The Practical Engineering Education Blog (PEEB) is a space for the wider scholarly community to share case studies, opinions, ideas and highlights of our pedagogical and technical engineering research. We are always looking for new contributors.
If you would like to contribute, please contact us with your ideas, questions or feedback:
Cathy: c.h.collett@sheffield.ac.uk
Michael: m.trikic@sheffield.ac.uk
What we cover
The Practical Engineering Education Blog is concerned with the development of engineering education. Our audience is practitioners in engineering education, including academics, technicians, and professional services staff, as well as policy makers and those with an interest in the future of engineering.
Here are a few suggestions for blog post ideas based on previous work we’ve featured:
Posts based on work presented at conferences, relevant educational publications and work in development.
Case studies
Awards and prizes
Student achievements and student led learning
Short form reviews or articles about engineering or STEM teaching
State of the art- new papers and or significant developments in the sector
Equipment Focus get your geek on and explain our kit and its applications in an educational context
Picture posts “the lab in pictures”
Events “get involved”
Opinion pieces
Highlighting a specific way for research to have more impact / researchers to demonstrate impact
A how-to guide for a a method for improving engineering educational practice
Our core themes are:
We have identified ten core themes, aligned with the SEFI special interest groups. Blog posts may focus on one theme or could cross several themes.
Engineering Practicals
Physics & Mathematics
EDI
Open and Online Education
Sustainability
Outreach
Engineering Skills and Employability
Ethics & Engineering Education Research
Curriculum Development
Professional Development
How to submit your idea
If you have an idea for a blog post, please get in touch with us at c.h.collett@sheffield.ac.uk (Cathy Collett) and m.trikic@sheffield.ac.uk (Michael Trikic) with a brief outline. We will give you feedback and discuss any deadlines.
Length and format
In order to increase readability and accessibility, we typically aim for our posts to be between 400 and 1,000 words long
Please send us your draft in a Google Doc (preferred) or Word format, with your name at the top, and including an image.
Audience, writing style and language
Your post should be written with a relatively wide audience in mind, including policymakers and other non-academics
The most widely-read blog posts tend to be written in a natural style, so we recommend that you avoid overusing acronyms and academic terms, such as Latin words, or specific terminology that may not be well-known outside disciplinary circles.
Also avoid saying things like “in this paper I will…”, or “this paper aims to…”, and go straight into your discussion of the topic
Use short paragraphs made up of four or five sentences
Set out your argument/point at the beginning of the post. Don’t save your main argument or analysis for the end of the post
Write your post as a standalone piece, even if it summarises material in a longer paper or journal article. Try to present all of your argument and evidence within the text and avoid relying too heavily on information contained in external sources.
Referencing
We use links rather than citations for references. Links should direct readers to more detailed reports or other pieces of research, for example a doi, news items, or other blog posts. Open access sources are preferable compared to those behind paywalls
Please insert a hyperlink at the relevant point of your argument that you’d like to reference (using ctrl-k in Word) or simply place the URL in parentheses where you would like it to be placed and we will link it ourselves.
Images, graphs, and charts
We encourage the use of images, charts, and figures. Graphs and charts are preferable to tables, as they are easier for readers to interpret quickly. In all cases, please send us the raw data of your chart, table, or figure in Excel or Google Sheets.
Each chart needs a clearly labelled heading, labels for the X and Y axes or histogram bars, including units of measurement and a readable scale or background grid. There should be a clear legend distinguishing multiple data series from each other and a brief note on sources. Lines must be thick enough and distinctively coloured. Charts should use a numerical progression to make comparisons more visible
For images, the editor may find a suitable image to accompany the blog post if you don’t have anything. Please supply images with alt text.
Biography and contributor photo
In order for us to be able to attribute your post, please send us a three to four line biographical note, detailing your professional position, affiliation, teaching, scholarly and research interests. Contributor photos are optional but preferable! Please send us a small, colour photo headshot, ideally as a .jpg file.
Our editing process
We will aim to review submissions within a two-week period. The posts may be edited to enhance its readability. Once these edits are complete, we will send you the final version of the post, and give you an opportunity to make final edits.
These edits may include:
Shortening of text if the article is above our stated 1,000 word limit
The addition of a title to sum up the post’s main findings
The addition of short introductory paragraph outlining the article’s main arguments and findings, and any relevant background information for readers.
Once these edits and revisions are complete, we will send the final version of the blog post to authors with an estimated date of publication, and give the author an opportunity to make any further edits deemed to be necessary. Please note that owing to events and other circumstances beyond our control, we may have to change our posting order at very short notice.
Once posts are published, we are very happy to make further edits afterwards should the author deem them to be necessary. A short note would be added to the end of the post, acknowledging any post-publication edits.
Creative Commons and article sharing policy
Unless otherwise specified, all of our articles are also published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY 3.0) and other blogs and publications are free to use them, with attribution.