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Integrating real-world clients in a project management module. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
ZARB, M., YOUNG, T. and BALLEW, W. 2019. Integrating real-world clients in a project management module. In Proceedings of the 24th Innovation and technology in computer science education annual conference 2019 (ITiCSE 2019), 15-17 July 2019, Aberdeen, UK. New York: ACM Press [online], pages 329. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3304221.3325559

Graduates in CS are required to have a background in project management, but often this is taught as a theoretical module, with little "real-world" relevance. In this poster abstract, a Project Management module has been redeveloped around the idea o... Read More about Integrating real-world clients in a project management module..

Incorporating on-campus days in a graduate apprenticeship. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
YOUNG, T. and ZARB, M. 2019. Incorporating on-campus days in a graduate apprenticeship. In Proceedings of the 24th Innovation and technology in computer science education annual conference (ITiCSE 2019), 15-17 July 2019, Aberdeen, UK. New York: ACM Press [online], page 328. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3304221.3325567

Graduate Apprenticeships look to overcome the segregation of learning and working by integrating traditional education into the context of the work environment. This poster abstract looks to highlight the importance of peer interactions, specifically... Read More about Incorporating on-campus days in a graduate apprenticeship..

Challenges of delivering a graduate apprenticeship. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
YOUNG, T. and ZARB, M. 2019. Challenges of delivering a graduate apprenticeship. In Proceedings of the 24th Innovation and technology in computer science education annual conference (ITiCSE 2019), 15-17 July 2019, Aberdeen, UK. New York: ACM Press [online], page 327. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3304221.3325566

Graduate Apprenticeship degree programmes look to overcome the segregation of learning and working, by integrating traditional education into the context of the work environment. This poster abstract showcases a number of actions that were put into p... Read More about Challenges of delivering a graduate apprenticeship..

Embedding entrepreneurial skills within computing. (2019)
Book Chapter
ZARB, M., BRADY, C. and MCDERMOTT, R. 2019. Embedding entrepreneurial skills within computing. In H.T.M. Bui, H.T.M. Nguyen and D. Cole (eds.) Innovate higher education to enhance graduate employability: rethinking the possibilities. London: Routledge [online], chapter 11. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429058899-11

The Scottish government launched a nationwide drive to increase entrepreneurial skills, looking to become a “world-leading entrepreneurial and innovative nation". One of the key ambitions of this is to build an education system with entrepreneurship... Read More about Embedding entrepreneurial skills within computing..

Investigation into the use of learning agreements to enhance stakeholder engagement and promote self-efficacy in computing education. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
BALLEW, W., MCDERMOTT, R., ZARB, M., DANIELS, M. and CLEAR, T. 2018. Investigation into the use of learning agreements to enhance stakeholder engagement and promote self-efficacy in computing education. In Proceedings of the 48th Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Frontiers in education 2018 (FIE 2018): fostering innovation through diversity, 3-6 October 2018, San Jose, USA. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article ID 865138. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/fie.2018.8659138

We examine controversial issues surrounding the locus of control in the implementation of learning agreements, plans or contracts, in the context of the U.K. university-level Graduate Apprenticeship scheme. We begin by giving an account of the stakeh... Read More about Investigation into the use of learning agreements to enhance stakeholder engagement and promote self-efficacy in computing education..

Phronesis, authentic learning and the solution of open-ended problems in computer science. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
MCDERMOTT, R., ZARB, M., BALLEW, W., DANIELS, M. and ISOMÖTTÖNEN, V. 2018. Phronesis, authentic learning and the solution of open-ended problems in computer science. In Proceedings of the 48th Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Frontiers in education conference (FIE 2018): fostering innovation through diversity, 3-6 October 2018, San Jose, USA. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article ID 8658512. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/fie.2018.8658512

One of the most significant changes in Higher Education pedagogy that has occurred over the past fifty years is the idea that university students should not just be taught theoretical subject knowledge but should engage with practical aspects of thei... Read More about Phronesis, authentic learning and the solution of open-ended problems in computer science..

Why are we here? The educational value model (EVM) as a framework to investigate the role of students' professional identity development. (2019)
Conference Proceeding
NYLÉN, A., DANIELS, M., PEARS, A., CAJANDER, Å., MCDERMOTT, R. and ISOMÖTTÖNEN, V. 2018. Why are we here? The educational value nodel (EVM) as a framework to investigate the role of students’ professional identity development. In Proceedings of the 48th Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Frontiers in education conference 2018 (FIE 2018): fostering innovation through diversity, 3-6 October 2018, San Jose, USA. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article ID 8659055. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/fie.2018.8659055

Education can be seen as a preparation for a future profession, where some educational programs very clearly prepare their students for a certain profession, e.g. plumber, nurse and architect. The possible professions for students following education... Read More about Why are we here? The educational value model (EVM) as a framework to investigate the role of students' professional identity development..

Searching for global employability: can students capitalize on enabling learning environments? (2019)
Journal Article
ISOMÖTTÖNEN, V., DANIELS, M., CAJANDER, A., PEARS, A. and MCDERMOT, R. 2019. Searching for global employability: can students capitalize on enabling learning environments? ACM transactions on computing education, 19(2), article ID 11. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3277568

Literature on global employability signifies “enabling” learning environments where students encounter ill-formed and open-ended problems and are required to adapt and be creative. Varying forms of “projects,” co-located and distributed, have populat... Read More about Searching for global employability: can students capitalize on enabling learning environments?.

An analysis of pupil concerns regarding transition into higher education. (2018)
Conference Proceeding
ZARB, M. and SIEGEL, A.A. 2018. An analysis of pupil concerns regarding transition into higher education. In Cristea, A.I., Bittencourt, I.I. and Lima, F. (eds.) Revised selected papers from the proceedings of the 1st Higher education for all international workshop on social, semantic, adaptive and gamification techniques and technologies for distance learning (HEFA 2017): from challenges to novel technology-enhanced solutions, 20-24 March 2017, Maceió, Brazil. Communications in computer and information science, 832. Cham: Springer [online], pages 3-16. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97934-2_1

Transitioning to higher education is often a stressful experience, with incoming students facing similar issues year after year. This chapter presents two years of data collection regarding the concerns of Computing secondary school pupils when consi... Read More about An analysis of pupil concerns regarding transition into higher education..

An international investigation into student concerns regarding transition into higher education computing. (2018)
Conference Proceeding
ZARB, M., ALSHAIGY, B., BOUVIER, D., GLASSEY, R., HUGHES, J. and RIEDESEL, C. 2018. An international investigation into student concerns regarding transition into higher education computing. In Proceedings companion of the 23rd Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Innovation and technology in computer science education conference 2018 (ITiCSE 2018), 02-04 July 2018, Larnaca, Cyprus. New York: ACM [online], pages 107-129. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3293881.3295780

The experience of transitioning into and starting higher education is very much an individual one, with some applicants viewing the prospect of higher education as an unknown entity. For those who are first in their family or community to consider hi... Read More about An international investigation into student concerns regarding transition into higher education computing..

Modelling competencies for computing education beyond 2020: a research based approach to defining competencies in the computing disciplines. (2018)
Conference Proceeding
FREZZA, S., DANIELS, M., PEARS, A., CAJANDER, A., KANN, V., KAPOOR, A., MCDERMOTT, R., PETERS, A.-K., SABIN, M. and WALLACE, C. 2018. Modelling competencies for computing education beyond 2020: a research based approach to defining competencies in the computing disciplines. In Rossling, G. and Scharlau, B. (eds.) Proceedings companion of the 23rd Innovation and technology in computer science education annual conference 2018 (ITiCSE 2018), 02-04 July 2018, Larcana, Cyprus. New York: ACM [online], pages 148-174. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3293881.3295782

How might the content and outcomes of tertiary education programmes be described and analysed in order to understand how they are structured and function? To address this question we develop a framework for modelling graduate competencies linked to t... Read More about Modelling competencies for computing education beyond 2020: a research based approach to defining competencies in the computing disciplines..

An international investigation into student concerns regarding transition into higher education. (2018)
Conference Proceeding
ZARB, M., ABANDOH-SAM, J.A., ALSHAIGY, B., BOUVIER, D., GLASSEY, R., HUGHES, J. and RIEDESEL, C. 2018. An international investigation into student concerns regarding transition into higher education. In Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) conference on innovation and technology in computer science education (ITiCSE 2018), 2-4 July 2018, Larnaca, Cyprus. New York: ACM [online], pages 344-345. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3197091.3205842

The experience of transitioning into and starting higher education is a very individual one, with some applicants viewing the prospect of higher education as an unknown entity; for those who are first in their family or community to consider higher e... Read More about An international investigation into student concerns regarding transition into higher education..

Non-traditional skills in undergraduate medical education: the development of a teaching programme. (2018)
Journal Article
BRADY, C. and ZARB, M. 2018. Non-traditional skills in undergraduate medical education: the development of a teaching programme. Scottish medical journal [online], 63(3), pages 80-81. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/0036933018776837

As a junior doctor in what is an increasingly struggling healthcare system, I am concerned to see that many of my junior and senior colleagues have opted not to continue onto the next stage of training. Whilst entrepreneurship, leadership and managem... Read More about Non-traditional skills in undergraduate medical education: the development of a teaching programme..

Medical students opinions on the inclusion of non-traditional skills in the curriculum. (2018)
Journal Article
BRADY, C. and ZARB, M. 2018. Medical students opinions on the inclusion of non-traditional skills in the curriculum. Journal of entrepreneurship education [online], 21(2), article number 152. Available from: https://www.abacademies.org/articles/medical-students-opinions-on-the-inclusion-of-nontraditional-skills-in-the-curriculum-7099.html

Background: Up to 50% of foundation year 2 doctors do not proceed directly into speciality training. This change in direction of our profession places increasing demands on an already stretched NHS. In the UK, medical school teaching is understandabl... Read More about Medical students opinions on the inclusion of non-traditional skills in the curriculum..

A framework for writing learning agreements. (2016)
Conference Proceeding
CLEAR, T., MCDERMOTT, R., PARSJÖ, E., CAJANDER, Å., DANIELS, M. and LAGERQVIST, N. 2016. A framework for writing learning agreements. In Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electonic Engineers (IEEE) frontiers in education 2016 conference (FIE 2016): the crossroads of engineering and business, 12-15 October 2016, Erie, USA. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article ID 7757718. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2016.7757718.

Active learning is a popular concept for motivating learning. Learning agreements are one strategy towards this goal. They can be used to aid the students to take ownership of their learning and in becoming more active in a course. Learning Agreement... Read More about A framework for writing learning agreements..

Aligning quality assurance at the course unit and educational program levels. (2016)
Conference Proceeding
JONSSON, B.T., LAUSDOTTIR, M.K., DANIELS, M., CLEAR, A. and MCDERMOTT, R. 2016. Aligning quality assurance at the course unit and educational program levels. In Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electonic Engineers (IEEE) frontiers in education 2016 conference (FIE 2016): the crossroads of engineering and business, 12-15 October 2016, Erie, USA. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article ID 7757419. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2016.7757419.

Quality assurance is a subject that has grown dramatically in importance in recent times. In previous work, we have described how the ACM Curricula can be used to support the Quality Assurance process of educational programs, using the Computer Scien... Read More about Aligning quality assurance at the course unit and educational program levels..

Students envisioning the future. (2016)
Conference Proceeding
LIND, T., CAJANDER, Å., SANDBLAD, B., DANIELS, M., LÁRUSDÓTTIR, M., MCDERMOTT, R. and CLEAR, T. 2016. Students envisioning the future. In Proceedings of the Institute of Electrical and Electonic Engineers (IEEE) frontiers in education 2016 conference (FIE 2016): the crossroads of engineering and business, 12-15 October 2016, Erie, USA. Piscataway: IEEE [online], article ID 7757701. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE.2016.7757701.

How can students be included as critical stakeholders in the systems and services provided by a university? To address the whole student experience, we engaged students and employees at a large Swedish university in a vision seminar process to elicit... Read More about Students envisioning the future..

Student concerns regarding transition into higher education CS. (2016)
Conference Proceeding
SIEGEL, A.A. and ZARB, M. 2016. Student concerns regarding transition into higher education CS. In Proceedings of the 21st Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Innovation and technology in computer science education 2016 conference (ITiCSE 2016), 11-13 July 2016, Arequipa, Peru. New York: ACM [online], pages 23-28. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/2899415.2909581

This paper discusses a study where 249 students from 18 secondary schools around Scotland who were on the verge of applying to study Computing Science at a higher education institution were surveyed on their concerns about the upcoming transition. Pr... Read More about Student concerns regarding transition into higher education CS..

Motivation, optimal experience and flow in first year computing science. (2016)
Conference Proceeding
MCDERMOTT, R., ZARB, M., DANIELS, M., CAJANDER, Å. and CLEAR, T. 2016. Motivation, optimal experience and flow in first year computing science. In Proceedings of the 2016 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) conference on innovation and technology in computer science education (ITiCSE '16), 9-13 July 2016, Arequipa, Peru. New York: ACM [online], pages 206-211. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/2899415.2899474

We examine the concept of motivation from the perspective of Self Determination Theory and give a brief overview of relevant results. We also consider the optimal state known as Flow and give an account of its conceptualisation in the theory due to C... Read More about Motivation, optimal experience and flow in first year computing science..

Novice programmers and the problem description effect. (2016)
Conference Proceeding
BOUVIER, D., LOVELLETTE, E., MATTA, J., ALSHAIGY, B., BECKER, B.A., CRAIG, M., JACKOVA, J., MCCARTNEY, R., SANDERS, K. and ZARB, M. 2016. Novice programmers and the problem description effect. In Proceedings of the Innovation and technology in computer science education on working group reports 2016 (ITiCSE-WGR '16), 9-13 July 2016, Arequipa, Peru. New York: ACM [online], pages 103-118. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3024906.3024912

It is often debated whether a problem presented in a straightforward minimalist fashion is better, or worse, for learning than the same problem presented with a real-life or concrete context. The presentation, contextualization, or problem descriptio... Read More about Novice programmers and the problem description effect..