Dr. Joe Manganelli writes “My goal is improving the capacity of the built environment to support and enhance human health, well-being, and performance. My building design experience is primarily in the industrial (most recently, bio-tech/pharmaceutical facilities), educational (K-12 & higher ed), and healthcare market sectors in facilities planning & space planning, requirements definition, conceptual design, sustainable design, detailed design, and construction documents. I also have non-recent experience in fabrication and construction administration. My web/software/systems design experience primarily entails needs analyses, heuristic evaluations, usability analyses, and systems modeling for healthcare-related applications and websites. My human factors experience includes research studies with human subjects related to environmental design, wayfinding, human-machine interfaces, distracted driving, and systems modeling. I currently work on the design of industrial facilities with Fluor Enterprises, teach online courses in user experience design and information architecture for Kent State University, am wrapping up a study on human way finding in complex buildings, am active with the state chapter of the USGBC, and am writing a book on architecture, cognition, and systems.

Dr. Luis Velazquez-Araque received his Mechanical Engineering degree from the National University of Tachira, Venezuela in 2003. He has experience in the oil industry having worked for Petroleos de Venezuela and also in the cement industry having worked for Lafarge Group. He received his Ph.D. in Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics at the Czech Technical University in Prague in 2011 and has been a university professor for more than 10 years at the National University of Tachira and visiting professor at the Czech Technical University in Prague during 4 years.  After returning from Czech Republic he founded the Aerodynamics Laboratory at the National University of Tachira and started the course named "Fundamentals of Aerodynamics". He is member of the following societies: American Society of Thermal Fluid Engineers ASTFE, American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASME, International Institute of Informatics and Systemics IIIS, Venezuelan Society of Engineers CIV and Rotary Club International.

He has been part of the "Prometeo Project" from Ecuador, an initiative of the Ecuadorian Secretary of Higher Education Science and Technology, sharing his expertise in the field of teaching and research in biofuels. Luis also began his career as a motivational speaker in 2012, basing his conferences on people development key areas such as leadership, perseverance and attitude. Dr. Luis Velazquez-Araque has published more than 20 papers at international conferences and journals in countries such as USA, Japan, Russia, Taiwan, Netherlands, Austria, New Zealand, Czech Republic, Ecuador and Venezuela. He is currently associate professor at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the University of Guayaquil in Ecuador.

Dr. Andrés Tremante received both his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering (ME) from Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela, and his PhD from ENSAM in Paris, France.  He remained there for post-doctoral studies in multi-phase flow and pumping.  Presently he teaches courses in the fluid mechanics stem of the BSME program.  Dr. Tremante began his stint at FIU working as a senior research scientist with the Applied Research Center before moving to the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department in 2009.  Prior to this he was Professor and Head of “The Mechanical Energy Conversion Laboratory” at Simon Bolivar University (Laboratorio de Conversión de Energía Mecánica. Universidad Simón Bolívar – USB) from 1992 to 2005 where his Undergraduate & Graduate courses and Research Areas included: Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics & Heat Transfer, Statics & Dynamics, Thermal & Hydraulic Turbomachines, Internal Combustion Engines, Energetic Systems, Hydro & Thermal Power Generation, Fossil & Renewable Energy, Oil Production & Multiphase Flow.  In the recent past, he has been an editorial member of 23 journals and has published 125 papers in his area of expertise.

Dr. Blair has extensive experience in higher education and online education. She most recently worked for Blackboard Collaborate where she was responsible for working with customers and collaborate teams to implement project plans. Previously, she worked at FedEx Latin America Caribbean Division as a Training Advisor responsible for delivering training, designing online training, and optimizing the use of technology to produce results.

Previously she worked as a Senior Instructional Designer for the Virtual College at Miami Dade College where she coordinated and trained faculty in the course development process. She additionally teaches for Grantham University, as well as Kaplan University. She has a strong background in technology and communications, business and management, instructional design, and online and traditional teaching.

Dr. Blair is past president of Florida Distance Learning Association, the Florida affiliate of the United States Distance Learning Association, where she lead the organization in conducting technology training, state-of-the-art workshops, seminars, and webinars.

She is a passionate leader and trainer with extensive experience in higher education and corporate settings, including project management, curriculum development and delivery for face-to-face and online settings. She got exceptional skills in facilitating content delivery to meet the needs of the client, as well as Strong proponent of utilizing real world experience and technology to promote and reinforce learning, as well as to meet required outcomes.  She is easily able to deliver technical content to non-technical audiences. Quality Matters trained online course reviewer.

Some academic areas require necessarily of consulting activities of other related practicing experience. For example, what would be the “lab” for a professor of information systems development methodologies if not information systems development in the real world? In some other academic fields consulting activities might enrich, support and enhance research as it might be the case of some Engineering fields, Law, Medicine, Managements Science, Operation Research, etc. Still in other academic fields consulting is perceived as distracting activities from what is considered to be a scholarly research. In some fields or disciplines this might be true, but even in these cases scholarly research would eventually generate, via other scholars or researchers, applied research which would support real life problem solving and, consequently, decision and policy making processes which part of the consulting activities. Consequently, research and consulting are, directly or indirectly, immediately or mediately, related and complementing each other via cybernetic co-regulative loops (negative feedback or feedforward) and co-amplificatory loops (positive feedback) which, in turn, might potentially produce synergic effects that a) increase the effectiveness (and possibly the efficiency) of both kinds of activities, and/or b) generate systems/products development, innovations, entrepreneurship, patents, research papers, etc.

An increasing number of academics are explicitly or implicitly relating their research and consulting activities between themselves and sometimes with their educational activities. Consulting via research and making research via consulting are both being used with more frequency, in the corporative sector as well as in the academic sector, or in organizations created by and/or in the context of Higher Education organizations.

Some academic areas require necessarily of consulting activities of other related practicing experience. For example, what would be the “lab” for a professor of information systems development methodologies if not information systems development in the real world? In some other academic fields consulting activities might enrich, support and enhance research as it might be the case of some Engineering fields, Law, Medicine, Managements Science, Operation Research, etc. Still in other academic fields consulting is perceived as distracting activities from what is considered to be a scholarly research. Each of these three perspectives might relatively be the right one; they would not conflict with each other, depending on the academic fields they are referring to. Having said so, a Higher Education organization should have both activities integrated with each other in order to ingrate the organization to the Society at large which is a necessary condition for legitimizing itself and reciprocating the financial support being provided by the Society to maintain its own functioning as an academic organization, not completely dedicated to instruction or education, but also to research.

Depending on the academic perspective, “research and consulting” are, are not, might be, or should be related as complementing each other. We think that frequently they are, or might be, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, cybernetically related via co-regulative loops (negative feedback or feedforward) and co-amplificatory loops (positive feedback) which, in turn, might certainly produce synergic effects that a) would increase the effectiveness (and possibly the efficiency) of both kinds of activities, and/or b) generate systems/products development, innovations, entrepreneurship, patents, research papers, etc.

The last part of this session was oriented to a related topic (differences and relationships between education and instruction) which could be abstracted as follow:

“Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” Albert Einstein
“But education, in the true sense, is not mere instruction…It is unfolding the whole human nature. It is growing up in all things to our highest possibility” J. F. Clarke
“By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in child and man-body, mind and spirit. Literacy is not the end of education or even the beginning.” Mahatma Gandhi

How important is to differentiate the notion of “education” from the notions of “Instruction, Learning, and Training”? In previous conversational conference we tried to differentiate between “education and instruction” as well as between “education and e-learning”. On the later we even held a debate. A consequence of these conversational and debate session a draft of an article was written where “education and instruction” were differentiated and related, with the purpose of trying to make more effective moth of them. The conclusion in this article was that “instruction” was a mean, even a necessary means in any educational process, but it should not be taken as an end in itself. The suggestion for this conversational session is propose that “Learning, and Training” are other means used in educational processes which should not be taken as ends in themselves. Several means may, or should, be used in education, but (we suggest) that none of this mean should be taken as an end in itself. Otherwise we might generate a conceptual (or intellectual) corruption that might have undesirable epistemological and pragmatic consequences.

Is this suggestion acceptable? If not, why? If yes, then what could we do in order to avoid confusing these notions?