A hybrid facilitation model for inexperienced students via integration of teacher-centred and student-centred roles

Inadequate experience in handling Student�Centred Learning (SCL) approaches may hinder teachers from demonstrating the full spectrum of the facilitation as proposed in the Heron facilitation model. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate the utility of the Heron facilitation model in SCL among teachers and students of higher educational institutions who are relatively inexperienced in SCL. The participants were 177 teachers from a higher engineering educational institution, and a survey using questionnaires was carried out to gauge their experience with the SCL facilitation methods. The results obtained by using the Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) indicate the presence of four new dimensions instead of six, as proposed in the Heron model, namely planning, shared decision-making, flexible teamwork, and shared outcome. The first construct indicates teacher-empowered teaching, while the other three indicate students’ empowered learning. The finding provides a set of new guidelines for novice teachers in planning the facilitation of SCL

INTEGRATING SPUR GEAR TEETH DESIGN AND ITS ANALYSIS WITH G2 PARAMETRIC BÉZIER-LIKE CUBIC TRANSITION AND SPIRAL CURVES

An involute curve (or known as an approximated curve) is mostly used in designing the gear teeth (profile) especially in spur gear. Conversely, this study has the intention to redesign the spur gear teeth using the transition (S transition and C spiral) curves (also known as the exact curves) with curvature continuity (G2) as the degree of smoothness. Method of designing the transition curves is adapted from the circle to circle templates. The applicability of the new teeth model with the chosen material, Stainless Steel Grade 304 is determined using Linear Static Analysis, Fatigue Analysis and Design Efficiency (DE). Several concepts and the related examples are shown throughout this study

Feasibility investigation of crowdsourcing-based product design and development for manufacturing

In the era of Industry 4.0, to help manufacturers make quick response to rapidly changing market and customer needs, this research explores the feasibility of realizing benefits of crowdsourcing in product design and development from a lifecycle point of view through investigations on product design quality control and crowdsourcing technology theories, product design lifecycle information modelling, and simulation platform prototyping. It intends to help manufacturers create a product-service ecosystem to deliver values to all involved stakeholders of a PDD process. This study started with building up the theoretical foundation of product design quality control in crowdsourcing design environment. Then, key crowdsourcing technologies for realizing a lifecycle PDD process on a crowdsourcing platform while enabling the design quality were explored. Thirdly, a multi-layer product design lifecycle information model was developed to accommodate all design related information in a PDD process and the identified information at each design phase and the relationships and interactions among information entities were evaluated by case studies and ORM modelling method, respectively. Finally, two crowdsourcing platform prototypes based on the PDLIM were developed to test their effectiveness in communicating design information among stakeholders and delivering value to them. The proposed research made contributions to knowledge through the following improvements/advancements: (1) understanding of key factors affecting product design quality in crowdsourcing design environments, (2) a technical foundation of crowdsourcing technologies for PDD process, (3) a novel product design lifecycle information model accommodating design information in crowdsourcing environments, and (4) guidelines on developing intermediary and integrated crowdsourcing platforms for PDD