IMPACT Project Report

The TU Dublin IMPACT project was a National Forum and HEA-funded project under the Strategic Alignment of Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE)) fund which materialised over/during the 2020/21 Academic Year. The aim of the SATLE fund was to develop a strong foundation for future enhancement of teaching and learning (T&L) within an institution and in line with local and national priorities. TU Dublin received the largest funding allocation of any Irish HEI; a total of €602,000. This significant funding was used to develop strategically aligned, sustainable processes and infrastructure to maximise the impact of TU Dublin’s T&L practices on the student and staff experience. The SATLE funding, with the support of the IMPACT project team, empowered and enabled cultural, community and capacity change in TU Dublin. The whole-of-university approach to pedagogical change adopted in the IMPACT project maximised the impact of the project and resulted in sustainable supports for student success. The project was divided into five work packages, each with its own workstream, that developed a digital repository, structured staff and programme-team development, supported the development of cross-disciplinary programmes of the future and empowered innovative T&L practices. The entire project was undertaken in the shadow of Covid-19; however, through adversity the IMPACT project forged opportunity. A strong community of enthusiastic stakeholders – staff, students and external colleagues – engaged with, and shaped, the IMPACT project. Full details of the project, the work packages and the workstreams are available on the TU Dublin IMPACT website (www.tudublinimpact.wordpress.com); regular and real-time project updates were posted to the Twitter account (@TUDublinIMPACT) and shared via mailing lists across the university. The core values of the project were community, capacity and culture; these are underpinned by a sustainable ethos and a positive mindset. Ní neart go cur le chéile – there is no strength without unity! The IMPACT project was our project and it will inform and shape our future through our repositories, our professional development, our innovation, our creativity and the success of our students through consolidating and extending the outputs. Over time, our community of staff, students and the wider TU Dublin stakeholders will be the benefactors of their extensive commitment to the IMPACT project. Together, as a supported T&L community, we will continue to enhance, celebrate and promote a culture of excellence in T&L, which will sustainably support student success. Our new university is in its important formative years and I believe the impact of IMPACT will continue to be felt into the future. We are starting on a long journey of pedagogical development, building on our collective past strengths. In doing this, it is critical to have a solid base from which to develop our model of education; a distinctive educational experience for all at TU Dublin. It was an honour to lead such a dynamic, agile and (pardon the pun!) impactful project that will be part of this journey

Cultural factors influencing international collaborative software engineering education in China

Abstract Software engineering (SE) is a rapidly developing international discipline that requires up-to-date knowledge and skills. The need for well-educated professional software engineers is increasing globally. In China, universities are opening opportunities for collaboration and building cooperative relationships with Western universities in technology fields, including SE, to offer Chinese students possibilities for international education in China instead of studying abroad. Designing high-quality SE education in international collaborative programs faces challenges introduced by cultural factors that affect learning practices. In this study, we addressed these challenges in the context of international collaborative SE education in China. In the first step, we synthesized existing knowledge of Chinese cultural factors affecting learning by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR). In the second step, we conducted interviews with SE students and teachers in a Chinese university that is preparing an international collaborative SE program, in order to see whether the identified cultural factors are valid in the current learning contexts of SE education. The results revealed that many of the identified factors are still valid, but some of them present differently in the current context because of the novelty of the SE discipline and the changing educational environment in China