Creating a global engineering community through partnerships [Evaluation of the 1998 Wepan National Conference: Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network (WEPAN) - Final Report]

A collaborative approach has been successfully used to teach the senior process design course in the Chemical Engineering program at UNB since 2010. Every design project in the course is sponsored by an outside client. Two teams of four or five students are assigned to each project. The teams work independently and are co-mentored by a faculty member and a practicing engineer. This collaborative approach brings engineering practice in the classroom while keeping faculty members in control of academic requirements. Eight evenly-spaced milestones pace students and co-mentors by defining the tasks that need to be accomplished, by setting the marking scheme for the deliverables and by providing a framework for the progressive assembly of a high-quality final report. Our approach has increased the number of faculty members interested in design activities and allows students to contribute to the local economy while becoming proficient in engineering design. Comments received from students, clients and co-mentors have been highly positive.

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Effective Coordination of Capstone Design Work Using Milestones

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) ◽

10.24908/pceea.v0i0.10371 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Michel F. Couturier ◽

Guida Bendrich ◽

Francis Lang

Keyword(s):

Chemical Engineering ◽

Final Report ◽

Design Work ◽

Management Framework ◽

Engineering Program ◽

Continuous Feedback ◽

Added Benefit ◽

The University ◽

Better Than ◽

Capstone Design

Abstract – A universal management framework has been developed for coordinating the work of students and mentors in the capstone design course offered in the Chemical Engineering program at the University of New Brunswick. The framework makes use of seven evenly spaced milestones to pace the students through their design project. The milestone documents describe the main tasks to be completed by students and apply to any client-based project. They also provide the marking scheme to be used by mentors when evaluating the team reports submitted at the end of each milestone. As an added benefit, the universal milestone framework also enables the progressive assembly of a high-quality final report since each milestone report is tailored to be a section of the final report. As expected, the performance of students on the final report is generally better than the average of their milestone grades. Furthermore, the universal framework ensures deliverables are consistent for every group regardless of their project, which results in a streamlined experience for both students and instructors. Student opinion surveys suggest that students appreciate the frequency of the milestones, which allows for continuous feedback and appropriate pacing.

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