Telematics Education I: Teaching, Learning and Assessment at Postgraduate Level

Abstract

In the context of recent developments in the Department of Computing, Communications Technology and Mathematics at London Metropolitan University, telematics describes the discipline resulting from the coming together of computing, communications technology, electronics, multimedia and information technology. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to outline the research and development projects undertaken by the Telematics Research Group. Secondly, to describe our new MSc programme with its dual pathways of digital communication networks and data communications and industrial applications. Thirdly, to discuss the group's approach to teaching, learning and assessing our postgraduate students who are studying telematics-related subjects.Engineering education at modern universities in the UK has been in continuous development particularly since the late 1980s when polytechnics became universities. 1-6 Telematics is associated with the electronic information storage, exchange and interpretation covering the wide areas of computing, electronics, robotics, transport, healthcare, information technology, distance and flexible learning, libraries, language translation and communications. 7 However, within the context of recent expansion in the former School of Communications Technology and Mathematical Sciences, now renamed the Department of Computing, Communications Technology and Mathematics (CCTM) at London Metropolitan University, Telematics describes the discipline resulting from the coming together of computing, communications technology, multimedia, electronics and information technology.London Metropolitan University is a newly formed university resulting from the merger of the former University of North London and London Guildhall University in August 2002. 8 The Department of CCTM offers a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses in computer networking, electronics and communications engineering, electronics, information systems development, internet application development, IT consultancy, IT usability, multimedia systems, software engineering, computer science, computing and information systems and CAD. The MSc programme in communications was launched in September 2001 with pathways in digital communication networks and data communications and industrial applications.The Telematics Research Group at the Department of CCTM is heavily involved in industrially based telematics research projects such as development of a novel optical microphone, 9,10 investigation of noise in optical communication, 11,12 development of a novel high-speed sensing system for colour recognition, 13,14 development of novel optical devices, 15 investigation of economical image sensors, 16 by guest on July 23, 2015 ije.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Miniproject-Based Learning as an Effective Tool for Teaching Computer Networks to Graduate Students

“…Computer networks are described in many textbooks (Comer, 2004;Forouzan, 2007;Kurose & Ross, 2005), and project-based learning is discussed extensively in the computer education literature (Cassara, 2006;Dempsey, Anakwa, Huggins, & Irwin, 2003;Macias-Guarasa, Montero, San-Segundo, Araujo, & Nieto-Taladriz, 2006;Mese, 2006). Vaezi-Nejad et al (2005) outline a number of approaches to teaching, learning and assessing postgraduate students who are studying telematics. Sarkar (2006) describes various hands-on laboratory exercises suitable for undergraduate computer networking courses.…”