April, 2008

EduPack a Hit at MIT, Berkeley, Cambridge

Final course in series scheduled for June's ASEE Meeting

The 2008 program of one day courses in Teaching Engineering Materials with Professor Mike Ashby got off to a great start with events at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California at Berkeley, and Cambridge University during March and April. The courses cover the use of CES EduPack to enrich the teaching of materials and processes across a broad range of subject areas. EduPack is the world's leading teaching resource for materials in engineering, science, processing, and design - used at 600 universities and colleges worldwide.

Representatives of 35 universities from over a dozen countries attended the three courses, providing a great opportunity for the exchange of teaching experiences. Attendees - including deans, professors, and lecturers - were very positive about the course and the use of EduPack software, databases, and teaching resources to assist teaching in their organizations. Several attendees were from universities that have implemented, or plan to implement, department- or college-wide licenses. A key theme was thus the use of EduPack across diverse subject areas, and its role in helping to connect different parts of the curriculum.

"It was a very useful course to appreciate the full potential of CES EduPack ," says Dr Noreen Thomas of the University of Loughborough, an attendee at the Cambridge course. "It was enlightening to learn from the experts."

"The course provided an excellent introduction to the CES EduPack software," comments Dr Alec Goodyear of The Open University. "The day provided a very good balance between lecture-based and hands-on sessions."

Each course consisted of a day of lectures interspersed with 'hands on' sessions using the EduPack software. Course leader Professor Mike Ashby (pictured, left) is a world-renowned authority on engineering materials, and author of a number of best-selling engineering textbooks. The course allowed attendees to hear about innovative teaching ideas and resources, to quiz Professor Ashby, and to try out the EduPack software and databases for themselves.

The next course will be in Pittsburgh, PA, on June 22, ahead of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Conference.

Details of the next course >>>

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