Engineering Commons^™

Interdisciplinary, Collaborative International Service Learning: Developing Engineering Students As Global Citizens, Anthony D. Songer, Karen R. Breitkreuz

Karen R. Breitkreuz

Recent calls to reform engineering education place emphasis on applied math and science within the broader context of globalization, economics, the environment, and society. This broad and complex challenge necessitates the investigation of new interdisciplinary education approaches for engineering education. This paper presents a formal approach for developing engineering students as global citizens. The 360 Degree Model for Educating Socially Responsible Global Citizens (360 Global Ed model) presented herein includes a framework for foundational theory, educational environment, academic coursework, and outcomes. At the core of the emerging model is an international service learning experience called the Village Network. The Village …

Comparing Role-Playing Activities In Second Life And Face-To-Face Environments, Fei Gao, Jeongmin J. Noh, Matthew J. Koehler

Fei Gao

This study compared student performances in role-playing activities in both a face-to-face (FTF) environment and a virtual 3D environment, Second Life (SL). We found that students produced a similar amount of communication in the two environments, but the communication styles were different. In SL role-playing activities, students took more conversational turns, but have shorter exchanges compared to the FTF environment. Students generated an equal amount of topic-related concepts in the two environments. They also reported role-playing activities in SL as more interesting and less formal. The educational implications for this study are discussed.

The Interdisciplinary Design Studio: Identifyingcollaboration, Thomas Fowler Iv, Kevin Dong, James Doerfler

Thomas Fowler IV, DPACSA, FAIA

Supply Chain Integration And Collaboration For Performance Improvement: An Agency Theory Approach, Abud Natour, Senevi Kiridena, Peter Gibson

Peter R Gibson

In today’s challenging business environment, organisations not only need to continue to leverage their internal sources of competitive advantage but also should strive to harness synergies across the multiple supply chains that they are part of. However, this has to be achieved through effective collaboration between partner organisations. This paper contributes to the current scholarly discourse on this topic by the application of the “Agency Theory” to the issues around supply chain integration and collaboration, towards enhancing operational performance. The paper presents a classification of supply chain integration and collaboration, as well as a conceptual framework, for understanding and explaining …

Effective Virtual Teams For New Product Development, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

At present, the existing literature shows that the factors which influence the effectiveness of virtual teams for new product development are still ambiguous. To address this problem, a research design was developed, which includes detailed literature review, preliminary model and field survey. From literature review, the factors which influence the effectiveness of virtual teams are identified and these factors are modified using a field survey. The relationship between knowledge workers (people), process and technology in virtual teams is explored in this study. The results of the study suggest that technology and process are tightly correlated and need to be considered …

Asee_Eld2012inforlit Faculty Collaboration.Pptx, Patricia Watkins

Patricia Watkins

Institutional Support For Computing Faculty Research Productivity: Does Gender Matter?, Monica M. Mcgill, Amber Settle

Amber Settle

Leveraging Mobile Context For Effective Collaboration And Task Management In Disaster Response, Faisal Luqman, Martin L. Griss

Martin L Griss

Collaboration and task management is challenging in distributed, dynamically-formed teams, typical in large scale disaster response scenarios. Ineffective collaboration may result in poor performance and possible loss of life. In this paper, we present Overseer, an agent-based system that exploits context information from mobile devices to facilitate collaboration and task allocation. We describe our system architecture and show how mobile context can be used to create dynamic role-based assignments to support collaboration and effective task management.

Virtual R&D Teams: A Potential Growth Of Education-Industry Collaboration, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Introduction: With the advent of the global economy and high-speed Internet, online collaboration is fast becoming the norm in education and industry [1]. Information technology (IT) creates many new inter-relationships among businesses, expands the scope of industries in which a company must compete to achieve the competitive advantage. Information systems and technology allow companies to coordinate their activities in distant geographic locations [2]. IT is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new collaboration forms among industry and education. Virtual research and development (R&D) teams represent one such relational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide …

Virtual Teams And Management Challenges, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Introduction: Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in creating the knowledge that makes business more competitive. Virtual teams are growing in popularity [1] and many organizations have responded to their dynamic environments by introducing virtual teams. Additionally, the rapid development of new communication technologies such as the Internet has accelerated this trend so that today, most of the larger organization employs virtual teams to some degree [2]. A growing number of flexible and adaptable organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness [3]. Howells et al. [4] state that the shift from serial to simultaneous and …

Virtual R&D Teams: A Potential Growth Of Education-Industry Collaboration, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

In this paper, we present our more than two years research experiences on virtual R&D teams in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and draws conclusions, giving special attention to the structure of virtual teams required to support education-industry collaboration. We report the relevant results of an online survey study. The online questionnaire was emailed by using a simple random sampling method to 947 manufacturing SMEs. The findings of this study show that SMEs in Malaysia and Iran are willing to use virtual teams for collaboration and the platform for industry-education collaboration is ready and distance between team members or differences …

Virtual Teams And Management Challenges, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

As a result of globalization and advances in information and communication technologies, the increased use of virtual teams in business has become prominent. In the competitive environment companies are obliged to produce more rapidly, more effectively and more efficiently. It is necessary for them to put together different capabilities and services with the goal, through cooperation between suppliers and customers, service providers and scientific institutions to achieve firm’s objective with high quality. Nowadays shift from serial to simultaneous and parallel working in entity has become more commonplace. Literatures have shown that collaboration is as a meta-capability for companies. This article …

Smes: Erp Or Virtual Collaboration Teams, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shansuddin Ahmed, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

Small firms are indeed the engines of global economic growth. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role to promote economic development. SMEs in the beginning of implementing new technologies always face capital shortage and need technological assistance. Available ERP systems do not fulfil the specific requirements of Small firms. SMEs has scarce resources and manpower therefore many SMEs don‟t have the possessions to buy and operate an ERP System. On the other hand competition and competitiveness of SMEs have to be strengthened. This paper briefly reviews the existing perspectives on virtual teams and their effect on SMEs management. …