Learning requirements engineering within an engineering ethos

An interest in educating software developers within an engineering ethos may not align well with the characteristics of the discipline, nor address the underlying concerns of software practitioners. Education for software development needs to focus on creativity, adaptability and the ability to transfer knowledge. A change in the way learning is undertaken in a core Software Engineering unit within a university's engineering program demonstrates one attempt to provide students with a solid foundation in subject matter while at the same time exposing them to these real-world characteristics. It provides students with a process to deal with problems within a metacognitive-rich framework that makes complexity apparent and lets students deal with it adaptively. The results indicate that, while the approach is appropriate, student-learning characteristics need to be investigated further, so that the two aspects of learning may be aligned more closely

The Role of ICT in Women's Empowerment in Rural\ud Bangladesh

Rural women in Bangladesh have limited access to resources and public\ud spheres due to socio-cultural restrictions. Women suffer from severe\ud discrimination, and it is thought this is heightened due to a lack of access to\ud information. Information communication and technology (ICT) is a potential tool\ud that can reach rural women and enrich their knowledge. This paper discusses\ud women‟s empowerment in terms of perceptual change in rural villages in\ud Bangladesh after ICT intervention has been introduced by Non-Government\ud Organizations (NGOs). Since empowerment is a complex phenomenon to measure\ud because of its multidimensional aspects and its relationship with time as a process,\ud the methodology used in this research was an integration of qualitative and\ud quantitative methods. Using a structured questionnaire, data was collected from\ud women in two different villages where ICT projects have been introduced. The\ud change in women‟s perception after using ICT was compared with changes in\ud women who did not use ICT. The results indicate that ICT intervention changed\ud women‟s perception in a positive direction in one village but it did not change in\ud the other village

Understanding requirements engineering process: a challenge for practice and education

Reviews of the state of the professional practice in Requirements Engineering (RE) stress that the RE process is both complex and hard to describe, and suggest there is a significant difference between competent and "approved" practice. "Approved" practice is reflected by (in all likelihood, in fact, has its genesis in) RE education, so that the knowledge and skills taught to students do not match the knowledge and skills required and applied by competent practitioners. A new understanding of the RE process has emerged from our recent study. RE is revealed as inherently creative, involving cycles of building and major reconstruction of the models developed, significantly different from the systematic and smoothly incremental process generally described in the literature. The process is better characterised as highly creative, opportunistic and insight driven. This mismatch between approved and actual practice provides a challenge to RE education - RE requires insight and creativity as well as technical knowledge. Traditional learning models applied to RE focus, however, on notation and prescribed processes acquired through repetition. We argue that traditional learning models fail to support the learning required for RE and propose both a new model based on cognitive flexibility and a framework for RE education to support this model

Learning theory and its application to female learner support in engineering

School of Engineering at Murdoch University is now in its fifth year: a new School sited on the new regional Campus. This environment enabled the staff to take an innovative approach to the School's development. One key issue addressed from the outset was that of women in a nontraditional area. Positive action was taken to attract high calibre female staff and as a consequence over 50% of the School's staff, academic and non-academic, are female. From the student perspective, issues confronting females studying in Engineering, which are reflected in international low recruitment and retention, continue to be addressed. Individuals are different and these differences affect how a student performs. In particular, gender differences in learning styles have been noted. This has directed us to administer, as part of a first year foundational unit, learning style inventories to all first year students, who then identify their self-reported learning styles. In this positive atmosphere many varied and successful initiatives, based on our learning style research, are being trialled to encourage female students into our programs and then support and retain them throughout their four years of study. This research discusses the initial learning style results and their application to our initiatives

Cognitive change in women's empowerment in rural Bangladesh

Rural women in Bangladesh have limited access to resources and public spheres due to socio-cultural restrictions. Women suffer from severe discrimination, due partly to a lack of access to information. Information and communication and technologies (ICT) are tools that potentially can reach rural women and address their knowledge and information needs. Considering this scenario, the aim of this paper is to examine the situation of rural women using ICT tools provided by non-government and government organizations, and investigate whether access to ICT has changed their lives in terms of socio-economic development. Using a structured questionnaire, data was collected from women in villages where two different ICT projects have been introduced. The change in women's awareness, skills and knowledge of the wider environment on various issues (including health, education, legal rights) is described. These cognitive changes were compared in women with ICT intervention and women who did not use ICT. The overall cognitive awareness of the women indicates more changes among women with ICT intervention than without. Therefore, ICT intervention in rural villages in Bangladesh is leading to empowerment

The Role of ICT in Women's Empowerment in Rural\ud Bangladesh

Rural women in Bangladesh have limited access to resources and public\ud spheres due to socio-cultural restrictions. Women suffer from severe\ud discrimination, and it is thought this is heightened due to a lack of access to\ud information. Information communication and technology (ICT) is a potential tool\ud that can reach rural women and enrich their knowledge. This paper discusses\ud women‟s empowerment in terms of perceptual change in rural villages in\ud Bangladesh after ICT intervention has been introduced by Non-Government\ud Organizations (NGOs). Since empowerment is a complex phenomenon to measure\ud because of its multidimensional aspects and its relationship with time as a process,\ud the methodology used in this research was an integration of qualitative and\ud quantitative methods. Using a structured questionnaire, data was collected from\ud women in two different villages where ICT projects have been introduced. The\ud change in women‟s perception after using ICT was compared with changes in\ud women who did not use ICT. The results indicate that ICT intervention changed\ud women‟s perception in a positive direction in one village but it did not change in\ud the other village

Developing an undergraduate software engineering degree

As those who have done it can attest, developing an undergraduate degree in software engineering is a daunting and challenging task, and there have been instances where a department has tried, but failed to get its program approved. A strong desire to develop a program in software engineering together with interested faculty may not be enough to build a credible degree, let alone a curriculum that will be approved by all the administrative and State organizations who may have a say in it .This panel brings together a group whose experience in developing software engineering degrees at their respective institutions may be helpful to those thinking about doing so. Each member of the group will describe his/her experiences in developing an undergraduate program in software engineering and address key issues and problems that should be considered in any such effort. There will also be ample opportunity for interaction among the participants

An experimental investigation of chatter effects on tool life

Tool wear is one of the most important considerations in machining operations as it affects surface quality and integrity, productivity and cost. The most commonly used model for tool life analysis is the one proposed by F.W. Taylor about a century ago. Although the extended form of this equation includes the effects of important cutting conditions on tool wear, tool life studies are mostly performed under stable cutting conditions where the effect of chatter vibrations are not considered. This paper presents an empirical attempt to understand tool life under vibratory cutting conditions. Tool wear data are collected in turning and milling on different work materials under stable and chatter conditions. The effects of cutting conditions as well as severity of chatter on tool life are analyzed. The results indicate significant reduction in tool life due to chatter as expected. They also show that the severity of chatter, and thus the vibration amplitude, strongly reduces the life of cutting tools. These results can be useful in evaluating the real cost of chatter by including the reduced tool life. They can also be useful in justifying the cost of chatter suppression and more rigid machining systems

Modelling flan wear of carbide tool insert in metal cutting

In this paper theoretical and experimental studies are carried out to investigate the intrinsic relationship between tool flank wear and operational conditions in metal cutting processes using carbide cutting inserts.Anewflank wear rate model, which combines cutting mechanics simulation and an empirical model, is developed to predict tool flank wear land width. A set of tool wear cutting tests using hard metal coated carbide cutting inserts are performed under different operational conditions. The wear of the cutting inset is evaluated and recorded using Zygo New View 5000 microscope. The results of the experimental studies indicate that cutting speed has a more dramatic effect on tool life than feed rate. The wear constants in the proposed wear rate model are determined based on the machining data and simulation results. A good agreements between the predicted and measured tool flank wear land width show that the developed tool wear model can accurately predict tool flank wear to some extent

Deconstructing students’ attitude to learning: a case study in IT education

Decreasing enrolment in IT programs suggests it is important to understand how students learn a discipline in order to support student success. This paper describes a study to examine student attitude to learning in the IT discipline of Engineering (ie Software Engineering). The Approaches to Study Inventory was applied to successive cohorts of students. The results describe a level of orientation (meaning or reproduction) for each participant and the cohort as a whole. However, examination of the subscales of the ASI indicate that the level of coherence in study approach exhibited by individual students is somewhat masked in their overall ASI result. Student reflective comments support the interpretations made of the subscale scores. The results suggest such a deconstruction enables teachers to assist students to know themselves as learners, thus raising their metalearning awareness, which, in turn has the potential to enhance student success