IEEE Education Society
 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.
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FIE 2008 will be held in Saratoga Springs, New York USA
 Joseph Hughes Susan Lord Tony Mitchell James Sluss David Kerns Daniel Litynski 
Rob Reilly Professor Burks Oakley II Professor Martin Llamas-Nistal This publication is a service of the IEEE Education Society. It is published approximately bi-monthly. If you would like a news item or photo placed in News & Notes, send it to: Rob Reilly, Editor (r.reilly@ieee.org).
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Globalization has dramatically changed engineering. Global engineering teams design products for global markets. Knowledge has no borders in a world where information flow is digitized and sent worldwide in seconds. A core requirement of engineering globalization is an understanding of how the different cultures of the global marketplace shape product development, multi-national engineering teams, and consumer expectations. Engineering education must address this issue with innovative solutions including new pedagogies; new approaches that improve student learning of technical skills and cultural skills; improved methods of distance education; study-abroad components; curricula reform; and partnerships between academia, industry, government, and K-12 educators. Recent FIE conferences have addressed the borders between people and the impact that global hiring will have on engineering graduates. This year, in the city of Milwaukee—a city where Old World craftsmanship meets the New World of the information age—the FIE conference planners are especially interested in continuing the dialog about globalization with contributions that address the essential technical skills, cultural skills, learning skills, and curricula that will be required of graduates entering the global workplace.
Below far left photo: (left to right) EdSoc Swiss Chapter Chair, Jean-Pierre Steger
shares a moment at FIE
with Trond Clausen, AdCom Member and founder and past Chair of the Nordic EdSoc Chapter, and Gerd
Clausen. Below in the center photo: (from left to right) 2003-04 EdSoc President David Kerns and past ASEE
President Sherra Kerns visit with 2007 Hewlett-Packhard/Harriet B. Rigas Award winner, Bonnie Heck Ferri.
From the IEEE Spain Chapter in the photo (below right)Mats Daniel (left), Chair, EdSoc Nordic Chapter chats with
Rob Reilly, Chair,
EdSoc Chapters Committee. In the photo to the far right below: (from left to right) Luis de la Fuente
(Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain),
Martin Llamas-Nistal (University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain), Leah Jamieson IEEE President and CEO, and José V.
Benlloch-Dualde (Universidad Politecnica, Valencia, Spain).
In the photo to the right, IEEE-Region 1 Director Barry Schoop (right) presents a Region 1 distinguished leadership
award to Mary Reidy, Region 1 Education Activivities Committee Chair and EdSoc member. In the left photo: Shown in a meeting at the IEEE's newly opened office in Beijing, China in the very early
stages of the China trip,
from left to right, Ning Hua, Director of China Operations; Dr. Rob Reilly, Chair, Chapters Committee;
and, Dr. Oliver K. Ban, Director of the Chapters Committee China Initiative.
While visiting Harbin, China, great strides were made and a chapter was formed. This was accomplished through the
leadership efforts
of xx yy (in the photo right;left hand person) IEEE Harbin Section Secretary, the IEEE Harbin Section Vice
Chairman Qun Wu (center) both from the Harbin Institute of Technology and
Oliver Ban (right) the Director of the EdSoc's China Chapter Development Project. This online publication is an excllent venue for students to become familiar with the peer review process.
Submission of manuscripts information is available at:
http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/e/sac/meem/ifa.html.
The first edition of the ICBL Conference – Interactive Computer Aided Blended
Learning became an important international venue for e-learning with the organization of
CEFET/SC and since then a part of a list of venues organized by the IAOE – International
Association of Online Engineering. The other venues are:
The objective of this venue in Latin America was part of a spreading process for
education discussions around the world, allowing professors and researchers from specific
regions share their work internationally with a minimum travel effort. The main objective of
this venue was to: discuss, share and develop subjects related to education techniques blended
with technology.
Our objective could be achieved if scholars contributed their expertise to the conference in the form of presentations.
The conference was an large success due to the more than 160 submissions being selected, of which
65% were presented as full paper, short paper sessions, round table, demonstrations and
workshops. There were 190 people attending the conference from more than 30 different
countries. The presenters and the attendees represented an excellent diversity of ideas, cultures and knowledge.
During the three
day conference, it was obvious that the conference drew together some of the best researchers to one place for a
scholarly discussion of educational improvement.
The event began with an introductory speech by Dr. Bakr Hassan, Chair of the IEEE Education
Society Gulf Chapter, highlighting the various activities of the chapter. Mr. Nabil Al-Dabal, Chair of the IEEE Saudi Arabian Section
and Mr. Mohammad Abdulatif from the Information Technology Planning in Saudi Aramco, gave introductory remarks.
(in the photo to the right) Dr. Bakr Hassan (left), Chair of the IEEE Education Society in Saudi Arabia presents Dr.
Faleh Al-Sulaiman the keynote speaker at the event a souvenir on behalf of the IEEE. Dr. Faleh mentioned that Schlumberger research center is the first fully operational center at the valley. Additionally, DTV enjoys strong collaborative relationship with national companies such as Saudi Aramco, SABIC and Saudi Electric Company (SEC); and international companies such as Nippon, Intel, Ciba and JCCP. We look forward to seeing these relationships develop in to a strong alliance and true partnership resulting in more centers being built in the Valley, he said.
According to Dr. Faleh, (KFUPM) views commercialization as crucial in today's economic climate and is pro-active in licensing. He cited as example, the joint KFUPM, Saudi Aramco and Nippon endeavor to develop a licensable refining technology, targeted for commercialization.
Top Right: Professor Hossein Mousavinezhad, EdSoc Membership Development Committee Chair, make a presentation
at the S. R. Engineering
College, Warangal, India. The topics of Professor Mousavinezhad were: Digital Filters and Digital Signal
Processing with MATLAB and MATHCAD Applications and he made a second presentation about The IEEE's Education Society.
The audience was composed of a cross-section of students, faculty, and staff from the college.
Bottom Right (from left to right): Mr. Aju Thomas Abraham, EdSoc Membership Development Committee member, Tata
Consultancy Services, Dr. N. T. Nair, Chairman, IEEE India Council, Mr. Amarnath Raja,
IEEE Kerala Section Chair, and Dr. Hossein Mousavinezhad, Education Society Membership Development Committee
Chair.
Left: Standing beside a large banner announcing Dr. Mousavinezhad's presentation is Mr. Amarnath Raja, IEEE Kerala Section Chair
The Technical English Program (TEP) idea was discussed and approved at the R8 Committees in April 2006 in
Paris and in October 2006 in Tampa. The project was also presented at the breakout session 1 of the
IEEE Sections Congress 2006 in Tampa. The pilot project was just approved in April 2006 by the 86th
Region 8 Committee Meeting in Vilnius and will be launched by the Russia Northwest Section from
September 1, 2006.
Now the Region 8 there a is healthy IEEE area with growing membership, an increasing number of Section, and expanding
IEEE activity. The great potential IEEE zone of expansion is represented by the 15 newly independent states of the
former Soviet Union. However only 4 of them have their own IEEE Sections at this time. Compared to western world
and north European countries, this zone has a very low IEEE membership. For example, currently Russia has only
710 IEEE members, while its closest neighbor Finland (who once was tiny part of the Russian Empire) has 969 IEEE
members. Taking into account the population, Finland has one IEEE member for every 5,000 population and Russia
only for 180,000.
Such a huge difference, of more than 30 times, can not be explained only by a distinction in economic and technical
developments, as the economic power and technical achievements of former Soviet Union is well known.
Soviet engineers lived behind the iron curtain where:
Hence for the Soviet industry and academia, English was not needed.
In modern Russia great progress in free global communications is observed; however English is not obligatory
nor in universities nor in secondary schools. This is in great contrast to the situation in Central and Eastern Europe
where now 3 out of every 4 secondary school pupils study English. And such a sad situation is not only in the former
Soviet Union but also in many others non-Anglophone (non-English speaking) developing countries.
Therefore if the Region 8 is concerned with IEEE membership in developing countries it should furnish IEEE volunteers
with a powerful tool to improve English. And such tool may be the proposed “Technical English Program” (TEP) similar to
the IEEE “Distinguished Lecturer Program” (DLP).
The “Technical English Program” will provide mastery of English by arranging technical tutorials in Electrical
Engineering for groups of listeners (students) during one semester. To reduce costs local teachers (trainers) may be
employed. However it should be not professional English teachers on a staff but local IEEE volunteers – professors in
Electrical Engineering because Electrical Engineering has a lot of peculiarities.
At the end of the semester a visiting lecturer from the IEEE Distinguished Lecturer Program will provide a short one
of two days tutorial in Electrical Engineering. After such tutorial every student must have a presentation in English
at a local seminar or a conference.
An IEEE Certificate with the Region Director's signature will complete the training. Furthermore, the best 2-6
students will obtain one year free IEEE student membership and one student will be awarded a grant for visiting and
presenting a paper at any IEEE Conference in the Region 8.
Local professors may be a IEEE volunteer, however to encourage his/her contribution in such tutorials, it would be
reasonably to award him/her a one year free IEEE membership in the Educational Society.
The proposed Technical English Program is the very powerful tool for IEEE volunteers in developing countries.
Without a doubt it will increase the IEEE membership and speed up the IEEE transformation in an actual
worldwide international organization. The implementation of this program in the Region 8 requires $1,486 for the pilot
project for one group in Russia Northwest Section and $13,470 per year for the final project supporting 10 training
student groups in different Region 8 Sections.
For more information, pricing, to view demos of the software, and to download fully functional trial software, go to: Impactica Web site.
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