فصلنامه آموزش مهندسی ایران
پیاپی 70 (تابستان 1395)

Recent studies have shown that video conferencing technology is a useful strategy to connect students with their instructors in teaching and learning environments at universities and higher education institutions. The purpose of the present paper is to carry out an exploration on the factors influencing the use of video conferencing technology to enhance the quality of engineering education. A case study methodology was used in this study. In order to achieve this goal, the researcher focused on this topic during a group interview with 10 graduate students who had used video conferencing technology in engineering courses. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that factors affecting the quality of the use of video conferencing technology could be organized in three main categories: roles, teaching-learning interactions, and structure. Accordingly, suggestions for planning and policymaking for the use of this technology in teaching and learning environments were offered at the end of paper. Taking the aforementioned suggestions into consideration would be useful to help optimize and better engineering education.

Attention to innovation and technology are important factors in increasing a countny,s economic growth and competitiveness. There is no doubt that science and technology are the most basic elements of economic development, and successful countries are those that convert scientific and technological innovations into wealth. Iran must continually strive to manufacture industrial products based on science and technology, in order to not only keep pace with the world’s rapid growth but also accelerate the country's economic development. The university’s role in the countries planning and management is mainly in technology development and is undergoing serious changes. With the improvement of science, technology, and the globalization of engineering education, the necessity for a continuous review of goals, structures, and new methods in engineering education is felt more than ever. In this article current global technology will be presented, followed by an evaluation of the Iran’s current training for personnel in the field of technology. By studying and verifying undergraduate and postgraduate courses in five selected engineering departments, including Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Polymer Engineering, shortages are extracted, analyzed, and several suggestions are presented to empower engineering students. Finally, the most effective ways to strengthen the relationship between industries and universities are studied, with a view to identify more useful and efficient technology for engineering courses.

In the current century, among many challenges facing the humanity, the environmental degradation can be pointed out as a salient one. On the one hand the environmental hazards such as the increase in of the greenhouse gases, global warming, ozone depletion, temperature inversion, energy crisis and the serious damage to the global ecosystem, and on the other hand the rapid technological development and diversity of products all over the world, necessitates a remedy to control and reduce the disastrous effects on the environment, rising from the growing production and consumption. A survey of scientific and industrial developments in the last few decades reveals that the environment can be remedied by the engineers’ effective solutions. That is why it is necessary for all engineers to be aware of their potential impacts on the environment; therefore the training courses seem to be quite necessary for young engineers. In this article the necessity of training the engineering students to achieve the sustainable design is firstly taken into consideration. Afterwards the curriculum of the world’s reputable universities regarding the environmental protection were studied. Summing up various training courses and applying the experiences of the writers out of similar courses, a proper approach, depending on the type of the matter is defined and a course called green design is developed for the engineering students of Sharif University of Technology. In this course, students will get familiar with the product design process and their maximum environmental effects throughout its life cycle.

In recent years robotic technology has extended its applications beyond the factory and is now used for more general-purpose practices in society, such as in clinical affairs and rehabilitation, child and elderly care, search and rescue operations, and many other areas. However for robotic technology to be successful in such fields, it is necessary to reach new levels of ability, robustness, physical skills, cognitive ability and intelligence. When designing and constructing social-cognitive robots one faces many challenges, the most significant of which is to build robots which live up to the needs and expectations of the human mind. How we communicate with machines with a higher quality physical appearance and machines which look alive differs from the way we interact with a computer, cell phone, or other smart devices. It is necessary, therefore, to be aware of such differences and know how to take advantage of them. In this paper, we discuss the emerging and interdisciplinary field of cognitive and social robotics, in particular robot assisted treatments, and the effect of modern technology on education(in other words, the application of engineering in education). Moreover, through the introduction of key features and some research topics, several different opportunities to join this scientific field have been suggested.

Although 3D printing is only two decades old, dramatic improvements have occurred in the production cycle. At the present time many big industrial centers, such as the automotive industry, medical equipment industry, military industries, as well as many others use this technology. This group of technologies is called rapid prototyping. Conventionally, model building with traditional methods such as the milling and turning process is very time-consuming, difficult, and expensive. With the help of this new technology a model can be directly made and laminated from a 3D model that has been developed by CAD software. Another important application of this technology is its use in educational and research areas. Engineering students are facing more and more with problems such as 3D spatial visualization. Therefore, the researcher built 3D physical models with the help of a 3D printer and gave them to students to use in class. According to surveys and tests taken on a number of male students enrolled in engineering drawing, it was found that most had a positive attitude towards the use of physical three-dimensional models and test results show improvement in the quality of the educational process.

This research used a scientometirc approach and social network analysis indices to investigate the co-authorship network between Iranian researchers, universities and research institutions in Iran’s engineering education field. The corpus of the study included 444 articles published in Persian in the Iranian Journal of Engineering Education from1999 to 2014. The network co-authorship matrix was drawn using a Ravar-Matrix; and then two types of social network software, UCINET and VOSviewer, were utilized for data analysis. The productivity index results revealed that the largest number of articles were written by M. Yaghobi (20 articles), J. Hejazi (15 articles), GH. Daneshi (15 articles), H. Memarian (15 articles) and P. Davami (14 articles). Moreover, based on centrality indices of the Iranian Journal of Engineering Education researchers like M. Yaghobi, P. Davami and J. Hejazi were assumed to play leading roles in the co-authorship network. In terms of the scientific productivity index, Sharif University of Technology (65 articles), Shiraz University (58 articles), and University of Tehran (57 articles) achieved the highest ranks.In addition, based on indices of degree centrality, between ness centrality, and closeness centrality, universities like Sharif University of Technology, Shiraz University, University of Tehran, and Islamic Azad University were the most effective universities in terms of scientific productivity in the Iranian Journal of Engineering Education.

This study examined the performance of the 18- month selective plan of a Technical and Vocational Training Organization in one of the mega cities in Iran. The method used in this research was a mixed method based on interviews, data analysis, and the implementation of a questionnaire. Based on the preliminary interview, a questionnaire was designed concerning four groups and the grading of each measurement was done regarding the extent to which they were weak or unfavorable. The participants of the study consisted of all apprentices of the 18-month plan, all the trainers, managers and experts in charge and also all the employers who recruited the apprentices. As regards the quantitative part, the sampling methods were ‘statistical sampling’ and ‘stratified random sampling’ and as for the qualitative phase ‘purposive sampling’ was practiced. The results of the study showed that: (a) the average degree of weakness and inefficiency of the management criteria accounted for 3.64 out of 5 (undesirable), the competence of the trainers 3.39 (undesirable), equipment and training facilities 3.47 (undesirable), the educational standards 3.38 (undesirable), and the harmony of training with market needs 3.87 ( highly undesirable). Also, the average response of the four groups to the weakness and inefficiency of the five scales was 3/54 toout of 5 was (poor), (b) competence, motivation, talent, and interest of the applicants were noting line with the goals, educational standards, and educational content of the plan, and (c) educational procedures failed to carry out the training complying with the educational standards and authorized skills in each field. Therefore, the outputs of the educational plan did not correspond to the needs of the industry and labor market.