AJEE Online

ISSN 1324-5821

EDITORIAL

This is the first issue for 2009 of the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE). This issue showcases the best papers from our annual conference held in Yeppoon 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 three candidate papers, including the winners of the Best Paper Award, Marisha McAuliffe and colleagues’ paper “Does pedagogy still rule”, Elizabeth Godfrey’s paper titled “Exploring the culture of engineering education: The journey” and Wageeh Boles and colleagues’ paper “Exploring synergies between learning and teaching in engineering: A case study approach”. The papers address a range of issues, illustrating the challenges faced in attempting to develop a framework for studying the culture of engineering education, along with discussion on how to move away from academics’ comfortable transmission modes of educational practice into the more challenging realms of student-centred ownership of learning. The third paper seeks to bring to the fore the connections between academics’ aspirations for their teaching (teaching goals), their teaching approaches in the classroom, their learning styles and those of their students, and link those to possible influences of the academic institution on students’ learning. The papers each make a valuable contribution that addresses an important need in the engineering education field.

The AJEE is now 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 2010 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 profile 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. This issue is due for publication around October, 2009.

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