Understanding the use of paper and online logbooks for final year undergraduate engineering projects

Manish Malik*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

    413 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    In industry an engineer is often required to keep a logbook for recording developments within projects. In higher education, logbooks are a commonly used tool thought to be one that encourages active independent learning and reflective thinking. In School of Engineering, at University of Portsmouth, paper and more recently online logbooks have been in use for recording work for final year projects and project based learning tasks. The work presented here benefits from a unique opportunity within the School of Engineering, where online logbooks alongside traditional paper based logbooks are being used within final year projects. A recent cohort of students (N=127) on ENG600 project module was given the option, through their Supervisors, to use paper logbooks and or online logbooks for recording their work. This work aims to investigate the use of both paper and online logbooks. A mix of Qualitative Research methods and quantitative techniques will be used in this project. The use of content analysis will provide an insight into student reflections and their motivations for using their logbook. Furthermore focus groups, involving live editing of documents in an individual and collaborative fashion, will be used to gather more data for analysis. Quantitative methods (questionnaire, analytics and quantitative content analysis) will also be used in this study. When this work is completed, it will provide guidance and comparison on using the two types of logbooks, backed by knowledge of student motivations and approaches.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publication2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Proceedings
    PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
    Number of pages4
    ISBN (Electronic)978-1-4799-3922-0
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 19 Feb 2015
    Event2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference - Madrid, Spain
    Duration: 22 Oct 201425 Oct 2014
    https://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/conferencedetails/index.html?Conf_ID=21181

    Conference

    Conference2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference
    Country/TerritorySpain
    CityMadrid
    Period22/10/1425/10/14
    Internet address

    Keywords

    • Capstone projects
    • Enginee's notebook
    • Final year projects
    • Online logbook
    • Project supervision

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