News in brief

In this consortium, 260 educational institutions endorse the objective of making high-quality educational material available free of charge online. Mulder says she intends to explore blended learning: a mix of live and digital education via ict. That could be an option for students in Africa and Asia who do not have time or money to travel to the Netherlands for study. “If we can offer them online education about, for example, watermanagement, we should find a reliable way to test their knowledge,” Mulder says.

Minor overload
The procedure for registering for minors will change as of next academic year. It is hoped that this will solve the problem of overloaded systems that cannot cope with the rush on popular subjects. This peak load problem is primarily caused by the ‘first come, first serve’ principle. Because of that principle, hundreds of Bachelor’s students wanted to log on at the same time on May 2, the registration date. The system could not handle this mass action and partly shut down. By the time the system was fully functioning again, a number of students found out that the minor of their choice was full. As of next academic year, students can submit their first and second choices over a longer period of time, and in the end a computer system will randomly select the students.  

Telecoms
The Dutch government will take action against the country’s leading telecom companies. Economic Affairs Minister, Maxime Verhagen, stated that he not allow telecom companies to charge their customers extra fees for using internet services via their mobile phones that allow them to make free phone calls, nor will these telecom companies be permitted to block internet services, like Skype. The telecom companies planned to start charging people who use applications for texting or telephoning via third-party internet services, and not via the telecom company’s own network

Ban lifted
Thanks to concerns about Iran’s alleged nuclear programme, Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, is now once again free to travel in the European Union. He had been banned from traveling in the EU, but EU representative now want to engage Iran in discussions about their nuclear projects, so the ban was lifted. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal initially supported the travel ban on Salehi, but has reversed his position, stating: “We want to and, indeed, we have to do business with him [Salehi], because he’s Iran’s foreign minister now.” Anti-Islam Freedom Party MP, Wim Kortenoeven, attacked the government’s about-face: “This is a country set on destroying the West. You shouldn’t negotiate with a regime like that; you should cut yourself off from it.”

First female
Julie Pietrzak has been appointed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor at the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CEG). With this appointment, Pietrzak, a specialist in fluid mechanics, becomes the faculty’s first female professor. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professorships are personal professorships that allow excellent young scientists to focus exclusively on teaching and research. Pietrzak, who is British, studied oceanography at the University of Wales, Swansea (1982), where she also completed a PhD in 1987. She was then a researcher at Delft Hydraulics, the University of British Columbia, the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Danish Hydraulic Institute and International Research Centre for Computational Hydrodynamics, before coming to TU Delft in 1999, where she served successively as a research scientist (faculty of Aerospace Engineering) and as an assistant professor at CEG. Since 2000, she’s been an associate professor in the fluid mechanics section of CEG’s Hydraulic Engineering department.

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Culture good
Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology has found that men who enjoy cultural activities, like watching ballet or visiting art museums, are more likely to be happy with their lives and enjoy good health than men who don’t enjoy cultural activities. The research study’s lead author, Koenraad Cuypers, and his colleagues collected data on the activities, life satisfaction levels, perceived health, anxiety and depression of 50,797 adults living in Nord-Trondelag County, in Norway. The researchers controlled for factors like income and education, but nevertheless found that cultural participation proved good for the well-being of both genders.

Het aantal vooraanmeldingen van internationale studenten stijgt al jaren. In 2004 schreven zich 1199 studenten in, in 2009 2849 en voor 2010 staat de teller al op 3100. En dat ondanks hogere cijfer-eisen, strengere taaltoetsen en strakkere deadlines. Uiteindelijk kwamen er zes jaar geleden 280 buitenlandse studenten naar de TU en in 2009 592. De balans wordt dus schever.
Volgens Elco van Noort, hoofd van het international office van de TU, moest er nu iets gebeuren. “Het aantal aanmeldingen is door de tijd gigantisch gegroeid. Om daar serieus tijd aan te kunnen besteden moet de verhouding in balans blijven. Met verdergaande digitalisering is het makkelijker om je bij meerdere instellingen aan te melden. Meerdere keren hoorden we van studenten die zich bij meer dan twintig instellingen aanmeldden.”
Uit een onderzoek van de TU in 2009 blijkt verder dat ruim tachtig procent van de studenten die in Delft waren toegelaten, maar die toch wegbleven, zich ook bij andere instellingen hadden gemeld. En uit een recente vergelijking met de inschrijfgegevens van de TU Eindhoven komt een overlap van ruim zeshonderd studenten naar voren.
De application fee van 50 euro moet studenten ontmoedigen zich overal maar aan te melden. “Doel was een lage drempel op te werpen om mensen die serieus in Delft willen studeren zo min mogelijk lastig te vallen en anderen te ontmoedigen”, aldus Van Noort.
Het international office en de faculteiten komen anders om in het werk. “Van de 3100 personen die zich aanmelden, moeten de dossiers beoordeeld worden.Het ordenen en scannen van die dossiers, het maken van een advies, het gemotiveerd nemen van een beslissing en het informeren van de student kost meer dan twee uur per dossier”, aldus Van Noort.
Het inschrijfgeld wordt per 1 november ingevoerd en geldt jaarlijks voor de periode 1 november tot 1 april. De universiteit hoopt daarmee te stimuleren dat studenten zich in september of oktober al aanmelden.
De TU Delft is niet de eerste Nederlandse universiteit die overgaat tot deze maatregel. Leiden, Utrecht en Nijmegen gingen al voor. In het buitenland is een application fee normaal.
 

Culture good
Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology has found that men who enjoy cultural activities, like watching ballet or visiting art museums, are more likely to be happy with their lives and enjoy good health than men who don’t enjoy cultural activities. The research study’s lead author, Koenraad Cuypers, and his colleagues collected data on the activities, life satisfaction levels, perceived health, anxiety and depression of 50,797 adults living in Nord-Trondelag County, in Norway. The researchers controlled for factors like income and education, but nevertheless found that cultural participation proved good for the well-being of both genders.

New appointment
The OpenCourseWare Consortium recently elected Anka Mulder, the Director of Education and Student Affairs at TU Delft, as its new president. In this consortium, 260 educational institutions endorse the objective of making high-quality educational material available free of charge online. Mulder says she intends to explore blended learning: a mix of live and digital education via ict. That could be an option for students in Africa and Asia who do not have time or money to travel to the Netherlands for study. “If we can offer them online education about, for example, watermanagement, we should find a reliable way to test their knowledge,” Mulder says.

Minor overload
The procedure for registering for minors will change as of next academic year. It is hoped that this will solve the problem of overloaded systems that cannot cope with the rush on popular subjects. This peak load problem is primarily caused by the ‘first come, first serve’ principle. Because of that principle, hundreds of Bachelor’s students wanted to log on at the same time on May 2, the registration date. The system could not handle this mass action and partly shut down. By the time the system was fully functioning again, a number of students found out that the minor of their choice was full. As of next academic year, students can submit their first and second choices over a longer period of time, and in the end a computer system will randomly select the students.  

Telecoms
The Dutch government will take action against the country’s leading telecom companies. Economic Affairs Minister, Maxime Verhagen, stated that he not allow telecom companies to charge their customers extra fees for using internet services via their mobile phones that allow them to make free phone calls, nor will these telecom companies be permitted to block internet services, like Skype. The telecom companies planned to start charging people who use applications for texting or telephoning via third-party internet services, and not via the telecom company’s own network

Ban lifted
Thanks to concerns about Iran’s alleged nuclear programme, Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, is now once again free to travel in the European Union. He had been banned from traveling in the EU, but EU representative now want to engage Iran in discussions about their nuclear projects, so the ban was lifted. Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal initially supported the travel ban on Salehi, but has reversed his position, stating: “We want to and, indeed, we have to do business with him [Salehi], because he’s Iran’s foreign minister now.” Anti-Islam Freedom Party MP, Wim Kortenoeven, attacked the government’s about-face: “This is a country set on destroying the West. You shouldn’t negotiate with a regime like that; you should cut yourself off from it.”

First female
Julie Pietrzak has been appointed Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professor at the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences (CEG). With this appointment, Pietrzak, a specialist in fluid mechanics, becomes the faculty’s first female professor. Antoni van Leeuwenhoek professorships are personal professorships that allow excellent young scientists to focus exclusively on teaching and research. Pietrzak, who is British, studied oceanography at the University of Wales, Swansea (1982), where she also completed a PhD in 1987. She was then a researcher at Delft Hydraulics, the University of British Columbia, the Danish Meteorological Institute, the Danish Hydraulic Institute and International Research Centre for Computational Hydrodynamics, before coming to TU Delft in 1999, where she served successively as a research scientist (faculty of Aerospace Engineering) and as an assistant professor at CEG. Since 2000, she’s been an associate professor in the fluid mechanics section of CEG’s Hydraulic Engineering department.