Open access matters

The Australasian Journal of Engineering Education operates under the auspices of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, which is a technical society of Engineers Australia. The Journal publishes research of Australasian and of international significance. Of papers published since Taylor & Francis has been publishing the Journal, the open access paper with the highest number of downloads has more than 11 times the number of downloads of any paper that is not open access. Due to publishing agreements, the majority of the papers that have been published open access and have been written by authors in Europe.

In 2022 Taylor & Francis and the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) signed a highly significant 3-year agreement. Participating institutions can combine subscription to access papers with open access publication. It is reasonable to expect that by negotiating such agreements with publishers CAUL has dramatically increased the readership and therefore impact of papers by authors at Australian universities – an outcome directly aligned with the aims of the Journal.

1. Best paper volume 26

The Best Paper in the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education Volume 26, announced at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education Conference 2022, is awarded to Justin L. Hess, Sharon Miller, Steven Higbee, Grant A. Fore, and Joseph Wallace for the paper titled ‘Empathy and ethical becoming in biomedical engineering education: a mixed methods study of an animal tissue harvesting laboratory’ (Hess et al. 2021). The Australasian Association for Engineering Education has supported open access for the paper.

2. Papers in this issue

This second issue in Volume 27 of the Australasian Journal of Engineering Education presents four papers, and words in memoriam of our late friend and colleague, Robin King.

Danowitz and Beddoes (2023) in the United States, report in ‘How the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped demographic variation in mental health among diverse engineering student populations’ that differences between the mental health of marginalised and non-marginalised students diminished during the pandemic. This is a finding that could be helpful in moving forward rather than reverting directly to old practices as we emerge from fully online learning.

Many associate deans academic have grappled with questions about how to assess students’ development of graduate attributes. In ‘Engineering graduate attribute attainment measurement models’, Ngu et al. (2023) in Malaysia, compare approaches to assessing graduate attributes. Alas, there are no short cuts. The authors conclude that it is necessary to specifically assess graduate attributes rather than using a student’s overall course achievement. Additionally, they compare assessment of graduate attributes throughout a course with assessment of graduate attributes in final subjects only.

In ‘Influences on U.S. undergraduate engineering students’ perceptions of ethics and social responsibility: findings from a longitudinal study’, Howland et al. (2022) continue the series of papers on ethics in engineering education in this Journal, building on the special issue on ethics in Volume 26 (Chance, 2021). Surprisingly, in their longitudinal study involving students completing three questionnaires, despite a sample of 226 students from four universities, no interaction effects were seen between most curricular and co-curricular activities and the students’ perceptions of ethics and social responsibility.

Fluid dynamics is a field in which students often find it challenging to visualise the concepts. In their Australian study ‘Developing an Interactive Digital Reality Module for Simulating Physical Laboratories in Fluid Mechanics’, Salehi et al. (2022) report using virtual reality to simulate and complement physical laboratories in the fluid mechanics.

In the final words of the issue, Hargreaves (2022) recognises the extraordinary life of Robin King, who inspired many and who contributed tirelessly and expertly to engineering education and higher education nationally and internationally.

3. Editorial team update

Ray Eaton has stepped down from the Editorial Team. He provided the Team with extensive experience in engineering education leadership, and I thank him for supporting the Journal as an Associate Editor.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to the Editorial Team, the Advisory Committee, all reviewers, and the authors. The following researchers reviewed for the Journal during 2021 and agreed to be named: Madison Andrews, Diana Bairaktarova, Paula Barco, Mackenzie Beckmon Sharbine, Robert Brennan, Samantha Brunhaver, Anita Campbell, Shannon Chance, Leonid Chechurin, Enda Crossin, Scott Daniel, Leslie Dawes, Rosalie Goldsmith, Andrea Goncher, Teresa Hattingh, Jacinta Johnny, Mirjam Jonkman, Robin King, David Knight, Siva Krishnan, Sulakshana Lal, Elyssebeth Leigh, Pavel Livotov, Michael Loui, Ben Lutz, Melissa Marinelli, Diana Adela Martin, Andrea Mazzurco, Fatima Monteiro, Julie Myers, Madeline Polmear, Elena Prieto-Rodriguez, Senay Purzer, Laura Robinson, Anastasia Rynearson, Corey Schimpf, Jonathan Scott, David Shallcross, Jeremy Smith, Nicola Sochacka, Jolanta Szymakowski, Timo Tossavainen, James Trevelyan, Andrew Valentine, and Marcus Wilson. Griffith University is gratefully acknowledged for the photograph on the front cover of Volume 27.