Search

Sustainability has become increasingly important globally, due to climate change, and has become a key focus within New Product Development (N PD), drawing attention from academia, media, and industry. The increase pressure to be more sustainable as a humanity and within industry has led to the identification of the need to ensure that students are suitably educated on key sustainability issues related to their field. This paper shows that design and engineering education, with a focus on sustainability issues, currently being taught in university is having an impact on industry. Previous literature has highlighted gaps within the knowledge which could better the teaching in this area. The paper proposes a framework which aims at facilitating the adoption of the teaching and learning of sustainability within design and engineering undergraduate education, specifically focusing on the overall impact oftheir future positions within the NPD process. The main goal of the framework is to support students and educators in the learning and education of key sustainability issues throughout the typical undergraduate degree period, focusing on teaching methods and key themes which will be valuable as students' progress into industry. Future Research objectives have also been outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current higher education is based on a competence development approach including generic competences for the integral development of students. Degrees have been designed based on this paradigm centered on lifelong learning, self-regulated learning strategies and active methodologies in which the student is the core of the formative process, aiming at contributing to develop the key competence learning to learn. In the present paper, strategies for generic competences development and evaluation are discussed in tile context of engineering and technical courses and degrees. Challenges in competence assessment as well as alignment of formative assessment, methodologies and learning outcomes are discussed based on a series of experiences. Experience evidence that competence development requires designing activities oriented towards competence development, in which learning outcomes and assessment procedures are clearly defined. The alignment of these three elements is the key for competence development since succeeding in a course by achieving the defined learning outcomes implies succeeding in the acquisition of the generic competences planned. Through the paper it is also discussed that competence evaluation is a challenge for university teachers. for which they will need to be formed and trained, and provided with institutional support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How to improve inventive competency of engineers iii workplace plays a significant role in competitive advantages of companies. This paper presented and validated a PBL-based TRIZ training approach for engineers in workplace aiming at enhancing their inventive competency using the integration of TRIZ and PBL-based educational techniques. To do so, after a systematic review of related studies, a new TRIZ training approach is fabricated with seven specific steps built on the framework of PBL. Subsequently, research ciata collected from 95 participants is used to validate the practical proposed TRIZ training approach. Statistical analysis is conducted based on pre-training, during-training and post-train inventive outcomes of the research sample that are measured by a set of patent-based indicators. Comparing analysis results have indicated that the proposed TRIZ training approach has evidently increased the inventive outcomes of participating engineers. Moreover. regression results revealed that the position closeness to the new product development and the patent applying experience are two most significant positive influencing impactors on the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Lastly, this paper also highlights several implications for educating TRIZ to engineers in workplace and limitations to initialize studies iii the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Corona Virus-19 globally disrupted education severely in March 2020 and has continued through 2023. It has had far reaching impacts on engineering education and yet it provides an opportunity for researchers to understand this type of event's impact so that we can be well equipped for potential future disruptive events. This paper describes a novel study that used an online learning value and self-efficacy scale survey to collect data on perceived task value and student selfefficacy during a forced transition to online learning in a western university's sophomore level engineering mechanics course and a junior level hydraulic engineering course. This was an initial study that was investigating these constructs using the Online Learning Value and Self-Efficacy Scale. Data was additionally collected a year later with new participants in the same classes now taught in a traditional face-to-face fushion. Comparative results indicate that students who started in face-to-face classes preferred and felt they could do better in the face-to-face components more so than the online components, and that students who were earlier in their academic career were more likely to have higher ratings of selfefficacy in a forced online learning environment than students enduring the transition later in their academic career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies show that contextualized measures of high school achievement - in other words, how well students performed relative to their high school peers - can help identify students who have the potential to succeed in college, and thus can serve as a key measure in holistic admissions. Building upon previous work, this study further examines whether contextualized measures of high school achievement may help identify students who have the potential to succeed in engineering programs, especially among traditionally underrepresented students in engineering (defined in our paper as low-SES students, underrepresented students of color, and women). Based on longitudinal data from a Midwestern state's Department of Education database, this study finds that contextualized measures of high school performance are significantly associated with students' college performance - for all students in engineering, as well as across our three subsamples of traditionally underrepresented students. These findings have important implications for incorporating contextualized measures of high school performance when making undergraduate admissions decisions in engineering programs, to help better identify applicants from traditionally underrepresented student populations in engineering. This is particularly crucial as admissions offices move toward more holistic and test-optional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aalborg University (AAU) in Denmark is one of the universities in the world that practises problem-based learning (PBL) in all study programmes at all faculties. The PBL principles are broadly defined. and each study programme practices PBL in its own way within these frames. In this paper, we study how differently PBL is practiced within the science, engineering and mathematics areas at AAU. In particular, we analyse 21 AAU Bachelor theses in a selection of different engineering, science, and mathematics study programmes. to explore which types of problems from the discipline the students are addressing in their projects. We exemplify this through an analysis of recent Bachelor theses from Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Building and Construction Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, and Biologh respectively. The focus is on which types of problem from the discipline the students work with. The research methodology is documentary analysis of curricula and the theses. We first, through a deductive analysis, apply the four shadows of problems' theoretical framework to categorize the problems. This showed that 18 of the 21 theses can be categorized as concerning a contrast problem. This is the case for all five fields of study. Secondly, a more detailed inductive content analysis of these 18 theses' problems showed that these 18 problems had a great variation, and we were able to identify five specific types of contrast problems among these 18 theses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a rapidly developing field with growing importance in engineering, in particular, it serves as a means to better understand and manipulate big data. As educators look to develop more T-shaped engineers, where students have both a breadth and a depth of knowledge and skills. understanding artificial intelligence (AI) applications is extremely important due to its versatility. However, the literature is sparse in how to educate engineers on the use of Al applications. In this paper, the researchers examine the utility of a problem-based learning approach with the well-known supply chain management 'Beer Game' using adaptive comparativejudgment (ACJ). ACJ is a mechanism for 'learning by evaluating' through formative iterative comparisons as students develop their understanding of AI applications in supply chain management. The guiding research question was as follows: Does repeated use of adaptive comparative judgment (as a 'learn by evaluation tool) lead to enhanced student understanding of artificial intelligence? Findings provide evidence towards the effectiveness of the 5-week module to improve student perceptions und learning outcomes related to the intersection between supply chain management (SCM) and Al, but only when the treatment and control subgroups were "engaged" students who completed all module requirements. In other words, the use of ACJ 'learning by evaluation' was only found to be statistically significant for students who participated 100%;it was not found to be statistically significant for students who only partially participated. This is a novel finding that extends our understanding of the effectiveness of 'learning by evaluation' for problem-based learning assignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design thinking has generated widespread momentum today in several areas where new ideas transform our everyday lives. Engineering design schools have created and sustained a new discipline that uses the designer's sensitivity and design methods to create customer value, experience, and market opportunity. Guided by current best practices in design education we created a design thinking course and offered students content adapted from the most well-established design programs. This paper presents instructional and administrative perspectives, challenges faced, and lessons learned on adaptive design and implementation of the design thinking course within a resource-constrained environment in a small engineering program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nations throughout the world have recognized the importance of having a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) competent workforce in today's highly competitive and technical economy. As such, the past fifteen years have seen a sharp rise in introducing pre-college (P-12) students to engineering and engaging them in learning engineering principles. Policy decisions to include engineering in national curriculum and standards have not been informed by as rich a body of research as subjects such as mathematics and science; however, research on P-12 engineering education is on the rise. This paper presents a systematic review of the engineering education research in P-12 published in journals from 2000-2015. A systematic review follows a set of replicable, detailed procedures that describe how the articles were selected, reviewed, and analysed. The results of this review included 218 peer-reviewed journal articles. The paper details the kinds of research and research questions these papers focused on, and synthesizes and discusses findings of across different topics, and proposes research topics ripe for further work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an approach for K-12 Engineering education aimed to facilitate the concept learning in preschool and elementary school using simple robotic prototypes developed with active participation of children. The approach focuses on strategies for imparting engineering knowledge dealing some concepts related to subjects such as physics, electricity, electronics, mechanics and other fields related to engineering education by means of an open and affordable technology. The designed approach considers four stages to motivate the learning: sensitization, robot design, robot construction and evaluation. The paper also presents results about the impact assessment of the proposed K-12 approach through qualitative data gathering to know the children's impressions and a survey intended to know the opinion of the children's parents and schoolteachers about robots as a didactic resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many K-12 educators approach STEM disciplines as if each one (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) exist in isolation from each other integrate the content and skills of the disciplines that can engage students on many levels. STEM education is meant to be an interdisciplinary area of study that integrates the four disciplines rather than achieving skills and knowledge independently in each subject area. This paper examines the several attempts to define STEM and discusses the basics and issues related to the implementation of STEM programs and how engineering is a suitable vehicle for development and implementation of STEM programs, whether the focus of the course is science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. The value of the Next Generation Science Standards in this endeavor will be detailed. In addition, the paper will examine the relevance of STEM Career Technical Education (CTE) programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main issues faced by British Society today is reflective of the fact that there is a documented shortage of young people selecting a career in engineering. This is particularly the case when it comes to young women, many of whom simply don't consider engineering to be suitable for women. The reasons for this are well documented but arc undoubtedly worsened by the fact that only 6% of U K Engineers are female. Taking into account previous studies focusing on the issues of gender in engineering, a community based participatory research approach was adopted in which the reasons why teenage girls fail to view engineering as a viable future study or career option were explored. Two 17 year old female high school students were trained as participatory researchers and employed to conduct semi-structured interviews with their peers. A thematic analysis of the data was undertaken whereupon two distinctive themes emerged in relation to how girls' perceive engineering. The first theme reflected girls' lack of knowledge about what engineering is, whilst the second was related to their views of engineering as a potential career. Verbatim quotes are used throughout the paper to give the teenage participants a previously unheard 'voice in the debate about gender and engineering. The paper concludes by arguing that although engineering has much to offer young women in terms of a potential future career, the main issue is that they lack awareness of what engineering is and what engineers do. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the important elements of compiling a student portfolio. In the field of engineering, there is often a wide gap between students’ technical knowledge and their ability to communicate concepts to a broad audience. As a result, many new engineers enter careers without the necessary skills to clearly discuss their work with colleagues from different departments, peers from different organizations, and the wider public. Some engineering education programs are attempting to incorporate more emphasis on writing and communication into their course curricula, but there are still few opportunities for building and testing students’ skills in this area. This paper presents the purpose of a powerful portfolio in terms of what it can offer students, their educators, and their future employers. It also makes an argument for strong communication as a necessary skill in the engineering classroom, in R&D settings within a company, and across different departments and industries. It also offers some suggested guidelines for the process of compiling a portfolio, based on data and documents compiled from both educational institutes and engineering organizations. The intent of this work is to offer students and educators a brief overview of the portfolio process, with emphasis on organizing the components of such a collection so that a potential employer or peer would find them intuitive and easy to understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the intersectionality of students’ race, ethnicity, and gender, to learn more about how various groups pursue sustainability goals through engineering. The lack of diversity in engineering is a persistent issue which hinders the development of more sustainable engineering solutions. Therefore, this paper investigates sustainability-related beliefs and career outcome expectations among engineering students who identify with groups underrepresented in the field. These topics are investigated using data from a national (United States) survey of students in introductory college courses. The survey sample was stratified by institution type and the number of enrolled students. Responses came from 6,772 individuals enrolled at 50 institutions. Data was analyzed, ethnicity, and gender using descriptive statistics and multinomial logistic and linear regression. The intersectional approach to analyzing the data reveal opportunities to tailor teaching and messaging for greater diversity in engineering. For example, black females are more likely than other groups to want to address food issues in their careers while white females are no different than other groups. Results like these suggest ways to excite various populations about engineering careers, which could help attract much-needed diversity of thought to engineering for sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grading individual students in teams or projects has always been problematic. To accurately gauge individual learning outcomes, students' grades need to be based on what they have learned as an individual within the team or project context. However, within engineering team-based projects, individuals have traditionally been assigned a grade heavily influenced by the team's project outcomes. Final year engineering projects (FYEP) suffer from similar problems. While typically in the Australian context, the projects are conducted by individuals, they are still conducted using the philosophy of PBL. To provide a reliable indicator of student capability and program quality and standards, FYEPs must be coherent, valid and reliable instruments for student assessment and program evaluation. This paper considers two Australian engineering education projects, one recently completed and one current, that investigate the issues of; how can individuals who learn in a team environment be assessed as individuals?, how can the outcomes from final year engineering projects be used to demonstrate the standards required by various state and professional accrediting agencies? And what are the issues that prevent staff effectively assessing the learning outcomes of individual students who learn in the project environment? The paper outlines an assessment model that was trialled and discusses the issues arising. The difference between this form of assessment and others in engineering education is that it assesses the learning outcomes of the individuals as opposed to assessing the product of the team. The paper also discusses the results from the first stage of data gathering on final year projects in Australia. The conclusion is that assessing the product rather than the learner degrades the opportunity to use projects as evidence of learning, but continues because it is easier for academic staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capstone design courses offer opportunities to assess significant student learning outcomes specifically relevant to students' careers and useful for program accreditation. A framework for identifying learning outcomes and aligning assessments to various steps in capstone courses is essential for instructional effectiveness and assessment validity. This paper describes a procedure for prioritizing outcomes for assessment in capstone courses with consideration given to needs of the program, students, and society. Outcomes are mapped to natural capstone work products to ensure effective integration of assessments with natural course activities. This framework is constructed around published definitions of desired learning outcomes for engineering graduates and further refined by a workshop consisting of capstone design instructors at the 2014 Capstone Design Conference in Columbus, Ohio. The paper offers a suggested structure for developing capstone assessments that are applicable to programs across a variety of diverse institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on the mechanical engineering undergraduate program at the University of Alberta, this study attempts to quantify biases in student evaluation of teaching (SET) results that could be attributed to SET protocol, course content, and course delivery mode. SET results were compiled for five academic years of paper based SET evaluation and one semester of online SET evaluation. 20 core undergraduate courses were included; class size from 70-130; 35 professors. Statistical analysis included compilation of frequency histograms, determination of means and standard deviations, and rank-sum tests for significant differences based on aggregated data for several stratifications. Results showed significantly reduced response rate for online SET when compared to paper; ratings of professor evaluation were not different. No significant differences were found when results were compared on the basis of course content or delivery mode. Our aggregated data showed SET protocol lead to lower response rate, but not significant differences in instructor evaluation. Course content and delivery mode did not manifest in significant changes in SET results. Typical variability in instructor rating was 0.4/5.0 considering all data. Administrators and senior faculty should be aware of these results when ascertaining instructor performance. Although focused on one department, the study is a first step in a larger evaluation of SET in engineering. The study identified key variables that must be further evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the pivotal goals in engineering education is to broaden participation ofdifferent minorities. An overlooked barrier yet to be explored is how hidden curriculum and its connected constructs may impede this goal. Hidden curriculum (HO refers to the unwritten, unofficial, and often unintended assumptions, lessons, values, beliefs, attitudes, and perspectives in engineering. This paper will present the development and assessment of a mixed-method vignette survey instrument to evaluate the responses of current engineering students and faculty when exposed to several examples of hidden curriculum. Results from 153 engineering students and faculty across the United States and Puerto Rico were used to assess the survey sub-subscales (HC awareness, emotions, self-efficacy, and self-advocacy). Findings revealed Cronbach alpha coefficients of 0.70 (HC awareness), 0.73 (emotions), 0.91 (self-efficacy), and 0.91 (self-advocacy). The overall instrument had a reliability of 0.74. Alongside HC awareness, we found that among different axes of inequity, gender, role, and institution type are important elements that shaped the responses of these engineering populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of promoting professional project management skills in Engineering Higher Education, evolving from Graduate to Postgraduate Programs. The strategy was born from a cooperative model of Project Based Learning (PBL) created with the experience of the GIE-Project, Educational Innovation Group (EIG) of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), in collaboration with other EIG and industry stakeholders external to the university. The model has evolved and undergone various phases until being inserted in the European Space of Higher Education with the International Project Management Association (IPMA) competences. Over time GIE-Project strategy has developed into a process, an approach to designing, developing, implementing, evaluating and promoting professional Project Management skills in first (Graduate), second (Postgraduate) and third (PhD) cycle degree programmes. The results show how phasing in teaching aimed across different educational levels facilitates a gradual training in the 46 elements of professional competences required to obtain the IPMA's certification on Project Management. The educational strategy is conceived as a new teaching dimension within the framework of the EHEA, taking the course projects--Preliminary course, Final Degree Course Project and Final Master's Course Project--as an educational component suited for generating a "pre-work experience" to link teaching activity to the business and industrial environment. This paper shows the main success factors in the process that was carried out: the links between teaching-professional certification, the evaluation of professional competences, Project Based Learning, teaching subjects in connection with real-world problems, cooperative learning, mobility activities and integration and applied teaching-research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting professional competencies is becoming an issue of interest and major concern in university environments. The assessment of individual students has usually been based on their knowledge and skills in solving problems on paper in an environment where time is scarce and information is restricted to the data given in the written instructions. However, the human resource managers of the major companies rate basic professional competencies very highly in the graduates that they take on, putting less importance on the level of technical knowledge possessed at the time of they are being taken on. In 1982 engineers from Ford, Chrysler and General Motors in the United States, being aware of how newly graduated engineers were adapted to automotive companies, designed a competition for universities throughout the world: Formula SAE. This competition involved conceiving, designing, manufacturing and competing with a formula-type vehicle. In 2003 the University Institute for Automobile Research (UPM--INSIA), was set up as the first Spanish Formula SAE competition team, called UPMRacing. The aim of this paper is the assessment of the professional competencies promoted by the Formula SAE project in individual students participating in the UPMRacing team. The compeTEA questionnaire® has been selected to assess competencies in the context of the UPMRacing team. This questionnaire has been applied to the team members in two milestones: when they start their participation (initial stage), and after they compete. Results conclude that this learning activity increases the professional competencies in a significant way, mainly in case of the students with the lowest level of professional competencies in the initial stage. Additionally, the main deficiencies identified in the participating students were the acquisition of organisational and planning competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes and highlights the presentations and discussions that took place during Mudd Design Workshop VIII, 'Design Education: Innovation and Entrepreneurship,' at Harvey Mudd College. This paper also describes both the key ideas that emerged from the presentations and discussions of the participating engineering design educators, practitioners and researchers, and the methodology used to capture and retain those ideas. Additionally, this paper proposes a framework of design competencies that were created and evolved by the workshop's participants as a response to a question posed at one of the workshop sessions: 'What are the minimum design competencies students should learn from our programs?' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educating and guiding undergraduate engineering design teams that perform at a high technical level in innovative design projects can be accomplished by using a hierarchical coaching model. The coaching model discussed in this paper incorporates the use of graduate students as coaches to mentor successful design teams. This paper discusses the results of a study performed on undergraduate engineering design teams and their graduate student coaches during two consecutive years of a capstone design course. The results of this study reveal two underlying themes that can be attributed to the successful execution of this model. One theme is the development of human connections between the coach and undergraduate design team. Another theme that arose was the need for mentorship of the graduate student coach, especially on technical management skills. Both themes enable the design team and coaches to become involved in the design project for reasons beyond that of just understanding fundamental engineering concepts and solving complex problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Fall 2008 the University of Dayton first offered their restructured first-year design course entitled Engineering Innovation. A year later an all-female section of the course was offered, in conjunction with the development of a Women in Science and Engineering Living Learning Community. Now having finished the second year of this initiative, this paper focuses on student perspectives of having been in an all-female engineering design class. Reflection papers written by the students detailed both perceived benefits and consequences of the all-female class experience. This paper examines these perceptions and discusses the implications these perceptions have for teaching traditional mixed-gendered innovation courses so that they might be more inclusive to all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the obligatory but often contentious relationship that exists between contemporary second level education and the choice of undergraduate course by students within an Irish context. A survey of 1723 students from across four second level schools and all year groups was conducted asking students to elect a career that they would most like to pursue in the future. The results of this survey served to highlight the declining allure of engineering as a future career for students as they progress through second level. Focus groups were held in all four schools in order to identify the current motivations behind students' course choice, as well as students' perceptions regarding the decline in undergraduate engineering numbers. Students frequently highlighted future career prospects, as well as current matriculation requirements as factors to be taken account of in the uptake of undergraduate engineering degree programmes. Finally this paper also compares and contrasts the perceptions and motivations of current second level students with those of existing undergraduate engineers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a strategy used to develop skills in research and communication among a cohort of postgraduate masters students. This took place in Engineering Research Practice (ERP). where most of the students were international with English as an additional language (EAL). The paper evaluates the combined effect of a change in course assessment processes and the introduction of a program of English for Academic purposes (EAP). We determined that tightly scaffolded curriculum and assessment design, combined with discipline-specific writing support, resulted in higher quality work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Technology Innovation Mapping (TIM) Tool has been introduced in previous papers. The TIM Tool organizes the process of linking customers and technologies into a series of steps. The tool can be used by engineers, engineering, and others involved in technology commercialization. This paper focuses on the steps that organize the task of creating potential customers for a technology. The authors present an example technology to illustrate the key concepts of the TIM Tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes and highlights the presentations and discussions that took place during a workshop on sustainable engineering design in both practice and education. Supported by Harvey Mudd College's Center for Design Education, Mudd Design Workshop VI, 'Sustaining Sustainable Design,' was held at Mudd during 29-31 May 2009. This paper describes both the key ideas that emerged from the presentations and discussions of the participating engineering design educators, practitioners and researchers, and the methodology used to capture and retain those ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the 2006 National Defense Education and Innovation Initiative, NASA and DAVANNE LLC have collaborated to create the NASA Robotics Alliance Cadets Program to develop a highly integrated and interactive STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) undergraduate curriculum. This paper investigates the NASA Cadets' use of Active Learning to not only meet the nationally recognized need for a formal assessment standard, but also to ensure the sustainability of the program. To demonstrate the program's Active Learning tools wide accessibility and their integration with the program's methodologies, this paper examines the NASA Cadets' robotics platform and its use within an educational experiment co-developed by Cornell University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A wide variety of engineering students and professionals are interested in sustainability issues, but do not come from environmental backgrounds. As a result, courses designed for such students must strike a balance between providing useful environmental and sustainability knowledge and yet remain appropriate for those coming from a non-environmental background This paper outlines such a course that has been taught and refined for the last three years in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Windsor, to a mixed class of civil, mechanical, environmental and industrial engineering graduate students. The paper provides examples and descriptions of what was done in the class and their effectiveness for teaching sustainability, as well as what difficulties were encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embedded resistors are planar resistors that are fabricated inside printed circuit boards and used as an alternative to discrete resistor components that are mounted on the surface of the boards. The successful use of embedded resistors in many applications requires that the resistors be trimmed to required design values prior to lamination into printed circuit boards. This paper describes a simple emulation approach utilizing conductive paper that can be used to characterize embedded resistor operation and experimentally optimize resistor trimming patterns. We also describe a hierarchy of simple modeling approaches appropriate to both college engineering students and pre-college students that can be verified with the experimental results, and used to extend the experimental trimming analysis. The methodology described in this paper is a simple and effective approach for demonstrating a combination of measurement methods, uncertainty analysis, and associated engineering model development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of the development and implementation of a three-year industrially supported Sports Technology Bachelor Degree Programme (with an optional placement year in industry) from within the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Loughborough University, UK. The paper describes how engagement between course providers, industry and students has been encouraged and integrated into the curriculum. It is highlighted that the degree programme has flourished as a direct result of the already strong research activities in this area. Attention is given to the structure and content of the programme, links and discussions hem with the sporting goods industry and the aspirations and career destinations of students and graduates. We have initiated many industry activities and believe that this is a key factor in attracting increasing student numbers. Examples include, one-year student placements in industry, industry sponsorship of undergraduate projects, extensive donations of equipment for teaching purposes, ongoing input from a departmental industry advisory board and a programme steering group that includes senior industry, academic and sports governing body representatives. In addition, industry are involved directly in teaching which includes visiting lectures, site visits and factory tours. Emphasis is given to how the needs of industry have been accommodated and how industrial support was sought and subsequently integrated into the programme. Insights gained from student feedback forms are discussed. It is hoped that the paper will be of interest to others operating similar programmes and perhaps more importantly to those currently considering how to work co-operatively with industry to enhance engineering education for undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a conceptual model for the Web-based virtual testing and learning (WVTL) in applied sciences, especially in the area of materials science and engineering. WVTL is not an existing field but rather an idea, which could be easily handled for educational purposes and staff training as well as for new materials, products and prototypes testing. The paper reports exclusively on the use and services of simulations on the Web and the potential use of WVTL as well as the trends and opportunities in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of the robotics discipline is changing. In turn the traditional engineering-based degree programmes that have promoted robotics as an application of engineering principles need to be supplemented with robot-centred degree programmes that reflect the diverse character of robotics, the diverse interests of students, and the diverse multi-disciplinary contributions to the robotics discipline. In this paper the nature of the change that robotics has undergone in recent years is described. An outline of the subject material of robotics, comprising robotics science and robotics engineering, is discussed. The teaching of robotics degree programmes in the past has been hampered by the expense required to install and maintain a robotics teaching laboratory. Availability of online robot systems and numerous robot kits has changed this situation to some extent. However, the paper concludes that there is still a need for good educational toolkits for teaching robotics at a first degree level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines concept of professional liability for engineering activities and products and its relation to the concepts of professional negligence and product liability as defined in law, particularly in the United States. Elements of tort liability discussed in this paper reflect societal expectations for engineering practice and engineering products. The paper first examines the basis for legal liability for general tortious conduct and then specifically examines the concepts of professional 'malpractice' (professional negligence) and strict liability for products in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Next Generation Science Standards now integrate science and engineering through their Core Ideas and Practices dimensions. Portions of the engineering design process included in these standards emphasize: (1) defining problems through identifying criteria and constraints, (2) developing solutions to those problems, and (3) optimizing those solutions to best fit the criteria and constraints. The Science Learning Integrating Design, Engineering, and Robotics (SLIDER) project, funded through the NSF DRK-12 program for five years, set out to investigate this integration through the use of robotics and design to develop conceptual understanding among 8th grade physical science students. Through three years of curriculum development and iteration, the SLIDER curriculum faced several challenges in making this integrated approach both effective and practical in a diverse array of schools. This paper presents that story and makes suggestions critical to others designing for the NGSS and developing theory around integrated STEM learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The In Venture Challenge seeks to bring design, engineering, invention, and entrepreneurship to K-12 education by providing a framework, curriculum, and competition that can be used by teachers in different disciplines with support from Georgia Institute of Technology faculty and staff. Modeled after Georgia Tech's InVenture Prize, a 'Shark-Tank' style competition for Georgia Tech undergraduates that is televised throughout Georgia, the InVenture Challenge attempts to deliver the same authentic experience to younger participants by providing resources and mentoring to K-12 teachers to implement engineering, design, and entrepreneurship lessons. In this paper, we present the motivation for the InVenture Challenge, lesson plans, resources, teacher survey feedback, and teacher focus group themes from the third year of implementation. The teacher survey data is related to perceptions of the program, self-efficacy for teaching engineering and entrepreneurship, observed student outcomes, challenges experienced during implementation, and recommendations for implementation within different schools and classroom settings. In general, teachers perceive the InVenture Challenge as an engaging way to introduce students to engineering and find value in the connection to the Georgia Tech community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past four years, fifty-three peer-nominated engineering innovators were interviewed about the process of creating innovations and the personal characteristics of engineers who do so successfully. These interviewees were drawn from across all engineering disciplines and all types and sizes of organizations where they were employed. Our main objective was to better understand the behavioral characteristics that lead engineers to discover, develop, and implement innovations in products, processes, or concepts. We call this behavior engineering innovativeness. This paper describes our rigorous process for discovering the essence of engineering innovativeness and its characteristics. As portraits of engineering innovativeness, we present 10 unique personas of engineering innovators gathered from our interviews. Identifying the behavioral characteristics of innovative engineers and their personas is important to both the education of student engineers and the professional development of practicing engineers. If engineers are expected to behave in an innovative manner in their academic and professional endeavors, then understanding the behavioral characteristics and personas of 'expert' or 'master' innovative engineers is an essential first step in learning to behave in an innovative manner or to become more innovative as an engineer. We discovered that there is not one type of engineering innovator or a single group of characteristics that define engineering innovativeness; rather, there are many different types of engineering innovators, as evidenced by the unique groupings of engineering innovativeness characteristics identified by our experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning new concepts outside one's domain can be challenging due to the complexity of the content, the method of delivery, and the assessment process. However, learning new concepts is a necessary part of education and individual growth. This paper outlines this challenge in the context of undergraduate and engineering students taking a sociology course entitled, "Who Gets Ahead: Sociology of Social Networks and Social Capital", We review some of the existing literature focused around teaching new concepts to unfamiliar students, as well as discuss some of the literature around teaching the topic of sociology to engineering students. Finally we will describe our approach taken to teach a sociology course to engineers, as well as some of the observations taken during the course. The outcome of the course showed that many of the student's concerns of the course's requirements stay the same from the beginning to the end, however their perceptions of sociology change to a highly positive one when they are able to apply theories and concepts to real-life examples such as their internships or interpersonal relationships and concrete empirical studies. The challenge is to get them to consider multiple interpretations of social phenomena, as there is a tendency to look for one right answer. Eventually, the success of any sociological course is on how these concerns can be met through innovative teaching methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Writing Fellows (WF) program has been implemented at the University of Nevada, Reno. The goal of the WF program is to develop targeted writing feedback and instruction for discipline-related communication that leverages existing university resources. Each WF is trained by the University Writing Center (UWC) and serves as a dedicated peer-reviewer who is able to provide constructive feedback on both the disciplinary content and communication aspects of each assignment. This paper reports the impacts of the initial WF implementation in the Mechanical Engineering capstone design course, which has been assessed using a variety of techniques. The assessment generally indicates positive results. In particular, students favor the continuation of the program and find it more helpful than group consultations within the UWC alone. This is due in part to having a WF from the same discipline engaging with students while developing professional writing skills. Self-assessment by the students indicates higher confidence in their communication skills. Preliminary analysis suggests that the writing fellow improved the scores of graded assignments by approximately onethird of a letter grade overall. Assessment efforts also highlight the need for deeper interaction between the WF and engineering faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formula Student (also known as Formula SAE) is an international competition for universities that challenges the students with a comprehensive engineering problem. Most of the participant universities and all the companies involved in the organization of the competition have identified this event as the most suitable tool for hard and soft skills development. This paper evaluates this development by means of two different objective assessments in the frame of a specific team, identifying the potential of the competition and showing a particular approach to enhance soft skills development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates social capital, that is, resources accrued through relationships, of engineering students based on their generational status in college. We administered a "Name and Resource Generator" instrument adapted from the field of sociology to a sample of 1,410 engineering undergraduates from five U.S. universities. Quantitative analysis of results revealed many statistically significant differences in the social capital characteristics and accessed resources for First Generation College students (FGC) compared to Continuing Generation College (CGC) students. While some of these results were theoretically anticipated, we also present unique findings regarding (1) the prevalence of available and accessed resources for FGC students, and (2) the type of individual (known as an "alter") providing the engineering-related resources. The retrospective nature of the study allowed us to draw conclusions about the nature of these resources and alter types both during and before undergraduate engineering studies. These results represent a significant theoretical contribution that engineering education stakeholders can use to enhance outreach, recruitment and retention efforts to help grow and diversify the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present educational context of higher education in the European Union shows the importance of developing a teaching based on learning. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) favor the development of a more active role of students by means of the creation of a flexible and an interactive learning where student is the centre. These technologies have been incorporated in engineering degrees too where learning based on experimentation and exploration acquires a great relevance. The objective of this paper is to study the role of ICTs in the learning process of engineering students in a subject of Economy. In this context, we analyze the learning results obtained by students of computer engineering before and after the use of a learning virtual platform. At the same time, the main advantages of such tools are discussed. Results indicate that these students obtain a better learning by means of the use of ICTs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many engineering departments use the capstone engineering design experience to introduce students to additional skills that will be required of them in professional practice. Two skills that can help young engineers are the ability to work in interdisciplinary teams and a good understanding of the business implications of their work. Young engineers entering an industry job are likely to be immediately placed into a division or team that is comprised of people from a wide variety of educational backgrounds, including other engineering disciplines and, depending on the industry, individuals with business, marketing, public relations, policy or science backgrounds. While students often leave their undergraduate education with a firm grasp on the fundamentals of engineering, they often have not been trained to consider the business aspects of their work. This paper describes the efforts and early outcomes at Rice University to incorporate entrepreneurship concepts into our interdisciplinary capstone design program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present an educational approach to facilitate Learning how to Learn, that is, to equip our students with competencies needed to become lifelong learners and succeed in the job market of the near tomorrow. Our approach is anchored in educational and instructional theory and closely tied to current professional practice. The approach is implemented in a graduate level engineering design course that is offered in a distributed collaborative distance learning setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, many courses have been created in the hopes of getting engineering students more excited about innovation and entrepreneurship. While most of these courses have aimed to teach students business acumen, we believe that, under the right circumstances, traditional engineering courses can get students excited in these topics as well. We present Mechanical Engineering 218 Smart Product Design, a graduate-level mechatronics course sequence at Stanford University, as an example of such a class. In this paper, we explore, in detail, the personal, contextual, and interpersonal factors which comprise ME218's enterprising learning ecology. We also highlight some of the immediate and longer-term outcomes of the course, including gains in students' innovation self-confidence and entrepreneurial intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pilot multidisciplinary engineering senior design project incorporating innovation and entrepreneurship was undertaken at San José State University in the 2010-2011 academic year. The influence of personality domains described by the Big-Five (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness) on individual student performance, group experience, and attitudes towards multidisciplinarity, after the conclusion of the first semester of a two semester experience, are explored in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a primary goal for designers to create not just high quality designs, but new and innovative designs. The means to promote creative ideation on a consistent basis, and the conditions under which designers create new ideas are not well understood. In this paper we discuss preliminary research on reflective practices used by designers in idea generation. We present a variety of reflective practices used by design students in coming up with new insights and ideas. We offer a clarified definition of reflective practice, derived from Donald Schön's concept of reflection-in-action and prior studies of our own. Lastly, we propose and assess a framework for characterizing reflective practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modeling is a core skill for engineering students and a pervasive feature of the engineering curriculum. Engineering students engage in modeling anytime they use an equation, flow chart, force diagram, or any other representation of some physical phenomena regardless of discipline. In this way modeling relates to both design process and analysis; however, students do not always recognize the full and nuanced ways that these two interact. This paper reports results from our research that is exploring the role that computational, analytical, and modeling abilities play in innovation, in the context of engineering design education. Our study reports results on faculty and students' conceptions on the role of modeling in design. Specifically, our study sheds light on the variations in how faculty and students describe how to model a design idea or solution, and the different ways each group perceives how models can be useful/helpful in the design process. Our findings indicate that students recognize the descriptive value of physical models but mention the more abstract mathematical or predictive nature of modeling less often. In addition, we found significant differences between students and faculty responses in providing mathematics or theory as an approach to modeling a design solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An innovation is the 'implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), process, marketing method, or organizational method in business practices, workplace organization or external relations'. Acting as innovators and as the translators of new or existing technology into innovations that benefit society is the torch that engineers are expected to carry. Multiple vague and overlapping definitions of innovative behavior by engineers lead to much confusion in our society over the role that engineers play or can play in the innovation process. In this paper we explore the innovative behavior of engineers and the relationship of that innovative behavior with the creative, problem solving, design and entrepreneurial behavior of engineers. These different perspectives of defining the innovative behavior of engineers, or, as we call it, 'innovativeness' in engineers, illustrate the societal confusion over the definition of innovative behavior by engineers. The key question that we propose to answer is: 'What set of intrinsic abilities (skills, knowledge, personality traits, or attributes) when combined with domain knowledge, experience and other extrinsic factors enable and inspire engineers to create innovations that benefit society?' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common obstacle faced by faculty serving as coaches for student teams in multidisciplinary capstone design courses is the lack of teaching paradigms that can serve as a guide when making pedagogical and team-management decisions. We have addressed this challenge by creating a document entitled IPPD Coach Guide--A Resource for Mentoring Project Teams that compiles a set of best practices and catalogs resources available in our Integrated Process and Product Design program, with the goal of enhancing the coach's effectiveness in directing the evolution of the design project and assisting students in reaching all learning objectives. The guide serves as a tool that enables the propagation of pedagogical techniques, identifies available administrative and material resources, and archives the program's historically acquired know-how. This paper describes the mechanics followed to arrive at the generation of the guide, including the methodology used for harvesting collective knowledge from the most experienced faculty coaches, using techniques ranging from a directed faculty-retreat event to systematic idea mapping exercises, and including management approaches such as a challenge-question environment and the adoption of affinity-group analysis. The guide can also be used to recruit and train new coaches, to establish policies, and to serve as a contextual framework for extramural program reviews. A brief overview of the contents of the guide is provided including succinct representative examples of the material. The guide may serve as an example tool that could be of utility to other capstone design courses interested in promoting improved uniformity in quality of pedagogical delivery and increased coach effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]