The Faculty of Engineering, together with the Faculty of Education and Faculty of Social Science, is collaborating with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to explore using cutting-edge technology to improve teaching and learning, especially through understanding best practices for flipped classroom teaching via eLearning technologies. Experiments are ongoing with innovative technologies that enhance educational strategies, measure outcomes and understand the impact of individualised learning trajectories.

This collaborative research project with MIT is sponsored by the Dr. Stanley Ho Medical Development Foundation through the CUHK Stanley Ho Big Data Decision Analytics Research Centre, which is co-directed by Professor Joseph Sung, Mok Hing Yiu Professor of Medicine and Professor Helen Meng, Patrick Huen Wing Ming Professor of Systems Engineering & Engineering. In the recent CUHK-MIT eLearning Workshop, the research findings thus far presented have been based on investigations in eLearning with flipped classroom teaching led by Professor Sidharth Jaggi in an elite freshmen engineering mathematics class at CUHK, as well as a computer architecture class led by Dr. Chris Terman at MIT. 

This research effort involves inter-disciplinary collaboration across three CUHK faculties (the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Social Science) and the faculty at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT, to investigate pedagogical efficacies and social dynamics in teaching and learning through data-driven analyses. The aim is to find ways to help students reach high levels of understanding of the subject matter. Flipped classroom is a novel educational paradigm enabled by technology. Basic content delivery/skills acquisition is conducted at home with videos and online exercises. The main activity in the classroom is to deepen skills and mastery with peer-to-peer (P2P) teaching and learning that encourages creativity and personal experience. More interestingly, the research findings illustrate that knowledge can flow from social interactions. 

Dr. Chris Terman, Senior Lecturer and former Co-Director of CSAIL, MIT said, ‘It’s great to have the opportunity for CUHK and MIT to share experiences of how best to use online materials to improve on-campus learning outcomes. There is a slow revolution underway in how best to teach STEM subjects at the university level, one that will benefit both students and faculty. Many thanks to the Dr. Stanley Ho Medical Foundation for sponsoring this workshop and the CUHK-MIT collaboration, which is helping to connect the communities of practice at these two universities.’

In the collaboration, some undergraduate courses in engineering mathematics at CUHK and computer architecture at MIT have adopted the Market-Assisted Teaching Exchange (MATE) System developed by Professor Sidharth Jaggi, Associate Professor, Department of Information Engineering of CUHK. In 2017, Professor Jaggi incorporated the concept of a knowledge exchange market into an interactive teaching and learning model, the MATE system, and applied it in the freshmen engineering mathematics elite course he teaches. Students are requested to study and research before class, advertise their level of understanding of the concepts of the class, use their strengths to help others, and then are given coupons (worth class points) in return.  In the other way around, they can give out coupons to those helping them understand the concepts.  This P2P learning system is warmly welcomed by the students because it can provide a wide variety of personalised help. The learning data analytics indicates that the students’ academic progress with this teaching and learning pedagogy is better than with the traditional teaching and learning mode. Some of the techniques used are indicated in the graphics attached. 

Professor Jaggi said, ‘As technology rapidly integrates into and changes society, our methods of educating current and future generations must also change, not just in terms of what we teach them, but also how we teach it. Integrating interactive e-learning techniques into education can lead to better learning outcomes than traditional teaching does. This project investigates multiple innovative teaching and learning techniques, and helps re-imagine what classrooms of the future can look like.’ 

Professor Helen Meng, Patrick Huen Wing Ming Professor of Systems Engineering & Engineering Management and Co-Director of the Stanley Ho Big Data Decision Analytics Research Centre, CUHK concluded, ‘Our research focuses on the use of data analytics for comparative pedagogical efficacies of online versus classroom teaching and learning, to derive unique and deep insights into individual and group learning processes.’ 

This article was originally published on CUHK Communications and Public Relations Office website.

A team of students has won championship on the PwC HackaDay 2018. It was the second time CUHK students shone in the same hacking competition for two consecutive years. HackaDay is a CTF cybersecurity contest for undergraduate students from universities in Hong Kong, which aimed at increasing the general awareness of the importance of cybersecurity amongst Hong Kong's youth. It also serves as a platform to raise the competency level of new talents to better prepare them for a meaningful career in cybersecurity. A total of nine teams from Hong King universities joined the competition.  

The winning team "g33z" from CUHK was comprised of four undergraduates: Leung Shing Yuet (MIEG), Tong Cham Fei (CS), Zeng Yihui (Math), and Chan Siu Chun (MIEG).


 

The complexity of our urban drainage system and blockages in it may impose difficulty and danger on performing the onsite inspection and detection of hazardous gases such as sulphur dioxide and methane, and even increase the risk of flooding associated with adverse weather conditions. A certain concertation of methane may potentially cause explosion. 

Supported by the HKSAR Innovation and Technology Commission (ITC), a research team led by Prof. Wu Ke-li, Department of Electronic Engineering, has cooperated with the HKSAR Drainage Services Department (DSD), and Logistics and Supply Chain MultiTech R&D Centre (LSCM) to develop a wireless network for smart drainage system to provide real-time information on drainage performance, concentration of gases and water level. Underground environment has been a challenging environment for wireless communication but the team has successfully overcome this by creatively making use of the manhole cover as a part of its integrated sensor module and ubiquitous wireless network for detecting concentration of gases and water level. The improved wireless sensors have been installed and tested in hundred of manholes in Kowloon Bay district and proven feasible in safeguarding the drainage system of the city. 

Stormwater drains, sewers and manholes have always been part of the essential infrastructure of a modern city. Gases such as methane and sulphur dioxide will easily accumulate inside an enclosed underground condition. With the absence of an automatic gas detection device, excessive accumulation of the foresaid gases will be a hazard to frontline staff. 

Wireless signal transmission via manhole cover enabling real-time underground detection

To address these urban challenges, the CUHK team has spent over two years designing a large-scale, real-time, smart and wireless drainage system which is the first of its kind in the world. Since last August, a hundred wireless underground devices have been installed in manholes of both stormwater drainage and sewerage systems in Kowloon Bay, forming a comprehensive system to monitor the water level and gas concentration of designated zones. Each underground device could be equipped with 5 different sensors to monitor the concentration of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a colourless, corrosive gas with a “rotten egg” smell, and sulfur dioxide (SO2), a colourless but hazardous gas; and methane (CH4), a flammable gas; and the change of water level and to detect the opening status of the manhole cover. 

Through the wireless signal transmission and big data analysis, the smart drainage system enables frontline staff to take proper and timely action on gas emission, illegal wastewater discharge, and blockage. In this way, the prevention of explosion and flood risk and the early detection of environmental pollution will become more effective. Together with studying the change of water level and flow velocity, it will also be useful for building a smart city in the future.

Prof. Wu Ke-li said, “One of the largest project challenges is to investigate how the wireless signals can penetrate a 14cm-thick iron manhole cover to reach a base station kilometers away and then transmit to the frontline staff through 4G network. The team has unleashed their creativity by transforming the manhole cover itself as part of integrated wireless network. The manhole cover used to be a conventional obstacle to signal transmission due to its thickness, but the team has changed its nature to an adaptable hardware for a low frequency communication system so that the data collected can be sent back to the base stations at roof top.” 

He continued, “Another challenge for the team is that the sensing devices wear out quickly because of high humidity and high concentration of corrosive gas inside the manholes. Taking this challenge into account, we have introduced the technic of using a micro gas sensor within a completely sealed environment so that both the durability and energy efficiency of the smart drainage system can be improved.” 

In the long run, the smart drainage system offers a creative and intelligent solution to city’s drainage management and promotes smart city development in Hong Kong with minimal installation costs and software requirements. Most importantly, the sensor styles and amounts can be built upon the needs of the users. 

CUHK Radio-frequency Radiation Research Laboratory

Founded in 2006 and headed by Prof. Wu Ke-li, the Radio-frequency Radiation Research Laboratory of CUHK is the only facility of its kind on an academic campus in the world. It is an ISO/IEC accredited laboratory for mobile terminal performance test, passive antenna measurement and calibration and specific absorption rate measurement, and is equipped with the world’s most tested system for wireless communications. It has received the stringent ISO17025 Certificate of Accreditation. Over the past years, the laboratory has played an irreplaceable role in supporting the local wireless industry in product research and development, particularly the hardware devices of the project mentioned above. With strong interest and potential coming from a number of overseas and national institutes, Prof. Wu’s group is working on the patent application for the smart drainage system and hopes to offer an efficient solution to managing the city’s drainage system in different regions.