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The main focus for the strategic education development work at ITM-school right now is to identify, formulate and discuss the educational parts of the development plan. This work will be executed during May through two workshops (on May 8th and May 29th ), and if anyone is interested in participating in these please send an e-mail to me anna.jerbrant@indek.kth.se.
Besides that, we also have a number of more operational issues to work with, for instance regarding the master and batchelor thesis projects (that are coming to an end in May/June) as well as discussions about the results of this year’s admission of new students to our programs.
Beyond this, I hope you’ve seen the interesting article in Campi regarding the so called PriU-groups? The initiation of these groups is based on a need to strengthen the collegial influence within the decision making focused on KTHs education. The purpose of the PriU-groups (that where initiated at the beginning of last year) are to gather faculty with educational responsibility in order to find new perspectives and solutions for a lot of different kind of problems. The organizers of the PriU-groups have (since April) made sure that the groups are open to all staff – teachers and administrators – who feel committed and want to be involved and change our education. The aim is to strengthen the quality of education, by taking advantage of more of the expertise within the entire KTH organization, and therefore groups focus on everything from digitization and internationalization to working life and practical issues such as premises, schedules and planning. Read more about it in Campi.
In Campi you can also read about the new manual that KTH has provided that is focused on how teachers can achieve the best effect when making filmed lectures online. The interest in e-learning has increased significantly during the last couple of years, largely due to KTH’s initiative on MOOCs, massive open online courses, which has enabled that a large number of lecture videos has been produced. Jonas Thorén, at KTH’s media department, who produced many of the films, has therefore produced a handbook with the purpose to help teachers with presentation design and video production. Very interesting! If you want to read more about it go to Campi.
/ Anna Jerbrant, GA
Author
The external revision of KTH and ITM to determine if we meet the environmental standards described in the Swedish standard ISO 14001 took place on April 16-20, for the ITM school. At the end of the revision week, it was clear that KTH passed the revision. I cannot refer to the whole document, but I wish to share some good examples from ITM that was highlighted in the revision document:
- Minor field studies in the education, especially at INDEK (Anna Jerbrant)
- Movie on “not another brick in the wall” illustrating the production of bricks and gases from landfill waste (New Mine – Weihong Yang project leader)
- Digital information in form of youtube movies by, for example, Mikael Ersson
- Documentation of impact of projects leading to an improved sustainability (Adde Jeihouni and Charlotte Flodin )
Many people were involved in the work with the external revision, but I especially wish to thank Adde Jeihouni and Charlotte Flodin, who were responsible for the preparation and administrated of the ITM revision work. They did it in an excellent manner!
As I have discussed before, new Docents are important for ITM since they increase the number of people that can act as main supervisors.
Pavel Ramirex Lopez from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has become a Docent in Casting. On Friday April 13 he held a Docent presentation entitled “Casting Research at Swerea MEFOS: Past Activities, Present Challenges and Future Perspectives”. The audience were close to 70 people, since it was held in connection to department meeting organized by the Department Head Annika Borgenstam. Docent Ramirez is employed by Swerea-Mefos, but after becoming a Docent he will participate in both research and teaching at KTH.
Pernilla Ulfvengren from the Department of Industrial Economics and Management has become a Docent in industrial technology focusing on socio-technological systems. On Friday April 20 she held a Docent presentation entitled “Safety and change in sociotechnical systems”. The audience were 20 people mainly from the department.
Finally, I want to say that it was marvelous to finally get some sunny weather. I hurried up to plant potatoes in buckets and two new cherry trees in the ground. I could not wait any longer for the spring to come, after this long and cold winter!
Pär Jönsson, Vice Head of School
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The event was marked with balloons and loads of sweets.
It has been an eventful year – starting up an entirely new function, with no experience, and without really knowing what needs existed out in the operation. And this had to be done in parallel with recruiting new personnel. It’s no understatement to say that there were some significant fluctuations during the first few months.
But a year has now passed. Our employees, who were newly recruited at the time, now have a whole year of experience. They have got to know KTH and its structure to some extent, and have become familiar with our departments, their employees and their needs.
At times, running support activities is more about setbacks than successes. You need openness, dialogue and the ability to accept success and cope with adversity. To be able to handle situations in a professional manner, to persevere and to focus on solutions.
Annika Lilja and her colleagues have managed all of this with willpower. A huge thank you to everyone!
If you have not yet discovered how the Service Center can help you:
- Register and archiving
- Dissertation and licentiate
- Purchasing and procurement
- Catering
- Conferences
- Conference rooms & booking
- Keys and key cards
- Post, parcels and couriers
- Travel
- Success in the kitchen, print room & conference room
- Caretaking
The Service Center is your point of access to support and assistance at the ITM school. You can contact the Center at any time if you have questions or to report faults of any kind.
The school’s offices are open Mon-Fri 8.30 am to 4.30 pm (except holidays and bridge days). All matters can be sent to service@itm.se.
If you have not yet been in contact with the Service Center, we hope to be able to help you in future too!
If you are already using the Service Center’s resources, we are always happy to receive any suggestions you may have for improvements. Without this feedback, we have nothing to work towards. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please send them to Annika Lilja, anlil@kth.se. I am convinced that she and her colleagues will do everything they can to help you!
Take care!
/Christina Carlsson, Head of Administration
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Påskfirande och påskledighet närmar sig med stormsteg, även om vårvärmen håller sig borta, men trots att detta är en kortvecka så har jag ändå hunnit delta i många olika utbildningsrelaterade aktiviteter. Den allra första genomfördes redan på söndagen då KTH arrangerade det första tillfället av Öppet Hus. Öppet hus är ett unikt tillfälle då intresserade personer kan få svar på alla sina frågor och funderingar inför högskolevalet. KTH ordnar så att de får träffa studenter, lärare och studievägledare från alla våra grundutbildningar, gå på rundvandringar på campus samt lyssna på seminarier från de olika utbildningsprogrammen. Jag bifogar några bilder från ITM-skolans montrar som visar ett axplock av spännande saker som presenterades:
På tisdagen hade sen KTHs GA (grundutbildningsansvariga) grupp och Per Berglund intressanta strategiska diskussioner i relation till kommande förändringsarbete som ska göras för KTHs alla utbildningar. Tex diskuterade vi de förändrade behörighetskraven för studier på avancerad nivå inom KTH:s civilingenjörsprogram, förändringar av årscykeln för utbildningsinformation, samt bildande av en arbetsgrupp för utredning av KTHs ”Makerspace”.
Sen under lunchen på tisdagen fick den som ville veta hur KTH arbetar med hållbar utveckling en intressant dragning av Göran Finnveden (som är vicerektor för hållbar utveckling och professor i miljöstrategisk analys). En av Göran poänger var att; ”Utbildning för hållbar utveckling omfattar både innehåll, pedagogiska metoder och lärandemiljö. Problem och utmaningar som studenterna möter inom utbildning för hållbar utveckling kännetecknas av komplexitet”. Något som är viktigt för oss att bära med oss nu under arbetet med analyserna av alla ITM-skolans program. Göran berättade också att UKÄ:s gjorde en tematisk utvärdering med fokus på hållbar utveckling under år 2017 och efter denna utvärdering fick KTH glädjande nog omdömet; ”Lärosätet har en väl utvecklad process för arbetet med hållbar utveckling inom utbildning”.
Så för den som är intresserad av ännu mer hållbarhets seminarier kan jag berätta att KTH kommer arrangera en internationell konferens, ISCN Sustainable devlopment: acting with a purpose, i Juni 2018. Läsa mer >>
Så nu är det dags att önska – glad påsk!
/Anna Jerbrant, GA
Author
In my last blog I discussed the yearly safety inspections that ITM planned for March. By now we are waiting for the comments from Avanova for each department. Based on this each department will make a plan to correct possible less satisfactorily issues that came up during the inspections.
This time I wish to inform that an external revision of ITM’s work with environment will take place on April 16. The purpose with the revision is to make sure that ITM, as well as all schools at ITM, meet the environmental standards described in the Swedish standard ISO 14001. The ITM work is being administrated by Adde Jeihouni and Charlotte Flodin. Those of you that will be involved have already been contacted and the rest of you will get to know the outcome from the external revision when the report is written.
As a researcher my latest weeks have been full of traveling and new experiences. In the beginning of March I left Stockholm, which had just received lots of snow, to travel to Phoenix in Arizona. This was a contrast since the temperature was 20 to 25 C and the sun was shining all the time. It felt like a great break from the darkness in Sweden. I attended the yearly conference given by the minerals and metals society, TMS2018. It is a huge conference where it is difficult to find people. However, it is also a great meeting place where you can establish new contacts. Here, I presented some work on how to determine inclusion cleanliness online during steelmaking. I got some good input that one of my PhD students could use in the future.
After a short stop in Stockholm I travelled to Japan to attend the annual spring conference organized by the Japanese steel society. I presented some work done by another PhD student on the use of recycled slags for neutralization of waste water in the steel industry. Again, I received very valuable input to the student’s research from the Japanese steel community. Also, I established some contact so that the PhD student can carry out research in Japan 2019, which he really is interested in.
Overall, my presentations and interactions with other researchers have paid off. Not only did I get valuable input that my PhD student scan use, but I also got some new information on new eco-friendly steelmaking processes that I can implement in the education.
/Pär Jönsson, Vice Head of School
