Survey of Labs in Australia

7/28/2019 Survey of Labs in Australia

1/77

page 1

Labsha e - December 0

T e National gine rin Laborat ry Su vey

National EngineeringLaboratory Survey

The

A Review of the Delivery of Practical Laboratory Educationin Aus g eering Programsralian Undergraduate E

Selected OutcomesDr Thorsten Kostulski

Steve Murray

Labshare - December 2010


2/77


3/77

This report is an outcome o the Labshare project

undertaken by the Australian Technology Network o

universities: University o Technology, Sydney,

Curtin University, Queensland University oTechnology, RMIT University, and the University o

South Australia, under the title National Support for

Laboratory Resource Sharing. Support or this project

has been provided by the Australian Government

Department o Education, Employment and

Workplace Relations DEEWR. The views expressed

in this report do not necessarily reflect the views o

the Australian Government Department o Education,

Employment and Workplace Relations, or o the

universities whose staf participated in the survey.

The project was administered and led by the

University o Technology, Sydney, with the key

personnel:

Project Leader:Proessor David Lowe

Project Management:Lothar Weber;

Bridgette Dang; Michel de la Villeromoy;

Steve Murray UTS; Dr. Euan Lindsay

Curtin University

Report Author and Survey Administrator:

Dr. Thorsten Kostulski

Supporting Author:Steve Murray

Editor: Rebecca Lawson

Designer: Johan Marais-Piper

This work is published under the terms o the Creative

Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike .

Australian Licence. Under this licence you are ree to

copy, distribute, display and perorm the work and tomake derivative works.

Attribution: You must attribute the work to the

original author and include the ollowing statement:

Support for the original work was provided by

Labshare: National Support for Laboratory Resource

Sharing, funded by the Australian Government

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace

Relations.

Noncommercial: You may not use this work or

commercial purposes.

ShareAlike: I you alter, transorm or build on this

work, you may distribute the resulting work only under

a licence identical to this one.

For any reuse o distribution, you must make clear to

others the license terms o this work.

To view a copy o this licence, visit,

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/./au or

send a letter to Creative Commons, Howard Street,

th Floor, San Francisco, Caliornia, USA.

Requests and inquiries concerning these rights should

be addressed to the University o Technology, Sydney,

Labshare Project, FEIT, PO Box , Ultimo NSW ,

or through the website: www.labshare.edu.au


4/77

The

National EngineeringLaboratory Survey

A Review of the Delivery of Practical Laboratory Educationin Australian Undergraduate Engineering Programs

Dr Thorsten KostulskiSteve Murray

December 2010


5/77

Executive summaryLaboratory experiences have long been considered a corecomponent o technical degree programs particularlyin engineering and the applied sciences. Unortunately,the inrastructure necessary to make laboratory learningpossible is usually expensive in terms o acquisition costand maintenance. Laboratories represent a very significantcomponent o overly stretched university budgets andcapital investment, and are a valuable inrastructureresource. Despite this, there is almost no sharing oacilities or design expertise either between institutions oracross educational sectors. Further, the current inflexibleoperation o, and constrained access to physical laboratoriesis misaligned with the increasingly complex liestyleso students and the demands on their time. Continuingincreases in student numbers and competition or floorspacehave put urther pressure on universities in the delivery o

efective practical laboratory education. To quantiy andevaluate actors that impact on the delivery o practicallaboratory education, the DEEWR-unded Labshare projecthas conducted a national survey and also investigatedthe potential o laboratory resource sharing betweenuniversities.

Between August and September , all Australianuniversities ofering undergraduate engineering programsparticipated in the survey and were visited by a researcher.The target audience were executive, academic andtechnical staf as stakeholders in laboratory resourcingand in the delivery o laboratory practice, which saw theparticipation o over individuals. In particular, over

o all senior executives represented in the AustralianCouncil o Engineering Deans ACED contributed tothis comprehensive national review. Since the survey wasconducted in an interview-style, it produced data o veryhigh quality and reliability.

A large part o the diferent questionnaires was aimedat collecting data specific to the university, subject orlaboratory acility, and at collecting the participantsopinions surrounding teaching laboratories, or exampledecision-making processes, development initiativesand coursework support. Resourcing trends were alsoevaluated, along with a subjective rating o the su ciency

o those resources or the delivery o practical laboratoryeducation. The main points o the academic questionnairewere pedagogy and learning outcomes, which allowedparticipants to assess the ABET objectives as suitabledescriptors or the results o laboratory learning. Finally,interviewees were asked to comment on remotely accessiblelaboratories as a possibility to acilitate resource sharing.Following the statistical analysis o responses, a number okey outcomes were identified:

According to executives, the reasons or having labora-tories range rom student motivation to the reinorce-ment o concepts, but also include compliance withaccreditation requirements.

Trends in laboratory resourcing reveal that almost alluniversities ace challenges; those with large studentnumbers have floorspace and throughput issues, thosewith small numbers have unding and staf ng issues.

The main actor aecting the quality o practicalsessions at many large institutions is the significant

variability in the quality o demonstrators and thestrong reliance on them to deliver the sessions.

Flexible student access to acilities is increasinglyimportant or the delivery o project-based laboratorywork.

In some cases, resourcing issues and conflicts ointerest by academics research have orced thereduction o laboratory sessions per semester.

Student groups in most practical sessions tend to belarger than pedagogically desirable.

Academics rank practical sessions as the mostimportant component o their subjects, yet they otenreceive less attention in subject development and

assessment than other components. The ABET objectives have been widely acceptedas descriptors o laboratory learning outcomes byAustralian academics.

Technical sta say that inflexible, specialised laborato-ries are most prone to under-utilisation.

Wear and tear and the need or upgrades are the mostcommon reason or equipment expenditure in laborato-ries, but are oten not budgeted or on a regular basis.

Past eorts to collaborate and share physical labora-tories resource between universities and TAFE on ametropolitan scale Melbourne have reportedly expe-rienced dif culties due to timetabling and commutingchallenges.

The specific topic o remote laboratories has resulted in theollowing findings:

The National Survey has significantly raised awarenesso the need or resource sharing and the possible role oremote laboratories.

Remote laboratories are widely deemed to oerconvincing benefits in terms o flexible access, studentconvenience and ef cient use o equipment, but stillneed to ascertain their pedagogic eectiveness andfinancial viability to be regarded a regular supplemento hands-on laboratories.

Most universities expressed interest in learningmore about remote laboratories and the sharing oequipment with other institutions, including develop-ing their own experiments.

Executives at several non-ATN institutions said theyare planning or the adoption o some remotely acces-sible experiments in their coursework in the near uture.

Following the survey, sharing trials o remotely accessiblelaboratories are currently being conducted between Australian universities and are planned to continuein the near uture. Experience with inter-institutionaluse and urther developments are expected to generateadditional results to address the above points and to lay theoundations or a national consortium.

i


6/77

ContentsExecutive summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iContents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

List o figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iiiList o tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

. Introduction and Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. The Labshare project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. Research questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Methodology and Data Collection . . . . 5. Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

. Target audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

. Survey administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Selection o implementation mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Practical implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Survey instrument design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.4. Survey structure and length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.4. Quantitative and qualitative questions . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

.4. Focus group tests and revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.5 Limitations o survey implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8. University participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. Individual participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Executive sta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Academic sta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Technical sta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Analysis Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Transcription and classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4. Quantitative data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4. Qualitative data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5 Executive Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55. Goals o practical laboratory sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

5. Decision-making processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5.. Design and development o new experiments . . . .

5.. Budget authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5. Funding and laboratory development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

5.4 Budget and floorspace trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5.5 Overall resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5. Outsourcing and outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6 Academic Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Academic activities by discipline and major . . . . . . . . .

. Implementation and development

o laboratory sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Frequency and duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.. Sta involvement and development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

. Funding and resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.4 Group work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

.5 Desired laboratory and session conditions. . . . . . . . . . .

. Pedagogy and assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.7 ABET objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7 Technical Staf Perspective . . . . . . . . . 57. Laboratory utilisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7. Student access and supervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

7. Technical sta involvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7.4 Laboratory maintenance and development . . . . . . . . . .

7.5 Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

7. Pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.7 Laboratory instrumentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

8 Remote Laboratories:Familiarity and Potential . . . . . . . . . . . 5

. Awareness and exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

. Public image and the potential role

o remote labs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

9 Comparison Between Remoteand Hands-on Laboratories . . . . . . . . .8

. Student perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

. University perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

0 Specific Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57. Quality o practical session pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

. Throughput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

. Quality o laboratory demonstrators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

.4 Design lab sessions and projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Adoption Potential o RemoteLaboratories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

. Teaching philosophy and pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

. Operational considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. Strategic considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.4 Technical considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

.5 Financial considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. Future interest and collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Summary and Future Work . . . . . . . . . 6. Sharing trials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

. Consortium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Definitions and Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Reerences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

ii


7/77

List of figuresFigure 1:National review participation in meetingsand surveys by category . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 2:Executive staf participants in meetingsand survey by position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 3:Academic staf participants in meetingsand survey by position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 4:Technical staf participants in meetingsand survey by position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 5:Practical laboratory sessions per semester in all surveyedsubjects question AB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 6:ABET objective importance as assessedby academic staf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 7:Technical staf opinion on the need orequipment maintenance and replacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Figure 8:Comparison between remote and hands-on labs studentperspective executive, academic and technical opinion . . . . . . . . .

Figure 9:Comparison between remote and hands-on labs universityperspective executive, academic and technical opinion a . . . . .

Figure 10:Comparison between remote and hands-on labs universityperspective executive, academic and technical opinion b . . . . .

iii


8/77

List of tablesTable 1: Structure o the executive, academicand technical questionnaires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 2: Participating universities by state/territory withcorresponding and undergraduate engineering studentenrolments head count estimates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 3: Executive support or coursework laboratories . . . . . . . .

Table 4: Executive opinion on laboratorydevelopment initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 5: Executive opinion on laboratorydevelopment implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 6: Executive opinion on laboratorybudget authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 7: Executive opinion on laboratorybudget allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 8: Executive opinion on laboratory budgets andfloorspace. Budget trends can be considered inflation-adjusted . . .

Table 9: Executive opinion on laboratory resourcing . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 10: Executive opinion on laboratoryexpenditure e ciency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 11: Executive opinion on laboratory outsourcing . . . . . . . . .

Table 12: Executive opinion on laboratoryresourcing motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 13: A liation o participating academics withengineering disciplines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 14: Surveyed engineering subjects classifiedby major . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 15: Subjects by year o the engineering program . . . . . . . . . Table 16: Academic opinion on laboratorydevelopment initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 17: Academic opinion on laboratory developmentimplementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 18: Academic opinion on practicalsession supervision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 19: Academic opinion on ideal practical sessionsupervision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 20: Academic opinion on laboratorybudget authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 21: Academic opinion on laboratorybudget allocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 22: Academic opinion on laboratory resourcing . . . . . . . . .

Table 23: Academic opinion on laboratory group work . . . . . . . . Table 24:Academic opinion on practical

session coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table 25: Academic opinion on the current numbero students per laboratory group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 26: Academic opinion on actors afectingthe quality o a laboratory session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 27: Academic opinion on the importance o subjectcomponents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 28: Academic opinion on laboratory assessment . . . . . . . . .

Table 29: Academic opinion on the ABET objectives . . . . . . . .Table 30: Laboratory acilities classified by discipline. . . . . . . . . .

Table 31: Laboratory equipment classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 32:Technical staf opinion on practicalsession duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 33: Technical staf opinion on shared acilities . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 34: Technical staf opinion onlaboratory utilisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 35: Technical staf opinion on student access to

laboratory acilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 36: Technical staf opinion on laboratory

development initiative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


development implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 38: Technical staf opinion on current staf

involvement in practical sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 39: Technical staf opinion on desirable staf

involvement in practical sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


budget trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


floorspace trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 42: Technical staf opinion on resourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 43: Technical staf opinion on pedagogic aspects . . . . . . . .

Table 44: Technical staf opinion on actors afecting

the quality o a laboratory session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 45: Purpose o computer use in engineering

laboratories other than computer-only acilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 46: Awareness o the remote labs concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 47: Sources o inormation about remote labs

or executive and academic staf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 48: Level o amiliarity and engagement

with remote labs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 49: Executive opinion on the possible role o

remote labs in engineering education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 50: Executive staf opinion on the students

view o remote and hands-on labs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Table 51: Academic staf opinion on the students


Table 52: Technical staf opinion on the students


Table 53: Executive staf opinion on the universitys


Table 54: Academic staf opinion on the universitys


Table 55: Technical staf opinion on the universitys


Table 56: Interest in remote labs inormation

and collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


9/77

page 1


The National Engineering Laboratory Survey

1 Introduction and Context. Background

Laboratory learning is acknowledged as beingindispensable in the context o an engineering degreeprogram [-]. Unortunately, the inrastructurenecessary to make laboratory learning possible isusually expensive in terms o acquisition cost andmaintenance. Laboratories represent a very significantcomponent o overly stretched university budgetsand capital investment, and a valuable inrastructureresource - yet are oten greatly underutilised and arecommonly seen by students as under-resourced.Despite this, there is almost no sharing o acilities ordesign expertise either between institutions or acrosseducational sectors. Further, the current inflexible

operation o, and constrained access to, physicallaboratories is misaligned with the increasinglycomplex liestyles o students and the demands ontheir time. Despite some isolated eforts to addresssome o these issues, there has been no nation-wide,concerted approach yet to identiy and analyse thechallenges associated with practical engineeringeducation at tertiary level. With this as a somewhatsobering context, any attempt to consider theapplicability o a wider view o the management olaboratory resources should commence with a surveyo currently available laboratories and their usage.

The Labshare project undertook to complete anation-wide survey o the engineering aculties and/or schools at universities in Australia with the aim ocompiling a record o the types o laboratories beingused, their usage levels and other notable attributes.As a key deliverable, the Labshare mission includesNational Review: To support the development oappropriate approaches, a national review will becarried out o current laboratory inrastructure,unding, educational roles, and utilisation levels withinall Faculties o Engineering in Australia.

This activity has been exhaustively accomplishedthrough a detailed survey, the nature o which ispresented in this report along with a collectiono some o the survey outcomes. This documentsummarises a larger, more comprehensiveencapsulation o the survey outcomes which include:

(1) educational objectives;(2) commonalities which exist in usageand inrastructure;(3) opportunities or shared laboratories.

. The Labshare project

Labshare: National Support or Laboratory ResourceSharing is a project backed by the AustralianGovernments Diversity and Structural Adjustment

Fund. It is a joint initiative o the Universities amongstthe Australian Technology Network - the University oTechnology, Sydney, Curtin University o Technology,Queensland University o Technology, RMITUniversity, and the University o South Australia.Labshares mission is to create a nationally sharednetwork o remote laboratories that will result inhigher quality labs that support greater studentflexibility and better educational outcomes, improvedfinancial sustainability, enhanced scalability in termso coping with student loads, and are developed andrun by those with the greatest expertise in a particulardiscipline.

LA BS H A RE OBJECT IV ES

National Review - Report on status and opportunitieso engineering laboratories in Australian Universities

Pedagogic Design - Online resource kit containingguidelines on the appropriate selection, design andutilisation o remote labs

Technical Architecture - Technical interacespecifications and user documentation that supports

lab development

Technical Resource Development - Implementedlaboratory sotware library

Organisational Model Design Definition o sharingmodels, with appropriate ormal agreements whichcan be used in implementing the models

Shared Lab Development Development o at least remote laboratories in diferent engineeringdiscipline areas capable o supporting a minimum o

students

Resource Kit Development Starter pack o materialor universities and or schools

Communication Website development, quarterlynewsletters, annual workshops, twice-yearly practicalworkshops


10/77

page 2

Sharing Trials Students remotely using initiallaboratories ollowed by experience survey andeasibility evaluation

Model Refinement

. Research questions

RATIONALE

Prior to conducting the survey, estimates oinrastructure, budgets and utilisation levels couldbe made drawing upon techniques such as localiseddata collection and extrapolation, or by attempting toobtain quantitative data rom sources such as DEEWR,the Australian Bureau o Statistics and similar. Inorder to acilitate a more precise description ocontemporary laboratory practice which might be

useul in terms o establishment and construction olaboratories, their intended use in support o learningand their demands upon resources, it was determinedthat the nation-wide survey be carried out.

POSITIONING

Comprehensive survey instruments used or datacollection were careully developed see PartI Survey Implementation, but were essentiallydirected at providing some insight into issues like theollowing:

What makes laboratory learning a significant part o the

undergraduate engineering degree programs?

How important do academics consider practical laboratory

sessions or student learning, compared to lectures and

tutorials?

What techniques are being used to assess laboratory

learning perormance?

To what extent are resourcing problems impinging upon

laboratory learning?

What influences do the demands o current proessional

practice bring to laboratory work?

Who should be responsible or the development o labora-

tory learning exercises, and what incentives,

restrictions and motivations play a role in this?

Who is seen as being responsible or determining a budget

or laboratory development and maintenance?

Who is currently involved in delivering practical lab

sessions to students, and who should be?

Are there any significant dierences in laboratory practice

between large and small, metropolitan and

regional universities?

With respect to resourcing, what have been the trends in

staf ng, floorspace, laboratory development and

maintenance over the past decade?

What are the views on various degrees o commercially-

based outsourcing o laboratory practice?

How critical are group sizes in laboratory sessions, and what

would academics and demonstrators see as an

optimal number?

How do academics determine and assess the learningoutcomes rom practical sessions?

What role can remotely accessible laboratories play?

How are they perceived by participants, especially in

comparison to hands-on laboratories?

How is the level o interest in establishing a sustainable

remote laboratory community in Australia?


11/77

page




12/77

page

PART 1

SurveyImplementation


13/77

page 5



2 Methodologyand Data Collection

This chapter establishes a ramework or theimplementation o the national review as a surveyand provides rationales or the selection o the targetaudience, survey administration and various aspectso the survey instrument design.

. Scope

The specific scope o this investigation is alreadyreflected in the research questions presented inChapter . Firstly, within this project, participationwas limited to the Australian tertiary sector, i.e.universities. However, many o the above research

questions may also be applicable to other sectors,and uture studies involving VET institutions andsecondary schools may ollow. Engineering disciplinesare considered undamentally practice-based and havea mandatory requirement or experimentation withlaboratory equipment and hardware or accreditation.Thereore, ocussing on engineering aculties andschools including a small overlap with appliedsciences and industrial design appears reasonable.Besides, virtually all coursework-related, practicallaboratory work other than research takes place inundergraduate years, which also includes associate

degrees e.g. BEngTech, where available. This urtherrestricts the scope to Australian undergraduateengineering programs. The only engineeringdisciplines which are intentionally excluded rom thereview are purely sotware-based programs, whichrequire little i any experimentation with hardware.

It was determined that a review in the style o a ormalsurvey would be most suitable or this context. Otherpossible methods, such as a literature review or theanalysis o publicly available records, oten bear therisk that the easibility o the respective approachcannot be determined till very late in the review.Besides, survey administration plays a major role inthe consideration o data quality see Section ...

. Target audience

The range o topics covered in the research questionsleads to the conclusion that input rom a variety ouniversity staf is required, with the exception o thosewith administrative and research-only responsibilities.Due to the logistical complexity o including studenteedback rom a large number o universities,students do not orm part o the target audience in

this particular review. The ollowing staf groups werespecifically identified as candidates:

EXECUTIVE STAFF

Depending on the organisational structure o eachuniversity, aculty or school, executives pro-vicechancellors, deans, heads o school or similar bearbudget responsibility and drive the strategic vision otheir organisational unit. Thereore, they directly orindirectly control the resources or laboratories. Theyare usually complemented by associates e.g. deans,teaching & learning and directors o coursework,all o who may have influence on the operation opractical coursework components to varying degrees.Consequently, it is mandatory to include their opinionin the survey.

ACADEMIC STAFF

Academic staf members are instrumental in selectingappropriate laboratory experiments or their students,designing suitable lessons and in many cases also ordelivering/assessing the practical course component.This requires both technical and pedagogic expertise.Together with tutors and demonstrators, this targetaudience is usually expected to work closest with thestudents.

TECHNICAL STAFF

The involvement o technical support staf inlaboratory coursework can vary considerably,depending on their specific responsibility. Technicalo cers and some laboratory managers oten ulfilthe role o preparing the laboratory equipment orstudent use, perorming maintenance, designingand manuacturing new experimental apparatusand also regularly conducting laboratory sessions ininteraction with students. Technical managers andcoordinators have insight into laboratory resourcingsta ng, capital investment, maintenance andfloorspace and organisational issues, which is o greatinterest in the context o this review.

The selection o these three target audiencesmandates that each o their responsibilities isaddressed separately. The design o the surveyinstrument is thereore required to identiy whichquestions can be answered by which target audience,and to what extent an overlap in those surveyquestions is desirable.


14/77

page 6

. Survey administration

2.3.1 Selection o implementation mode

The choice o the most suitable mode o

implementation is critical or the success o a survey.O all available options, such as online survey, mail-outsurvey, telephone interview and ace-to-ace interview,the latter was eventually selected ater careulconsideration. For the best data consistency, thisrequired a single researcher to visit each institutionpersonally and to conduct separate, individualinterviews with each participant. Although this wasthe most elaborate and labour-intensive o all optionsand took significantly longer to conduct, superiordata quality, high flexibility, high completion rate andestablishment o relationships with the participantswere convincing reasons or this approach. Besides, itwas considered important to go beyond meetings andquestionnaires and to visit as many courseworklaboratories as possible in order to integrate first-handexperience into the survey.

2.3.2 Practical implementation

Following the identification o appropriate executivecontacts at all Australian universities oferingengineering degrees, participation in the surveywas invited in mid- through a letter rom theDean o Engineering and IT at UTS, as this is the

lead Labshare institution. A positive response wasollowed up through the coordination o visitationdates and the selection o survey participants romaculty/school executive, academic staf and technicalsupport staf. The coordination typically involvedcommunication with a nominated delegate romthe institution, during which a number o meetingswere requested. Executive participants were typicallypre-selected by the survey administrator, subject toavailability o key staf. For practical reasons, it waslet to the delegate to nominate suitable intervieweesrom amongst the academic and technical staf and to

create the overall agenda. It was clearly communicatedthat participating staf members should be spreadacross all ofered engineering disciplines, andthat they should also have an active involvementin practical laboratory sessions with courseworkstudents. This procedure imposes some constraints onthe interpretation o the data, which is urther coveredin Section ..

Questionnaires were provided to the delegate aheado the visit or urther distribution to the nominatedsurvey participants or transparency reasons. It wasalso clearly stated that all data collected is confidential

to the research team and would only be disclosed inamalgamated orm. Preparation by participants wasencouraged but not mandatory, and any pre-filling othe questionnaire was reviewed during the meeting orbetter consistency o the survey responses. Following

the style o a ace-to-ace interview, the questionnairewas completed by the survey administrator accordingto the participants answers and ree-orm comments.

Visits to each university were conducted over a - day time rame, depending on the size o theengineering program, in order to allow or a broadrepresentation o disciplines and interview types. Allsurvey interviews took place over a -month period,between mid-August and mid-September .

. Survey instrument design

With research questions, scope, target audience andmethodology defined, the survey instrument wasdeveloped in the orm o a paper-based questionnaireor maximum flexibility. The design process wasconducted by the survey administrator and guidedand acilitated through the involvement o an expertstatistician and survey designer. Input was also soughtrom other project stakeholders, and all questionnaireshave undergone several review cycles beore theirexternal release.

2.4.1 Survey structure and length

Due to the partial dissimilarity o objectives or thethree survey types executive, academic and technical,each questionnaire has a diferent length and ollowsa slightly diferent structure. Table lists the sectiontitles, and the number o questions per section isclearly indicative o the ocus or each type.

Besides the classification by topic, all questions inthe academic and technical questionnaires can alsobe logically divided into questions reerring to theindividual, or to one or more subjects or acilities,

respectively that the interviewee is involved in. Thisseparation is important or data analysis and urtherexplained in Chapter .

The executive survey is designed to be completed inabout minutes, while the academic and technicalsurveys are expected to be finished in about minutes. Due to the likelihood o discussions andadditional comments occurring during the course othe interview, the requested meeting time was about longer than the typical survey completion time.


15/77

page 7



It must also be pointed out that even within a surveytype, it is not expected that each participant would be

able to answer all questions. For example, a technicalcoordinator would typically be very knowledgeableabout resourcing and laboratory expenditure, whilea technical o cer supporting practical sessionswould be able to give better answers regardingthe interaction with students. Consequently, thispresumption requires the survey administrator to beselective about the subset o questions to complete ineach individual interview.

2.4.2 Quantitative and qualitative questions

An important actor in survey design is to considerhow responses will be eventually analysed, and whatquestion type would be most helpul in achieving thisaim while allowing respondents to give answers whichhave not been pre-defined by the survey designer.

Conclusions derived rom quantitative answers areoten deemed more accessible than rom qualitativeanswers, which require a degree o interpretation.Given the substantial length o each questionnaire, themajority o questions has thereore been ormulatedrequiring pre-classified, quantitative answers e.g.multiple choice, ranking or numeric answers or a

more e cient and reliable analysis. A typical examplewould be a statement which requires a response

according to the Likert scale agree/disagree.Since the survey is administered as an interview,quantitative answers can be easily annotated by hand,complementing the pre-defined and oten restrictivenature o quantitative questions. Quantitative answersare also more suitable or conditional stochasticanalysis, and many o the results presented in Part IIrely on this data type.

Questions requiring qualitative answers are otenhelpul where a-priori classification o answersis either not possible or not practical, or wherethe creativity o the respondent is meant to beencouraged. For example, significant diferencesin administrative structure, size and operation ouniversities mandates a flexible approach towardssome questions, especially those involving subjectnames, laboratory equipment and experiment titles.Consequently, in this case it is more practical to recordree-orm answers first beore classiying the dataduring the analysis phase. Other typical qualitativedata collected in this survey comprises annotations,qualifications o quantitative answers and comments,which have led to the identification o interestingobservations c. Chapter .

TYPE LABEL SECTION TITLENO. OF

QUESTIONS

Executive A General Questions

B Remote Laboratories

Academic A Your Academic Activities

B Practical Laboratory Sessions

C Design & Development o Laboratory Experiments

D Pedagogic Aspects

E Remote Laboratories

F General Comments

Technical A General Laboratory Inormation

B Laboratory Utilisation

C Laboratory Maintenance and Development

D Pedagogic Aspects

E Remote Laboratories

F General Comments

Table 1: Structure of the executive, academic and technical questionnaires


16/77

page 8

2.4.3 Focus group tests and revision

Prior to the o cial release o the survey, allquestionnaires were internally tested with ocusgroups in several iterations. In each version, practical

and conceptual weaknesses were identified andrevised, i appropriate.

.5 Limitations o survey implementation

Obviously, certain organisational, financial and timeconstrains have put limits on the implementationo the review. While the survey cannot claim tobe exhaustive in its objectives, it certainly is verycomprehensive in terms o university involvementand coverage o topics. Within these boundaries, theollowing practical limitations must be pointed out:

As previously mentioned, key executive staf memberswere usually pre-selected by the survey administratorc.Section .. Since each university contributed tothe survey through at least one, but mostly multipleexecutive surveys, it can be claimed that the responsesare largely representative o Australian engineeringuniversities as a whole. However, due to the variationin executive participation per institution, it cannotbe claimed that each university is proportionallyrepresented in the survey according to staf or studentnumbers.

Academic and technical staf members were notrandomly selected, but nominated by their owninstitution, which is unavoidable due to practicalconsiderations. Also, similar to the executive case, thenumber o participants per institution varied, whichskews the share o contribution to the overall resultsbetween universities. This leads to the conclusionthat survey participants in these two groups do notstatistically represent all academics in Australianengineering programs.

However, drawing data rom a non-random sample

o participants is not expected to afect the quality oresults, since it is not known that any bias has beenintroduced through this approach. It will also beshown in Part II that the sample o participants is largeand diverse enough to support conclusive findings.

3 Participation

In total, individual days o survey visits

produced meetings and the completion o questionnaires across all three categories.The remaining meetings were held without aormal completion o the questionnaire, however allcomments with relevance to the survey objectiveshave been incorporated as qualitative observations inChapter .

. University participation

, that is all universities ofering tertiaryengineering qualifications in Australia, responded tothe invitation, as listed in Table . The Org column

indicates at which organisational level the survey wasconducted FFaculty, SSchool. Grouped by state/territory, the table also includes the o cial headcount numbers o students enrolled in engineeringand technology-related courses at undergraduatelevel bachelor and associate degrees in ,as more recent data was unavailable at the timeo publication. These figures represent ull-time,part-time, on-campus and distance mode students, butnot those at international locations outside Australia.The number o undergraduate engineering studentsranged rom to over , with a mean o , and a

median o ,.

According to o cial DEEWR statistics, the totalnumber o undergraduate engineering students was, in and rose by to , in , which isan increase by over in years. Assuming that thistrend has continued over the past years, this figure islikely to have exceeded , in .

Within these universities, organisational structuresvary greatly. Nominal Faculties o Engineering onlyexist at Australian universities, while engineering isusually combined at aculty level with either Science,Built Environment or Inormation Technologydisciplines at all other institutions with large studentnumbers above the median ca. + students,with Gri th University being the only exception.Engineering disciplines ofering courses or less thanthe median are organised in schools or even sub-units,except or the Australian National University. In orderto keep the National Survey ocussed on engineeringdisciplines only, as opposed to broadening it intorelated fields, interviews were conducted on themost appropriate organisational level. o alluniversities participated at aculty-level, the remainder


17/77

page 9



LOCATION UNIVERSITY ORG.STUDENT HEAD COUNT

(DEEWR 2008)

ACT Australian National University F

University o Canberra [] S

NSW Macquarie University S

The University o New South Wales F ,

The University o Sydney F ,

University o Newcastle F ,

University o New England S

University o Technology, Sydney F ,

University o Western Sydney S

University o Wollongong F ,

NT Charles Darwin UniversityS

Qld Central Queensland University S

Gri th University S ,

James Cook University S

Queensland University o Technology F ,

The University o Queensland F ,

University o Southern Queensland F ,

University o the Sunshine Coast S

SA Flinders University S

The University o Adelaide F ,

University o South Australia F ,

Tas University o Tasmania incorporating AMC S ,

Vic Deakin University S

La Trobe University S

Monash University F ,

RMIT University F ,

Swinburne University o Technology F ,

University o Ballarat S

The University o Melbourne F ,

Victoria University S

WA Curtin University o Technology F ,

Edith Cowan University S

Murdoch University S

The University o Western Australia F ,

TOTAL 17F, 17S 55,584

Table 2: Participating universities by state/territory with corresponding and undergraduate engineering student enrolments(head count estimates).

1 Engineering programs (other than software/network engineering) weresuspended in 2003, and are expected to be re-introduced in 2011. Expectednumbers are reportedly around 150 students.


18/77

page 10

at school-level. In the vast majority o cases, thisapproach is consistent with the organisational unitrepresented in the Australian Council o EngineeringDeans, ACED.

Within this report, the terms large university andsmall university are used as indicators o studentenrolment numbers in engineering disciplines only.The terms do not intend to reflect any other aspect othe school, aculty or university; neither do they implyany orm o ranking or qualification.

. Individual participation

Due to the variation in the organisational structureand the breadth o engineering disciplines ateach university, the total number o participantsper category also varied with each institution.

Generally, large universities are represented by moreinterviews in total, and also through a higher numbero executive surveys completed at various levelse.g. PVC, dean, head o school, director etc.. Forsmaller universities, most executive interviews wereconducted at school-level head o school/deputy,head o department etc. and were usually limited toone or two meetings per visit. Academic and technicalsurveys were conducted according to the nominationo the university.

Over o all meetings resulted in the ormal

completion o the questionnaire, while ree-ormcomments were recorded in the remaining cases. Abreakdown o meeting and survey numbers accordingto category is illustrated in Figure . All universitiesare represented by at least one meeting or interview ineach category.

3.2.1 Executive staf

The executive category produced the widest spreado participants with decision-making responsibility,as shown in Figure . It must be noted that theclassification was perormed according to the o cial,ormal position name. Reclassified in the sense oACED, where heads o school o smaller institutionsconstitute deans, meetings with out o deanso engineering were conducted, with surveyscompleted. These numbers lead to the conclusion thatthe survey has been able to capture the opinions oover o the engineering leadership at Australianuniversities, along with other executive input.

While all quantitative survey responses by executiveswere analysed with equal weight in this report,regardless o position, comments and qualifications o

answers were usually considered in the context o theiroverall responsibility.

3.2.2 Academic Staf

Similarly, the classification o academic participantsalso occurred according to their ormal position,as depicted in Figure . Two-thirds o all surveyresponses in this category were obtained romexperienced academics holding the position osenior lecturer or higher, which can be interpreted asbeing representative o many years o technical andpedagogic expertise.

3.2.3 Technical staf

Finally, the technical staf group is representedthrough participants at coordination/managerial

level, typically with significant responsibility orsta ng, material and/or budget at aculty/school level.Laboratory managers usually look ater areas andmajor assets within a discipline and may also havestaf responsibility. Technical o cers are typicallymore likely to be directly involved with specifictechnical equipment and also in coursework. Figure demonstrates that all positions are well representedin the survey. In particular, the participation o coordinators and senior managers in the surveyespecially allows insight into resourcing and majorissues.

It should be noted that the classification o aparticipant as technical within the scope o thissurvey did not depend on any ormal level oqualification and, in act, ranged rom certificate levelto PhD and associate proessor, depending on theprimary unction perormed.

In conclusion, the above figures prove that theoverall participation in the National Review hasbeen exhaustive on an institutional level, and verycomprehensive within each o the survey categories.For anonymity as well as or practical reasons, allanswers within one category were amalgamated priorto analysis.


19/77

page 11



5

0

6

8 6

8

Meetings (N=92)Meetings (N=261)

Meetings (N=92) Meetings (N=77)

Surveys (N=79)Surveys (N=210)

Surveys (N=69) Surveys (N=62)

Pro-Vice Chancellorincl. DeputyDean, Executive DeanAssociate DeanTeaching & LearningAssociate Deanother than ADTL

Head o SchoolHead o SchoolDeputy/AssociateHead o DepartmentDirector oCoursework/DisclipineDirector or Manager other

Executive

Academic

Technical

Proessor

Associate Proessor

Senior Lecturer

Lecturer

Other

Lab Coordinator,Senior Technical Manager

Lab Manager/Supervisor

Senior Technical O cer

Technical O cer

935%

7937%

630%

935%

6933%

7730%

043%

50%

13%

710%

89%

57%

67%

628%

32%

1%

621%

524%

532%

35%

18%

23%

17%

30%

Figure 1: National Review participation inmeetings and survey by category

Figure 3: Academic staf participants inmeetings and survey by position

Figure 2: Executive staf participants inmeetings and survey by position

Figure 4: Technical staf participants inmeetings and survey by position


20/77

page 12

4 Analysis Procedure

The selected, practical survey implementation as

interviews with hand-written records mandates certainsteps in the analysis procedure. Firstly, the anonymityo the participants must be guaranteed so that noindividual response can be linked to a person duringtranscription, analysis or publication, except by thesurvey administrator. Only the cover sheet o eachquestionnaire contains personally identifiable data,which are cross-reerenced to a unique, numeric code.All response pages were labelled with this code andphysically separated rom the cover sheet beore thetranscription by other project staf commenced.

. Transcription and classification

Despite the careul balance o quantitative andqualitative questions, the flexibility that thequestionnaire provided in avour o superior dataquality led to a highly laborious transcriptionprocess. The decision was thereore made to split thetranscription into several phases:

Transcription o all data quantitative, qualitative and

comments rom paper into a spreadsheet

Extraction o quantitative data or statistical

analysis in SPSS

Manual evaluation o qualitative data and comments

This procedure required the definition o separatevariables or each response and comments made, andeventually roughly , variables incl. flags wereidentified or all three questionnaire types together.The total number o entries transcribed quantitativeand qualitative responses, flags and ree-ormcomments was approximately ,.

. Quantitative data

Those variables that were statistically analysablei.e. multiple choice responses, rankings, numericalanswers were extracted rom the spreadsheet andprepared or SPSS. A corresponding template wascreated in SPSS, including variable descriptors, as abasis or statistical analysis.

Besides, several questions could not be classified priorto obtaining actual responses rom the survey, such assubject names and laboratory equipment descriptions.Those responses were thereore manually evaluated

first to determine the best possible classificationsystem e.g. by discipline, major etc., then new classvariables were defined and subsequently statisticallyanalysed. The advantage o this approach is thatar more discipline and subject-related data is

quantitatively accessible than by qualitative manualanalysis only, see below.

All raw and post-classified quantitative data wasfinally imported into SPSS and statistically analysedthrough cross-tabulation, descriptives and requencies.The SPSS analysis was conducted by an experiencedstatistician, who also prepared the undamentalreports as the basis or the selected topicsin Chapter .

. Qualitative data

Qualitative data is considered any response thatis unstructured and can thereore not be directlystatistically analysed without an intermediate,interpretive step, such as ree-orm answers e.g.subject names, qualifications o multiple choiceresponses e.g. separation o student numbers intoon/of-campus, comments and ree-orm responses.The requent use o highly specific, technical termsnot commonly ound in databases or qualitativeunstructured data analysis lead to the conclusionthat automatic analysis or this data type is not viable,hence most qualitative data was evaluated manually,

with the exceptions given in Section ..

Preliminary results o selected aspects o the survey,mostly o qualitative nature, were initially releasedmid-[].


21/77

page 1




22/77

page 1

PART 2

Selected Results


23/77

page 15



5 Executive Perspective

The executive survey ocuses on a number oselected topics with relevance to decision-makingand resourcing. Depending on the type o question,the source o the primary data is either quantitativeor qualitative. The presentation o statistics andree-orm responses is ollowed by an interpretationand discussion.

5. Goals o practical laboratory sessions

This section investigates the goals that executiveshope to achieve by including practical courseworkexperiments in the engineering programs ofered by

their university.

EA. Why are practical laboratory experiments part o

your engineering courses?

individual answers were received rom executive participants. The most commonly givenones can be classified and paraphrased as:

Theoretical learning needs to be reinorced in the real world

concepts, validation o theory

Practical sessions provide students with an alternativelearning approach

Students need to experience and understand engineering

equipment learning-by-doing

Engineering is a practical discipline which requires engi-

neering students to be trained in the real world,

with exposure to real issues

Engineers Australia requires practical sessions or course

accreditation

Industry demand: work-ready graduates, credibility in the

work place

Engineers are kinaesthetic learners

Better student engagement and participation, experiments

make studying more exciting

Practical sessions are a tradition: everyengineering course has them

Opportunity or discovery and experimentation

From this list, the ollowing primary objectives opractical coursework experiments can be extracted:

(1) Reinorcement o theoretical concepts;(2) Exposure to and experience with real-world equipmentin preparation or proessional practice;

(3) As a motivating actor in achieving better learningoutcomes; and

(4) Compliance with tradition and accreditationrequirements.

While the first three objectives are clearlystudent-ocussed, the ourth appears to be drivenby external actors. An interesting statement wasmade by a senior executive in regard to an otenquoted requirement by Engineers Australia: Theaccreditation process is outcome-ocussed anddoes not explicitly prescribe the inclusion opractical laboratory sessions. This is by no means acontradiction; the comment only suggests that certain

alternatives to laboratory sessions may also leadto the desired learning outcomes and thereore toaccreditation. The strong support or laboratoriesis also clearly maniested through the ollowingresponses questions EA..

In addition, one participant commented with respectto the second statement that aulty equipment isvery rustrating or students, and another said thatthe demonstration o concepts usually does notrequire calibration.

The commonly identified goals and the largelyundivided responses to the two questions aboveindicate that engineering executives are ully aware o

(EA.3) STATEMENT:Strongly

AgreeMostlyAgree

NeutralMostly

DisagreeStronglyDisagree

N

a Practical, experimental laboratoryexperiments are an integral and veryimportant part o engineering education.

c Well maintained and calibratedequipment is essential or the pedagogicsuccess o practical classes.

Table 3: Executive support for coursework laboratories


24/77

page 16

the critical role that practical laboratory experimentsplay in engineering education, both in general and attheir university.

5. Decision-making processes

The survey also looked at decision-making processesin order to implement these goals by supportinglaboratory development and maintenance. Inparticular, we investigated the point o initiative ornew developments and the level o authority requiredor unding approval, as seen rom the executiveperspective.

5.2.1 Design and development o new experiments

Firstly, it is important to evaluate who is believedto take initiative in designing and developing new

experiments. This was a multiple response question,hence the column or percent o cases equals morethan .

O the respondents to this question, .indicated that academic staf usually provide theincentive or design and development o new practicalcoursework experiments and laboratories. Only in aew cases is the process complemented by input rom

and laboratory managers/technical staf. O the respondents to this question, . indicated thatacademic staf members are typically responsible orthis unction, and respondents . indicated

that laboratory managers and technical staf aretypically responsible. Cross-tabulation reveals that respondents nominated both academic andtechnical staf. Rarely, executives also commentedthat postgraduate students are involved in theimplementation process.

5.2.2 Budget authority

Recalling that organisational structures varysignificantly between universities, it was interestingto determine who allocates budgets or authorises the

expenditure o unds or laboratories. The questionwas phrased so that the organisational structurewas appropriately reflected with respect to theinterviewees position.

Interestingly, over nominated the head oschool to be the decision-maker. No significantdiference could be ound between larger and smalleruniversities, and the same statement applies to thoseew cases where the dean was nominated as beingresponsible or laboratory unding allocations. It wasrequently commented that the responsibility dependson whether the head o school receives a one-linebudget rom the dean, or whether the budget is already

EA. Who usuallyprovides the incentive

or design anddevelopmento new practicalcourseworkexperiments andlaboratories?

RESPONSES % OFCASES

N = 70

N Percent

Academic Staf . .

Laboratory managers,technical staf

. .

TOTAL 79 100.0% 112.9%

EA. Who istypically responsibleor the actual designand development opractical laboratoryexperiments and

classes?[implementation]

RESPONSES % OFCASESN = 70

N Percent

Academic Staf . .


. .

TOTAL 117 100.0% 167.1%

EA. Who decideson the budgetor courseworklaboratories in youraculty/school?

RESPONSES % OFCASESN = 70N Percent

Dean . .

Head o school/department

. .

TOTAL 74 100.0% 105.7%

technical staf. This leads to the conclusion that, roman executive perspective, academics are seen as themain drivers in the development o experiments orcoursework. In cases rom diferent universities, itwas commented the school/aculty executive directlyinfluences the development o experiments throughpolicy measures, or example by mandating at least practical sessions per engineering subject with nosubstitution by simulations permitted.

Executives believe that the actual design anddevelopment o practical laboratory experimentsand classes is oten shared between academic staf

Table 4: Executive opinion on laboratory development initiative

Table 6: Executive opinion on laboratory budget authority

Table 5: Executive opinion on laboratory development implementation


25/77

page 17



structured. Occasionally, it was indicated that theresponsibility was shared in a committee or delegatedto the aculty manager rarely. In one case, laboratoryunding was even reported as competitive between allschools and decided on PVC level.

The decision about how the budget is applied tocoursework laboratories i.e. what experimentsare actually realised, or what equipment is beingpurchased is also believed to lie mainly with thehead o school, although obviously with noticeablymore consultation with other parties, especiallyacademic and technical staf. A requently quoted

activities, such as research. However, respondentswere able to provide a rough estimate, and theseranged rom $, to $,,, with a meano $, but a much lower median o $,,indicating a distribution with outliers at the top end o

the estimates. Six respondents expressed their budgetestimate in terms o a percentage o the entire aculty/school budget, and these percentages ranged rom to over with a median o .

All universities reporting expenditures over about$, or the past reporting period were involvedin major, one-of redevelopments o acilities orbuildings, and it was oten impossible to extractthe actual coursework-related component. Manyexecutives noted that the figure they provided wasuncharacteristically higher than the usual budgetdue to momentary unding e.g. special projects,

LEIF teaching grants, university-internal unding,and that the normal budget or laboratories would besignificantly lower. In a number o cases, executivescommented that laboratory-related expenses areusually not planned or at all and that allocationsare made based on priorities. These comments otenaligned with the expression o an overall lack ounding, not just or laboratories.

Interestingly, two senior executives rom diferentuniversities large and small who had recentlyassumed their positions stated that the respective

teaching laboratory acilities could be described asneglected, with virtually no investment or over adecade. Any budget allocated to laboratories wouldtypically be used or urgent and essential repairs, butnot or upgrades or new purchases.

Further comments were made in regard to eithercurrent or upcoming floor space charges at universitylevel, which many executives saw as a major threat toengineering laboratories. While some admitted thatthe available space was not always e ciently used,there was general consensus that floor-space chargescould potentially disadvantage engineering over otheraculties or disciplines, i not airly implemented bythe university. Several interviewees commented thatdecision-makers at university-level may sometimeslack insight into the critical role o engineeringlaboratories, other than as a sole necessity or courseaccreditation. This opinion usually aligned withinstitutions where other disciplines attracted a higherawareness and thereore higher investment thanengineering.

It must be clearly stated that the interpretationsofered in this section are solely based on the

EA. Who decideshow the budget isapplied?

RESPONSES % OFCASESN = 69N Percent

Dean . .Head o school/department

. .

Academic Staf . .


. .

School manager . .

TOTAL . .

procedure or the involvement o individuals other

than the decision maker is the invitation o proposals,mainly rom academic staf, which are competitivelyassessed by a committee. The cases where the dean isimmediately engaged in the application o the budgetare strongly aligned with an involvement in thebudget allocation EA..

5. Funding and laboratory development

Having investigated the unding process, the surveyendeavoured to collect data on actual dollar figures oexpenditure or coursework laboratory support,excluding salaries:

EA. Would you be able to provide only a rough estimate

or the current budget or coursework laboratory related

expenses, excluding general computing acilities i.e.

purchase, maintenance, and upgrade o laboratory hardware

and equipment, or teaching purposes only?

Due to the complex and sensitive nature o thequestion, interviewees were given several options torespond with, or to opt out o this question altogether.Regularly, interviewees ound it challenging toseparate expenditure or teaching purposes rom other

Table 7: Executive opinion on laboratory budget allocation


26/77

page 18

comments made by executives and do notconstitute observations or judgments by the surveyadministrator. Also, within the scope o this work, theanalysis above aims to identiy issues rather than toreport on specific achievements.

5. Budget and floorspace trends

Along with sta ng, the two other critical resourcesthat have an immediate efect on engineeringlaboratories are budget and floorspace. The surveyattempted to uncover any obvious trends by askingexecutives the ollowing question:

EA. In the last years and the last years, the budget or equipmentpurchase, maintenance and upgrade andthe floorspace available to undergraduate

coursework laboratories has:

IncreasedRemained

UnchangedDecreased

Do notknow/preer

not to sayN

Budgetlast years

last years

Floorspacelast years

last years

From these responses alone, one may conclude that

both the budget and the floorspace situations arecurrently satisactory, since both resources wereeither steady or have increased in the opinion omost executives. A closer look reveals that usuallysmall budget increases have occurred more recently years, and that floorspace was more likely to havedecreased recently than over the last years. Itshould also be noted that the number o executivesable to comment on the decade-long period wassomewhat smaller than or the shorter term.

This question attracted a considerable numbero qualiying comments. In particular, executivesreported increased unding or new building projectsrom ederal and/or university level since , whichmay be indirectly linked to the Governments responseto the Global Financial Crisis. As many as o thesurveyed universities reported current or virtuallycomplete building projects or engineering disciplinesalone, oten on a large scale. Alongside research,coursework laboratories are also expected to benefitrom this development, including new or upgradedequipment. The latter actor is reflected in the budgettrend, with equipment expenditure o several milliondollars in one case. However, executives were quick to

point out that these investments are rarely seen; oncein years, as one participant said about his school.

Despite this, it must not be overlooked that laboratorybudgets have recently decreased or more than in

universities, and that out o respondents reporta recent decrease in laboratory floorspace orcoursework purposes. This realisation must beconnected with a more significant actor that is notreflected in Table : student enrolment trends. Thereis a report already available which has commented onrapidly increasing student numbers [], and Table extends those rises into the present time. Executives

rom major engineering universities report an

increase o in student numbers over years, ...a-old increase over years, and over the last years, and that student numbers have doubled overthe past years, but none o our resources have keptup.

Many participants commented that student numbershad virtually increased beyond capacity, whilefloorspace stayed the same, which has directly led tothe reduction in laboratory sessions in some cases.With very ew exceptions due to program and acultyrestructures, engineering student numbers haveincreased at all universities. Consequently, the labelfloorspace unchanged has actually been transormedinto a per capita decrease o floorspace, especiallyover the past years. With rising enrolmentsexpected over the coming years by many universities,this will result in a urther decrease o the real labfloorspace available per student. While pedagogicand organisational remedies are currently underdevelopment in some cases, the seriousness othis outcome is urther supported by the executiveresponses to question A. next page.

Table 8: Executive opinion on laboratory budgets and floorspace. Budget trends can be considered inflation-adjusted


27/77

page 19



Another actor, which will be revisited in Chapter, is the increased competition or space romlaboratory-based research activities at a number ouniversities. Some cases have been reported whereteaching laboratory acilities were converted into

research space without compensation; however,whether this is possible depends on the priorities andpolicies o each individual university.

5.5 Overall resources

Flowing thematically rom resourcing trends is thecritical sel-assessment o available laboratory budget,floorspace and technical sta ng. Assuring strictconfidentiality, executives were requested to give rankand unreserved answers which appropriately reflectthe current situation, summarised in Table .

Almost hal o all executives described the hardwareand equipment budget as being at least somewhatunderresourced, while considered floorspace asunder-resourced. Most critically, technical sta nglevels were reported as under-resourced by oexecutives.

A urther analysis revealed that responses are notalways consistent across larger universities andvary rom one particular discipline to another. Thisindicated possible discrepancies in the internalallocation o resources. Besides, there is little

correlation between the ratings in each category; asaculties or schools with ully su cient or adequateunding and support staf numbers may still suferrom severe lack o space, which has usually beenreported in metropolitan locations In some areas,there is su cient money or new equipment, butno space or it.. Conversely, a number o regionaluniversities appear to be less space-restricted inrelation to student numbers, but lack unding orequipment and sometimes also technical support staf.

Again, this question attracted a lot o qualiyingcomments. Most commonly, participants who haddescribed resources as currently adequate mentionedthat rising student numbers would certainly lead toa classification as under-resourced in the very near

uture. This particularly appears to afect final-yearstudents, who have a higher demand on virtuallyall resources: on unding and floorspace or theirfinal-year projects, and also on staf support, some owhich is provided by technical staf.

It must also be mentioned that where unding wasavailable, some universities have taken measures toremedy some o the shortalls through innovative,but yet-to-be-proven changes in the operational andpedagogic delivery o laboratories. As this topic isbeyond the scope o this report, only some examplesare provided here.

In one case, a dean commented sel-critically thatfloorspace is very scarce here, but it is not alwayse ciently used either. Subsequently, flexiblelaboratories were introduced to this large institutionand orced major changes. A school executive atanother large institution reported that the runningo [mechanical] labs has been rationalised andthat no more big and expensive equipment wouldbe used in coursework. This is closely aligned withanother aculty-wide, large-scale approach that sawmost teaching laboratories converted rom main-

tenance-intensive to instruction-intensive throughvery significant capital investment in engineeringbench-top models and flexible learning spaces,resulting in a significant reduction o technical stafnumbers. A head o school rom a regional universitycommented that academics and technical staf havebeen very creative in building good labs, despiteshortages in equipment unding. Finally, severalexecutives especially rom very large universitiesvoiced concern that student-to-demonstrator ratioshad recently risen to unhealthy levels, and that the

EA. How would you describe the ollowing resourcesallocated to your coursework laboratory acilities, inrelation to meeting your desired pedagogic objectives?

FullySu cient

Adequate Somewhatunder-resourced

Severelyunder-resourced

N

Hardware and equipment budget

Floorspace

Sta ng

Table 9: Executive opinion on laboratory resourcing


28/77

page 20

overall quality o demonstrators had oten severelydeclined due to lack o qualified staf a topic urtherexplored in Chapter .

With respect to technical laboratory support staf,

respondents commented that it is increasingly di cultto find qualified and versatile technical staf who cancontribute on both technical and pedagogic levels,and possibly also to research e.g. proessional stafin technical roles. Employees with such versatileskills were highly valued by executives, but it wasalso acknowledged that employing large numbers oull-time laboratory support staf was an expensiveasset, hence postgraduate students were the usualchoice as demonstrators less so at smaller, regionaluniversities. Consequently technical staf solelyemployed or maintenance and/or workshop taskshave been reduced across many, mostly larger

universities

In summary, across all categories, between abouthal and two-thirds o executives believe that theirlaboratories are under-resourced, which is in starkcontrast to the crucial role that they attributed tolaboratories in questions A. and A.. Rising studentnumbers aggravate the shortages, and reportedlysome remedies still need to provide proo o theirefectiveness.

A urther question investigated whether aculties and

schools take specific action to address any such issues,i applicable Table .

In view o the circumstances described above, it seemssurprising that only o all interviewees repliedwith Yes. However, it was requently commentedthat executive committees were certainly striving orexpedient cost saving measures everywhere, but thatlaboratories had not been explicitly singled out. Themost serious challenge posed the more e cient useo floorspace, which was oten orced upon aculties

and schools by the university. One executive pointedout that better e ciency should not be equalised withgeneral cost cutting.

5.6 Outsourcing and outlook

The final two general questions relate to a specificapproach demonstrating how some o the issues couldbe addressed hypothetically. We also challengedexecutives to justiy laboratory expenditure in relationto the desired outcome.

EA. Have you ever considered,or would you consider, outsourcingsome o your practical classes to acommercial, or-profit company?

Frequency

We have done this in the past, orwe are currently doing it

We are currently considering it

We have not considered it in thepast, but we may in the near uture

We have never considered it andwe do not plan to in the nearuture

TOTAL 74 100.0%

Yes No N

EA. Is it a declared goalo a aculty or school strategicplan to increase expendituree ciency or runningor maintaining practicallaboratory classes?

Table summarises the responses to the actual orhypothetical commercial outsourcing o practical

classes. It was clarified to the interviewee thatthis question explicitly excludes cross-sectorcollaboration e.g. the use o VET acilities andthe sharing o laboratories with other universities,only the outsourcing o classes to commercialtraining companies, or example. Almost hal o therespondents see laboratories and their associatedpedagogy as a core coursework component thatmust absolutely be preserved within universities.Conversely, believe that outsourcing could beconsidered either currently or in the uture, while already have some experience with the outsourcing olaboratories.

Interestingly, o the executives with past experience, commented that outsourcing turned out more costlythan beore, and one commented that it was a poorexperience overall. Besides, it was pointed out thatthis option may not even be available in most regionalareas. The only area where respondents regularlyreported a good experience was in the outsourcingo printed circuit board manuacturing to overseascompanies.

Table 10: Executive opinion on laboratory expenditure efficiency

Table 11: Executive opinion on laboratory outsourcing


29/77

page 21



Other comments included that outsourcing may beworth considering, but only with academic controlover the delivery, only i the student experience isimproved over what is currently available, and that itmay actually be a sensible proposal, i it turns out to

be more e cient without urther specification. Ocourse there were also certain concerns with respect tothe universitys reputation, but collaboration with theVET sector was generally supported.

Finally, the respondents were asked to choose onestatement that best reflects their personal opinionabout resourcing teaching laboratories Table .

More than three-quarters o respondents chose thethird statement, reinorcing their belie that evenunder di cult circumstances, the importance olaboratories or engineering education must not be

compromised. Still, or o executives, the ulfilmento ormal requirements accreditation was the mainmotivating actor. It is particularly interesting thatthis view was more pronounced at higher executivelevel, with PVCs and engineering deans outo choosing this option. There was no significantdiference between large and small, metropolitan andregional universities with respect to the choice o anystatement.

5.7 Summary

Part A o the executive survey has provided bothquantitative and qualitative data to firmly establish anumber o acts in regard to engineering courseworklaboratories. Several challenges that engineeringexecutives are conronted with have also beenidentified, with respect to the scope o this work. Inparticular, the survey has uncovered a significantdiscrepancy between long and short-term trends inlaboratory resourcing and the subjective assessmento these resources, or the purpose o deliveringpractical classes. Aspects rom Part B o the executivesurvey are included in Chapter o this report.

6 Academic Perspective

The questionnaire employed to survey the responses

rom academic staf was designed or participants withteaching responsibilities in subjects with a practicalcomponent. The comprehensive question setmainly ocussed on pedagogic aspects and tookapproximately minutes to complete, includingrelated discussions. A total o questionnaireswere completed, and within the scope o this report,a specific subset o significant responses has beenselected to support important findings. Due to thebreadth and individuality o all engineering-relatedsubjects taught in Australian universities, the datapresented below can only be exemplary, but obviouslynot completely representative.

6. Academic activities by discipline andmajor

The first section o the academic questionnaire aimedto establish a snapshot o the respondents activities,such as disciplinary a liation Table and thesubjects/majors involved in Table . Subjects wereonly included in the survey i they incorporatedpractical laboratory work, but excluding entirelycomputer-based sessions.

Participants were able to nominate pre-defineddisciplines or to add their own. It can be inerred romthe results that on average, academics are involvedin close to three disciplines. The most commonlynominated discipline was electronics engineering., ollowed by electrical . and mechanicalengineering .. There was a very strongcorrelation between the nominations o electrical andelectronics engineering, which explains the highcombined percentage o cases .

Since the spread o nominated disciplines is not very

EA. I you had to comment on the aculty/school expenditure or coursework laboratories, whichsingle one o the ollowing three statements would you most agree with?

Frequency

Providing practical laboratory classes is an essential requirement or receiving ormal courseaccreditation by En

Survey of Labs in Australia

Documents

Transcript of Survey of Labs in Australia