Teaching-only Academics in a Research Intensive University: From an undesirable to a desirable academic identity

This thesis investigates and reports on the perceptions, work-related experiences and academic identity constructions of teaching-only academics working in a research-intensive institution in the UK. It also charts the evolution of the teaching-only academic role in that particular institution.Teaching-only academics now constitute a significant proportion of the academic staff in UK higher education. This thesis is a three-part study in which I sought to contribute to a more indepth understanding of the teaching-only academic role. I did this through an investigation of the career trajectories, perceptions, work-related experiences and academic identity constructions of teaching-only academics working in a research-intensive institution in the UK. In the first part of the study I carried out a systematic review of the literature on teaching-only academics in the UK, Australia and Canada. In the second part of the study I investigated the virtual identity of teaching-only academics at the UK research-intensive institution. I did this by undertaking an analysis of how these teaching-only academics self-represented and projected themselves on their institutional webpages. In the third part of the study I carried out a life-history analysis of senior teaching-only academics in the engineering faculty of the case study institution. A principal finding from this thesis, which is collaborated across all the three parts of the study, is that the teaching-only academic role is a non-homogeneous role comprising individuals who come from different backgrounds, have followed different career trajectories into the role, and have different academic identities. Findings from this thesis also suggest that whilst teaching-only academics were introduced as an institutional response to the demands of the RAE/REF, the very act of creating the role has further exacerbated the separation between research and teaching, and between undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. Specifically, undergraduate teaching within the case study engineering department now tends to be the responsibility of teaching-only academics, with research-and-teaching academics increasingly focussing on research and postgraduate teaching. This separation has implications for research-led teaching, particularly in research-intensive institutions. The thesis also reveals that despite the pre-eminence of research, teaching remains important within the university, and individuals on the teaching-only academic role are able to accumulate substantial, and valued, teaching-related academic capital. This capital, in turn, is enabling them to secure and advance their positions within the same institution, and to pursue career advancement through seeking employment in other higher education institutions

Engineering ethics education for systemic change: a case for Sub-Saharan Africa

Unlike in the West, engineering practice in Sub-Saharan Africa remains mired in corruption, ethical malpractice, poor ethics governance and lack of effective leadership. This situation has, and continues to, negatively impact national infrastructure, health, education, and economies across Sub-Saharan African countries. Non-ethical engineering practices continue to occur despite the existence of national ethics legislation in Sub–Saharan African countries, and despite codes of ethics underpinning business operations in most public and private sector organisations that employ engineers. This is also despite the existence of codes of conduct and ethics prescribing professional engineering practice that have been developed, and are policed, by national engineering institutions and regulators. Increasingly, engineering education providers have incorporated engineering ethics education in their curricula. However, despite this, Sub-Saharan African engineering graduates transitioning into employment still face significant difficulties in dealing with the myriads of ethical dilemmas they meet in their professional practice. In this study we set out to establish the current state of engineering ethics education in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to assess the thoughts of engineering educators and researchers in the region on how engineering ethics education can be improved

Assessing higher levels of learning through real-life problems in engineering mathematics

This paper discusses the design of engineering mathematics assessment that encourages learning beyond algorithmic recall. Our approach is based on the MATH (mathematical assessment task hierarchy) taxonomy. We propose using mathematics as a tool to analyse relatable problems and produce clear engineering deliverables to ensure that academic knowledge is translated to real-life situations. Creating engineering scenarios was instrumental in fostering active engagement, enquiry, creativity and reducing opportunities for academic misconduct in our first-year engineering mathematics assessments. An example of an exam question covering the topics of calculus, linear algebra, and dimensional analysis is given to illustrate the concepts discussed. Qualitative feedback from 203 students on an assessment paper containing the question shown herein is also included. Our data shows that most students had little to no previous exposure to real-world questions and that most of their time engaging with the assessment was spent critically analysing the problems. In addition, student feedback showed that contextual assessment is perceived as more challenging and exciting than pure mathematics problems and that students believe contextual assessment adds value to their education

Effectiveness of Distance Learning Computer Numerical Control Based on Virtual Laboratory Using a Metaverse Platform to Improve Students’ Cognitive Ability and Practice Skills

This study analyzes the effectiveness of virtual laboratory-based distance learning as a means of improving the learning outcomes of students’ cognitive abilities and practical skills in the Computer Numerical Control course. This study utilized a pre-experimental design with a onegroup pretest-posttest structure. The research subjects were 31 second-year vocational students from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Universitas Negeri Padang who had recently participated in four distance learning sessions. The research instruments included a pre-test, a post-test, and a student perception survey to assess the effectiveness of virtual laboratory treatment. The findings of this study demonstrate that the presence of a virtual laboratory enhances learning outcomes in terms of cognitive abilities. The pre-test value for cognitive abilities was 52.04, which increased to 82.36 in the post-test. Similarly, the pre-test value for practical skills was 56.98, which improved to 83.44 in the post-test. These improvements significantly contribute to the enhancement of learning outcomes, as indicated by an average N-gain value of 0.642 in the medium/effective category. We conclude that the use of virtual laboratory media through the Metaverse platform is effective for distance learning. This method reduces the initial requirement of 24 hours of face-to-face learning to just five hours of more effective self-study

MATLAB and Python Open Book Assessments: lessons from two UK institutions

Although programming has increasingly become an integral part of Mathematics education in universities, the closed book exam, which excludes programming, remains the preferred main assessment component. However, the switch towards open book online assessments necessitated by the Covid pandemic has seen programming content being included in end of year assessments. In this paper we look at how programming has been integrated into the end of year open book online assessments in Mathematics at two UK universities. Preliminary conclusions suggest that open book online assessments incorporating programming content can be a viable replacement for the traditional closed book exam

Unsupervised multimodal neural networks.

We extend the in-situ Hebbian-linked SOMs network by Miikkulainen to come up with two unsupervised neural networks that learn the mapping between the individual modes of a multimodal dataset. The first network, the single-pass Hebbian linked SOMs network, extends the in-situ Hebbian-linked SOMs network by enabling the Hebbian link weights to be computed through one- shot learning. The second network, a modified counter propagation network, extends the unsupervised learning of crossmodal mappings by making it possible for only one self-organising map to implement the crossmodal mapping. The two proposed networks each have a smaller computation time and achieve lower crossmodal mean squared errors than the in-situ Hebbian- linked SOMs network when assessed on two bimodal datasets, an audio-acoustic speech utterance dataset and a phonological-semantics child utterance dataset. Of the three network architectures, the modified counterpropagation network achieves the highest percentage of correct classifications comparable to that of the LVQ-2 algorithm by Kohonen and the neural network for category learning by de Sa and Ballard in classification tasks using the audio-acoustic speech utterance dataset. To facilitate multimodal processing of temporal data, we propose a Temporal Hypermap neural network architecture that learns and recalls multiple temporal patterns in an unsupervised manner. The Temporal Hypermap introduces flexibility in the recall of temporal patterns - a stored temporal pattern can be retrieved by prompting the network with the temporal pattern's identity vector, whilst the incorporation of short term memory allows the recall of a temporal pattern, starting from the pattern item specified by contextual information up to the last item in the pattern sequence. Finally, we extend the connectionist modelling of child language acquisition in two important respects. First, we introduce the concept of multimodal representation of speech utterances at the one-word and two-word stage. This allows us to model child language at the one-word utterance stage with a single modified counterpropagation network, which is an improvement on previous models in which multiple networks are required to simulate the different aspects of speech at the one-word utterance stage. Secondly, we present, for the time, a connectionist model of the transition of child language from the one-word utterance stage to the two-word utterance stage. We achieve this using a gated multi-net comprising a modified counterpropagation network and a Temporal Hypermap

The Impending 5G Era and its likely impact on society

This paper looks at the emergence of the fifth generation of wireless networks, commonly referred to by the acronym 5G, from a perspective informed by the literature on digital divides and digital inequality. 5G has been designed with the goal of minimizing inequalities in physical access, in particular differences in access that arise as a consequence of the rural-urban divide. Together with the Internet of Things, 5G is likely to usher in a new era of economic growth, and to lead to general improvements in quality of life. However, the impact of 5G on socio-economic status is not so clear cut. In some instances, 5G is likely to magnify social inequality, while in other instances it is likely to narrow social inequality. 5G also has the potential to alter existing socio-economic hierarchies, and this paper cautions policy makers and social elites to minimise the negative impacts of attendant social transformations