The maintenance management function requires staff to possess a truly multidisciplinary set of skills. This includes competencies from engineering and information technology to health and safety, management and finance, while also taking into account the normative and legislative issues. This body of knowledge is rarely readily available within a…

The paper presents a Sino-Finnish teaching initiative, including the design and experiences of a series of pedagogical workshops implemented at the Aalto-Tongji Design Factory (DF), Shanghai, China, and the experimentation plans collected from the 54 attending professors and teachers. The workshops aimed to encourage trying out interdisciplinary…

Successful construction management depends primarily on the representatives of the involved construction project parties. In addition to effective application of construction management tools and concepts, human factors impact significantly on the processes of any construction management endeavour. How can human factors in construction management…

Findings are presented from a series of moderated interactive sessions held at international engineering education conferences between July 2007 and December 2008, where attendees discussed the current state and future trajectory of engineering education research. More specifically, this study examines how session attendees described: (1) the…

The demand for distance continuing engineering education (CEE) is growing. This article describes the following with regard to CEE: the purpose; its importance, trends and unique challenges. Distance education can meet some of these challenges. Benefits and challenges of distance CEE are discussed along with the different types of distance CEE…

Since 2001, the International Institute of Women in Engineering (IIWE) at EPF, Ecole d'ingenieurs generaliste, Sceaux, France, has conducted a 3 week short course for culturally and discipline diverse, recently graduated and final year engineering students. The aim of this course is to introduce young engineers to broad global concepts and issues…

In this article, the authors report on a study that was carried out at the University College of Boras. Teachers using an online learning platform (WebCT) were surveyed to see to what extent they made use of the various features available to them on the learning platform. The extent to which teachers employed all the features was low. The article…

Research on student-learning outcomes indicates that university graduates do not possess important skills required by employers, such as communication, decision-making, problem-solving, leadership, emotional intelligence, social ethics skills as well as the ability to work with people of different backgrounds. Today, engineering graduates are…

Rapid technological change, increasing globalization and a changing world of employment with multiple roles during one's professional life are necessitating a change from knowledge to learning societies. Full participation requires lifelong learning skills, meaning the ability to solve problems, work both independently and in a team, communicate…

International companies are recognised by equity between men and women as well as between other different groups (Diversity) as an economic factor and incorporate it into their company visions. Mixed teams are set up to design target group-oriented products, for example in automotive engineering. Therefore they need employees who represent the…

In the not too distant past a person's skills, knowledge, understanding and competence were judged largely on the initial education and training that he or she had undertaken, with continuing professional development (CPD) being seen as an optional extra by those who had enthusiasm for it. Gradually CPD has come to be recognized as an important,…

Traditional approaches to computer-aided learning have tended to minimize the role of the local teacher, despite their experience and close knowledge of their students' learning needs. A new approach to producing educational materials focuses on the construction of "learning objects", storing these in "digital repositories" and allowing for reuse…