Informatics Systems & Applications Group Kostas Karatzas Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Tel:Fax: , January 2007

Who am I….  Name: Kostas Karatzas  Age: 38; Married, 3 children  Nationality: Greek  University Education: Diploma and PhD in Mechanical Engineering, AUTh  Academic Positions: Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, AUTh

Where do I come from: AUTh

The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki was founded in 1925 in Macedonia, Greece It comprised five Schools: Theology, Philosophy (1926), Political and Economic Sciences (1929), Natural Sciences (1927) and Medicine. In 2000 the main campus extends over an area of 137 acres and consists of eight Schools: Theology, Philosophy, Law and Economics, Natural Sciences, Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences, Medical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Engineering, and Arts. The number of students is 95000, the teaching and research staff is 2650 and the special technical personnel is distributed among 42 Schools. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki: History and Statistics

School of Engineering AUTh: School of Engineering

Six self-administered Departments of Engineering studies - Civil, Architecture, Rural and Surveying, Mechanical, Electrical and Chemical. The Department of Mechanical Engineering has 30+ full time faculty members and a smaller number of teaching associates. The teaching and research functions are supported by administrative, technical and secretarial personnel. The School devotes a large amount of time to interaction with the 1300 students of the Department, both individually and in groups. An important characteristic is the low percentage of women between our students (less than 20% last year) AUTh: School of Engineering

The Department offers three degrees: Diploma in Mechanical Engineering M.Sc. in Management of Production Systems Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering. The Diploma is a five-year degree and is designed to provide training in the traditional fields of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, with specialization in an area of the student's choice. The overall study is organized into 10 semesters and is concluded with a diploma thesis. In addition to the educational functions, the Department is dedicated to the promotion of numerous research activities. Mechanical Engineering Department AUTh, School of Engineering

Involvement in the following national educational activities Informatics for Mechanical Engineers (1 st and 2 nd semester course, approx 130 attendees), Dept. of Mech. Engineering, AUTh, Greece Environmental Informatics (9 th semester course, approx. 10 attendees), Dept. of Mech. Engineering, AUTh, Greece) M.Sc. programme in Transportation Management, Dept. of Civil Engineering, AUTh, Greece (2003) M.Sc. Programme in Computational Physics, Dept. of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece (2005-now) Activities related to Technological Education

Involvement in the following international lecturing activities M.Sc. programme in Environmental Informatics, Kuopio University, Finland (Erasmus collaboration, 2003, 2006). Technical University of Madrid, Computer Science School, Group of Environmental Software and Modelling, Spain, PhD programme of the Dept. of Computer Software, Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, Department of Geophysical Research of the Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tomsk, ACCENT Network of Excellence, module for science communication to non scientists, Μasaryk University, Burno, Czech Republic, Institute of Biostatistics and Analysis, Facfulty of Medicine and Faculty of Science, Ms.C programme (2007). Activities related to Technological Education

Related R&D experience  Investigation, setup, parameterization and support of an asynchronous web- based system for the support of educational activities at the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, AUTh.  Development of curriculum material for 4 courses of Technological Education at AUTh.  Investigation of the perception of environmental and the acceptance in the usage of related ICT information services, in relation to gender, educational background, etc.  Participation at the design, development and testing of an advanced training system for emergency management (A-TEAM project, FP4-IST). Also  Supervising a student thesis on the design and development of a computer programming related, web based, elearning paradigm.  Supervising a diploma thesis on the usage of LEGO Mindstorms for the development of a (physical and virtual) interactive environment for the support of 1 st year engineering students in computer programming.

Currently running projects 1.Early warning informatics system for air pollution in Thessaloniki 2.ISBEEM: indoor environment and energy management for school buildings 3.Towards the MAturation of Information Technology USability Evaluation (COST action) 4.Urban Ontologies for an improved communication in UCE projects (COST action) 5.Reaching Out! From school to work, prepared for the Change (educational project on Health and Safety)

Our interests in UPDATE project  Learn and apply methods for curriculum content development that support participation of women to engineering education. Test those with Mech. Eng. students at AUTh, when lecturing Informatics on 1 st and 2 nd semester  Investigate differences, barriers and motivation that influence women in relation to engineering education  Apply ICT expertise (with emphasis on open source) for the support of the above and other UPDATE targets