فصلنامه آموزش مهندسی ایران
پیاپی 81 (بهار 1398)

Expanding and appropriate planning in higher education is one of the criteria for economic and cultural development of the country. The higher the education of the society, especially the youth of the country, the higher would be the public culture and potential for better quality work. On the other hand, the heterogeneous, disproportionate, uncounted and ongoing expansion of higher education without providing the requirements will lead to reduction in the quality of education, increase in the unemployment, and the emergence of social and cultural problems. During the ten-year interval, 1384-94 of the two five-year of economic, social, and cultural development programs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there have been widespread changes in higher education in the country. Specifically, a significant increase in the number of students, in the number of universities and institutes, and in the number of graduate students are among the characteristics of this era. In this paper, analyze is made on the statistics and information related to factors such as the number of students, the number of universities, the ratio of students to faculty members, with emphasis on engineering discipline during the fourth and fifth development plans.  The problems and issues arising from such a large change in higher education are discussed and examined. Ultimately, approaches to overcome such difficulties are presented.

Human technology today can be attributed to the efforts, innovation and creativity of engineers. Engineers will make life easier for humans by discovering new ways and advanced tools. The impact of university curriculum on the skills of engineering graduates and the speed of modern technology requires that the curriculum of universities be continuously evaluated and, if necessary, remedied and corrected for deficiencies and weaknesses. To do this, one can use the comparison to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum. In addition, with the advancement of science every day, the need to replace traditional teaching methods with more modern methods is essential in order to learn more effectively the students. For this purpose, by comparing curriculum and teaching methodology of chemical engineering in Iran and a number of selected American universities, this paper has been presented to improve the education of chemical engineering in the country. Firstly, discussions about the new methods of teaching engineering courses in these universities have been discussed; then, the main courses provided in these universities and the lessons of current trends in this field have been studied. Finally, the results of this study are presented to improve the quality of the educational method and curriculum in the country, especially in the field of chemical engineering.

Fluid mechanics is certainly one of the basic and very useful courses in chemical and petroleum engineering university programs. Deep understanding of some of the concepts in this course by the students is not easily expected through writing the required traditional mathematical equations alone. In this paper, the authors who have several years of working experiences in design and execution of oil and gas industrial projects, tried to simply present some of the fluid mechanics basics mentioned above through introducing of four industrial examples. Reading this paper helps the readers for good understanding of the concepts of two-phase flow, application and use of Navier-Stokes equations and boundary conditions. Also adjustment of the un-stabilized oil level in a middle stage separator of surface treatment facilities in an oil and gas filed; the use of characteristic curves of fixed speed and variable speed pumps and compressors, and calculations of pressure drop in a gas transfer pipeline. As a pattern, this paper helps the engineers to extract educational examples from the processes, which they are involved in; from design projects or operational plants. By introducing such problems and suggesting a proper solution, they can help for better understanding of engineering concepts.

The current study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum of communication and information technology and ICT in the Shiraz University of Applied Sciences. It is based on the modified eye model of descriptive survey. The statistical population of the study consisted of all 300 students of Information and Communication Technology and Information Technology (IT) in Shiraz University of Applied Sciences of 1396. Among them, 170 were selected as sample members using a random-stratified sampling method. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. Reliability and validity of the questionnaire were calculated using Cronbach›s alpha and item analysis. Data were analyzed using single sample T, Friedman test, and repeated variance analysis. The results of the findings showed that, from the viewpoint of the students, the status of technical competencies, contextual competencies and perceptual competencies were acceptable at acceptable level, but the behavioral competency status was lower than the average. Also, perceptual, technical, context and behavioral competencies have priority of 1 to 4, respectively. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the importance of technical, behavioral, contextual and perceptual competencies in engineering students. The Bonferroni post hoc test showed that this difference was only statistically significant between the two dimensions of perceptual and behavioral competencies.

The purpose of this study was to identify the damages in the Technical and Vocational Training Organization based on the three-dimensional model (process, structure, and environment). In this study which was qualitative, one technical and vocational education in Kurdistan province was studied therefore, the participants were from a diverse range of managers and experts. A semi-structured interview was the instrument utilized for data collection. The interviews were conducted for 18 participants according to theoretical saturation level. Results indicated that the Technical and Vocational Training Organization of Kurdistan province, in all studied dimensions, is at defected statues. To see its more efficacious, steps must be taken towards paying attention to regional potentials in needs assessment. Also enhancing the key skills of knowledge-based economics such as creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Furthermore planning to training the soft skills like teamwork and work ethics to trainees and also planning to the implementation of the integrated management of skills training should be followed.

Distance education developed due to the growing needs of societies for education. Delivery of this type of education was originally done via mail services and later through multi-medias, such as radio, television and recently cell-phone and internet. The first formal distance education in Iran began in 1972 with establishment of the Free University of Iran. This university started its activity with two under graduate programs: teacher training and health sciences. Teacher training focused on interdisciplinary teaching and health sciences were designed to educate individuals in order to offer crucial health services in remote areas. Skill-based training was the prominent feature of these educational programs. The Free University of Iran registered the first group of students in 1977, and stopped working soon after the Cultural Revolution of 1979. This paper presents the vast experiences gained from this short lived educational activity. Soon after the revolution, Payam-e Noor University started the second generation of distance education.