scholarly journals Mutual Capacity Building through North-South Collaboration Using Challenge-Driven Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 7236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna-Karin Högfeldt ◽  
Anders Rosén ◽  
Christine Mwase ◽  
Ann Lantz ◽  
Lena Gumaelius ◽  
...  

The urgent need for actions in the light of the global challenges motivates international policy to define roadmaps for education on all levels to step forward and contribute with new knowledge and competencies. Challenge-Driven Education (CDE) is described as an education for Sustainable Development (ESD) approach, which aims to prepare students to work with global challenges and to bring value to society by direct impact. This paper describes, evaluates and discusses a three-year participatory implementation project of Challenge-driven education (CDE) within the engineering education at the University of Dar es Salam, UDSM, which has been carried out in collaboration with the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH in Stockholm. Conclusions are drawn on crucial aspects for engineering education change through the lens of Activity Theory (AT), where CDE is brought forward as a motivating ESD initiative for engineering faculty and students. Furthermore participatory co-creation is notably useful as it aims to embrace social values among the participants. Also, traditional organizational structures will need to be continuously negotiated in the light of the integration of more open-ended approaches in education.

Author(s):  
A. Grami ◽  
G. S. Rao ◽  
M. A. Rosen

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) is Ontario’s only laptop university, and among the few universities in the world where every seat in classrooms and laboratories is connected to the Internet, and the faculty are required to appropriately integrate the use of technology into the teaching-learning enterprise. In this paper, we discuss how the use of laptops in Internet-enabled learning spaces can enhance electrical engineering education. Issues of importance are highlighted. The discussions apply to the bachelor program in Electrical Engineering at the UOIT as well as to courses related to electrical engineering that form part of other engineering programs in UOIT’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.


2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 639-649 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Edvardsson Björnberg ◽  
Inga-Britt Skogh ◽  
Emma Strömberg

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate what are perceived to be the main challenges associated with the integration of social sustainability into engineering education at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews were conducted with programme leaders and teachers from four engineering programmes. The paper focuses on how the concept of social sustainability is defined and operationalised in the selected engineering programmes, how social sustainability is integrated and taught, and what resources are required to support teachers and programme leaders as social sustainability educators. Findings – The findings show that programme leaders and teachers at KTH struggle to understand the concept of social sustainability. The vague and value-laden nature of the concept is considered a challenge when operationalising educational policy goals on social sustainability into effective learning outcomes and activities. A consequence is that the responsibility for lesson content ultimately falls on the individual teacher. Study visits and role-play are seen as the most effective tools when integrating social sustainability into the engineering curriculum. Allocation of specific resources including supplementary sustainability training for teachers and economic incentives are considered crucial to successful integration of social sustainability. The findings indicate that social sustainability education needs to be built on a theoretical foundation. It is therefore suggested that a literature canon be established that clarifies the contours of social sustainability. Practical implications – The findings of the paper can be used as a basis for discussion regarding measures for improving social sustainability training in engineering education, a subject which has attracted relatively little attention, to date. Originality/value – There is a noticeable lack of empirical research on how technical universities integrate social sustainability into engineering education. The paper provides an account of how actors directly involved in this work – programme leaders and teachers – define and operationalise the social dimension of sustainable development in their engineering curricula, the pedagogical tools they consider effective when teaching social sustainability issues to engineering students, and the resources they believe are needed to strengthen those efforts.


Author(s):  
Hind CHAIBATE

In a context of increased competition on the job market, soft skills have become as important as the technical skills for employability of Moroccan engineers. Reactive and innovative engineering schools orient their learning process towards the job market requirements. This study aims at examining the soft skills required by accreditation bodies in some developing countries, namely ABET (The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), ENAEE (European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education), ABEEK (Accreditation Board for Engineering Education of Korea), JABEE (The Japan Accreditation Board for Engineering Education) et EA (Engineers Australia). These skills are subsequently correlated with the Syllabus of the CDIO initiative founded by MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) In the United States. This syllabus represents a model of engineering program. It has been developed in collaboration with the industry, the government and the university community. In this study we highlight a set of soft skills which we compared with those developed in Moroccan engineering education programs in order to detect their shortcomings and key success factors.


Author(s):  
Boyang An ◽  
Daolin Ma ◽  
Ping Wang ◽  
Jiayi Zhou ◽  
Rong Chen ◽  
...  

This paper aims at assessing several fast non-Hertzian methods, coupled with two wear models, based on the wheel–rail rolling contact and wear prediction. Four contact models, namely Kik-Piotrowski's method, Linder's method, Ayasse-Chollet's STRIPES algorithm and Sichani's ANALYN algorithm are employed for comparing the normal contact. For their tangential modelling, two tangential algorithms, i.e. FASTSIM and FaStrip, are used. Two commonly used wear models, namely the Archard (extended at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and USFD (developed by the University of Sheffield based on T-gamma approach), are further utilized for wear distribution computation. All results predicted by the fast non-Hertzian methods are evaluated against the results of Kalker's CONTACT code using penetration as the input. Since the two wear models adopt different expressions for calculating the wear performance, the attention of this paper is on assessing which one is more suitable for the fast non-Hertzian methods to utilize. The comparison shows that the combination of the USFD wear model with any of the fast non-Hertzian methods agrees better with CONTACT+USFD. In general, ANALYN+FaStrip is the best solution for the simulation of the wheel–rail rolling contact, while STRIPES+FASTSIM can provide better accuracy for the maximum wear depth prediction using the USFD wear model.


1974 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN TVEIT

This article deals with the problem of insulating measuring weirs to avoid ice disturbances. The development of a simple method for insulating a conventional V-weir is described. This method will serve its purpose in many cases. For more difficult cases a special type of a fully insulated weir is described. The experiments described were carried out by The Division of Hydraulic Engineering, The University of Trondheim, The Norwegian Institute of Technology, at the River and Harbour Laboratory of the University, and at the IHD representative basin Sagelva.


2000 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.H. Hahn

Traditionally in Germany environmental engineering education took place within the context of a civil engineering programme. There were reasons for this: the beginning of much of what we understand today to be environmental works fell within the parameters of city engineering. There were and are advantages mostly in view of the necessary planning, construction and operation of environmental infrastructure. There are also disadvantages which become more and more pronounced as the field of environmental protection expands: the civil engineer frequently lacks basic training in disciplines such as biology and chemistry and carries a large and sometimes burdensome knowledge of other less relevant subjects. Thus, educators begin to look for alternatives. This paper deals with an alternative that was developed some ten years ago and therefore has proven viable and successful: at the University of Karlsruhe students may choose to major in environmental engineering within the context or on the basis of an economics and business administration curriculum. The basic question here is as to what extent the student masters the field of environmental engineering if he or she has predominantly a solid background in social sciences and very little in natural sciences. The paper will describe the curriculum in structure and intensity and evaluate the accumulated knowledge and suitability of these students in terms of actual environmental problems. This will be done in terms of examination performance parallel and/or relative to traditionally trained civil environmental engineers as well as in terms of topics successfully treated in Masters' theses. In conclusion, it is argued that such combination of curricula should not be confined to economic sciences and environmental engineering but also be planned for legal sciences and environmental engineering.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 377-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antti Liljaniemi ◽  
Heikki Paavilainen

AbstractDigital Twin (DT) technology is an essential technology related to the Industry 4.0. In engineering education, it is important that the curricula are kept up-to-date. By adopting new digital technologies, such as DT, we can provide new knowledge for students, teachers, and companies. The main aim of this research was to create a course concept to research benefits and barriers of DT technology in engineering education. The research confirmed earlier findings concerning digitalization in engineering education. DT technology can increase motivation for studying and improve learning when applied correctly.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document