An International Component to Capstone Senior Design Projects

Ordóñez, Juan C.; Vargas, J.V.C.; Morega, Alexandru M.; Luongo, C.A.; Shih, Chiang

doi:10.1109/fie.2006.322526

Cited by 7 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 29 , Purdue 30 , and Florida State 31 have an international senior design project coordinating with Engineers Without Borders. International experience can benefit students by introducing them to international design codes and by providing experience in the global work force and with local industry partners 29 .…”

Section: Lessons From Capstone Industry Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…International experience can benefit students by introducing them to international design codes and by providing experience in the global work force and with local industry partners 29 . Challenges can include student adaptation to new learning and cultural environments, access to local design codes 29 , keeping regular team communication, and finding industry partners with adequate time 31 . Best practices include providing students with more than two weeks to decide on participation, requiring regular web-camera (or similar) communication with international team members, and expanding teams to include multi-disciplinary components 31 .…”

Section: Lessons From Capstone Industry Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Student Communication Improvements during an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Senior Design Course

Fries

Cross

Zhou

et al.

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

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IntroductionThroughout the engineering profession, an emphasis on requiring strong communication abilities for engineering graduates has been shown in several studies 1,2 . Because of the emphasis on communication in engineering practice, "an ability to communicate effectively" is a core outcome competency within the ABET required program outcomes 3 . In a recent study of engineering graduates, communication skills were ranked with teamwork, data analysis, and problem solving as the four most important ABET outcome competencies 4 .The objective of this study was to identify which aspects of student communication skills were improved by changes to an industry-sponsored capstone senior design course and to what extent they were improved. While previous studies have indicated that industry-sponsored capstone senior design courses improve student understanding of design practice, no study to date has focused on analyzing the extent to which this industry experience improves the communication ability of the students.The civil engineering senior design course at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) places students in unpaid internships with local engineering agencies and companies. Practicing engineers supervising the students have discussed the importance of accurate professional communications with faculty coordinating the course. Students in this course are required to complete communication skills assignments, such as writing memos, reports, and preparing periodic progress presentations of their work. The communication assignments used as the subject of the study in this paper were reviewed by engineering faculty, in consultation with practicing professional engineering sponsors, and the staff at the SIUE Writing Center. Previous WorkOverall lessons from past capstone courses Previous work examining the learning in engineering capstone courses has focused on teambased learning, problem-based learning, and impacts of the learning environment. To improve student teamwork experiences in any course, faculty have an opportunity to apply a wealth of knowledge from fields such as organizational or industrial psychology 5 . Some argue that effective team-based learning in capstone courses require that teams be heterogeneous and have shared goals, meaningful activities, timely internal feedback, and external comparisons and feedback 6 . Thus, for faculty to facilitate an effective team-based learning experience, they must be very deliberate in the planning of team projects, milestones, activities, feedback methods, and timing.Other research has focused on problem-based learning approaches. One study, focusing on a structural engineering capstone course, found that a problem-based learning format required significantly more time due to the additional feedback for students, and that a team-building exercise could strengthen communication between student teams and the instructor 7 . Problembased learning has also been implemented into an entire civil engineering curriculum at the Page 26.1412.2University of Colora...

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Section: Lessons From Capstone Industry Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lessons From Capstone Industry Projectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Communication Improvements during an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Senior Design Course

Fries

Cross

Zhou

et al.

2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Department of Mechanical Engineering, at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, international program experience 11 of working with several international universities on senior capstone design collaborations has been quite valuable for this initiative. The program integrated the international exchange program between U.S. and Brazil and the capstone design process together.…”

Section: Motivation For Collaborationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Department of Mechanical Engineering's international program experience 11 at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, while working with several international universities on capstone design process collaboration has been quite valuable. That's why this cross-institutional collaborative program is started at the capstone design process level.…”

Section: Cross-institutional Collaborative Program Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The course has evolved to a greater extent, since its transition to the current two-semester format in 1999 [10][11][12][13] . The improvements include involving more external sponsors from industry and research institutions 10 , initiation of international design projects with institutes from Brazil and Romania 11 , and increase in multidisciplinary projects and design competition events while collaborating with other engineering departments 12,13 . At present, about fifty percent of the projects are multidisciplinary and more than eighty percent are Industry-sponsored projects, as shown in Table 1.…”

Section: A) Introduction Of Mechanical Engineering Senior Design At Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development of Cross-Institutional Senior Capstone Design Project Collaboration - A Pilot Project

Gupta

Jensen

Shih

2016 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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For years, engineers in industry have collaborated in teams with colleagues who are separated geographically. The accelerating pace of the globalization of design makes long-distance communication and project management necessary skill sets for engineers since many companies now operate internationally. Although the concept of a virtual design team is not new, it has not been widely adopted in engineering curriculum due to many challenges including: inadequate resource allocation, lack of instructors with virtual design experience, mismatched project course structures between schools, and the difficulty to sustain support to overcome coordination obstacles. In this paper, we will outline preliminary efforts in developing such a crossinstitutional collaborative program between two engineering programs i.e., Mechanical Engineering department at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, Tallahassee, Florida and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department at the Florida Institute of Engineering, Melbourne, Florida. Both programs have strong capstone design curriculum aiming to introduce the students to the real-world engineering design process through the participation in externally funded, hands-on design projects. Students are introduced to the industrial design process by forming cohesive teams where they interact among themselves, with industry sponsors, faculty advisors, and, sometimes, with multidisciplinary members outside engineering schools.Over the years, Department of Mechanical Engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering has increased its multidisciplinary projects such that its students are required to collaborate with various engineering and non-engineering programs and, for the past few years, it has expanded the collaboration to a few international universities. The department's past experience with the multidisciplinary approach shows that such projects can leverage on the complementary skills and disciplinary expertise of individuals and institutions so that effective partnership can form to provide inspirational learning experience for all participants.Florida Institute of Technology program has a similar senior design model, spanning a total of three semesters, a single credit junior design course held in the spring semester, followed by both senior year semesters. Being a smaller school with 14 different engineering disciplines, multidisciplinary senior design projects are commonplace, allowing students from various disciplines to work collaboratively to meet the end requirement(s). Oftentimes, senior design projects are industry-sponsored, although national design competitions are sometimes used as well.Based on multiple deliberations between design coordinators and program leaders, the programs decided to establish a long-term partnership to develop multi-year cross-institutional senior capstone design projects. Similar to multidisciplinary projects, we expect structured coordination and effective communication will be needed to manage a cross-institutional team. Additionally, the pr...

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An Innovative Senior Capstone Design Course Integrating External Internships, In Class Meetings, And Outcome Assessment

Fries

Cross

Morgan

2010 Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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Responding to an increasing need for civil engineering students to obtain real-world experience, a senior design course for civil engineers was modified to integrate external internships. Students attend class twice a week and work outside the classroom in an appropriate civil engineering design office supervised by licensed Professional Engineers once a week.Students are assigned in groups of up to three to local engineering firms or agencies in their discipline of choice (geotechnical, structural, transportation, or environmental engineering). The firms work with faculty to identify a project that the students can work on side-by-side with professionals. The students work in the company a minimum of three hours per week. They are required to continue their work during the rest of the week, both in-class with the supervision of a faculty member (who is also a licensed Professional Engineer) and in group meetings on their own time. Four presentations are integrated throughout the course and attended by faculty in the appropriate discipline. In addition, bi-weekly "client meetings" are held with faculty to monitor the progress of the students and give advice regarding the project.Outcome assessment assignments are incorporated in the class and quantitative rubrics (using two or three performance indicators, depending on the outcome) are evaluated by faculty at appropriate points in the course. Other forms of feedback include student and employer surveys at the end of the experience.The internships have been a great success at almost no expense to the university. Students have been absorbing concepts quickly and the placement companies have enjoyed the interaction with the students. This paper will describe in detail the course objectives, course outline, placement strategies, assessment procedures, and the successes and failures of the method with local engineering firms and agencies of varying size.

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An International Component to Capstone Senior Design Projects

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

Student Communication Improvements during an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Senior Design Course

Student Communication Improvements during an Industry-Sponsored Civil Engineering Senior Design Course

The Development of Cross-Institutional Senior Capstone Design Project Collaboration - A Pilot Project

An Innovative Senior Capstone Design Course Integrating External Internships, In Class Meetings, And Outcome Assessment

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