News & Notes
a service of the IEEE Education Society

December 30, 2004               Vol.2 No.12

Rob Reilly, Editor
reilly@media.mit.edu

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire. —William Yeats
Table of Contents

go to the IEEE Education Society Web site


SOCIETY PRESIDENT DAVID KERNS LEAVES OFFICE—A FAREWELL MESSAGE
I write to thank the many individuals who have contributed so much to the advancement of the IEEE Education Society during the past year. As my term as president ends, I wish to express my sincere gratitude for the support of our membership, and the substantial contributions of many dedicated members.

It’s impossible to thank individually all who have contributed ….. there have been many efforts made by many folks, increasingly by dedicated people in regions outside of the USA. The growth of chapters and establishment of new chapters is notable; we have more than doubled the number of Education Society chapters in the past year. Many thanks to Rob Reilly and others who have advanced chapter development.

The recent IEEE member survey indicated that most individuals join the Education Society for our publications. I sincerely thank David Conner, Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Education and Bill Sayle, Editor of the Interface, for their major contributions. These publications have continued to improve in quality and increased their impact by focusing on critical issues. The new website and the web-based publication News and Notes, created and edited by Rob Reilly, provides a valuable forum for Education Society information exchange. I encourage you (if you haven’t already) to go to the Society website at www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/es/ and click on News and Notes.

We are grateful to Burks Oakley for his leadership in the establishment of new awards to recognize significant accomplishments within our society. The creation of the new award, the Mac Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award, now recognizes members of the IEEE Education Society who have made outstanding contributions to teaching unusually early in their professional careers.

The continued support of many others within our society is greatly appreciated. Our website lists the other officers and AdCom members, each of whom dedicates substantial time each year to advancing excellence in engineering education. I especially want to thank Rod Soukup for his dedicated service as our society Treasurer for the past six years.

Best wishes to our new officers: Dan Litynski is our new President, Joe Hughes our new Vice President and John Orr will serve as Secretary. Also, Jim Sluss is our new Treasurer.

In closing let me ask all of you to please find a way to contribute to the growth and improvement of the IEEE Education Society in the coming year.

It has been an honor to serve as your President.

My best wishes and regards to all ….. David Kerns

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FRONTIERS IN EDUCATION 2005 ABSTRACT DEADLINE REMINDER
This is a friendly reminder to submit abstracts for the 2005 Frontiers in Education Conference, which is sponsored by the Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) of ASEE, the IEEE Education Society, and the IEEE Computer Society.

The 2005 Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE 2005) continues a long tradition of promoting the widespread dissemination of innovations that improve computer science, engineering, and technology (CSET) education. FIE is a major annual international conference devoted to improvements in CSET education. It is an ideal forum for sharing your ideas, learning about new developments in CSET education, and interacting with your colleagues.

Conference co-chairs: For further information about FIE 2005 go to www.fie-conference.org or contact one of the Conference Co-Chairs:

Bill Oakes
Purdue University, oakes@purdue.edu

Dave Voltmer
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, voltmer@rose-hulman.edu

Charlie Yokomoto
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, yokomoto@iupui.edu

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34TH IGIP CONFERENCE — TURKEY — SEPT 2005
On behalf of the organizing committee I cordially invite you to participate in the 34th Annual IGIP Engineering Education Symposium organized jointly by IGIP and Yeditepe University, to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, on September 12th – 15th, 2005.

This conference is devoted to the exploration of new methods of Engineering Education with the main topic: Design of Education in the 3rd Millennium - Frontiers in Engineering Education

This symposium is seeking solution for the design of future engineering education keeping in mind the frontiers of science and Technology. The solutions are to reflect local, regional and global scales. The pressures which are forcing the current education system are the improvement in the information Technologies and Technologies in general, new forms and terms of employment, drift towards limited number of markets, increase in the mobility of students and academia between countries, accreditation and licensure issues. The engineering educators must respond to these and other related issues to develop appropriate curricula, teaching methods and tools to prepare engineering graduates to their professional lives.

The IGIP conference's Web site is located at: http://igip-ees05.yeditepe.edu.tr/

Yours sincerely,

Federico Flueckiger
President of IGIP

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GETTING PUBLISHED IN THE IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION
In May 2004, Ted Batchman, a former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Education, was a guest speaker on the Education Society's online forum. His topic was entitled: "Getting Published in the IEEE Transactions on Education." Professor Batchman's talk has been avaliable online since May 2004 and has proven to be a well-traveled web page. Each month approximately 7% of the traffic to the Education Society's web site goes directly to Ted Batchman's talk.

A few of the questions that Professor Batchman addresses are:

  • What are some common problems with submitted papers?
  • What's the difference between a conference paper and a journal paper (e.g., the review process, the level of expectation of the peer-review-journal reviewer vs. the conference paper reviewer)?
  • What makes an 'acceptable' journal paper and what makes an 'award winning' journal paper?
  • How important is the bibliography/references?
  • So that we can better understand the time-element of the review process, can you review the editorial process from submission to publication?
  • Any advice for authors whose native language is not English?
  • and more...

To see Ted Batchman's complete presentation go to: www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/es/batchman.html

Other Guest Speaker presentations have been made via the Education Society's electronic mailing list. Those presentations by invited Guest Speakers have been archived and are available at:

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NOMINATE SOMEONE AS AN IEEE FELLOW

Notice: Due to the increased volume of applications the IEEE Fellows Committee (not the Education Society) has changed the deadline for submitting completed Fellow nominations. The new deadline is March 1st (the previous deadline was March 15th). This is a firm deadline!
Also: The Education Society, as an organization, does not initiate Fellow nominations or provide references. The Education Society's Fellows Committee reviews the Fellow-candidate's nomination package for the purpose of providing the IEEE Fellows Committee with a recommendation. Essentially this recommendation places the individual Fellow-candidate's accomplishments in perspective for the IEEE Fellows Committee.

However: While the Fellow nomination process does not allow Societies (as such) to make nominations, many Education Society Fellows are more than willing to provide references and/or make nominations for deserving individuals.

The IEEE Grade of Fellow is conferred by the IEEE Board of Directors upon an IEEE Senior Member with an:

"extraordinary record of accomplishments in any of the IEEE Fields of Interest."
The total number of new Fellows selected in any single year can not exceed one-tenth percent of the total voting Institute membership.

Frequently asked questions about the Fellows nomination process.

The IEEE has established the Fellows Nomination Resource Center (FNRC) to assist nominators in locating the required number of references to support a nomination to IEEE Fellow Grade. Primarily the Center's main function is to help nominators of candidates who are practitioners and/or who reside in Region 9, which is Central and South America. The FNRC will operate on an experimental basis for a 3-year period. For more information about the FNRC, click here.

For all members in all IEEE Regions, if you wish to nominate someone for Fellow, please refer to the IEEE's Fellow Program Web page for details. Bear in-mind that March 1st is the hard deadline for submission of completed applications. And, given the logistics of the process it is best to allow 5-6 months—start the Fellow Nomination process in September or October.

For more information go the Education Society's Fellow Web resource

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EDUCATION SOCIETY AWARD DEADLINES APPEAR ON THE HORIZON
The Education Society offers 7 awards that are normally presented at the Frontiers in Education (FIE) Conference. Several of these awards carry a June 15 deadline, which may seem far away at this point; but a glance at the Society's awards web page may be in order at this time.

For more information go the Education Society's Awards Web page

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NEW EDSOC AWARD—DISTINGUISHED MEMBER AWARD
The IEEE Technical Activities Board just approved a Distinguished Member Award for the Education Society. This award is to recognize outstanding long-term service to the IEEE Education Society and significant contributions in an IEEE Field of Interest.

Burks Oakley, a man of many talents, led the EdSoc efforts to craft the proposal for this award, gain Administrative Committee approval, and then ran the IEEE-approval gauntlet.

To be eligible for this award individuals must have been members of the IEEE Education Society for at least the previous ten (10) years. Multiple awards may be given each year, if suitable candidates are nominated.

Individuals nominated for this award must currently be members of the IEEE Education Society and members of the IEEE. The award is based upon evidence of distinction in long-term service to the IEEE Education Society and in contributions to the Fields of Interest to the IEEE. Selection criteria include leadership roles and leadership quality, innovative and important contributions to the Education Society, service and dedication to the Education Society, and technical achievements in any IEEE Field of Interest.

View specific nomination criterion and procedures.

The annual deadline for nominations is June 15th.

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ONLINE EDUCATION ON THE RISE
The ASEE Engineering Digest for December 2004 is reporting that:

"On-line education deemed successful - Between fall 2002 and fall 2003 the number of US students enrolled in on-line courses increased 19%, to 1.9 million, according to chief academic officers at 1170 institutions. The survey, supported by the Sloan Foundation, revealed that larger public institutions relied more heavily on on-line education as a central part of their over-all strategy than did smaller, private, non-profit institutions, writes Scott Carlson in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Student satisfaction with on-line courses was reported to be positive by 40% of the respondents. Again, student satisfaction was reported to be higher by CAO's affiliated with public and for-profit institutions. The report, "Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004," is available on the Sloan Consortium website."

Subscription is required for further information see: http://chronicle.com/daily/2004/11/2004111503n.htm

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GOOGLE FOR 'SCHOLARS'
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Google has put a beta version of its Google Scholar search engine online.

Google Scholar is designed to focus exclusively on scholarly works, technical reports and peer-reviewed papers. Google officials state that they have consulted with a wide-range of academics to develop this search engine. According to Jeffrey R. Young, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, improvements will be made to the engine in the future, including options for limiting searches.

The search engine is located at: scholar.google.com

For more information see: chronicle.com/free/2004/11/2004111901n.htm

[Editor's note: I searched for the article from the previous item through the Scholars search engine and it did not appear. It did appear when I used the regular Google search engine. While the Google for Scholars search engine is heading in the right direction, it's search scope is a bit narrower than would seem appropriate.]

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ADMINISTRIVIA
This publication is a service of the IEEE Education Society. It will be published as the need for information dissemination arises. Our expectation is that News & Notes will be published monthly. However, if urgent information surfaces, a bulletin with just that information will be published immediately.

If you would like an item placed in News & Notes, send it to: Rob Reilly, Editor (reilly@media.mit.edu).

A special thank you to Burks Oakley II who serves as editorial review board for the News&Notes bulletin.

Click here to view a list of the Education Society officers.

Click here to view a list of Administrative Committee (AdCom) members.

All issues of News & Notes are available on the EdSoc's web site just click here.

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visit the Education Society's Web site at: www.ieee.org/edsoc