Engineering Education Letters: Most Cited Articles http://www.qscience.com/content/journals/eel?TRACK=RSS Please follow the links to view the content. Optimization of engineering student learning and assessment by cognitive methods http://www.qscience.com/content/journals/10.5339/eel.2017.2?TRACK=RSS This study addresses the learning objectives and the student outcomes of industrial engineering students by examining them at three different levels: course level, program level, and graduate level. Three learning domains are developed and analyzed for this purpose to assess the performance of students during and after graduation. These domains are labeled as the house of cognitive learning, which shows the level of learning, its outcome elements, and the depth of understanding. In the higher education system, the correct assessment of student learning is always considered as a challenging task. The aim of this study was to develop an integrated integer-programming algorithm to accurately determine the learning level of students. The method incorporates quality control charts and statistical assessment tools to present the findings. In this study, level of learning is calculated as a learning index that presents the contribution of a course to the respective student outcomes. Moreover, it depicts the overall achievements of students during their learning. Therefore, another aim of this study was to explore how to better utilize the collected data for the assessment of learning level. The outcomes of algorithm and statistical approaches are quite encouraging for the evaluation of students' learning, thus improving the quality of engineering program. Osman Taylan, Ali Rizwan and Hamid Parsaei Mon Jan 28 14:26:41 UTC 2019Z A learning factory: Enhancing societal needs awareness and innovation through manufacturing class http://www.qscience.com/content/journals/10.5339/eel.2015.7.pp1-5?TRACK=RSS The manufacturing course is a common course in most Mechanical and Industrial Engineering programs around the world. In this course, various aspects of product design and manufacturing process selection are discussed. Students are occasionally given the opportunity to utilize and fabricate some parts by using the discussed manufacturing technologies. To bring further appreciation to the course, the Manufacturing Course in Qatar University has added innovation and entrepreneurship with active learning. Instead of teaching the course material in one daunting block, the faculty (mentor) used a “Just in Time Teaching” strategy by integrating engineering theory and product design within a business plan. The students were divided into groups, and each group had to address a societal need within Qatar. The students were given sessions about idea generation tools and creativity techniques. Once the problem had been identified and formulated, these groups were advised and coached to prepare a comprehensive business plan that included selection of materials, manufacturing processes, organizational structure, marketing of the product, market segmentation and penetration, break-even analysis and economic analysis, as well as environmental issues. From the course assessment and student course outcomes surveys, it was found that the interest and learning curve for students increased drastically for this manufacturing course compared to previous approaches. Besides improving the interest and learning curve, the approach had indirectly exposed the student to project management skills, economic analysis, lifelong learning, communication and teamwork. On the whole, the approach was an interesting and led to further enhancing the student's learning process by using different learning styles through varied and innovative teaching techniques. A.M.S. Hamouda and F. Tarlochan Mon Jan 28 14:26:49 UTC 2019Z Integration of a remote PID motor speed control experiment with teaching in engineering education http://www.qscience.com/content/journals/10.5339/eel.2017.1?TRACK=RSS Remote laboratory system has been used in engineering education over a decade. To offer a collaborative learning platform for students’ learning, a Wiki-based remote laboratory platform was developed successfully. The effectiveness of the collaborative learning platform was verified by implementing a new remote PID (proportional–integral–derivative) controller experiment based on the Wiki-based remote laboratory platform. This remote experiment aims to offer students hands-on experience to demonstrate the characteristics of proportional, proportional–integral, proportional–derivative and PID controllers and visualize the process of remote tuning. This paper presents the integration of a new remote experiment into an existing mechanical engineering course at the University of Houston. With the help of this remote experiment, students can study the control knowledge actively instead of passively. Moreover, the systematic integration of the Wiki-based remote laboratory platform into laboratory courses reinforces the delivery of content to students with dissimilar learning styles, thus improving students’ success. Ning Wang, Junxiao Zhu, Qianlong Lan, Xuemin Chen, Gangbing Song and Hamid Parsaei Mon Jan 28 14:26:51 UTC 2019Z