La Sensibilisation et la Formation des Ingenieurs a la Maitrise de 1'lnformation specialisee Bilan d'une enquete conduite au niveau mondia

During the last 3 years, the Committee on Engineering Information of the World federation of engineering organizations (WFEO) did a large survey around the world, in order to better know the various experiences or realizations that exist in different engineering countries for the training of engineering students in the field of information management. The results of this work have been published by UNESCO in 1992. The present paper aims at presenting the main ideas of what could be an integrated approach of the introduction of information skills within engineering curriculae. He emphasizes some important concepts, such as the determination of information needs as a starting point or the role of information as a true pedagogical dimension. It presents also a general typology of the existing experiences, based on a two-dimensions analysis.     

The Strategic Management of Information: an Essential Element in the Training of Engineers∗

Why should engineering students be trained in the effective use of information sources? How can this education and training be integrated into the curriculum within technical universities? What role can information specialists and librarians play for training future engineers in this field of information mastery?

This paper introduces a debate which is largely developed in some countries, specially in France, within the French Grandes Ecoles     

Do Enhanced Communication Technologies Inhibit or Facilitate Self-regulated Learning?

The assumption tested here is whether the introduction of enhanced communication technologies in the form of high-speed broadband connectivity has removed or ameliorated any of the barriers to efficient and effective teaching and learning.ⁱ
Evidence is presented of how enhanced communication technologies have facilitated self-regulated learning. The examples are drawn from a range of subject areas in secondary (11–18 years) and primary (5–11 years) schools in the UK. Evidence is also presented of the new challenges to self-regulated learning that are created by enhanced communication technologies, for example, non-selective searching, plagiarism and issues of filtering.
Case studies were developed in 37 schools in the public sector, from rural and urban areas. Field workers conducted interviews with teachers and made classroom observations. Further interviews were also conducted with headteachers and ICT coordinators.
These studies showed some outstanding examples of students taking ownership of the learning process. However, these enhanced communication technologies raised concerns for school management, for teacher workloads and for the parents. These findings are not parochial. International comparisons indicate that we are studying a trans-national phenomenon. Similarly, costs and benefits of such technologies are not sector specific; the outcomes of this research can inform debate in higher education.     

Management Development for Libraries and Information Services in Latin America and the Caribbean

This paper reflects on the outcomes of a project undertaken in 1997/98, and examines issues relating to the development of the managerial expertise that underpins the library and information services in Latin America and the Caribbean. It reviews the results of surveys of schools of Librarianship and Information Sciences and a small selection of employers in the region, examining the congruence between the needs of the employers and provision by the schools and possible explanations for an apparent mutual lack of awareness of modern management techniques. Proposals for developing management expertise include: enhancing access to indigenous professional publications and teaching materials; developing a Hispanic language distance-learning programme for library managers; improving research into the job market and skills requirements; and developing an electronic network for communication between the schools. The role of international agencies and technical co-operation projects is assessed, and attention is drawn to the need for a more positive approach to overcome the issues surrounding the transfer of management know-how between different cultures.     

Passionate Utterance and Moral Education

This paper explores Stanley Cavell's notion of ‘passionate utterance’, which acts as an extension of/departure from (we might read it as both) J. L. Austin's theory of the performative. Cavell argues that Austin having made the revolutionary discovery that truth claims in language are bound up with how words perform, then gets bogged by convention when discussing what is done ‘by’ words. In failing to account for the less predictable, unconventional aspects of language, the latter therefore washes his hands of the expressive passionate aspects of speech. To ignore such aspects is to ignore an important moral dimension of language. Finally, I bring Cavell's approach to bear on the epistemic criterion, which Michael Hand applies in his paper ‘Should We Teach Homosexuality as a Controversial Issue?’. I suggest that Hand's approach, by failing to account for the linguistic dimension of truth and the expressive quality that accompanies this dimension, presents an overly narrow conception of moral education.     

La formation des ingénieurs et les sciences ‘molles’

SUMMARY

Depuis deux siècles, la formation des cadres supérieurs est basée soit sur le ‘paradigme comtien’ (ingéw;nieurs, primat de la mathématique), soit sur le ‘paradigme harvardien’ (managers, primal de I'èconomie). Qu';il s'agisse d'ecoles d'ingénieurs ou de business schools, les sciences ‘molles’ n'y sont que très peu enseignées. De plus en plus, cependant, les dirigeants d'entreprises rencontrent des problémes difficiles de nature psychologique ou sociologique. L'auteur propose de fonder la formation des ingénieurs à partir de l'épistémologie plutôt qu'à partir de la mathématique, l'épistémologie étant la discipline la plus appropriée pour l'initiation à la créativité et la seule réalisant la synthèse entre sciences “dures” et sciences ‘molles’.

For two centuries, the training of senior executives has been based either on the ‘Comtian paradigm’ (engineers at the leading edge of mathematics) or the ‘Harvard paradigm’ (managers at the leading edge of the economy). The ‘soft’ sciences are scarcely taught in engineering colleges or business schools. However, top managers are increasingly confronted with difficult problems of a psychological or sociological nature. The author suggests basing the training of engineers on epistemology rather than on mathematics, since epistemology is the most suitable discipline for stimulating creativity and the only one to achieve a synthesis of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sciences.