ABSTRACT
For universities, COVID-19 made traditional means of providing quality teaching and learning impossible. Nevertheless, students required delivery and assessment to progress or graduate on time. Subjects in Science and Engineering with practical components presented a particular challenge, and this paper assesses institutional means and the perspectives of both instructors and students to determine best practice in this context. By triangulating institutional data (from pre- and post-pandemic policy and module delivery data) with staff and student surveys, followed up by semi-structured interviews, this paper examines both macro and micro perspectives and highlights successful and less-than-successful strategies for skill-based subjects. Somewhat surprisingly, our data indicates higher initial satisfaction among students than teachers. Further, we provide institutional and individual suggestions to implement successful online teaching and learning under different delivery scenarios (e.g., simulation vs. actualisation, or the employment of virtual and augmented reality systems) while mitigating potential negative impacts on the experience. Copyright © 2022 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
ABSTRACT
In today’s digital era, the number of digital artefacts produced by students in universities around the world continues to rise. This paper describes a project that developed a digital artefacts platform to showcase students’ projects at an international level, aiming to increase the visibility of students’ work to global audiences. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a large proportion of the software engineering project development took place remotely, with students and staff at University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), a Sino-foreign Higher Education Institution in Mainland China, adopting remote collaboration tools and techniques. This paper presents the background, software engineering development, and the project’s unique characteristics. In addition, the challenges to project completion and remote collaboration, future recommendations, and the potential to extend this project into an Open Educational Resource (OER) are also discussed. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 has caused heart-break and disruption. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was one of the first severely-impacted countries, but also one of the first to attempt to return to normalcy. Education, including Higher Education - the context of this paper - was disrupted, and the impact of these disruptions continues to be felt. A small consolation, or silver lining, has been the incredible efforts and innovations made by teachers to overcome the COVID-19 challenges. One such innovation is described in this paper: Drawing on the traditions of Metamorphic Exploration and Testing, the authors applied two different approaches to resolving a technical administration problem related to the management of assessments and marks for undergraduate software engineering team projects. This took place at University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), a Sino-foreign Higher Education Institution (HEI) with a history of staff-student collaboration, and education innovation. This paper outlines the experience and the insights learned from it. In addition to being of general interest to education administrators, especially those involved with project and marking administration, the innovative use of Metamorphic Testing ideas to develop the solution will be particularly interesting to computer scientists and software engineers. © 2021 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has placed a huge strain on higher education institutions and educators around the world, which has included the closure of campuses, removal of face-to-face instruction and a shift to remote teaching and learning. However, this situation has also created unique opportunities and conditions that can foster innovation in teaching and learning practices and content delivery. One such innovation gaining traction is Microlearning, which offers learning opportunities through small bursts of training materials that learners can comprehend in a short time, according to their preferred schedule and location. This paper explores the potential of Microlearning within design education and how it can be implemented into the Product Design & Manufacture programme at University of Nottingham Ningbo China to support teaching instruction and enhance the student learning experience post-COVID-19.
ABSTRACT
This paper describes an on-going project to develop diagnostic profiling tools for healthcare professionals to identify potential speech and language developmental problems of Chinese-speaking children. The tools aim to provide a technical advance in helping children who may have speech impairment or language delay. The project is currently being carried out as a collaboration with Chinese healthcare professionals, and a multidisciplinary team including applied linguists, speech and language pathologists, and computer scientists (staff and students) at the first Sino-foreign higher education institution in China, University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC). The paper presents the background, development, and current state of the project. Challenges to project completion, including difficulties encountered due to the Covid-19 outbreak and subsequent world-wide emergency and lock-down are also discussed. © 2020 IEEE.