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Due to ABET accreditation requirements and industry expectations, integrating technical standards into Engineering Technology (ET) curricula is crucial for student success. However, previous studies have shown that faculty report access and knowledge challenges in working to integrate standards into ET course content. Additionally, academic librarians have long acknowledged there are many issues with providing access to standards to campus users, such as high costs and extensive digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. The purpose of this study is to conduct an environmental scan of library websites at institutions with ET programs to investigate library-provided access to standards and to survey ET faculty members about their contemporary standards education approaches and practices. A key finding is that ET students at larger schools are much more likely to have access to standards online, with 82% of libraries at institutions with over 15,000 students subscribing to standards online versus only 46% of libraries at institutions under 10,000 students. Additionally, the results show there is a disconnect between library-provided access to standards (58% of libraries provide online access) and ET faculty members’ use of academic libraries for standards access (28% report using standards through the library). More education about technical standards is needed for ET faculty members working to integrate standards into curricula. Standards developing organizations (SDOs) should consider investigating ways they can offer educational opportunities for faculty, provide specific case studies and examples of how standards could be implemented into various ET courses, and if they are not already doing so, offer free or low-cost solutions for faculty to obtain standards for use within a course.

The modern workplace is a transdisciplinary, information-rich environment, and this makes information literacy skills vital for students. With this grant funded project, we are developing, piloting, assessing, and promoting a suite of micro-learning modules for undergraduate engineering, technology, and business students at a large, public university. The modules revolve around information literacy topics relevant to the workplace, integrated into a scalable micro-credentialing platform. The topics covered include (1) effective information gathering strategies, (2) competitive analysis, (3) patent information, (4) industry standards, and (5) informed communication. We, the module creators, take a broad view of information literacy, including gathering information from other individuals in addition to published information sources. With this, a recurring theme throughout the modules is the importance of considering intercultural communication and inclusion within information literacy and the workplace. The goal is to provide students with foundational training relevant to their future careers (as well as transferable credentials that they can share with potential employers and post on badge-compliant platforms such as LinkedIn) and to provide instructors across campus a flexible set of information literacy tools that they can use to improve student outcomes. The modules are designed with accessibility in mind and are integrated into the campus learning management system. Stakeholders were consulted during project development, including creating content, scripting, and piloting the modules. These stakeholders included industry, business, and entrepreneurship professionals, as well as undergraduate students and course instructors. This poster presentation we will explain our module development and pilot course integration process and share preliminary results.