themselves with the Application Process & Selection Criteria available on the AaeE website. Awards for 2009 - criteria, link to application forms, process timeline Anne Gardner AaeE Executive (Awards)

Reforming the First Year Engineering Experience August 3-4, 2009 (Australian Participants) Conference Locations (connected via videoconferencing): Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo, CA; Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana (Lead Site); Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA; University of California Merced, Merced, CA; The University of Melbourne, Australia  Purpose:   To equip attendees with the background they need to design and implement a successful project-based, introductory engineering program, tailored to meet the needs of their institution. Target audiences: Instructors and administrators of first-year college and university engineering and engineering technology courses Instructors and administrators of 2-year/community colleges that feed bachelor engineering degree programs Developers of high school pre-engineering programs Representatives of government and industry who want to help shape the introductory engineering curriculum Representatives of funding agencies and organizations that may be interested in supporting the development of introductory engineering materials To register, go to http://elu-unimelb.pbworks.com. Questions? Please contact Roger Hadgraft at roger.hadgraft@unimelb.edu.au or 03 8344 4226 or 0412 809 597 Roger Hadgraft AAEE Executive (Past President)

Australasian Journal of Peer Learning CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS, Volume 2, Issue 1 The Australasian Journal of Peer Learning promotes peer learning as a valuable and versatile teaching and learning strategy with a focus on the higher education environment. The Journal seeks to publish scholarly research that investigates innovations in peer learning including the implementation of programs in varied organisational and cultural contexts, and evaluations of such programs that provide an evidential basis for the peer learning activities. The Australasian Journal of Peer Learning aims to develop a forum wherein high quality research, practices or innovations in peer learning programs can be shared. The Australasian Journal of Peer Learning welcomes submission of Papers of up to 5000 words and Notes of up to 1500 words that may raise new ideas or outline an innovative practice. We also welcome Reviews of up to 1500 words.  2009 Timeline 1 July -  Papers submitted to The Australasian Journal of Peer Learning 19 August - Notification to authors of acceptance 30 September - The Australasian Journal of Peer Learning, Volume 2(1) released

Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) digital Knowledge Center Since April, the Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN) digital Knowledge Center has been available online. The Knowledge Center offers in one place: Access to cataloged and fully cited WIE information resources including research reports, data and statistics, bibliographies, best practices, key programs, and more. An online Professional Community for networking, collaborating, identifying subject matter experts, and sharing information. Special online events ASEE-ERM members are invited to actively participate in the Knowledge Center. We hope you will submit your research and other information resources that may not be in the center when we launch. You are also encouraged to join the professional community, form interest groups, suggest and lead online events, and so on. To receive notification when the center launches and other occasional updates, join the Knowledge Center distribution list. Links to WEPAN's first two news alerts – brief and informative – are pasted below. You can also join the distribution list using links embedded in the alerts. Looking forward to seeing you in the WEPAN Knowledge Center! WKC News 1:   Introduction to the Knowledge Center WKC News 2: Preview of Knowledge Center Resources

NAE Report on Measuring Teaching Effectiveness Released for Free download Norman Fortenberry, Director of CASEE in Washington DC,  who recently visited Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane sent the following information which those involved in improving teaching quality may find interesting. In 2007, with support from the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Engineering convened a committee of engineering educators, leaders in faculty professional development, and experts in teaching assessment to organize a fact-finding workshop and prepare a succinct consensus report that addresses the development and implementation of a system to measure the instructional effectiveness of engineering faculty members.  The charge to the committee was to identify and assess options for evaluating scholarly teaching (referred to in this report as "teaching effectiveness") which includes a variety of actions and knowledge related to faculty members' content expertise, instructional design skills, delivery skills, understanding of outcomes assessment, and course management skills.  The intent of this project was to provide a concise description of a process to develop and institute a valid and acceptable means of measuring teaching effectiveness in order to foster greater acceptance and rewards for faculty efforts to improve their performance of the teaching role that makes up a part of their faculty responsibility. Although the focus of this report is in the area of engineering, the concepts and approaches are applicable to all fields in higher education. The study process included a fact-finding workshop that convened 25 experts in the areas of engineering education, institutional administration, and teaching and learning assessment at which three commissioned papers were presented relating to research in  assessing instructional effectiveness, metrics that are currently available, and what constitutes effective teaching.  Drawing on the commissioned papers, workshop discussions, and additional background research, the committee with support of NAE professional staff prepared a report that addressed the following topics: Background, Framing and Concepts Governing Principles of Good Metrics  The Committee's Key Assumptions in Approaching the Task Attributes That Should be Measured and Sources of Data How to Measure and Compute Teaching Performance A PDF of the FULL report can be downloaded by providing email address and indication of connection type at: http://cart.nap.edu/cart/deliver.cgi?record_id=12636  A hardcopy of the FULL report can be ordered at: ttp://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12636 The report EXECUTIVE SUMMARY is available for free download at: http://www.nap.edu/nap-cgi/execsumm.cgi?record_id=12636

More Conferences 2nd International Research  Symposium on Problem Based learning The Office for Problem Based Learning in the Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science at Victoria University Melbourne Australia, in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair for Problem Based Learning Aalborg University Denmark, is proud to announce and invite you to the 2nd International Research Symposium on PBL to be held from 3 - 4 December 2009, in the city of Melbourne. The deadline for Abstract submission is 5 July 2009, and Full paper submission by 15 September 2009.   For more information please visit the symposium website at: www.vu.edu.au/pblsymposium. International Symposium on Total Engineering Education (TEE'09) This symposium is to be held October 23-26, 2009 at East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China. It is co-organized by East China University of Science and Technology, Utah State, and two other universities. All those who are interested in engineering education research and practices are invited to submit and present their papers at the symposium, and visit Shanghai, one of the most beautiful and prosperous cities in China. You may contact Dr. Ning Fang (nfang@engineering.usu.edu) for more details.

Chemical Engineers - session at AICHE on Research in Engineering Education The “Fundamental Research in Education” session at the 2009 AIChE Annual Meeting in November is devoted to chemical engineering education research (description below). If you are interested in submitting an abstract (due May 11), you may read more about the conference at this site http://www.aiche.org/Conferences/AnnualMeeting/index.aspx and feel free to contact LaRuth McAfee (laruth.mcafee@case.edu) with questions – she is leading the session. 04012 Fundamental Research in Education: This session will feature rigorous education research projects involving chemical engineers or chemical engineering classes. All abstract submissions should be sufficiently detailed for a panel of reviewers to evaluate the quality and depth of work to be presented. In order to provide an extended presentation time for each speaker, the number of papers accepted to this session will be limited. Papers not accepted to this session will be forwarded to the Free Forum on Education or another suitable session. Those presenters whose proposals are accepted for presentation to this session will be expected to submit a paper to the conference proceedings, and may also submit this paper for consideration for publication in Chemical Engineering Education. This session is co-sponsored by the American Society for Engineering Education Chemical Engineering Division. Koli Calling 2009 The deadline for submitting papers, posters and Tools Award nominations to the 2009 Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research is fast approaching.  Submissions should be made via EasyChair in the standard ACM two-column format. Important Links: http://cs.joensuu.fi/kolistelut https://www.easychair.org/login.cgi?conf=kolicalling2009 For more information, contact Conference Chair Arnold Pears (arnold.pears@it.uu.se)