Asee peer logo

Creating a University-Industry Advisory Board for a Joint Engineering School

Download Paper |

Conference

2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

New Orleans, Louisiana

Publication Date

June 26, 2016

Start Date

June 26, 2016

End Date

June 29, 2016

ISBN

978-0-692-68565-5

ISSN

2153-5965

Conference Session

College Industry Partnerships Division Technical Session III: Collaboration

Tagged Division

College Industry Partnerships

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/p.26597

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/26597

Download Count

691

Request a correction

Paper Authors

biography

Duncan J Bremner University of Glasgow

visit author page

Dr Duncan Bremner has over 30 years in the semiconductor industry and has held operational and strategic executive roles in product development and technology planning within leading organisations such as National Semiconductor and The Intel Corporation.

Duncan is presently employed by the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering working with both academic staff and industry partners to develop collaborative projects. He is also responsible for the development and delivery of the course on Professional Practice for Engineers in China.

Duncan has been active in promoting a system view of Sensor Systems and more recently, the Internet of Things. He is also a member of the UK advisory committee to the ISO JTC1 on standardisation for IoT. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from The University of Edinburgh, an MBA from the University of Glasgow, and has recently completed a PhD. He is cited as inventor on 17 patents.

He can be contacted on: duncan.bremner@glasgow.ac.uk

visit author page

biography

Kathleen Meehan University of Glasgow

visit author page

Kathleen Meehan earned her B.S. in electrical engineering from Manhattan College and her M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois under the supervision of Prof. Nick Holonyak, Jr. She worked as a member of technical staff at Lytel, Inc., following graduation. At Polaroid, she was appointed a Senior Research Group Leader, responsible for the design of laser diodes and arrays. After leaving Polaroid, she was employed at Biocontrol Technology. She moved into academia full-time in 1997 and worked at the University of Denver, West Virginia University, and Virginia Tech. She is currently the director of the University of Glasgow-University of Electronic Science and Technology of China Electronics and Electrical Engineering programme. While at Virginia Tech, she collaborated with Dr. Robert W. Hendricks, with assistance of a number of undergraduate students, to develop an instructional platform known as Lab-in-a-Box, which is used in a number of courses within the Virginia Tech B.S.E.E. program. She continues to be actively involved in the development of mobile hands-on pedagogy as well as research on other topics in STEM education, the synthesis and characterization of nanoscale optical materials, and fermentation processes.

visit author page

biography

Yangyang Liu University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

visit author page

2007.9-2011.6 Bachelor of Electronic Information Engineering, School of Electronic Engineering,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
2011.9-2014.6 Master of Information and Communication Engineering, School of Electronic Engineering,University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
2014.7-now Staff in Student Affair Centre of UoG-UESTC Joint School, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

visit author page

biography

Xingang Liu University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

visit author page

Xingang Liu (M’10) received the B.S. degree from the School of Electronic Engineering (EE), University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), Chengdu, China, in 2000, and the MEng and PhD degrees from Yeungnam University, Korea, in 2005 and 2009, respectively. From 2010 to 2011, he was a BK21 Research Fellow with the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. He is currently a Full Professor with the School of EE, UESTC, where he was a Faculty Member in EE during 2000-2003. Dr. Liu was also an Adjunct Professor with Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea. His research interests are multimedia signal communication related topics, such as heterogeneous and homogeneous video transcoding, quality measurement, error concealment, mode decision algorithm, 2-D/3-D video codec, and so on.
Dr. Liu is a member of IEEE, Korean Information and Communications Society (KICS), and Korean Society for Internet Information (KSII).

visit author page

Download Paper |

Abstract

For an engineering course to be effective and acceptable to industry it must be continually revised to incorporate new technology and the latest thinking. Traditionally, the method used was to approach companies in the immediate locale of the teaching institution and elicit membership to form an industrial advisory board (IAB). The IAB had limited power and influence over activities within the school and was most prominent in ensuring the course obtained accreditation from an appropriate and relevant body. However, as industry transitioned first into international and then global companies, the geographically centric advisory board became a limitation; the original strengths and benefits of engaging with local companies were outweighed by the need to embrace cultural differences. Furthermore, as system and product integration extended beyond the single engineering disciplines, the membership of the advisory board had to be similarly extended. The most recent illustration of this is the blurring of the boundaries between Computer Science and Electronic Engineering in the emergent market for the Internet of Things. With the advent of trans-national joint degree programmes between Universities in separate continents, the problem is exacerbated. This paper looks at the challenges and approaches taken to address some of these issues when establishing an Industrial Advisory Board that is not only international, but is also multi-cultural and multi-discipline in support of a joint undergraduate degree programme in Electronic and Electrical Engineering in China. It proposes a balance between domestic versus international organisations to ensure that the educational content delivers the widest possible opportunities to the students. Finally, it examines how an effective advisory board can assist the academic staff in delivering the most appropriate, up to date training possible through the utilisation of members of the Advisory Board. Using this approach, the School can deliver best-in-class, up-to-date knowledge and experience from an industrial perspective, combined with traditional teaching of the fundamental disciplines. By involving the Industrial Advisory Board, both students and industrialists get a richer, more relevant experience and interaction.

Bremner, D. J., & Meehan, K., & Liu, Y., & Liu, X. (2016, June), Creating a University-Industry Advisory Board for a Joint Engineering School Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26597

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2016 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015