فصلنامه آموزش مهندسی ایران
پیاپی 49 (بهار 1390)

This article is last part of a report on the research on science in Iran since Daralfonoon. The study in made for the scientific development in the lifestyle of the country. The background of the education of new sciences since Safavid dynast, particularly since 1909, as well as the present status of scientific development have been evaluated and scrutinized from social perspective. Moreover, the achievements of our recent researches and scientific developments have been analyzed from social, economical and historical dimensions.

Intellectual capital is the key driving force for the competition and improvement of universities performance. In this query which have been done according to qualitative content analysis method attempts are made to revise concepts and approaches in intellectual capital and knowledge evaluation in higher education. It has been tried to provide a conceptual framework in recognizing knowledge and intellectual capital evaluation indicators in higher education, regarding challenges confronting higher education experts in relation with the complexity of indicators` evaluation in universities and higher education institutions. Meanwhile, evaluation of knowledge, intellectual capital and university's intangible assets is essential in higher education context. The necessity to link intellectual capital and knowledge evaluation with strategic orientation, the paper tries to identify programs as a practical guide for implementation of fifth developmental plan in Iran's higher education section. Regarding this, to understand the importance of subject, firstly the concept of intellectual capital in universities and higher education institutions has been studied. Secondly, the models and frameworks of intellectual capital in the developed countries and the leading universities have been analyzed and lastly, the relevant indicators for application of research findings with the comparative approach were introduced.Finally with the decision making view, universities and higher education institutions can not be succeed in the case of knowledge production just by relying on tangible assets. According to this result, engineering higher institutions need to intellectual capital maturity to access this purpose. For more explanation, the article presents the conceptual model.

One of the prerequisites of successful education is establishment of suitable objectives for courses and educational programs. Having the course objectives, instructors can design their course content and teaching method aptly; and students can focus more on those sections that they really need to learn. At the end of an educational process, both the instructors and the universities are interested to assess the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that were transferred to the students throughout the course or program. Learning objectives and outcomes reveal what students have gained after completing a course or program respectively. Success of an instructed education can be measured by internal and external assessment. Internal assessment is carried out within each educational institution; while external assessment is undertaken by independent centers, such as Engineering Education Accreditation Organization of Iran. According to a paradigm that is followed in many countries, fulfillment of eight general criteria and one specific criterion is required for accreditation of an engineering program. Between those criteria, criterion 2 involves objectives, while criterion 3 deals with outcomes. Considering the prime significance of these two criteria in the accreditation process, this paper discusses a practical method for preparing learning objectives for courses; as well as outcomes that measure the success of an educational program. The method presented in this paper is suggested as a standard for internal assessment of objectives and outcomes as well as external assessment of programs to be carried out by the Engineering Education Accreditation Organization of Iran.

Today, the roles of human resources are becoming more important as science and technology advances. They are relying more on human-based activities. Managers, in particular, have a higher priority because of their decision making and driving role in any organization. If managers are being empowered, they will affect the whole organization acting as a critical success factor. One part of the empowerment is related to required managerial skills that enable them to be more powerful in the decision making process. In this study, following the elaboration of empowerment and its role in the development of employees and managers, the present challenges facing managers in the industrial sector have been discussed. The industrial engineering curriculum has been studied regarding the role that each course plays in fulfilling the industrial needs of managers. QFD technique has been applied to relate the two sides on which basis IE courses are prioritized. The results show that courses such as "production planning", " plant layout", "work and time study", "feasibility study", " payment systems " higher priority in empowering managers; courses such as "queuing theory", "transportation planning", " simulation", "safety and industrial hygiene" show minimum priority. It is also clearly shown that courses on subjects such as”introduction to law (public and private sectors),” banking systems”, “exchange rate fluctuations”, and “new investment” are to be added to the industrial engineering curriculum.

The main purpose of this paper is to show that by using samples and examples contained in scientific books of Iranian and Islamic civilization, how the new corresponding scientific topics for engineering students can be described and made them intelligible. For this purpose, the book Meyar-al-uqul attributed to Avicenna is taken into consideration. As samples, the simple and compound levers described in the book are selected. During the analysis of the behavior of these two types of levers, several new scientific concepts are introduced and explained.

Based on pathological studies of educational systems, it is obvious that the lack of firmly established and approved strategies is one of the main reasons of the inadequacy of educational initiatives which shows the direction of these efforts in a period of 2 to 5 years. This issue has unfavorable implications such as “uncertainty in educating important staff of the organization, lack of distinct policies for staff continuing their higher education, the lack of the effective use of students’ training, launching irrelevant and ineffective educational courses, the inconsistency of educational courses with organizational priorities, the dissatisfaction of the managers and staff, casual and disorganized planning, the disorder and inconsistency in setting guidelines and educational regulations,…”. For this reason, educational strategies of PMO have been determined with regard to the procedural components of ISO 10015 Training Quality Standard and through applying SWOT model. In this study, statistical population including elites in Iranian Ports and Maritime Organization were 40 from whom 35 people were selected based on Krejcie and Morgan table with simple random sampling. The questions of this study are focused not only on the identification of internal factors (strengths and weaknesses) and external ones (opportunities and threats) but also on the recognition of required strategy scope. The results show that the training system of PMO corresponds with defensive scope among “offensive, defensive, competitive and conservative” ones. Seven strategies were introduced and five of them were selected as attractive and primary ones.

The development of the human life increases the need of new materials and makes it an inevitable and undeniable issue. Perhaps in the past decades no one could consider that these materials some day play such a key role in his life. Today, metals such as iron and copper alone cannot would be responsive to human needs, therefore these needs require more focus on research and evaluation in the field of new materials. Certainly, the increasing of knowledge of new materials in scientific and industrial societies is an introduction to expand the use of these material and also taking advantage of the extra features in different aspects of life. So in this paper, investigation of these materials has been considered. New materials generally are classified to five main categories. These categories include, Functionally Graded Materials, Smart Materials, Shape Memory Alloys, Composite Materials and Nano Materials. In this paper, new material structures and their application have been investigated briefly, and academic research and application of new materials in Iran and some other countries has been reviewed.