Industry and Higher Education

Experience in distributed virtual collaborative engineering is becoming more and more important as the use of advanced communication and information technologies is transforming engineering companies. To prepare students for this new reality and to respond to corporate demand, universities must begin to incorporate ‘virtual collaborative engineering’ concepts and ‘e-engineering’ technologies into their curricula. In this paper, design, implementation and assessment of a multidisciplinary freshman engineering and technology course is discussed. The aim of the course is to provide students with the necessary skills and practices in the latest methodologies and technologies to apply in a virtual collaborative engineering environment.

This paper concerns the training needs of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) managers and the analysis of how new technological solutions, like those based on the Internet and the delivery of content via satellite, can satisfy these needs. The analysis is performed with special reference to the needs of Italian enterprises and with regard to managers' requirements, training goals, priorities for content and work constraints. Training solutions and distance learning methods based on information and communication technologies (ICT) are discussed with respect to their suitability and cost effectiveness for SME managers.

Very small manufacturing companies make up an important element of the UK's manufacturing economy. However, relatively few of these companies make any systematic use of design automation tools. This paper outlines two case studies of very small companies introducing such tools through the agency of formal technology transfer arrangements with a collaborating university. The paper presents a discussion of the issues to be considered by universities and colleges when assisting such companies in the implementation of systems for design automation. The paper also offers an assessment of the effectiveness of the particular technology transfer and training processes used in the studies.

Science and investigation are pursued in fulfilment of a natural desire to enrich knowledge, and they create the potential for personal and practical achievement in the industrial environment. This has been a key motivating factor for the continuous development and improvement of education systems, especially at the end of the last millennium. The process of transition from an industrial to an information society has seen the introduction and development of computerization, automatic control, information technologies, and artificial intelligence. In this paper, the authors discuss progress in education in one of the newest independent countries, the Ukraine – a country which has to combine rapid development with the complexities of its transition to a market economy. In this context, the paper discusses the importance of education and training, stressing the importance of cooperation between higher education institutions responsible for technical education and industrial enterprises that need engineers with in-depth technical and economic knowledge. They address in particular collaboration between Zaporozhya State Technical University (ZSTU) and the joint stock company Motor Sich, a manufacturer of gas turbine engines. They also discuss ZSTU's involvement in a major regional effort to prepare secondary school pupils more effectively for higher education and training.

In the past, too many government-sponsored initiatives have presented learning resources that have been wasted because the target small business audience has failed to make use of them. This paper explores the issue of offering learning materials to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a manner that recognizes their working environment, mode of operation and preferred learning methods. It then outlines methods currently being tested in the UK and Ireland, and indicates preliminary findings. The two methodologies are different in that the UK (LSSB – Learning Support for Small Businesses) programme is aimed at distance learning in primarily small businesses, whilst the Irish (University of Limerick and Limerick City Enterprise Board) programme is aimed at face-to-face learning primarily in micro-enterprises. Preliminary findings are presented.

This paper describes the use of the Internet in an international project supported by the US Department of Education and the European Union's DG XII under the United States–European Union Programme for Cooperation in Higher Education and Vocational Training. The paper focuses specifically on a novel software project course. Students from both sides of the Atlantic work cooperatively to design and implement a piece of software in a semester project. As expected, there are major hurdles to overcome. The authors describe how the course is designed and implemented and documents the experience of offering the course the first time. There are a number of surprises.

SunTAN (Sun Training Access Network) is a Web-based, database-driven integrated learning management system developed by Sun Microsystems for its global field staff. The system offers users a powerful virtual classroom learning environment over the corporate Intranet. It provides a rich set of functions to deliver, manage, track, assess, and report all learning activities for the user. The functional components of SunTAN utilize advanced Web application development technologies and include user management, a course catalogue, user progress tracking, a skill-based learning path, training history, competency assessment and online testing.