AJEE Online

ISSN 1324-5821

EDITORIAL

This is the first issue for 2008 of the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE) in the revised online format. This issue showcases the best papers from our annual conference held in Melbourne in December last year. The conference was a great success, bringing together engineering educators from Australia, New Zealand and all around the world.

As part of the peer review process for the conference, the reviewers were asked to nominate any papers they consider candidates for the conference’s Best Paper Award. These candidates were then subjected to a further review process and invited to be submitted for publication here in the AJEE.

This issue comprises the two candidate papers, including the winners of the Best Paper Award, Kurt Patterson’s paper “Development for the other 80%: Engineering Hope” and Peter Radcliffe’s paper “Plagiarism Prevention: Using automated tools”. The papers address a range of issues, illustrating the need for making engineering education relevant to the global community, and looks at the changing face of student motivation and how best to deal with plagiarism issues considering the educational needs of engineers during and after their time at university. The papers each make a valuable contribution that addresses an important need in the engineering education fi eld.

The AJEE will now be published in two issues each year. The first issue will comprise the best papers from the annual AAEE conference, which are then subjected to an additional peer review process to ensure that they meet our journal’s standards. This issue will be published in the middle of the following year.

The second issue each year will take contributions from all aspects of engineering education, both research and practice. We will be capitalising on the online nature of the journal, allowing us to publish papers as soon as they have completed the (DEST compliant) review process, rather than delaying them for a synchronous release. We are now looking for contributions for the 2009 issue.

In 2009 there will be a special mid-year issue devoted to Engineering Mathematics Education. The aim of this special issue is to increase the profi le of this major area of undergraduate teaching, and provide a means by which colleagues can share ideas and methods in Engineering Mathematics. A particular emphasis will be on specific engineering applications that can be used to enhance engineering mathematics education, and case studies of mathematics used in industrial and engineering applications.

The journal is run using the Engineers Australia Technical Journals Editorial Manager online paper submission and tracking system. Submissions can be made via the website at http://www.editorialmanager.com/eatj. We welcome manuscripts, volunteers to be reviewers, suggestions for special issues, and any and all suggestions on how to make our journal better serve the engineering education community are welcome. You can reach the editors via email at journal@aaee.com.au.

Les Dawes
AJEE Editor