Dr. Çetiner’s Blogs (Dr. Beytullah Gültekin Çetiner)

Programme Outcomes of EAC

In a recent posting, the Programme Outcomes which have been adopted in Manufacturing Engineering Programme were provided (see Programme Learning Outcomes for Manufacturing Engineering). We have all these outcomes same as Programme Outcomes of Kulliyyah of Engineering with the slight difference of Programme Outcome 3 referring to Manufacturing Engineering Field specifically. Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) of Malaysia has 10 different Outcomes all of which are used in our Programme Outcomes (plus our own additional three). 10 Programme Outcomes for EAC are given below. Graduates from an accredited engineering programme should have the following attributes, capabilities, and outcomes:

1. Ability to acquire and apply knowledge of science and engineering fundamentals;
2. Ability to communicate effectively, not only with engineers but also with the community at large;
3. In-depth technical competence in a specific engineering discipline;
4. Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution;
5. Ability to utilise a systems approach to design and evaluate operational performance;
6. Understanding of the principles of sustainable design and development;
7. Understanding of professional and ethical responsibilities and commitment to them;
8. Ability to function effectively as an individual and in a group with the capacity to be a leader or manager as well as an effective team member;
9. Understanding of the social, cultural, global and environmental responsibilities of a professional engineer, and the need for sustainable development; and
10. Expectation of the need to undertake lifelong learning, and possessing/acquiring the capacity to do so.

For EAC Engineering Accreditation Council for more information.

‘Bogus universities’ in the UK

BBC London has exposed an international education scam targeting foreign students in the United Kingdom. Students who come to the UK to get a British degree might be duped.

The multi-million pound con has gone on virtually unchecked for seven years. It exploits lax UK Government policy and uses the UK’s most prestigious universities as a front to sell unrecognised and worthless degrees.

Every year 40,000 foreign students come to London to study for a British degree. While many attend famous institutions with worldwide reputations, others are tempted into cheaper backstreet colleges by conmen where they end up paying thousands in fees. But the degrees they get are as dodgy as the professors who hand them out.

BBC’s investigation began with student Sounak Halder who was granted a visa to study for a UK degree at an East London college. In 2006 after seeing an advert for a UK recognised masters degree, Sounak from Kolkata took out a £5,000 loan to come to London to study. He made sure that the college was listed on a British Government website.

He says: “I was happy at that point of time. After that I’d gone to the British Council to check for the check, they also said yes, just check the DFES site. If the college’s name is there it means it’s fine … go for that.”

The college Sounak had chosen was linked to the Irish International University (IIU). It would be the one to award him the Masters degree. But concerns had already been raised in London over the IIU and others.

In fact BBC London discovered that the IIU was already listed on a secret Government blacklist of suspect universities back in 2005.

BBC  set up an undercover investigation with their bogus academic, Professor Beeg. Pretending to want to set up his own college in London, he met two men who run Irish International University, Professor Sandhu and Dr Varo.

Within two hours of meeting him, Dr Varo offered BBC’s Professor Beeg a professorship. He said: “You must become attached to a university so we can put you under Irish International University and give you a professorship.”

Varo stated that Irish International was bona fide. He said: “It is not bogus you know, or no existence or anything like that, that’s not true.”

But when BBC London went to the IIU address in Dublin, there was absolutely nothing there. No staff, no faculty, no students, nobody had even heard of a university on the premises.

The Irish International University’s degrees are backed by the Quality Assurance Commission UK (QAC UK) which Professor Sandhu points out is “an independent body that basically maintains the quality whether it’s in Africa or the UK … It’s a private body.”

But when BBC London arrived at the QAC’s office in North London, they found it was a virtual office, just like Dublin.

Students are not the only people being duped. Leading businesswoman Mary Chapman, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute, attended Irish International’s degree ceremony at Oxford University’s Divinity School as a guest of honour.

Irish International’s scam depends on its ability to hire out facilities in Oxford and Cambridge. This lends the outfit credibility, not to mention numerous photo opportunities which it uses to publicise itself to students around the world.

BBC tracked down the Honorary Chancellor of the Irish International University, his Excellency Baron Knowth. It turns out he is no aristocrat; he is in fact Jeffrey Wooller, a chartered accountant from London

He has been a prominent member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. He owns a £1.2million townhouse in Kensington as well as a flat in Monte Carlo, where he is a tax exile.

The UK government promises that by 2009 all colleges will have to be accredited if they want to bring overseas students to the UK to learn. It is progress, but not enough to have saved the students who have been conned out of thousands of pounds for dodgy degrees.

BBC

Spoonfeeding
First let us describe spoonfeeding. The following are the definitions of spoonfeeding in dictionary.

What is SpoonFeeding (Spoon Feeding)?
Spoonfeeding as a noun
1. Spoonfeeding is simply feeding someone from a spoon by treating him/her as a baby
2. spoonfeeding (teaching in an overly simplified way that discourages independent thought)

Spoonfeed as a Verb
1. Spoonfeed (feed with a spoon)
2. spoonfeed (teach without challenging the students) “This professor spoonfeeds his students”

What is wrong with Spoonfeeding?

Nothing is wrong in spoonfeeding if one of the situations applies to you (see below). However, in education, things are different.

Spoonfeeding in Engineering Education
Spoonfeeding is the greatest harm to an engineering student. An engineer is expected to be innovative, creative in his/her career. How could someone expect these challenging task from an engineer in the real life if he/she was spoonfed during the engineering education?

An environment where an instructor simply rattles down information to be memorized and recalled during exams will kill creativity and reward a lack of critical thinking. A more ‘Socratic’ enviroment where the student is lead to ‘discover’ principles will assuredly lead to better understanding, retention, creativity, fun, ease of use, ability to apply in unfamiliar situations, etc…

By supplying readily available resources to engineering students in the classroom and solving some easy-to-digest problems in the classroom later to ask them in a similar fashion in exams by just changing some numbers may be seeming very attractive to students since they can easily pass the exams and obtain a good grade.

This kind of teaching can provide at most a second level of learning in Bloom taxonomy what we call as comprehension and in many cases memorization level only which is the first level of learning.

Some keypoints of Engineering Management Topics that we learnt in the first week are:

1. We had a seminar on online activities. We have covered many things for online activities in this session
2. A proper description of Engineering (old definition and modified ABET definition)
3. Identifying engineering as a profession and not an art
4. Description of Management
5. Description of Engineering Management
6. Some important facts about engineers and managers
7. Definition of Systems as a whole
8. Definition of Engineering Systems
9. Definition of Management Systems
10. Description of 9 elements of a system namely inputs, outputs, interfaces, constraints, boundary, goal of system (common output), components (subsystems), interralations, and environment
11. System analyst approach to engineering problems
12. 3 system errors namely a) Goal Displacement b) Functional Distortion c) Functional Distraction
13. 3 Management Levels (1st level, midlevel and top level management) their titles and roles
14. Skills required for different management levels (interpersonal skills, technical skills and conceptual or analytical skills)
15. Skills needed by different level of managers
16. Difference between effectiveness and efficiency
17. Difference between leader and manager
18. Clarifying ‘doing the right things’ and ‘doing the things right’ with regard to leader and manager
19. Managers’ roles to be played at different levels: Interpersonal roles (figurehead role, leadership role, and liaison role), Informational roles (Monitoring role, Disseminator role, and Spokesman role), and finally most important roles namely Decisional roles (entrepreneurial role, negotiator role, resource allocator role, and disturbance handling role)
20. Now we have to take Course Entry Exam (which will be closed within week)
21. We have also Quiz (Introduction to Engineering Management), Forum 1: Introduction to Management (Graded), and Engineering Management Puzzle opened starting from this week.

I hope it will be helpful.

Mr. Yasser Matbouli, one of my former engineering management students came for submitting his Summer Training report. When I received his report, I was shocked because it was not following any format in our university. It was written by a blog writer. He carefully noted all his activities as blog entries in his report with the dates and subjects. It was very interesting idea and I suggested him to rearrange everything according to our Engineering College format but also put what he had at the end of his report.

I congratulate him and give him a link as my vote for his site. You can visit him from http://www.ymatbouli.com/