Peer Review for Journals: Evidence on Quality Control, Fairness, and Innovation

I reviewed the published empirical evidence concerning journal peer review, which consisted of 68 papers, all but three published since 1975. Peer review improves quality, but its use to screen papers has met with limited success. Current procedures to assure quality and fairness seem to discourage scientific advancement, especially important innovations, because findings that conflict with current beliefs are often judged to have defects. Editors can use procedures to encourage the publication of papers with innovative findings such as invited papers, early-acceptance procedures, author nominations of reviewers, results-blind reviews, structured rating sheets, open peer review, and, in particular, electronic publication. Some journals are currently using these procedures. The basic principle behind the proposals is to change the decision from whether to publish a paper to how to publish itpeer review, journals, publications

Commentary: Research Methods for the Advancement of Possibility Knowledge and Practice in Science and Engineering Education

Peer reviewe

Funding trends of research universities in Malaysia

Research findings from previous studies had pointed out that many public universities in different countries had been facing with decreasing trend of government funds to finance their operational and research expenditures.As such, this study attempts to provide the funding trends of five Research Universities in Malaysia over the period of five years from 2006 until 2011.The objectives of study are to identify the types of funding sources and to analyse the funding trends of five Research Universities in Malaysia in financing their operational and research activities

Collaborative research: ITR: global multi-scale kinetic simulations of the earth's magnetosphere using parallel discrete event simulation

Issued as final reportNational Science Foundation (U.S.

The impact of language of instruction on quality of science and engineering education in Libya: qualitative study of faculty members

The qualitative study aimed to investigate teaching staff views on language of instruction impact on the quality of education in two Libyan universities, where faculties of science and engineering at University of Al-Jabal Al-Garbi use Arabic as medium of instruction, and faculties of science and engineering at Nasser International University use English as medium of instruction. The participants in the study were five faculty members from each university teaching different science and engineering fields interviewed regarding their views on using Arabic only, English Only or Arabic-English Bilingualism as medium of education. The Findings of the interviews revealed that teachers of both the cases have almost similar views with slight variations regarding all the three medium of instructions. According to participants of both cases, English would have bad impact on the students’ academic performance for this reason Participants of case 1 think that students do not like English. On other hand respondents of Case 2 students like English despite their poor performance, as they know that, English is the only gateway for going Global. Participants of both cases stated though students like Arabic and it is easy for them to study in Arabic. All participants mentioned that use of Arabic results in lack of the job opportunities. In addition, the lack of academic materials and resources is an issue of Arabic Medium Instruction. Arabic-English Bilingualism seems to be the best solution for taking first step towards globalization. Many participants of both cases suggested Arabic-English Bilingualism as the first step towards globalization

THE IMPACT OF LANGUAGE OF INSTRUCTION ON QUALITY OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN LIBYA: QUALITATIVE STUDY OF FACULTY MEMBERS

The qualitative study aimed to investigate teaching staff views on language of instruction impact on the quality of education in two Libyan universities, where faculties of science and engineering at University of Al-Jabal Al-Garbi use Arabic as medium of instruction , and faculties of science and engineering at Nasser International University use English as medium of instruction. The participants in the study were five faculty members from each university teaching different science and engineering fields interviewed regarding their views on using Arabic only, English Only or Arabic-English Bilingualism as medium of education.The Findings of the interviews revealed that teachers of both the cases have almost similar views with slight variations regarding all the three medium of instructions. According to participants of both cases, English would have bad impact on the students’ academic performance for this reason Participants of case 1 think that students do not like English. On other hand respondents of Case 2 students like English despite their poor performance, as they know that, English is the only gateway for going Global. Participants of both cases stated though students like Arabic and it is easy for them to study in Arabic. All participants mentioned that use of Arabic results in lack of the job opportunities. In addition, the lack of academic materials and resources is an issue of Arabic Medium Instruction. Arabic-English Bilingualism seems to be the best solution for taking first step towards globalization. Many participants of both cases suggested Arabic-English Bilingualism as a first step towards globalization

First-Year Effects Of An Engineering Professional Development Program On Elementary Teachers

The ultimate objective of teacher professional development (TPD) is to deliver a positive impact on students’ engagement and performance in class through teacher practice via improving their content and pedagogical content knowledge and changing their attitudes toward the subject being taught. However, compared to other content areas, such as mathematics and science, relatively few engineering TPD programs have been developed, and there has been a lack of research on the effective practice of TPD for K-12 engineering education. As a part of a five-year longitudinal project, this study reports the first-year effect of TPD offered by the Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning (INSPIRE) at Purdue University on elementary teachers integrating engineering. Thirty-two teachers of second through fourth grade from seven schools attended a one-week intensive Summer Academy and integrated engineering lessons throughout the year. Based on a pre- and post-test research design, multiple measures were utilized to examine changes in teachers’ knowledge and perceptions of engineering and their variations in knowledge and perceptions by school and teacher characteristics. Overall, teachers were satisfied with the engineering TPD program, significantly increased their engineering design process knowledge, and became more familiar with engineering. While teachers’ knowledge about engineering did not vary by school and teacher characteristics, some aspects of teachers’ perceptions regarding engineering integration and their practice differed by school and teacher characteristics.