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Message from the Chair
Get PDFThis May I will be giving a talk on the “State of Engineering Design Graphics in the United States” to the Japan Society for Graphics Science in Tokyo. While planning for this talk, I began thinking about where our division has come since I joined in 1987 and how the types of presentations have become more diverse. I know the division has had a rich history dating back to the 1940’s, but I believe developments in technology over the last three decades have forced us to change at an exponential rate. The first midyear conference I attended was in Austin, Texas in January of 1987. I was almost 24 years old and beginning my second semester teaching at NC State. I was naïve and easily persuaded to indulge in the Austin night-life by my veteran colleagues (thanks John Crow, John Freeman, Garland Hilliard, Bill Ross, and Bill VanderWall). Austin was where I was first introduced to the folks who would shape who I am professionally. Some have been a consistent influence, while others I only remember seeing a few times over my career. Since then many others in the divisions have been a big part of who I am. I pulled out the agenda for that conference today, and skimmed over the articles again. I was surprised to see that almost every one of the papers addressed some issue related to computer graphics. It was obvious that this was a time when we were all trying to figure out how computer graphics would influence our profession. Topics included computer graphics laboratory layout, computer graphics hardware, integration of CAD into freshman courses, and 3D graphics. Many of the papers involved picks and clicks (if I may borrow a term from my colleague Nate Hartman). Ron Barr and Davor Juricic presented a paper that was a little more philosophical. They speculated that the “reign of this 3D CADD” would only last about 5 years, and that by “1995 we could expect a new cornerstone in the development of the procedures available to the designer.” I think they were right. Constraint-based CAD has definitely changed the tools available to designers. They also predicted that 10 years down the road we would still have the name Engineering Design Graphics, but that the topics taught would not be the same. They predicted our introductory courses would revolve around “three-dimensional detail design and StereoCAD literacy.” Here we are 20 years later, and I still believe we are involved in three-dimensional design. I am not sure if StereoCAD literacy is an integral part of what we all do. One might argue that spatial literacy is what we are all about. I know some in our division have investigated how stereoscopic technologies and virtual reality environments can change the way people visualize and design. What are we doing now? Today I also pulled out the proceedings from the 61st Annual Midyear in San Diego this past January. There were a couple papers that mention something about computer graphics in the title. There were presentations about approaches to solving visual communications problems, civic engagement, design strategies in a sophomore level aerodynamics class, online questioning strategies, a revised Bloom’s taxonomy, image-based lighting, interactive information design learner-centered experience, utilizing legacy CAD data, visual data mining operations, collaborative design, a phenomenological examination of spatial ability, 3D CAD and STEM education, accreditation vs. program ... review, developing 3D spatial abilities among K-12 students, and non-parametric statistics. Wow! What a difference. Are all of these folks involved in Engineering Design Graphics? Probably not, but the ones who are no longer emphasize the tool as much as what we do with the tool. What do all of these papers have in common? I think all of the authors are folks involved with graphics in some kind of design environment. They care about what they teach and reflect on how they teach. Does it matter if our division is no longer such a homogeneous group? To some people it might, but I have to say Jon Duff hit the nail on the head when in San Diego he said, “The Engineering Design Graphics Division has been successful because of our ability to change.” What will the presentations look like 20 more years down the road? I don’t know if I can even imagine at this point, but I’m sure we’ll have fun finding out
Message from the Chair - Online? Are you kidding me?
No full textI fell in love with engineering graphics in 1975 when I was exposed to it as part of an industrial arts course in junior high. I took four years of drafting in high school, and then went to North Carolina State University to study mechanical engineering. I can vividly remember sitting in my dorm room doing dynamics homework during my junior year thinking, “I don’t want to do this anymore!” I was not doing graphics, and I could not see myself doing calculus the rest of my life. After a little bit of research, I found a program in the College of Education that prepared individuals to teach at the post-secondary level. At that time I could not see myself teaching. I had worked part time at Measurements Group for a year and Siemens-Switchgear Division for three years doing specifications drafting. I really wanted to graduate and begin working fulltime. But something happened during the fall of 1985 that changed my plans – I completed my student teaching assignment. I taught two sections of Engineering Graphics I at NC State and discovered the joys of being in the classroom. The next fall I was hired to teach five sections of the introductory engineering graphics course, and I have been there since. Although I have not seen as many changes as some of you old-timers, I did start out on the drafting board. My first job was creating PC board layouts – ink on mylar and lettering with a Leroy lettering set. Over the last 30 years, engineering graphics’ standards have not changed much. The tools that we use have changed drastically. We have all had to adapt to changes in CAD software – 2D, 3D wireframe, solid modeling, and now constraint-based CAD and PDM systems. The Internet has also influenced not only what we plan to do but what our students expect us to do. In a rush to make administrators and students happy, many of us have or are planning to create online graphics courses. Will this work? Will the courses be just as good as face-to-face courses? How will we evaluate sketching exercises and other student work? Do we even need to worry about sketching? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I have some thoughts. I believe my best teaching occurs when I have about 10 students in a face-to-face course. This allows me to really get to know what each student can do, and I have plenty of time to give each one meaningful feedback on their work. Fantasy over! Not many administrators are going to let us get away with teaching only 10 students. Students are also expecting something different. Some want to be able to review a lecture in a podcast format while working out at the gym. There are now many online tools available that allow us to supplement what we do in the classroom. These include both synchronous and asynchronous tools such as streaming media, discussion boards, online quizzing, whiteboards, audio/video, and chatrooms. They all seem great, but are they better for our students? I am sure we all have our opinions. I know we have had heated discussions here at NC State about these technologies. If you are also experiencing these issues, I would like to encourage you to conduct research that will address these questions. Instead of blindly jumping into some of these technologies, let’s design some good studies that will provide meaningful information to the division concerning online instruction
The Effects of Adding Coordinate Axes to a Mental Rotations Task in Measuring Spatial Visualization Ability in Introductory Undergraduate Technical Graphics Courses
Get PDFThe purpose of this research study was to determine whether the presence of coordinate axes in a test of spatial visualization ability affects scores and response times on a mental rotations task for students enrolled in undergraduate introductory graphic communications classes. The theoretical framework of the study is based on Paivio's dual-coding theory (1991). Coordinate axes were added to the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test - Visualization of Rotations (PSVT) to determine whether the presence of the axes was a sufficient contextual cue for improving scores and response times. Eighty-one undergraduate students enrolled in introductory graphic communications classes during the 1997 fall semester completed a computer version of the PSVT. The instrument consisted of two parts (each part containing 30 items). Coordinate axes were added to Part 2 of instrument for the experiment group. Item responses, response times, and demographic data were collected within the instrument. The addition of coordinate axes had no significant effect on scores when differences were examined between the experimental and control groups. It appears, however, that the addition of the axes eliminated gender difference on the PSVT. There was no significant mean score difference between males and females on Part 2 of the PSVT for the experimental group. Analyses of response times indicated that more time was required to process the additional information present with the coordinate axes. There appears to be a significant learning factor that occurred during the study. Mean score increased significantly between parts 1 and 2 of the PSVT for both the experimental and control groups. Response times decreased significantly for both groups
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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