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Engineering through distance education in the time of the fourth industrial revolution: Reflections from three decades of peer reviewed studies
Author(s) -
Kocdar Serpil,
Bozkurt Aras,
Goru Dogan Tulay
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
computer applications in engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.478
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1099-0542
pISSN - 1061-3773
DOI - 10.1002/cae.22367
Subject(s) - subject (documents) , distance education , industrial revolution , engineering education , field (mathematics) , social network analysis , social studies , peer review , engineering ethics , mathematics education , social science , sociology , engineering , political science , computer science , pedagogy , library science , engineering management , psychology , law , mathematics , social capital , pure mathematics
In this current era of the fourth industrial revolution, the fifth generation of distance education has held out hopes of unique opportunities for engineering. With the aim of investigating the field of engineering through distance education, this study conducted a systematic review involving text‐mining and social network analysis to examine 120 publications on this topic. The time trend analysis found that there has been a steadily increasing interest in engineering through distance education. Analysis of subject areas revealed that a considerable amount of the publications on engineering through distance education falls under the social sciences subject area, suggesting that there is a need for more interdisciplinary studies. In examining the geographical distribution of the publications, it was observed that most contributions come from the United States, a developed country that has invested heavily in educating students through distance education. The research patterns identified through text‐mining and social network analysis revealed three major themes: (I) technology‐enhanced distance engineering education, (II) e‐learning and m‐learning, and (III) virtual and remote labs.