Upon graduation from an undergraduate institution, engineering graduates are expected to have a baselevel skill in technical skills related to their discipline. Teaching technical skills comes naturally to engineering programs as the conceptual understanding of the material form the foundation of engineering ability. However, engineering graduates also are expected to have a baselevel of professional skills, which are more subjective in nature and do not have a standardized approach for teaching or assessing them at the undergraduate level. An investigation into current perceptions of professional skills by relevant parties is an initial step in providing more structure to professional skills education in engineering departments and courses. This dissertation explored the perceptions of engineering students, engineering faculty, and practicing engineers when it comes to professional skills. Eight professional skills were investigated: collaboration, communication, ethical considerations, inclusivity, leadership, professional judgment, task management, and teamwork. Surveys were administered and interviews were conducted with students. Statistical analysis on survey data indicated that how students rate their peers’ abilities aligns with the perceptions that practicing engineers have of student abilities with both groups’ means for each skill be lower than how the students rated their own ability to a significant level (p < 0.001 for six of eight skills). Student interviews yielded potential operational definitions for professional skills, which can be validated in future work. Interviews also gave insight into how various student experiences aid in professional skills development. Recommendations for methods to improve professional skills education in engineering curricula were provided for each professional skill.

While research has been conducted on social media, few comparisons have been made in regards to the privacy issues that exist within the most common social media networks, such as Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. Most research has concentrated on technical issues with the networks and on the effects of social media in fields such as medicine, law, and science. Although the effects on these fields are beneficial to the people related to them, few studies have shown how everyday users are affected by the use of social media. Social media networks affect the privacy of users because the networks control what happens to user contact information, posts, and other delicate disclosures that users make on those networks. Social media networks also have the ability to sync with phone and tablet applications. Because the use of these applications requires additional contact information from users, social media networks are entrusted with keeping user information secure. This paper analyzes newspaper articles, magazine articles, and research papers pertaining to social media to determine what effects social media has on the user's privacy and how much trust should be placed in social media networks such as Facebook. It provides a comprehensive view of the most used social media networks in 2012 and offers methods and suggestions for users to help protect themselves against privacy invasion.

There have been numerous studies conducted concerning how various businesses, management groups and library science organizations address the preservation of their history, the development of goals, the evaluation of those goals and how these lead to the positive development of their organization. However, to date, the researcher has been unable to locate research that has been conducted to assess how Student Affairs associations preserve their history and how they evaluate the effectiveness of their goals or even if they do evaluate their goals. Based on research conducted through in-depth interviews, review of the data raises questions regarding the way SACSA is attempting to accomplish the current goals, how the goals were established, how that information is disseminated and how the history of the association is being maintained. The membership voiced clearly that there is a conflict between member?s perceptions. With the association not utilizing past reports and findings from other committees, such as the Blue Ribbon Task Force, only confirms the need for better communication and follow through. Many of the past SACSA committee studies have yielded the same results as my study. My results further substantiate and fortify the fact that the association is not addressing the reports or perceived needs of the association. A number of recommendations are offered to improve the preservation of SACSA?s history as well as procedures that provide checks and balances to ensure that whatever the membership is communicating that it is being followed through and addressed.

Donmoyer (1990) suggested that knowledge gained from our own experiences or that of others may be applied to the improvement of practice. The purpose of this study was to provide insight into the experiences of a first-time online facilitator. The research question for this study was: How does a first-time facilitator understand the process of delivering instruction in an online environment? A case study design was applied to this research. The researcher/participant was the case under study in the context of the delivery of online instruction. The researcher who was also the online instructional facilitator experienced the process of delivering online instruction for the first time. The use of this method provided a first-hand perspective of the experiences of an online facilitator. The study was conducted in two phases. During Phase I, the researcher/participant participated in a train-the-trainer program that was delivered using the Blackboard® learning management system. During Phase II, the researcher/participant facilitated an online professional development session created during the training. Data were collected from a variety of sources, including journaling, interviews with a master trainer and other online facilitators, and analysis of course materials and completed assignments. Three themes emerged from the data. The themes were: (a) time, (b) adherence to standards, and (c) absence of physical presence. Recommendations included: (a) alignment of training and evaluation with professional development and content standards, (b) awarding of credit based on demonstrations of learning and student achievement, (c) facilitator awareness of non-instructional responsibilities, (d) training and support for the efficient use of technology to manage administrative and support tasks, (e) enforcement of completion deadlines, (f) provision of feedback on assignments, (g) implementation of additional opportunities for collaboration, (h) participant and facilitator awareness of time and paper needed for learning and record-keeping tasks, (i) training for participants without demonstrated technology proficiency, (j) implementation of a blended training approach, and (k) investigation of web-based publications for use in the delivery of online professional development.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.