Tourism curriculum in the University Sector: Does it meet future requirements? Evidence from Australia

In the contemporary competitive and globally connected marketplace, factors that guaranteed business success in the past may be of limited relevance in the future. Within the paradigms of today’s business, many successful operators continually introduce new products and services to maintain their market leadership position. Whilst firms in the tourism industry seek to maintain competitive position through policy planning, strategic marketing, budgeting and R&D, tourism education providers occupy a key position by seeking to enhance the skill levels of management and employees, both present and future. This paper reviews some Australian tourism and hospitality education programmes and course curriculum and briefly compares them with some trends in other English-speaking countries. The research explores tourism industry demand, trainees’ expectations and additionally identifies gaps and opportunities for the future curriculum content. The findings may, therefore, assist tourism programme providers with a broader perspective with which to shape future tourism courses

Teaching teamwork to transnational students in engineering and technology

China is producing over 4 million STEM graduates each year. According to the literature, many of these graduates lack the professional skills that are required by the global job market. Consequently, a new course was designed to help Chinese students cultivate the necessary professional knowledge and practical skills in the field of electronic engineering. The aim of this innovative course was to build experience of working in a team to design and develop a rover that can perform specific tasks. The course’s team project covers areas such as electronic design, sensing, instrumentation, measurement, computing, communications, as well as project management, report writing and technical presentation. The learning outcomes and course details are described herein. Furthermore, feedback from 152 Chinese students y is discussed and. Statistical analysis from surveys completed by 152 students are discussed and compared with a similar learning activity that was implemented in the UK. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the survey’s results clearly show that this team based active learning activity was ideally suited to the culture and background of Chinese students.

Supporting Team Based Learning Using Electronic Laboratory Notebooks: Perspectives From Transnational Students

[EN] Today’s engineering industries require graduates with a broad range of soft skills, which include teamwork, communication and integrity. Therefore, more accreditation bodies now recommend team-learning activities to be embedded in their engineering programmes. However, hardworking students often find group projects demotivating, especially if their contributions are not accurately reflected in their individual grades. To address these issues, we demonstrate that Electronic Laboratory Notebooks can be used to promote student collaboration and teamwork on a group project. They can also help instructors assess student contributions fairly. During our investigations, we noticed that students have used Electronic Laboratory Notebooks as social interaction tools that enable text, data, images and recorded audio to be exchanged. Consequently, we describe the experiences of 58 transnational undergraduate students in using six different software products for a team-based learning activity. According to our investigations, Electronic Laboratory Notebooks had a positive impact on supporting Team Based Learning in a new electronic engineering course. The outcomes of our investigations can help create effective teaching and learning resources for undergraduate students in Electronic Engineering. They can also help staff members make evidence-based decisions regarding the introduction of Electronic Laboratory Notebooks in undergraduate research activities.S

Developing Global Engineers- A Comparison Between Scotland, Usa And Chile

Engineering-accredited programmes are reviewed every 4-5 years by professional bodies with the aim of assuring standards that guarantee that graduate engineers can fulfil the highest technical demands of the industry workforce in order to achieve a sustainable economy and society. The approaches to develop these require global engineering competences (GECs), such as international and intercultural teamwork, language skills, critical thinking, and ethical and human-centered problem solving, are proving insufficient to meet the emerging challenges that this century\u27s society is facing. To develop these GECs, engineering programmes have been working on including physical and virtual mobility such as Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) together with other experiential learning interventions in order to provide the necessary requirements to become a global engineer. The aim of this practice paper is to compare and to discuss how three different universities, located in Chile, Scotland, and the United States have designed their engineering programmes to develop global engineers. This research provides preliminary results, based on an auto-ethnographic approach to analyse the curriculum design approaches and structures, that highlight opportunities for collaborative interdisciplinary experiences as well as more country- and institution-specific approaches (Engineers Without Borders) that support the development of these GECs. Analysis showed that the majority of the GECs are achieved by the three universities, however Virginia Tech is the only university that explicitly encourages and motivates other students through an assignment and cultural simulation activity. This research is part of a larger investigation that will analyse how engineering graduates perceive their development of GECs

Curriculum convergence and divergence in 'Industrial Design' and 'Technology' programmes in Higher Education

Curriculum convergence and divergence in 'Industrial Design' and 'Technology' programmes in Higher Educatio

Exploring quantitative skills provision in European logistics and supply chain education

Paper presented at 20th ISL, 5th – 8th July 2015, Bologna Italy Abstract: Logistics comprises functional ‘stop’ and ‘go’ activities such as warehousing, inventory management and transport, and logistics strategy has focussed on making these activities more efficient, effective and relevant (Grant, 2012). Techniques for doing so require quantitative skills for logistical system design and analysis and hence logisticians should possess a degree of quantitative skills to undertake these tasks. The broader concept of supply chain management (SCM) includes developing and managing relationships with stakeholders, internally and externally, along the supply chain– such stakeholders include shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers and possibly even competitors in collaborative opportunities. Accordingly, both logisticians and supply chain managers should also embrace ‘softer’ management and less quantitative skills in order to achieve these functions. However, this is not to say that both types of skills are not required at all levels