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Problem-solving is a key engineering skill, yet is an area in which engineering graduates underperform. This paper investigates the potential of using web-based tools to teach students problem-solving techniques without the need to make use of class time. An idea generation experiment involving 90 students was designed. Students were surveyed about their study habits and reported they use electronic-based materials more than paper-based materials while studying, suggesting students may engage with web-based tools. Students then generated solutions to a problem task using either a paper-based template or an equivalent web interface. Students who used the web-based approach performed as well as students who used the paper-based approach, suggesting the technique can be successfully adopted and taught online. Web-based tools may therefore be adopted as supplementary material in a range of engineering courses as a way to increase students’ options for enhancing problem-solving skills. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores how four young women narrated accounts of their interactions with their male peers in the engineering classroom. Drawing on data collected in a qualitative case study conducted at one high-performing English university, this paper details how the four women described two different versions of laddish masculinity evident within their engineering classroom; a hostile laddish masculinity, and a 'friendly' or 'genial' upper/middle-class laddish masculinity. Whilst the hostile lads were seemingly frowned upon and socially excluded, the 'friendly' or 'genial' upper/middle-class lads appeared largely liked and tolerated by the women. This paper thus adds to our understanding of women's current experiences in engineering education, and works to extend research in the area of laddism in formalized learning contexts in higher education (HE). In particular, this paper draws attention to the existence of subtle or nuanced degrees of laddism in engineering at the university under study, and highlights a possible relationship between 'lad' discourses and gendered disciplinary discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this work is to contribute to the debate on the best pedagogical approach to developing undergraduate mechanical engineering skills to meet the requirements of contemporary complex working environments. The paper provides an example of using student–entrepreneur collaboration in the teaching of modules to Mechanical Engineering final-year students. Problem-based learning (PBL) is one of the most significant recent innovations in the area of education for the professions. This work proposes to make an original contribution by simulating a real-life entrepreneur interaction for the students. The current literature largely confines simulation-based learning to computer applications such as games. However, this paper argues that role playing by students interfacing with technology start-ups can also be regarded as ‘simulation’ in a wider sense. Consequently, the paper proposes the concept of simulation-action learning as an enhancement of PBL and to distinguish it from computer simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Standards based grading is a formal assessment mechanism that tests for student achievement of specified learning objectives, or standards. Standards-Based-Grading has been gaining in popularity in K-12 education, and also has been seeing increased use in higher education, though it has only recently been used in engineering education. This paper describes how Standards-Based Grading was implemented in a second-semester Thermodynamics course. A total of eleven learning objectives were specified for the course. In this implementation of Standards-Based Grading, all assessments are done on a pass-fail basis. That is to say, there is no partial credit given. Once a student passes an assessment, usually given in the form of a quiz, on a given learning objective, it is assumed the student has mastered that concept and is not tested on it again. Students are allowed to re-test on particular objectives if they do not pass them on the first try. The final exam serves as a last chance for students to pass any objectives they did not complete earlier in the semester. The learning objectives can be mapped to student outcomes such as those required for accreditation without having to generate a separate set of data outside the normal course grading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering education is rapidly changing. The adoption of active learning in all its forms requires educators to keep abreast of the pedagogical changes whilst at the same time supporting staff and students in moving away from stereotypical behaviours and encouraging inclusive approaches to interactions in order to ensure an equitable education for all. As part of the design of a new integrated framework at UCL, the Integrated Engineering Programme (IEP),¹ the design team took steps to ensure that inclusion was considered at every stage, from the themes of group Challenges to consideration of design and professional skills. The intent was to help all students engage as widely as possible with the technical challenges and ensure that no group of students was adversely affected by any of the changes that would be introduced. The move to a more intensive team-based learning environment was considered a possible threat, in particular to women students. Specifically the design team did not frame any of the measures as being for women students, but focused on creating inclusive team environments. A widely used assessment tool, StrengthsFinder 2.0 (Rath, 2007), was introduced for all students in week one of term one. Over the five years of the IEP a series of feedback surveys, focus groups and reflections from staff and students have contributed to the refining and development of the IEP. This paper presents insights into the programme and the introduction of STRENGTHS, and first results from the team working focus groups. In particular the paper considers how inclusion and the professional confidence of women (and men) is being addressed and evaluated. This is a work in progress and the programme is subject to ongoing review and adjustment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines Vietnam's international trade competitiveness in the telecommunication goods industry. Comparing Vietnam's performance to those of its more advanced ASEAN-3 rivals (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand), the paper argues that Vietnam has overcome its initial technological backwardness. Nevertheless, Vietnam's continued ability to climb the technological ladder depends on the efficacy of its industrial policy as well as the vitality of its overall science and technological base. To this end, Vietnam should implement a more robust industrial policy to fully realize its current advantage in the telecommunication goods industry. It should “push” its cohort of state-owned enterprises to climb the technological ladder by tying state support to their export performances. In addition, Vietnam needs to strengthen its overall science and technological base. It would do well by investing in research and development activities, and cultivating a larger share of tertiary graduates in engineering and other technological fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transportation engineering curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels are critical to the development of technical competency in future transportation engineering professionals--those who will be responsible for the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of safe and efficient transportation systems. This paper provides an analytic review of journal articles and refereed conference papers addressing how transportation engineering curricula have changed over time. The literature review found 51 articles for analysis, with an increased frequency of those publications over time. Curriculum issues described in these papers include how transportation fits broadly within engineering programs and, more specifically, within civil engineering programs, which topics are addressed in transportation courses, and how these courses attend to stakeholder needs. This analytic review of the literature provides a resource for transportation engineering educators, administrators, and researchers to consider how transportation curricular issues have been treated in the literature historically as the community continues to develop and implement the transportation engineering curricula of the future. The findings will inform transportation engineering educators of the state of the practice in transportation engineering curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies exploring what it means to be an engineer professionally have been conducted for decades, but have boomed in recent years. This systematic literature review aims to organise extant studies on engineering identity by coding around four key variables: (a) definitions of engineering identity, (b) factors affecting engineering identity development, (c) interventions affecting engineering identity development, and (d) means of measuring identity. In doing so, this review provides strategies for future research and educational interventions to advance work related to engineering identity. Publications were selected for inclusion by screening and appraising results obtained from databases and keywords refined through a scoping study. Derived from key findings, suggestions for future research include bridging disparate strands of engineering identity literature and incorporating more varied methodological approaches. Also from key findings, suggestions for future practice involve better connecting existing definitions of engineering identity and factors known to affect identity development with identity-related interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional bodies expect engineers to show competence in both mathematics and engineering topics such as mechanics, using their abilities in both of these to solve problems. Yet within engineering programmes there is a phenomenon known as ‘The Mathematics Problem’, with students not demonstrating understanding of the subject. This paper will suggest that students are constructing different concept images in engineering and mathematics, based on their perception of either the use or exchange-value for the topics. Using a mixed methods approach, the paper compares 10 different types of concept image constructed by students, which suggests that familiar procedural images are preferred in mathematics. In contrast strategic and conceptual images develop for mechanics throughout the years of the programme, implying that different forms of competence are being constructed by students between the two subjects. The paper argues that this difference is attributed to the perceived use-value of mechanics in the career of the engineer, compared to the exchange-value associated with mathematics. Questions are raised about the relevance of current definitions of competence given that some routine mathematical operations previously performed by engineers are now being replaced by technology, in the new world of work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Team formation is one of the essential elements in constructing effective teamwork of any team size that requires different skill sets. Diversity in team encourages students to challenge and compete with one another while searching for new ideas, which in turn can lead to a better team performance. In a well-functioning diverse teams, the students who performed poorly may gain benefit by observing how excellent students approach the assignments. They may also benefit by getting advice and assistance from the excellent students. Studies have shown that Malaysian university graduates lack of team skills. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for forming a diverse multidisciplinary team among engineering undergraduates based on selected criteria such as individual personality type, gender, and other relevant demographic information. The proposed framework can also be used to design an automated team-formation system based on the identified metrics. The purpose of the framework is to consolidate the existing team formation literature, and to develop and test interventions for maximizing individual member and team performance as a whole that makes an effective team. For this study, a multidisciplinary approach was used where first year engineering students from three different faculties, namely Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FKE), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FKM), and Faculty of Biosciences and Medical Engineering (FBME) at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) worked on an innovation project using the Conceive, Design, Implement, and Operate (CDIO) framework. Keirsey Temperament Sorter was used as an instrument to identify an individual's personality type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laboratories are generally regarded as critical to engineering education, and yet educational institutions face significant challenges in developing and maintaining high-quality laboratory facilities. Remote laboratories are increasingly being explored as a partial solution to this challenge, with research showing that – for the right learning outcomes – they can be viable adjuncts or alternatives to conventional hands-on laboratories. One consequential opportunity arising from the inherent support for distributed access is the possibility of cross-institutional shared facilities. While both technical feasibility and pedagogic implications of remote laboratories have been well studied within the literature, the organisational and logistical issues associated with shared facilities have received limited consideration. This paper uses an existing national-scale laboratory sharing initiative, along with a related survey and laboratory sharing data, to analyse a range of factors that can affect engagement in laboratory sharing. The paper also discusses the implications for supporting ongoing laboratory sharing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

‘Career Academics’ are principally research-led, entering academia with limited or no industrial or practical experience. UK Higher Education Institutions welcome them for their potential to attain research grant funding and publish world-leading journal papers, ultimately enhancing institutional reputation. This polemical paper problematises the Career Academic around three areas: their institutional appeal; their impact on the student experience, team dynamics and broader academic functions; and current strategic policy to employ them. We also argue that recent UK Government teaching-focused initiatives will not address needs to employ practical academics, or ‘Pracademics’ in predominantly vocational Construction and Engineering Education. We generate questions for policy-makers, institutions and those implementing strategy. We argue that research is key, but partial rebalancing will achieve a diverse academic skill base to achieve contextualised construction and engineering education. In wider European contexts, the paper resonates with issues of academic ‘drift’ and provides reflection for others on the UK context. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the twenty-first century, meeting our technological challenges demands educational excellence, a skilled populace that is ready for the critical challenges society faces. There is widespread consensus, however, that education systems are failing to adequately prepare all students with the essential twenty-first century knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in life, career, and citizenship. The purpose of this paper is to understand how twenty-first century knowledge and skills can be appropriately embedded in engineering education finalised to innovative product development by using additive manufacturing (AM). The study designs a learning model by which to achieve effective AM education to address the requirements of twenty-first century and to offer students the occasion to experiment with STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) concepts. The study is conducted using the quality function deployment (QFD) methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to identify faculty perspectives on the integration of work-related issues in engineering education. A mixed methods approach was used to explore faculty attitudes towards work-related learning, to describe activities related to working life that have been introduced into the curriculum and to identify factors that faculty see as important if the amount of work-related learning is to increase. The results show that faculty members are positive about integrating work-related issues into the curriculum. Programmes with more extensive connections to industry offer more integrated activities, such as projects with external actors, and use professional contacts established through research in their teaching. In order to increase work-related learning in engineering curricula, faculty request clear goals and pedagogical tools. Other options to increase work-related learning include offering faculty the opportunity to work outside academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper questions if engineering educators are producing engineers that are accelerating humanity along an unsustainable path. Even though technology and engineering are important drivers in trying to move humanity towards an environmentally sustainable paradigm, the paper suggests that maybe the most important levers and challenges lie in the economic and social domains. Short case studies of energy efficiency, the experience of the industrialist Ray Anderson and the authors own reflection of teaching chemical engineering students are used to highlight this. Engineering/technological innovation may not be enough and is often counteracted by the rebound effect and the current dominant neoclassical economic paradigm. The paper discusses what engineering educators can do to produce sustainability informed engineers who are better able to engage with the economic and social dimensions of sustainability. Some suggestions for engaging engineering students with the economic and social dimensions of environmental sustainability are provided. Engineers must somehow find ways, not just to influence technological levers (which are very important) but also to influence economic and social levers so that changes in economic and social behaviours can complement and facilitate technological change in moving humanity to an environmentally sustainable paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a structural engineer, effective communication and interaction with architects cannot be underestimated as a key skill to success throughout their professional career. Structural engineers and architects have to share a common language and understanding of each other in order to achieve the most desirable architectural and structural designs. This interaction and engagement develops during their professional career but needs to be nurtured during their undergraduate studies. The objective of this paper is to present the strategies employed to engage higher order thinking in structural engineering students in order to help them solve complex problem-based learning (PBL) design scenarios presented by architecture students. The strategies employed were applied in the experimental setting of an undergraduate module in structural engineering at Queen’s University Belfast in the UK. The strategies employed were active learning to engage with content knowledge, the use of physical conceptual structural models to reinforce key concepts and finally, reinforcing the need for hand sketching of ideas to promote higher order problem-solving. The strategies employed were evaluated through student survey, student feedback and module facilitator (this author) reflection. The strategies were qualitatively perceived by the tutor and quantitatively evaluated by students in a cross-sectional study to help interaction with the architecture students, aid interdisciplinary learning and help students creatively solve problems (through higher order thinking). The students clearly enjoyed this module and in particular interacting with structural engineering tutors and students from another discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The School of Engineering at Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) implemented, starting in the 2012–2013 period, a unified academic model based on project-based learning as the methodology used throughout the entire School. This model expects that every year, in each grade, all the students should participate in a capstone project integrating the contents and competencies of several courses. This paper presents the academic context under which this experience has been implemented, and a summary of the work done to design and implement the Project-Based Engineering School at the UEM. The steps followed, the structure used, some sample projects, as well as the difficulties and benefits of implementing the programme are discussed in this paper. The results are encouraging as students are more motivated and the initial set objectives were accomplished. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Employer complaints of engineering graduate inability to 'apply knowledge' suggests a need to interrogate the complex theory-practice relationship in twenty-first century real world contexts. Focussing specifically on the application of mathematics, physics and logic-based disciplinary knowledge, the research examines engineering problem-solving processes as enacted by recent graduates in a range of industrial settings. Theoretically situated in the sociology of education, the Bernsteinian concept of knowledge structures and Legitimation Code Theory epistemic relations are utilised to surface the disciplinary basis of problem solving in different sociotechnical contexts. It is argued that the relationship between the 'what' and the 'how' of the problem gives rise to significantly different practice 'codes' between which successful engineering problem-solvers are required to shift. This paper presents two contrasting case studies which demonstrate the impact of the environment on code-shifting practices. Findings suggest that engineering curricula need to facilitate a more conceptual grasp of contextual complexities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemistry laboratories are expensive to setup and operate as well as it entails safety issues. However, as technologies develop and new technologies are being produced every day, an advance solution for physical Chemistry laboratories limitation is the use of virtual laboratories. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a virtual chemistry laboratory system that utilizes gesture computing technology to create an interactive and entertaining laboratory application for pupils. The system is software that works on PCs with the help of Leap motion controller, off-the-shelf gesture recognition hardware, to simulate a chemistry laboratory. The system provides number of experiments to perform along with tutorials and quizzes. A preliminary usability evaluation of the system shows the high level of interest from the pupils in using such a system and the positive feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of Design of Experiments (DoE) in a higher education setting and to remove the misconception that it is only applied to a manufacturing environment. The authors demonstrate a simple case study here to illustrate its application in a typical non-manufacturing context. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology involves the execution of a simple study in the form of an experiment in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Strathclyde. The experiment was performed with the assistance of both undergraduate and postgraduate students in one department in the Faculty of Engineering. Findings – It was found from the experiment that postgraduate students prefer a case study approach of teaching with multiple speakers and prefer their classes in the morning. As for undergraduate students, similar results were obtained but would prefer their classes in the afternoon. Moreover further analysis shows that the postgraduate students prefer a 30 minutes introduction to the topic in a one hour lecture. Moreover the students prefer more time to be spent on the exercises and less time on the discussion. Research limitations/implications – The sample size of the experiment was considered small in the study although this was a pilot study to investigate the use of DoE in a higher education setting. The authors will continue to collect more data for further validity of results obtained from the pilot study. The authors will also explore the use of different designs as part of the future investigations. Practical implications – The outcome of this experiment would help everyone who is involved in teaching to understand the factors and their influences to improve students’ satisfaction scores during the delivery of teaching. Originality/value – This paper shows how DoE as a pure manufacturing technique can be extended to a higher education setting. The results of this study were quite an eye opener for the authors in terms of understanding the key factors which influence any process irrespective of the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many approaches to make mathematics relevant to first-year engineering students have been described. These include teaching practical engineering applications, or a close collaboration between engineering and mathematics teaching staff on unit design and teaching. In this paper, we report on a novel approach where we gave higher year engineering and multimedia students the task to ‘make maths relevant’ for first-year students. This approach is novel as we moved away from the traditional thinking that staff should produce these resources to students producing the same. These students have more recently undertaken first-year mathematical study themselves and can also provide a more mature student perspective to the task than first-year students. Two final-year engineering students and three final-year multimedia students worked on this project over the Australian summer term and produced two animated videos showing where concepts taught in first-year mathematics are applied by professional engineers. It is this student perspective on how to make mathematics relevant to first-year students that we investigate in this paper. We analyse interviews with higher year students as well as focus groups with first-year students who had been shown the videos in class, with a focus on answering the following three research questions: (1) How would students demonstrate the relevance of mathematics in engineering? (2) What are first-year students' views on the resources produced for them? (3) Who should produce resources to demonstrate the relevance of mathematics? There seemed to be some disagreement between first- and final-year students as to how the importance of mathematics should be demonstrated in a video. We therefore argue that it should ideally be a collaboration between higher year students and first-year students, with advice from lecturers, to produce such resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The world is changing significantly, and it is becoming increasingly globalised. This means that countries, businesses, and professionals must think and act globally to be successful. Many individuals, however, are not prepared with the global competency skills needed to communicate and perform effectively in a globalised system. To address this need, higher education institutions are looking for ways to instil these skills in their students. This paper explains one promising approach using current learning principles: transnational interactive online environments in engineering education. In 2011, the TU Dortmund and the University of Virginia initiated a collaboration in which engineering students from both universities took part in one online synchronous course and worked together on global topics. This paper describes how the course was designed and discusses specific research results regarding how interactive online role-playing simulations support students in gaining the global competency skills required to actively participate in today's international workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study delves into the effectiveness of Google Classroom in enhancing academic performance among first-year engineering students in a communication skills course. Rooted in the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model and the Diffusion of Innovations theory, the research tests two hypotheses regarding the impacts of technology use and the instructor factor on student outcomes. With a sample of 356 students, the analysis employs t-tests and regression analysis to compare performance between students using Google Classroom and traditional teaching methods. The results reveal no significant difference in performance between the two groups, suggesting that integrating Google Classroom does not inherently enhance academic outcomes. However, marginal effects of instructor involvement were observed, underscoring the intricate interplay of human and technological factors in educational settings. The implications of these findings are significant, as they provide a nuanced understanding of the role of technology in education and the importance of effective instructor engagement. Future research should examine technology's role across diverse disciplines and the dynamics of instructor-student interactions within technology-enhanced environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women remain underrepresented in UK engineering, constituting only 11% of the engineering workforce in 2017 (WISE, 2017). This paper summarises the findings from two focus groups. From a total of 12 participants, the groups explored the experiences of undergraduate women engineering and navigation students at the University of Plymouth. Our aim was to identify ways in which we might support the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in these disciplines. By identifying common experiences, it was possible to illustrate how women as a group experience engineering and navigation differently to men. Our findings support those of many other studies and include the "non-visibility" of engineering as a career option for girls and women, and the need to adopt a range of strategies in order to fit in and claim an authentic identity as an engineer, rather than a "woman engineer." Participants were sceptical about initiatives overtly contrived towards helping women to progress in the disciplines, as these can be perceived as constituting a form of positive discrimination against male students with the added concern that male students view them as such. Future research and possible initiatives are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the development of metalearning capacity in the learning of athreshold concept– capacity of transformative significance relative to metalearning in the general response context of a discipline or subject. The development of metalearning capacity is framed within a protocol that invites students to self-construct a ‘learning profile’ of themselves; reflect on it in light of theoretical considerations; and accordingly self-initiate changes to their learning behaviour. Findings are consistent with other studies in different disciplinary contexts that employed the same methodology – namely, that metalearning activity can be successfully focused on a particular threshold concept to benefit a substantial majority of students in a variety of ways ranging across a positive reinforcement of self, a change in conception of what ‘learning is’, to self-initiated change. Metalearning activity is advocated as a theoretically sound, and pedagogically driven, learning intervention – one that adds value to the student learning experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Emissions reductions targets for the UK set out in the Climate Change Act for the period to 2050 will only be achieved with significant changes to the built environment, which is currently estimated to account for 50% of the UK's carbon emissions. The socio-technological nature of Civil Engineering means that this field is uniquely placed to lead the UK through such adaptations. This paper discusses the importance of interdisciplinary teaching to produce multi-faceted team approaches to sustainable design solutions. Methods for measuring success in education are often not fit for purpose, producing good students but poor engineers. Real-world failures to apply sustainable design present a serious, difficult to detect, and ultimately economically negative situation. Techniques to replace summative examinations are presented and discussed, with the aim of enhancing core technical skills alongside those required for sustainable design. Finally, the role of our future engineers in policy-making is discussed. In addition to carbon, the provision of water and food will heavily influence the work of civil engineers in the coming decades. Leadership from civil engineers with the technical knowledge and social awareness to tackle these issues will be required. This provides both opportunities and challenges for engineering education in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Mathematics has long been known to be problematic for university engineering students and their teachers, for example, Scanlan.[1] This paper presents recent data gathered from interviews with engineering students who experienced problems with mathematics and their lecturers during their transition through the first year in different programme contexts. Our interviews with the students reveal how they understand the relation between engineering and mathematics and we draw on the concept of ‘use- and exchange-value’ to explore this relationship more fully. This paper challenges both the pedagogical practice of teaching non-contextualized mathematics and the lack of transparency regarding the significance of mathematics to engineering. We conclude that the value of mathematics in engineering remains a central problem, and argue that mathematics should be a fundamental concern in the design and practice of first-year engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports on a project in which students designed, constructed and tested a model of an existing early warning system with simulation of debris flow in a context of a landslide. Students also assessed rural community members’ knowledge of this system and subsequently taught them to estimate the time needed for evacuation of the community in the event of a landslide. Participants were four undergraduate students in a civil engineering programme at a university in Thailand, as well as nine community members and three external evaluators. Results illustrate project and problem-based, experiential learning and highlight the real-world applications and development of knowledge and of hard and soft skills. The discussion raises issues of scalability and feasibility for implementation of these types of projects in large undergraduate engineering classes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introductory engineering courses are either programme specific or expose students to engineering as a broad discipline by including materials from various engineering programmes. A common introductory engineering course that spans different engineering programmes raises challenges, including the high cost of resources as well as the lack of background courses of first-year students. This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a first-year common engineering course that uses low-cost materials to expose students to a structured engineering design process. The course is explicitly designed to satisfy the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria for engineering programmes. Our experience with the course shows that not only students are able to follow a structured design process successfully but we also believe that most of the ABET criteria are being delivered through the course. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ABSTRACT This research emanates from a systems-oriented process of investigation into the educational approach of masters in engineering management programmes in order to find ways to improve student through-put rate and the quality of learning. The document describes the educational process, with specific emphasis on student preparedness, including the value and impact of a pivotal preparation test. This process is guided by constructive alignment; learning cycles through interactive blended teaching; and a focus on student learning. A longitudinal descriptive case study of the programmes was undertaken, focusing on a systems engineering module, which is integral to all masters programmes. The case is described with regard to its context; the educational process and teaching approach; and an educational and statistical analysis of the preparation test. The main contribution of the paper is the resulting structured, holistic, and integrated education process, designed to address the challenges, including a specific focus on student preparation and the pivotal preparation test. A clear link was established between student preparedness and the subsequent levels of teaching and learning. The preparation test was found to be on the relevant cognitive level; a predictor of course success; influencing positively the motivation of students; as well as impacting on the adaptation of the educational process. The use of the adapted Bloom's taxonomy to evaluate cognitive levels of an intervention; the application of learning cycles and constructive alignment; as well as the impact of a preparation test, can significantly enhance the quality of the education process and consequently, student through-put rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper we describe the EPICS Program at Purdue that was started in 1995 and has evolved into a multidisciplinary academic program engaging more than 800 students per year from nearly 70 disciplines across and outside of engineering. EPICS has been disseminated to other campuses and has been adopted as a K12 approach for introducing engineering through community engagement. This paper describes the current program and shares best practices and lessons learned as the program developed to provide insight for faculty and administrators seeking to develop service-learning, learning through service-learning, or community-based engineering. Data from the program related to student learning and community impact is shared. A discussion of the characteristics to make dissemination successful is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared with traditional engineering courses taught in classrooms, a self-paced online engineering course has the advantages of distance learning, flexible study schedules, and it utilizes rapid growing technologies including computers, internet, and software. In this paper, the knowledge and experience of creating several self-paced online pavement management courses were synthesized. Using these pavement management courses as examples, this paper illustrates the procedure for developing online courses, and the dos and don'ts of designing online classes. The principles of developing these online courses are also presented in the paper. These principles include making contents attractive with graphs and videos, creating effective quizzes with proper feedback, developing exam databanks with randomly selected test questions for fairness, making navigation easy within a course, and automatically generating certificates to document successful completion. In addition, the paper presents the advantages and challenges of distance learning on self-paced engineering courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the use and impact of formative feedback and scaffolding to develop outcomes for complex problem solving in a required first-year course in engineering design and practice at a medium-sized research-intensive Canadian university. In 2010, the course began to use team-based, complex, open-ended contextualised problems to develop problem solving, communications, teamwork, modelling, and professional skills. Since then, formative feedback has been incorporated into: task and process-level feedback on scaffolded tasks in-class, formative assignments, and post-assignment review. Development in complex problem solving and modelling has been assessed through analysis of responses from student surveys, direct criterion-referenced assessment of course outcomes from 2013 to 2015, and an external longitudinal study. The findings suggest that students are improving in outcomes related to complex problem solving over the duration of the course. Most notably, the addition of new feedback and scaffolding coincided with improved student performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building Information Modelling (BIM) tools and processes are increasingly adopted and implemented in the construction industry. Consequently, BIM education is considered increasingly important in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) education. While most of the research and literature on BIM education in engineering studies has focused on BIM implementation strategies, processes, benefits, and challenges, there is limited study on students’ perception towards the implementation of BIM courses, or about online BIM learning platforms, or about the BIM tools themselves. Therefore, this paper takes the first steps towards addressing this gap. This study analyses students’ (57 students) perception and sentiments towards the use of an online BIM learning platform and explores the potential implications of the findings for BIM education. The findings suggest that online BIM learning platforms are highly rated by students as a positive learning experience, indicating the need for greater integration of such tools and approaches in AEC courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]