Computer Engineering Students Research Articles

Knowledge Management Integrated Web based Course Tutoring System

In this study, model and evaluation of WebCoach which works as new approach for LCMS is going to be presented. It is a web based tutoring system which uses knowledge management techniques to convert the tacit knowledge of experienced lecturers and experts into explicit knowledge. The instructional contents, quizzes and assessments, glossary of terms for information security course were prepared, compiled and organized by this tutoring system. They can be used and reused as learning objects to support learning. A comparison of WebCoach and other LCMS is given. A conceptual extension model is also presented with contributions such as PLE as a Learning object and Cloud Computing integration. It has been applied at Istanbul Commerce University within the information security course. Course grades and student questionnaires for two groups of undergraduate computer engineering students were analyzed in the scope of this study. The control group did not have access to WebCoach, while the same course was taught via WebCoach in the experimental group. The teaching methodology of the control group was based on classical narrative model. It was observed that the students using WebCoach have achieved better results in quantitative test when compared to the control group students. Moreover, 86% of the students’ opinions were satisfied with the WebCoach system.

The Assertive Profile of the Bulgarian Students in Computer Science and Computer Engineering

Different points of view on the nature and content of the assertiveness are followed in this paper. The main purpose is to study the assertive profile of Bulgarian students in computer science and computer engineering by analyzing the components of assertiveness. Research was performed using testing methods. It was found that the level of expressivity of this personal quality among subjects were above-average level.

A Proposed Exercise to Reinforce Abstract Thinking for Upper-Division Computer and Electrical Engineering Students: Modeling a High-Speed Inverter Using Cognitive Representations and Abstract Algebra

In mathematics, physics, and engineering, abstract concepts are an indispensable foundation for the study and comprehension of concrete models. As concepts within these fields become increasingly detached from physical entities and more associated with mental events, thinking shifts from analytical to conceptual-abstract. Fundamental topics taken from the abstract algebra (aka: modern algebra) are unquestionably abstract. Historically, fundamental concepts taught from the abstract algebra are detached from physical reality with one exception: Boolean operations. Even so, many abstract algebra texts present Boolean operations from a purely mathematical operator perspective that is detached from physical entities. Some texts on the abstract algebra introduce logic gate circuits, but treat them as perceptual symbols. For majors of pure or applied mathematics, detachments from physical entities is not relevant. For students of Computer and Electrical Engineering (CpE/EE), mental associations of Boolean operations are essential, and one might argue that studying pure Boolean axioms are unnecessary mental abstractions. But by its nature, the CpE/EE field tends to be more mentally abstract than the other engineering disciplines. The depth of the mathematical abstractions that we teach to upper-division CpE/EE majors is certainly up for questioning.

Evaluation of ESP textbooks: Evidence from ESP textbook of computer engineering major

The purpose of this study was to evaluate ESP textbook on “English for the students of computer engineering” taught at Payame Noor University in Astane (Guilan province, Iran). It was a mixed method research. The research instrument consisted of a researcher-made questionnaire which was designed on the basis of eight checklist references. Sample of this study consisted of 49 junior students majoring in computer engineering, who were selected through convenience sampling method. The textbook was evaluated in terms of six criteria of aims and approaches, design and organization, skills and strategies, topics, practical considerations and illustrations, language content and exercises. Data was collected through a five-point Likert scale questionnaire consisting of 22 items. Descriptive statistics including percentage, mean, and standard deviation were calculated for each item. Findings indicated that despite having pedagogical values, the textbook was not very good according to design and organization, language content and exercises, skills and strategies, practical considerations and illustrations. Finally, the pedagogical implication of findings for teaching grammatical items, listening materials, recycling and revision, writing activities and illustrations would be discussed.

An Examination of Computer Engineering Students’ Perceptions about Asynchronous Discussion Forums

This study was conducted in order to reveal the usage profiles and perceptions of Asynchronous Discussion Forums (ADFs) of 126 computer engineering students from the Computer Engineering Department in a university in Turkey. By using a mixed methods research design both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. Research findings indicated that the ADFs were frequently and effectively used by computer engineering students as a learning instrument. Another finding was that discussions in the ADFs were in the form of question-answer and resulted in important learning outcomes especially in eliminating the problems encountered by the students.

Split Flowcharts in Teaching Digital System Design

Teaching design of digital systems is usually based on one of two main paradigms, namely either declarative—based on a functional description of system; or procedural-based on constructing a flow chart (algorithm) defining a sequence of steps of the system's operation. The paper proposes an integrative approach for digital systems description and digital systems design teaching, both for computer engineering and electrical engineering students. This approach combines together the main aspects of the above two paradigms. The central concept of the new approach is a split flowchart. The proposed approach enables a parallel representation of the description of digital system functional fragments that in turn can be described procedurally. This paper reports results of testing the effect of different paradigms on the design process and on its results, and especially the efficiency of the proposed approach in comparison with others. Additionally, a case study of teaching an introductory digital design course based on the proposed approach is presented.

Detecting students' perception style by using games

Knowing students' learning styles allows us to improve their experience in an educational environment. Particularly, the perception style is one of the most important dimensions of the learning styles since it describes the way students perceive the world as well as the kind of learning content they prefer. Several approaches to detect students' perception style according to Felder's model have been proposed. However, these approaches exhibit several limitations that make their implementation difficult. Thus, we propose a novel approach to detect the perception style of a student by analyzing his/her interaction with games, namely puzzle games. To carry out this detection, we track how students play a puzzle game and extract information about this interaction. Then, we train a Naive Bayes Classifier to infer the students' perception style by using the information extracted. We have evaluated our proposed approach with 47 Computer Engineering students. Experimental results showed that the perception style was successfully predicted through the use of games, with an accuracy of 85%. Finally, we conclude that games are a promising environment where the students' perception style can be detected.

A NEW COURSE ON COMPUTING FOR SMALL SPACECRAFT ENGINEERING

The trend towards smaller and less expensive spacecraft continues. The University of Manitoba has participated in the design and implementation of a triple-pico-satellite (code TSat) since 2010, with over 100 undergraduate and graduate students from five faculties and 16 departments, as well as 50 advisors from academia, aerospace industries, business, military, and government. Such small satellites are used for atmospheric study and testing of new research concepts such as new forms of data communications, and constellations of space robots. A graduate course on small spacecraft engineering has recently been developed to address the needs of many students in this area. The course provides foundations for the design, implementation and testing of nano-, pico- and femto-satellites. The topics cover the anatomy of a small spacecraft, its design process with the specific design of its mission and payload, orbital mechanics, spacecraft subsystems, and mission operations handling. The specific subsystems include (i) attitude determination and control (ADC), (ii) telemetry, tracking, and command (TTC), (iii) command and data handling (CDH), (iii) power (PWR), (iv) thermal (TRM), (v) structures (STR), and (vi) guidance and navigation (GAV) [1-3]. Emphasis is given to the algorithms and computing tools for such small satellites. The basis for modeling and simulation is the Systems Tool Kit (STK) from Analytical Graphics Incorporated (AGI). The course is supported by our experience in developing the TSat1 nano-satellite. This paper describes the structure of the course, the methodology used, the set of topics covered, the set of course projects, and the lessons learned from the delivery of this unique course. Although the course is now intended for electrical and computer engineering students only, its scope will be expanded to accommodate mechanical and other engineering students.

A Compiler Project with Learning Progression

We describe the design of an undergraduate compilers course for computer engineering students in which the projectis to write a simulator and synthesizer for (a subset of) VHDL. The traditional project for such a course is to write a compiler for (a subset of) some procedural programming language. The choice of source language is superficially intended to drive student engagement for computer engineers. The main pedagogical advantage of this project is that item bodies a learning progression: repetition with increasing complexity.This project involves two additional languages: a regular language for boolean waveforms (used for circuit simulator inputand output), and a context-free language for boolean formulas. Parsing and transformations are performed on these simpler languages before attempting them on the subset of VHDL. At the end of the project the students can simulate and synthesize simple circuits such as a ripple-carry adder or a multiplexer.

Differences between the personal, social and emotional profiles of teaching and computer engineering professionals and students

The evidence suggests that emotional intelligence and personality traits are important qualities that workers need in order to successfully exercise a profession. This article assumes that the main purpose of universities is to promote employment by providing an education that facilitates the acquisition of abilities, skills, competencies and values. In this study, the emotional intelligence and personality profiles of two groups of Spanish students studying degrees in two different academic disciplines – computer engineering and teacher training – were analysed and compared. In addition, the skills forming part of the emotional intelligence and personality traits required by professionals (computer engineers and teachers) in their work were studied, and the profiles obtained for the students were compared with those identified by the professionals in each field. Results revealed significant differences between the profiles of the two groups of students, with the teacher training students scoring higher on interpersonal skills; differences were also found between professionals and students for most competencies, with professionals in both fields demanding more competencies that those evidenced by graduates. The implications of these results for the incorporation of generic social, emotional and personal competencies into the university curriculum are discussed.

Teaching Automated Test Data Generation Tools for C, C++ , and Java Programs

Software Testing cost 50% of the software development budget. Using automated tools we can reduce the testing cost. There are huge numbers of automated testing tools on the web. Teaching au tomated testing tools to students is an important topic for computer engineering students. Even faculties are not ware about the software testing tools. In this paper, a platform is provided for easy way of learning some testing tools which is very helpfu l for teaching as well as practical software testing. Most popular languages like C, C++, Java languages testing tools are taken for illustration. Finally, different testing tools are compared with some criteria to understand the facilities and limitationsavailable on testing tools. Our work can help students and faculty members to understand different testing tools and how to use the appropriate one for a programming language. We are using windows platform for our experiments.

Using Case Studies for Teaching Management to Computer Engineering Students

Case based learning is an important feature of business education as it enables students to discover and developtheir unique framework for understanding real business situations and dealing with business problems. Theobjective of this paper was to show the outcomes of teaching an introductory management course tonon-business students using the case methodology. The study was conducted on computer engineering studentsat a university in Turkey to investigate their perceptions and approaches towards case based learning. The datawas collected through a survey and classroom observations. The results show that the students’ activeparticipation and discussion in class on cases increased their retention and motivation in learning the newconcepts.

Special Issue on Context-Awareness of Mobile Systems: Models, Algorithms and Applications

Foreword: This special issue, with papers contributed by prominent researchers from academia and industry, will serve as a reference material for researchers, scientists, professionals and students in computer science and computer engineering as well as developers and practitioners in computing and networking systems design by providing them with state-of-the-art research findings and future opportunities and trends. These contributions include some recent advances in contextawareness of mobile systems reflected in the six papers that we chose to invite for this special issue. In particular, the special issue covers various problems on models, algorithms and applications for context-awareness of mobile systems. Paper 1 by Phan Cong Vinh and Nguyen Thanh Tung is both to give an in-depth analysis as well as to present the new material on the notion of context-aware computing, an idea that computing can both sense and react accordantly based on its environment. The paper formalizes context-awareness process using coalgebraic language, including the coalgebraic definition of context-awareness, bisimulation between context-awarenesses, homomorphism between contextawarenesses and context-awarenesses as coalgebras. Paper 2 by Sara Montagna, Mirko Viroli, Jose Luis Fernandez Marquez, Giovanna Di Marzo Serugendo and Franco Zambonelli aims at deepening how self-organization can be injected in pervasive service ecosystems in terms of spatial structures and algorithms for supporting the design of contextaware applications. To this end, authors start from an existing classification of self-organization patterns, and systematically show how they can be supported in pervasive service ecosystems, and be composed to generate a self-organizing emergent behavior. A paradigmatic crowd steering case study is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. Paper 3 by Julien Freudiger, Murtuza Jadliwala, JeanPierre Hubaux, Valtteri Niemi and Philip Ginzboorg discusses the ability to discover geographic proximity of specific communities of people (e.g., friends or neighbors). To do so, mobile devices must exchange some community identifiers or messages. Authors investigate privacy threats introduced by such communications, in particular, adversarial community detection. Authors use the general concept of community pseudonyms to abstract anonymous community identification mechanisms and define two distinct notions of community privacy using challenge-response methodology. An extensive cost analysis and simulation results throw further light on the feasibility of these mechanisms in the upcoming generation of wireless peer-to-peer networks. Paper 4 by Andrei Olaru, Adina Magda Florea and Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni provides a model for a such middleware, based on software agents, in which context-awareness is implemented both in the agent’s representation of context information, and in the logical topology of the agent system. The model is oriented towards decentralization of the system and relies mostly on local behavior. The paper also reports on several proof-of-concept applications that have been developed and tested using the proposed model, proving thus the validity of the approach. Paper 5 by Antonio Coronato and Giuseppe De Pietro provides a new formal approach for the situation-awareness and the detection of abnormal behaviors of cognitive impaired people in situation-aware smart spaces. Instead of relying on the identification of deviations from normal behaviors, the approach is based on the specification and runtime verification of correctness properties. Situation Calculus is the formal method adopted to model the world; whereas, intelligent agents P. C. Vinh (*) Department of Information Technology at NTT University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam e-mail: pcvinh@ntt.edu.vn

Burnout Levels and Personality Traits—The Case of Turkish Architectural Students

The aim of this research has been to investigate the relationship between personality traits and burnout levels of architectural undergraduate students. Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI) and Five Factor Model were used to collect related data. Analysis of the collected data showed variations in personality traits and burnout levels of students from first to fourth year and revealed that education process was an important role player in personality development and burnout levels of students. Architectural students tended to be more “open to experience” and “extraverted” as they proceeded from the first year to final year without having high levels of “emotional exhaustion”. “Emotional exhaustion” was observed together with “neurotic” personality traits of students. Thus, one of the key recommendations of this research is that university counselors should plan and organize guidance programmes by focusing on individual requirements caused by both the student's personality traits and demands of the university education which may vary between both years and departments. Future work of this research will thus focus on civil engineering and computer engineering students in order to determine the effect of departmental differences on burnout levels of students and guide counseling programmes within the University accordingly.

Approaches to Learning Among Professional Students in Relation to Professional Courses and Academic Achievement

The present study attempts to identify approaches to learning among professional students in relation to professional courses and achievement. Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST) was used to measure approaches to learning among professional students pursuing their studies in management, computer application, engineering and medical courses. A representative sample of 819 professional students enrolled in third year, 495 males and 324 females, was drawn on random basis while giving due weightage to gender. The results of analysis of variance on the basis of 4x2 factorial design with n=20 in each group revealed that there are significant differences in approaches to learning among professional students. The students of medical course report significantly higher mean deep learning approach than the students of computer application, engineering and management courses. The students of medical course and computer application course report significantly higher mean strategic learning approach score than their counterparts pursuing their studies in engineering and management courses. The students of management course report significantly higher mean surface learning approach score than their engineering, computer application and medical courses counterparts. The professional students with high and average achievement report significantly higher mean deep learning approach score from their counterparts with low achievement. The mean strategic learning approach scores of low achiever professional students are significantly lowest than their average and high achiever counterparts. The low achiever professional students have significantly higher mean surface learning approach score than their average and higher achiever counterparts.

Improvement of programming skills using pair programming by boosting extraversion and openness to experience

Structured teaching is an important priority in pedagogy, because of the experience that it fits the ‘culture of learning’ more effectively than any other techniques. Pair programming (PP) is one such structured teaching and learning method, which, the researchers in the field of computer science are integrated in their recent studies. In this context, an experiment was conducted in Pondicherry Engineering College with 66 second year BTech computer science and engineering students, to explore the possible impact of PP. They were trained to do the programming exercises in the lab, in three phases viz. pre-pair programming (PPP), on pair programming (OPP) and resultant pair programming (RPP). At the end of each phase, a test was conducted and their programmes were corrected using an automated grading tool, by evaluating the parameters of dynamic checking, static checking, programme matching, structural weakness and total marks. During OPP, efforts were made to boost the personality traits of Extraversion and Openness to experience. The scored marks of the PPP and RPP were compared using statistical analysis, which showed that, there was significant improvement in the students’ programming skills.

CloudLab: Um Laboratório Virtual para Ensino de Projetos de Circuitos Integrados

This paper proposes the creation of a Learning Management System (LMS) named CloudLab with support to Virtual Laboratory (VL). It aims at distance training of Computer Science and Engineering students in Hardware, to meet the needs of education and research institutions. That CloudLab has important features such as remote access to design tools with teacher mentoring and monitoring, file management, viewing videos and pictures of networks social and interpersonal communication via asynchronous messages. A practical experiment was conducted with students of Computer Science that demonstrated the effectiveness of the system and its acceptance by students and teachers involved.

Online Robotics Course: Factors Affecting Students’ Satisfaction toward e-Learning in Thailand

Recently,“Robo Siam1” team from Siam University won The Best Creativity Awards in Robot@Home Championship 2011 and received the privilege of representing Thailand in the global-level “World RoboCup : Robot@Home 2012” contest in Mexico. seeking further success in the prospective robotics competitions, motivated the university to develop an optional robotics course (not core course) — for those sophomore students of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science programs— who voluntarily are interested to know more about robots and learning online. The course was designed based on the open source DARwIn-OP (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence Open Platform). The winning team — and couple of sophisticated IT lectures— were appointed to design the syllabus and the course modules. Moreover, two lab sessions per week were dedicated to the design module of the course. From the theory (e-Learning) perspective, students learned how to setup, configure and program specific functions of a DARwIn-OP humanoid robot. In general, the course consisted of four main modules: (1) Motion, (2) Vision, (3) Hardware, and (4) Miscellaneous robotics topics. From the hardware perspective, students learned about the hardware components of a DARwIn-OP robot such as actuators, sensors, display and interfaces. Overall, the online course taught students on how to setup, configure and program specific functions of a DARwIn-OP humanoid robot. The objective of the paper is to identify the most significant factors affecting students’ satisfaction toward the developed course. The findings show that “Self-efficacy” and “Perceived Usefulness” are the most important determinants of students’ satisfaction.

COMPLEMENTING CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE WITH STUDENT-RUN WORKSHOPS

Professors, instructors and technical staff atvarious universities often face difficult questions regarding the tools and hands-on skills taught in the curriculum during a limited laboratory time. Therefore, to complement the classroom experience, students in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Manitoba have developed and delivered a number of workshops on topics that have a direct impact in the classroom and job prospects, while encouraging independent learning and experimentation to foster lifelong learning skills. This paper describes the organization and examples from organizing more than 20 workshops that reached excess of 250 undergraduate students, graduate students, high school students, high school teachers, recent graduates, industry professionals, and hobbyist.

LEARNING HOW TO DESIGN A GRAPHICS PROCESSOR

This paper describes the design and implementation of a rudimentary graphics processor, called GRAFIX, intended for use in a simple handheld gaming console. The processor is a part of a laboratory in an undergraduate course on Digital Systems Design 2 (DSD2) [1-2]. The GRAFIX processor can perform two different operations: (a) drawing an individual pixel, and (b) drawing a line using the Bresenham line drawing algorithm.The DSD2 course provides foundational material on discrete mathematics and the theory of modern very-large switching circuits. It presents computer engineering students with a firm foundation in the modern theory of optimal logic design. It illustrates some applications through formal characterization of combiniational functions and sequential machines, using contemporary techniques for the automatic synthesis and diagnosis of digital systems. It discusses (i) the design of VLSI systems with problems and approaches; (ii) gound-up development of algebraic structures, lattices, Boolean algebras for a generalized switching theory; (iii) exact optimization of two-level switching functions; (iv) heuristic techniques for the optimization of two-level logic circuits; (v) analysis, synthesis and optimization of complemented binary decision diagrams (BDDs) [3]; and (vi) provides design examples throughout the course.This fairly high-level lab design of a graphics processor is possible because the students have acquired the necessary prerequisite knowledge from previous courses. None of the courses, however, has attempted to develop a complete processor of such scale. The machine specifications include: (a) interfacing of the host to the GRAFIX unit may be synchronous or asynchronous (one must be selected and the consequences of the choice must be discussed); (b) the frame buffer can be either a single port memory or a dual port memory (again, one must be selected, and the consequences of the choice must be discussed); (c) interfacing of the GRAFIX unit to the frame buffer may be synchronous or asynchronous. The GRAFIX lab is split into four sessions: (i) familiarization with tools and design of the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) for GRAFIX, (ii) design of its Data Path Unit (DPU), (iii) design of its Computing Control Unit (CCU), and (iv) integration and testing.The objectives of those sessions are to learn how to (a) formulate an architecture of a simple graphics processor, (b) formulate an appropriate ALU, (c) formulate a DPU and CCU, (d) formulate a Command Interpreter, (e) formulate an Controller/Sequencer, (f) formulate the CCU interfacing with the GRAFIX I/O and with the DPU, (g) construct test procedures for each unit and incremental testing, (h) construct a supervisory module to provide the completed GRAFIX processor with test input, (i) integrate the system, (j) test operation of the GRAFIX processor, and (k) describe the system. VERILOG is used as the hardware-description language of choice.The paper provides a detailed description of the architecture of the graphics processor, its design and implementation, as well as experience from running the laboratory many times.