Education for a smarter profession

We must build for this nation a big passion for innovation. We must make the development of the creative mind a national agenda. Unless we get really serious about cultivating creativity and promoting innovation, the transformation to an innovation economy will not really happen

Assessment of Employee Using Simple Multi-Attribute Technique Exploiting Rank (SMARTER) and Behaviorally Anchor Rating Scale (BARS) Method

Lecturers' active role as the spearhead of higher education has an essential role in improving higher education quality and sustainability. Therefore, assessing work behaviour is needed to measure how lecturers participate in achieving the vision and mission, quality improvement, and service guarantee to students and complementary documentation. This condition became the basis of research. They are implementing decision support systems with Simple Multi-Attribute Rating Technique Exploiting Ranges (SMARTER) and Graphic Rating Scale (GRS) to measure a lecturer's behaviour by using multiple criteria. With the SMARTER method and  Behaviorally Anchor Rating Scale (BARS). By applying the impermeable BARS method, the work behaviour assessment process results in ease and accuracy that is more in line with the employees' behaviour being assessed. With the SMARTER approach, an assessment of employee work behaviour is produced, with 90% of alternatives used. The results are Good

Building a smarter future towards a sustainable Scottish solution for the future of higher education: consultation report

"The higher education green paper: Building a Smarter Future, was launched in the Scottish Parliament on 16 December 2010 following a lengthy period of discussion with stakeholders in the sector. The deadline for the consultation responses was Friday 25 February 2011. In total there have been 115 consultation responses, these comprised of 28 individuals and 87 group responses. In addition to the option to formally contribute to the consultation, opportunities were also offered for those with an interest to attend one of five public events. Over 250 people from 80 organisations attended these events. We also had over 1,500 unique visits to the green paper pages on the Engage for Education website and around 300 people participated in our online survey. This report pulls together the main themes from all of this activity." - Page 4

Smarter learning software: Education and the big data imaginary

Big data and smarter learning software systems are beginning to impact on education, particularly within the schools sector. This paper traces the emergence of a ‘big data imaginary,’ a vision of a desirable future of education that its advocates believe is attainable through the application of big data technologies and practices. Firstly, it identifies a ‘first wave of big data’ in nineteenth-century education exhibitions and its continuities with the visualization of large-scale educational data today. Secondly, it details the emergence of ‘educational data science’ as an exemplar of how ‘second wave big data’ has entered the imagination of many actors within education. Thirdly, it then demonstrates how education is being reimagined in relation to ‘smart cities’ that depend on big data for their functioning, before fourthly detailing the recent appearance of ‘startup schools’ that are being established by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to run as testbeds of smarter learning software systems. A concluding section discusses how the future of education may be governed by the production and circulation of the ‘data and algorithms of the powerful.

Active learning based laboratory towards engineering education 4.0

Universities have a relevant and essential key role to ensure knowledge and development of competencies in the current fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 promotes a set of digital technologies to allow the convergence between the information technology and the operation technology towards smarter factories. Under such new framework, multiple initiatives are being carried out worldwide as response of such evolution, particularly, from the engineering education point of view. In this regard, this paper introduces the initiative that is being carried out at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, called Industry 4.0 Technologies Laboratory, I4Tech Lab. The I4Tech laboratory represents a technological environment for the academic, research and industrial promotion of related technologies. First, in this work, some of the main aspects considered in the definition of the so called engineering education 4.0 are discussed. Next, the proposed laboratory architecture, objectives as well as considered technologies are explained. Finally, the basis of the proposed academic method supported by an active learning approach is presented.Postprint (published version

Ethnomathematics in resettled indigenous communities whose language and children were once alienated

The Aboriginal Education Policy for an Australian State (New South Wales Department of Education and Training, 2008) requires partnerships and engagement with the local Aboriginal community. A case study of this policy in action was undertaken in a small rural city in the State.This paper provides an analysis of the strategies by which schools participating in three programs aimed at improving Indigenous education. Through a Stronger Smarter Learning Community, Make It Count and 8-Ways projects, schools have been able to make significant changes in their schools’ ethos. Significantly, public education in this rural city has achieved results that reflect high expectations.Interviews with principals, teachers, Aboriginal students and their community highlighted the increasing interaction between the Aboriginal parents and community and the schools, the increasing warmth and welcome extended both ways, and the impact that these approaches are having on curriculum, teaching and learning. The strategies, small steps, clear goals, respect and flexibility resulted in changes in learning mathematics. The analysis illustrates how the Stronger Smarter, Make it Count and 8-ways approaches facilitated changing teachers’ perceptions, skills, practices and curriculum and resulted in a culturally responsive, place-based mathematics curriculum

Glasgow defined : a business perspective

Commerce, trade and business together with education have been the heart of Glasgow over the centuries. Glasgow played a central role in developing Scotland's trans-Atlantic commerce and trade- based economy with the development of the tobacco trade. As the 'second city of the empire' in the late 1800s it was, as Findlay (2011) notes, a central player in the first industrial revolution with its textile, mining, iron and shipping industries. Glasgow's leadership in the manufacture of ships, locomotives and heavy engineering reflected not only a highly skilled workforce, but equally a strong tradition of technological innovation and invention together allied to a strong financial and business services base. Through much of the 20th century Glasgow, along with many other industrial cities, had to confront the problems of industrial change and rising social deprivation and experienced several cycles of decline, renewal and regeneration. However, the traditions of innovation, together with a strong higher education sector, and a vibrant culture and dynamism have enabled Glasgow to change and to renew its economy. Since the 1980s, Glasgow has been rebuilding itself through a series regeneration programmes including: the 'Glasgow Miles Better' campaign, the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival, being European City of Culture in 1990 and, looking forward, hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2014. These, together with a series of development strategies, most notably the private-sector led Glasgow Action which led the implementation of a services-led McKinsey strategy from the mid-1980’s to the Joint Economic Strategy of Glasgow City Council and Scottish Enterprise set out in 2006 'Step Change' strategy programme and – even more recently - the creation of the Glasgow Economic Commission and the private sector-led Glasgow Economic Leadership all illustrate the innovation and strength of commitment of civic, business and academic partners to continuing and strengthening Glasgow's economic growth and renewal