This paper describes a case study concerning the teaching of logistics in the Computers and Electrical Engineering degree at FEUP. The logistics course is taken in the last semester of the degree and there are no lectures given by the teachers. All the learning strategy is based upon the autonomous learning capacity of the students, following the…

This paper moves beyond the competence focus of mainstream value engineering training (e.g. Miles 1989, "Techniques of Value Engineering and Value Analysis"; Kaufman 1990, "Value Engineering for the Practitioner"), such books achieve their training goal well but lack the pedagogic aim we argue in this paper. This paper achieves our aim by…

As teachers and researchers belonging to two sister French engineering schools, we are convinced that the processes of value creation and management are essential in today's teaching of industrial engineering and project managers. We believe that such processes may be embedded in a three-part curriculum composed of value management and innovation…

This paper describes the findings of the research done by Loughborough University in conjunction with ten construction industry collaborators in an attempt to identify what construction professionals mean by value. The aim of the research is to establish a common approach to identify value in projects and to monitor its development throughout the…

At present, value management (VM) is struggling to survive amidst other management fads. The problem is that it is still not recognized as a professional or academic discipline. There is no sound academic base and a lack of understanding by the public, owners and corporate organizations. The future survival of VM is therefore always being…

Quality is the central element of the results of changes happening in Hungarian higher education, which is serving an ever-increasing number of students. Following the transition to capitalism, as the number of students greatly increases, the direct control of higher education by the government ceases, and especially because of the "mass…

In the rapidly changing modern world there is a special need for engineers to be responsive to the differing demands of their physical, technical, social and economic environments. To do this effectively, they need to be able to think and act creatively. The typical engineering student is characteristically not particularly creative. This makes it…

The purpose of this study was to assess ways by which creativity may be enhanced in a design-oriented course. In order to demonstrate the validity of the approach, a statistically based study was employed. Additionally, the experiment was replicated in two design-oriented fields at the University of Kentucky. These fields were civil engineering…

Most work done by engineers today is organized in projects and very often as teamwork. When educating towards employability, it is therefore important that the students develop competencies in areas such as project management, collaboration and teamwork. In companies using human resource management, we find similar expectations to the engineers'…

Rapidly changing engineering designs and business scenarios make it essential for engineers and technical personnel to be trained to be effective team players and project managers. This paper reports the experiences gained in developing and implementing a workshop to train engineers at a steel manufacturing plant. The objective of the workshop was…

The primary objective of this paper is to apply the educational theories of Kolb's experiential learning and Bloom's educational taxonomy in restructuring the course "Renewable energy engineering". The steps of the research procedure investigate the application of learning theories to the restructuring of the course and the introduction of…

Concepts of value are increasingly important to our designs in both the private and public sectors. But what are we to make of so many different concepts? Is there a relationship between them? And how are we to teach about value when the subject seems so nebulous and foreign to our traditional concerns? The primary objective of this paper is to…

Assessment in engineering disciplines is typically oriented to demonstrating competence in specific tasks. Even where assessments are intended to have a formative component, little priority may be given to feedback. Engineering departments are often criticized, by their students and by external quality reviewers, for paying insufficient attention…

In 2000 the UK Engineering Professors' Council (EPC) drafted an output standard to describe first-cycle engineering programmes that would prepare students for practice and further professional learning. The standard described what is authentic and worthwhile in engineering education--it identified complex outcomes of learning. This poses practical…

The literature suggests that assessment is a powerful tool for influencing student study habits. It is also recognized that there is a tension between traditional forms of assessment and newer forms of assessment that offer a more authentic representation of practice, but are more complex and expensive to administer. The international trend in…