فصلنامه آموزش مهندسی ایران
پیاپی 56 (زمستان 1391)

A review of the structure and content of engineering curricula in Iran reveals the fact that Engineering Education is focused on delivering ‘engineering science’, as distinct from ‘engineering design’. Even the few non-theoretical curriculum components are mostly laboratory-based, which basically serve to complement the scientific content.Reflecting on the implications of the above fact, this article puts forward a plea for a shift in educational approach within engineering disciplines to corroborate the following Design is believed to be, by definition, the art of creating necessary changes in the environment, in response to the human needs. With this definition in mind, the ‘design’ approach of Engineering Education will develop a due consideration for the human factor which leads to the incorporation of properties such as quality, beauty and meaning within the process of engineering practice.

Nowadays education has different meanings in different domains of sciences and techniques. According to these meanings there are different methods for educating human beings. Architecture is one of the subject in the domain in art or science, so there are various ideas and discussions on the methods of educating architecture, and sometimes they have contrast. In this context, there is an additional problem in Iran about identity and cultural originality. The one, that puts architecture as a subject of the culture, believes that for achieving the ideal architects we should attend to the culture in the architectural education. In such a way we are facing various educating methods that, in spite of obtaining different understanding about culture, have a common point; they do not clear the object of culture, education, and architecture essentially! This is a main subject of misunderstanding and increased day by day until you could not find a way of reconciliation easily. Considering the idea of our predecessors about the relation between ‘culture’ and education’ one hand, and educating and cultivating on other hand, shows that they had an inter-wrought concept. The similarities and differences between what they understood and what we understand of “culture”, “education”, and “building” could clear some dark and forgotten part of our misunderstandings. By this purpose, I begin with exploring the “culture”; the essence that architecture is a row of it.

One of the questions that have engaged the mind of professional and architectural education societies is that if the architecture has a unique and high essence that the architects do their bests to achieve it or the issue of architecture has replies to the proportion of the number of the architects.In this article, the existence and non-existence of this essence is discussed with respect to the issue of time. Once, this essence existed and connected the architecture to the sacred world. Once, this essence was created and suggested by the pioneers of modern architecture (great architects) and nowadays that the traditional and modern times have past and great architects have died, the little architects are drawing and making either way not having any pattern.In the little architects time (postmodern pluralism time), architectural design, architectural arbitration and finally architectural education have come across with some questions:In which way should architect design?What are the criteria for judging architectural works?What should be taught in the architecture schools?Who is the master of architecture in this world, and how does he deals with his students?What are the needs and specifications of the architecture students?What could be the system of education and content in this world?Which place is appropriate for teaching architecture to little architects?At the end of this article, after discussing the above questions, some approaches to teaching architecture are suggested to little architects.

Mohammad-Karim Pirnia, one of the most prominent scholars of Iranian architectural historiography, was the first who tried to introduce the concepts and principles of Iranian traditional architecture into the modern architectural school and academic realm. He did it through his two main projects: “the principles of Iranian architecture” and “the stylistics of Iranian architecture”. The subject of this article is questioning about Pirnia’s motivations, manner and method; and also some unwanted consequences of his work. Pirnia’s effort to theorizing such a practical tradition is a twofold phenomenon: putting the tradition into the academic education and discussion on one hand, and putting some new obstacles in the way of studying Iranian architecture on the other hand. We will first investigate how he formulated his findings in Iranian traditional architecture and abstracted his proposed principles. Then we try to unfold his principles to light his motivations in his great project into the architectural education in Iran.

In transition from the industrial to knowledge- based development era, the relationship between university and industry has proved vital and has become an inevitable issue. These two sectors are considered as major elements of national innovation systems and their redefined relationship plays the most important role in commercialization of scientific achievements and economic development. Following their traditional educational and research missions, in national innovation systems, the universities are taking new responsibilities in entrepreneurship and technology development with producing knowledge with economic value and preparing a context for knowledge - based innovation for small and medium enterprises. The main characteristics of knowledge - based development are innovation, entrepreneurship, R&D and SMEs, and the main infrastructures are entrepreneur universities, incubators and science and technology parks and SMEs. For effective relationship between university and industry, new strategies should be adopted in the framework of national innovations systems. In this paper status of universities and industries in Iran are explained and the functions of NIS, taking into account the ranking of Iran industries, are presented. Then in the field of policy making, research and development, human and financial resources, technology transfer and technology dissemination and entrepreneurship, some suggestions are provided for development of university- industry relationship in Iran.

Recent studies show that today’s employers are increasingly focused on hiring graduate engineers who possess a broader skill-set than in the past. Consequently one of the challenges facing regional universities is how to produce engineering graduates who have not just the traditional technical skills but who also have the necessary business acumen and managerial know-how to contribute positively to local business development. It is accepted that good communication skills and team-working ability are the two most important soft skills for graduates but it is often difficult to develop these adequately in an already packed curriculum. Commercial awareness is also identified as a key employee attribute however students on undergraduate engineering programmers often struggle to understand its significance. The interaction of government, university, industry and research in 3d model of synergy network, will try to train the industry-ready engineers. The approach aims to produce engineering graduates that have the necessary business management skills to be ‘industry-ready’. Opportunities for developing key soft skills have been embedded across the whole curriculum and across all years of the mechanical and engineering management programmers.

This article discusses public understanding of science and the need for its increase and expansion as a function of public communication of science. In this study popularization of science is presented as a means for increasing Public Understanding of Science (PUS). In this article we argue that institutionalization for public communication of science is an urgent need for increasing PUS and we provide characteristics of the institute or system of science popularization for connecting the science community and the public sphere. Our study offers the reasons of science popularization and increasing of PUS with regard to the level of the development and the type of political system of societies. Also, this article explains how popularizing of science and production of popular science can lead to the formation of interdisciplinary sciences, relation between various scientific disciplines and university-industry connections. On the other hand, popular science introduces opportunities of engagement in the scientific societies and hence increases the social capital between Iranian elite.

The aim of this study was the survey of entrepreneurial personality traits of engineering students of Isfahan University. The statistic population consisted of students in the fields of engineering (Civil, Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, Computer) and with random method sample of 200 were selected from the target population. The research method was descriptive and instrument for data collection was a questionnaire of Iranian entrepreneurs ' personality traits. For data analysis, descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) were used. The results showed that in the overall scale entrepreneurship more than 50 percent of students were in poor or very poor level, In the subscales, the subscales of internal locus of control, actionism, tolerance of ambiguity, and dreaming of more than 50 percent of the subjects were strong or very strong level. But on the other subscales over 50 percent of the subjects were in poor or very poor level.