Education Office Newsletter - March 2015

Contents
• Office of the Vice Provost for Education
• Education Task Force
• Scientific Information Needs
• New EPFL Gilbert Hausmann Award
• Rewarding Excellence in Teaching: Section Awards and Credit Suisse Award for Best Teaching
• IS-Academia
• Statistics Observatory
• Registrar’s Office
• Doctoral Programmes
• New Agreement with the Faculty of Criminal Justice
• Information Days for High School Students - 2015 Edition
• Associations
• New Prestigious Academic Collaborations with Top Universities

Office of the Vice Provost for Education
For those who did not know, on 1 January 2015 a new position of Vice Provost for Education was established as part of the review of the Ordinance on the Organisation of EPFL. The incumbent is Prof. Pierre Vandergheynst, former Director of the Electrical Engineering Section. DAF is already working closely with the office of the Vice Provost and looks forward to future collaborations.

For further information: http://vpro-formation.epfl.ch/
Contact: [email protected]

Education Task Force
At the Direction’s request, a task force was established by Prof. P. Vandergheynst, Vice Provost for Education, to address specific education-related issues. Membership is as follows:

• Chair: Pierre Vandergheynst, Vice Provost for Education
• School of Basic Sciences: Fritz Eisenbrand, Daniel Kressner, Jérôme Waser, Cécile Hébert, Rolf Gruetter
• College of Humanities: Thomas David
• School of Engineering: David Atienza, Denis Gillet, François Galaire, Jamie Paik
• School of Computer and Communication Sciences: Sabine Süsstrunk, Olivier Levêque, Rachi Guerraoui
• School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering: Tamar Kohn, Nikolas Geroliminis, Nicola Braghieri
• School of Life Sciences: Félix Naef, Nicola Harris
• Students: Tanguy Moser, Gilles Baud
• Office of the Vice Provost: Pierre-André Besse, Albertine Kolendowska

The Task Force’s initial findings will be presented at this year’s Science and Teaching Days (JSP), with implementation foreseen by 2017.

For further information: [email protected]

Scientific Information Needs
During 2014, the VPAA and the Library, supported by the consulting firm Berinfor, conducted a project with the following objectives:

• Conduct a strategic reflection on the management of scientific information in the dynamic context of information technology
• Define the roles of the various EPFL units in such management
• Strengthen the position of the Scientific Information and Library Service (SISB) at national and international level as well as among users
• Adjust SISB services according to the strategic guidelines defined in the project
• Accelerate the shift to a digital library
• Define an action plan for the development of the EPFL Library.

Further to consultation with the persons concerned (researchers, lecturers, students, managers and Library executives), the following areas have been identified by the steering committee:

• Strong emphasis on the provision and use of electronic resources and services
• Implementation of the "Educational Resources" project which aims to create a single source referencing course materials and physical and electronic educational documentation
• Continued development of information literacy training for students and PhD students
• Continued support to researchers on open access and copyright issues
• Support to the Vice-Presidency for Information Systems on research data referencing, access and archiving
• Support to the Vice Provost for Research on bibliometric activities by providing the necessary tools
• Liaising with the Vice Presidency for Information Systems to develop and implement IT tools, including on replacing ALEPH, the NEBIS network computer tool
• Increased collaboration with the ETHZ library, especially on common access to electronic resources
• The SISB remains under the Education Office (DAF), with the Vice Provost for Education acting as academic referee. The Vice Provost for Research will be involved in issues of concern to him. The SISB Steering Committee, which includes the Vice President for Academic Affairs, the two Vice Provosts and the Vice President for Information Systems, validates projects and strategic priorities.

For further information: Daniel Chuard

New EPFL Gilbert Hausmann Award
Gilbert Hausmann, who died in 2012, generously bequeathed part of his estate to the EPFL to establish an award in the fields of mechanical engineering, electricity and physics so as to promote excellence in these areas. The Award will be presented each year to reward two graduates having completed an EPFL Master Project (CHF 5,000 each) and one PhD student having completed an EPFL PhD thesis (CHF 10,000) in the above fields.

For further information: Albertine Kolendowska

Rewarding Excellence in Teaching: Section Awards and Credit Suisse Award for Best Teaching
Education is a core mission of EPFL which is met, among others, through the dedication of our teaching staff. In order to enhance good teaching, each Section has been invited to establish a best teacher award as of this year. Given this, the procedure for the Credit Suisse Award, which has been presented for 8 years already, has been reviewed. Indeed, each Section will put forward for the Credit Suisse Award a candidate who has won the Section award for the current year or a previous year. The winner of the Credit Suisse Award is then selected on the basis of his/her global contribution to teaching according to set excellence criteria.

For further details: CS Award Regulations
For further information: Albertine Kolendowska

IS-Academia
Following the reorganisation within the VPAA, the IS-Academia Steering Committee now consists of the following members:

• Pierre Vandergheynst, Vice Provost for Education, VPAA
• Karl Aberer, Vice President, VPSI
• Daniel Chuard, Director of Educational Affairs, VPAA
• Didier Rey, Delegate, VPSI
• Jean-Paul Festeau, Head of the Registrar’s Office, VPAA
• Jeroen Van Hunen, Deputy to the Vice Provost for Research, VPAA
• Laurent Ramelet, Head of OGIF, VPAA (permanent guest without voting rights).

The Steering Committee meets at least once a year and decides on projects and priorities, including setting the annual budget dedicated to maintenance, upgrades and new developments. The main projects for 2015 are:

• Redesigning the billing process for biannual tuition fees
• Adapting the rules and study plans to implement the reform of the Foundation Year
• Online processing of applications for prospective outgoing exchange students
• Management of requests for specific arrangements for students with disabilities.
The most significant achievement of the new year was the final deployment of the verification process for Master projects. Since January, all Master projects which are not confidential are systematically subjected to a plagiarism detection platform. A similarity report is automatically generated and made available to the lecturer supervising the project on his/her IS-Academia portal. Dozens of papers have thus been checked to date.
For further information: [email protected]

Statistics Observatory
The Education Office websites continue to elicit much interest. The second edition of the analysis of activity observed on our sites was carried out during the winter 2014-15. The following table shows the most popular pages across all DAF sites:

The reform of the Foundation Year and the establishment of a preparatory course in the second semester of 2016-17 require special attention to the foundation year examination results. Scenarios based on different selection criteria were used to estimate the number of 650 students potentially affected by this switch at the end of the winter exam. These estimates will serve to organise courses and plan schedules accordingly.

Finally, the first session of the Master Admissions Committee took place in May as every year. There were 1,367 applications in winter 2015 compared to 1,217 in winter 2014, i.e. an increase of 12%. The percentage of students admitted remained stable at 32%. More details are available on the OGIF website.

Registrar’s Office
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ms Camille Plessis, the new Deputy to the Head of the Registrar’s Office. Ms Plessis holds an EPFL Master in Microengineering and worked in the private sector before joining the SAC team, where she will be in charge of doctoral studies. On 1 January 2015, Ms Plessis took over from Marcus Kunath, who has decided to explore other opportunities as from 1 February 2015 after working with SAC since 2012. The SAC and DAF wish Ms Plessis every success in her mission. Our best wishes accompany Mr Kunath in his new position.

For further information: [email protected]

Doctoral Programmes
The SAC and the Doctoral School wish a warm welcome to Ms Lucie Auberson who joined the Doctoral Program in Microsystems and Microelectronics (EDMI) on 15 February and brings a wealth of experience in the academic field acquired at IMD in Lausanne. Ms Auberson is taking over the position of Ms Marie Halm who, after spending 12 years in the EDMI programme, has decided to leave EPFL to explore new avenues. We thank Marie Halm for her commitment and wish Ms Auberson every success.

For further information: [email protected]

New Agreement with the Faculty of Criminal Justice
Researchers and students of the Faculty of Criminal Justice at the University of Lausanne can now perform research on the official documents of candidates for EPFL training programmes. In return, the EPFL will benefit from these scientists’ expertise in checking the authenticity of submitted documents. An agreement was signed to set a strict framework for such research, particularly in the area of data privacy. The Faculty of Criminal Justice will thus enable its students and PhD students to conduct applied research in the field of forgery of official documents (certificates, identity cards, etc.) on a corpus of authentic data.

For further information: [email protected]

Information Days for High School Students - 2015 Edition

The EPFL welcomed over 2,500 high school students over the past two weeks. They came from all over Western Switzerland, neighbouring France and sometimes even much further to learn about opportunities to study at EPFL and immerse in the campus for the first time.
Organized by the Study Programs Promotion Service and the Sections, these days have given them an opportunity to discover the various study programmes through information sessions on the first day (Thursday 5 and 12 March) and internships on the second day (Friday 6 and 13 March). Lecturers, students and scientists all rose to the challenge of explaining, sharing and showing their Section at its best. The youngsters were thus able to get a better idea of what life would be like if they choose to join EPFL.
This was definitely a momentous event for them, and many left the campus excitedly looking forward to beginning student life in the near future.
For further information: [email protected]

Associations
Since their return from holiday, our student associations have wasted no time in getting busy to organise many events attracting more and more people. From Japan Impact to the Architecture Ball, via the Artiphys evening, the start of the winter term was particularly lively. The festivities continue with more important events to come, including PolyLAN 25, which will bring together nearly 800 participants at the STCC over the Easter holiday, and Balelec which is preparing to hold its festival on a new site on the east side of EPFL.
Since the end of last semester, the Education Office has been processing 9 new applications for recognition of student associations.
Applications for recognition of new associations by the Education Office will be increasingly difficult to meet as our site is reaching full capacity. Our event management and security teams have reached a limit to the resources which they are able to deploy and our infrastructure is already stretched. It should be noted that the current associations already cover a wide range of activities.

Magali Favre, in charge of student associations
Contact: [email protected]

New Prestigious Academic Collaborations with Top Universities


Recently, the International Relations Unit has signed new Exchange Partnerships with the University of Toronto amongst the top 3 in Canada, as well as with the University of Washington (IC Section only). On top of this, EPFL could sign Agreements with the University of Toronto, Waterloo, McGill University, and soon University of British Columbia including the recognition of Research Internships at EPFL launched in 2013. This addition enables EPFL to keep up with exchange balances important for EPFL students to continue to embark on exchange assignments abroad. More agreements with internationally acclaimed universities are on its way and will be shared soon within this Newsletter.

Karen Undritz, International Relations Unit