Idea generation in biomedical engineering courses using Design Heuristics

ABSTRACT

With increasing demand for improved medical equipment and healthcare, next-generation biomedical engineers need strong design skills. Equipping biomedical engineering students with tools for idea generation and development can increase student design success. Design Heuristics are an ideation tool developed through empirical studies of product designs. While identified in the mechanical engineering space, Design Heuristics may be applicable in biomedical engineering design. In our study, we implemented a Design Heuristics session during upper-level undergraduate and first-year graduate biomedical engineering design courses. We examined the applicability of Design Heuristics within individual and team concept generation contexts. The findings demonstrated that biomedical engineering students were able to use Design Heuristics to generate multiple concepts, and that initial concepts produced using Design Heuristics were carried over into final team design. The results support the applicability of Design Heuristics to student idea generation in biomedical engineering design.     

“There is a fine line between one’s personal life and professional one”: handling employee sexual harassment on facebook from the victim’s perspective

Sexual harassment is an interdisciplinary topic in organizational research that has received increased attention with the rise of the #MeToo movement. The online environment has complicated the experiences of employees who are sexually harassed by a coworker. One particular medium where online sexual harassment occurs is on social networking sites (SNS), such as Facebook. This research report examined how victims of sexual harassment believe organizations should handle online sexual harassment. We qualitatively coded 153 responses to the question, “What else do you think employers could do to handle sexual harassment on Facebook?” Our findings demonstrated a clear tension between whether harassment on Facebook is a private concern of the employee or a public concern of the employer/organization. Some victims advocating keeping work friends off of Facebook, while others suggesting having open door policies, conversations, and/or trainings. The difference in these approaches illuminates how the victims grappled with the public/private tension, and whether the organization should be made aware of their situations or if victims should handle it themselves. Implications of this research suggest that the blurred boundaries between employee face-to-face and online sexual harassment should continue to be explored, including why victims report harassment and to whom they report it.     

Preparing the Next Generation of Educational Measurement Specialists: A Call for Programs With an Integrated Scope and Sequence

The field of educational measurement has evolved considerably since the first doctoral programs were established. In response, programs have typically tacked on courses that address newly developed theories, methods, tools, and techniques. As our review of current programs evidences, this approach produces artificial distinctions among topics and techniques that are in fact a tightly coupled whole. This position paper advocates a redesign of the scope and sequence for doctoral programs focused on the preparation of the next generations of educational measurement specialists; a redesign that reflects the full life‐cycle of instrument development and use.