A Computer-Based Framework Supporting Education in STEM Subjects

Abstract

Education is considered as a key factor for competitiveness on micro- as well as on macro-economic levels, i.e., for a single person, a company, or a country. Several industries have been identified with significant current and/or future workforce shortages. They include diverse areas, such as the health and the technology sectors. As a result, initiatives to foster STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) have emerged in many countries. In this paper, we report on a project of Australian Catholic University and Munich University of Applied Sciences. These universities have developed a framework to support STEM education. The framework is based on R-Project, a leading free software environment that has gained increasing attention particularly in the field of data analysis (statistics, machine learning etc.) in the past decade. The framework is intended to address the following three main challenges in STEM education: mathematics and, in the field of technology, algorithmic programming and dynamic webpage development.