Academic Quality Assurance in UiTM Educational Partnerstree.utm.my/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Session-4A.pdf · Academic Quality Assurance in UiTM Educational Partners ... External

RCEE 2007 Johor Bahru, 3 - 5 December 2007

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Academic Quality Assurance in UiTM Educational Partners

Siti Hawa Hamzah,

Associate Professor, PhD, P.Eng, FIEM, MPWI, PSWM Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA

40450 Shah Alam, Malaysia Email: [email protected]

Abstract Franchising is a mode of educational partnership where a programme of study is offered at associate colleges. Programmes to be franchised would depend so much on the facilities available in the franchisee institution, such as laboratory, library, accommodation and administrative services. Collaboration would also be limited to the number of qualified academic staff in ensuring delivery of quality education. In most professional programmes, associate colleges are required to satisfy accreditation requirements. Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) offers her programmes to be conducted by 21 associate colleges (as of July 2007) and has 6954 students registered through a total of 28 programmes. The number is expected to increase drastically under the recent announcement of the Government of Malaysia that UiTM is to cater for an enrolment of 200000 by the year 2010. It is expected that by the year 2010, a total enrolment of 60000 students will be studying in UiTM’s programmes from 50 associate colleges. At present, there is only one college offering engineering programmes with a total enrolment of 444 students. It is projected that the enrolment to engineering programmes may be within 5% of the total expected enrolment in 2010 from associate colleges. In ensuring similar quality graduates from UiTM and her associate colleges, academic quality assurance had been set. As for the Faculty of Civil Engineering, the Diploma in Civil Engineering programme had been conducted at an associate college since 1999. Several measures had been initiated and undertook to ensure quality academic standards established. The academic quality domains such as admission requirement, accreditation, formative and summative assessments, audit and evaluation visits, and, teaching and training workshops are highlighted herein to address the quality issues. It is the outcome of this process that the graduates from the associate college have equal opportunities to UiTM graduates for admission to the Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) (Civil) at UiTM Malaysia. Keywords: collaboration; academic quality assurance; academic quality domains; equal opportunities 1. Introduction

Franchise programme initiated in 1992 with Pre

Science conducted by Kolej Yayasan Terengganu, administered by the Office of Students Affairs. UiTM. The programme expanded with the formation of Franchise Unit in 1996, offering programmes at certificate, pre diploma and diploma levels. At this point, a newly formed unit called the Office of External and International Relations administered the Franchise Unit. The number of students grew with more associate colleges became UiTM’s educational partners. It was later in 2001, that the Franchise Unit was placed under Education Development Centre (EDC). In 2003, EDC changed its name to Institute of Education Development (InED), operating in Shah Alam. The Centre of Franchise Programme (was later named as Centre of Collaborative Education (CCE)) (InED, 2006) provided alternative avenue to students who did not gain admission into the main stream (UiTM campus), to be able to graduate with UiTM’s qualification. The collaborative programme has

indirectly increases the number of student enrolment pursuing academic programmes from UiTM. On 12 October 2006, InED obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification, a commitment undertaken in rendering good quality service to the customers.

Presently, there are 21 associate colleges conducting a total of 28 academic programmes from UiTM. The student enrolment as of July 2007 is 6954. There are nine (9) associate colleges offering science and technological programmes, of which only one (1) college offers engineering programme as listed in Table 1. A total of 444 students are currently pursuing diploma in engineering, amounting to 6.4 % of the total current enrolment.

The 9th Malaysian Plan (2006 – 2010) is focusing on the human and infrastructure developments in ensuring VISION 2020 to be realized. Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi, Prime Minister of Malaysia (April 2006) stressed the need for society to be knowledgeable and competitive, and to have a high performance culture, integrity and strong moral values, i.e. having first class mind set. There is a


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need to increase the capacity and mastery of knowledge, to strengthen the nation’s capabilities in science, research, development and innovation, and to nurture a cultured society that possesses strong moral values. Peter Drucker (1992) also had earlier noted that the source of wealth is knowledge creation, a human activity that can yield both productivity and innovation. Table 1. Engineering programmes (as July 2007) Date EC

110 EE 111

EE 112

EM 110

July 2007 208 236 0 0 January 2007 232 189 8 10 July 2006 322 240 8 10

Enro

lmen

t

January 2006 298 236 10 0 October 2007 46 28 nil nil May 2007 63 42 nil nil October 2006 60 37 nil nil

Gra

duat

ed

April 2006 7 8 nil nil As 2010 is only three (3) years away, it is best to

realize that the true strength of a nation resides in its human capital, especially its engineering workforce. This is where UiTM can contribute to the nation. It is known that engineers develop new processes and products, and create and manage new systems for civil infrastructure, manufacturing, health care delivery, information management, communications, and so on. In general, they will put knowledge to work for society and facilitate the private sector's potential to create wealth and jobs. As such it is worth to capitalize in the increase of the number of engineering graduates during the 9th Malaysian Plan.

Along with this, we have seen engineering education progressed from the traditional efficient solvers of routine problems to greater requirements in becoming an engineer. According to Pennoni (1998), the engineers of the next millennium must possess a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree in an area of specialty, experience, licensing, leadership qualities, be bi or multilingual, capable to work in a team environment, good communicator and possess excellent peoples skill.

UiTM has been given the responsibility to increase its enrolment to 200,000 students by the year 2010. Through this, it is expected that by the year 2010, a total enrolment of 60000 students will be studying UiTM’s programmes in 50 associate colleges. It is projected that the enrolment to engineering programmes may be within 5% (3000 student) of the total expected enrolment in 2010 due to limited facilities expansion in associate colleges. As such, in promoting public confidence that the quality of provision and standards of awards in tertiary education through collaboration are being safeguarded and enhanced, quality academic assurance are set to achieve them.

2. Collaborating Diploma in Civil Engineering Programme

The Diploma in Civil Engineering programme

had been conducted at an associate college since 1999. The first intake in June 1999 has only 15 students registered to the Diploma in Civil Engineering out of the total enrolment of 42. However, the number shrank to 10 before the first semester ends. The number then sharply rose to 100 in June 2000 (the total intake to engineering programme was 176 students). The inaugural intake only managed to witness four (4) students completed in six (6) semesters and graduated in 2002. To date the toll is at 282 civil engineering graduates from the associate college. Currently, there are four UiTM campuses that conduct the Diploma in Civil Engineering programme; namely UiTM Pahang, UiTM Penang, UiTM Perlis and UiTM Sarawak.

In conducting the Diploma in Civil Engineering programme, several measures had been looked into and undertaken to ensure quality academic standards established. The academic quality domains such as admission requirement, accreditation, formative and summative assessments, audit and evaluation visits, and, teaching and training workshops are highlighted herein to address the quality issues. It is the outcome of this process that the graduates from associate college have equal opportunities to UiTM graduates for admission to the Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) (Civil) at UiTM.

The learning opportunities and student support systems provided by its collaborative partners, had been observed to ensure that the programme conducted will provide a 'comparable experience' to that provided at the University. University expects such an experience to be established and maintained through the provision of course committees, effective channels of communication, sharing of course materials, staff development contributions, and an agreed procedure for monitoring and evaluation. 3. Quality academic domains 3.1. Regulations

Admission requirements to the programme remain

similar to all candidates, be it to the main stream or to the associate colleges. However, the merit may differ slightly in comparison to the main stream, but in few instances good standing merit candidates prefer to be enrolled in associate colleges as it is nearer to home. Furthermore, through associate colleges candidates are sure to be able to get enroll into programme of their choice.

Academic regulations also apply to all students enrolled under the UiTM programmes. Critically, all students must fulfill 80% class attendance, of which failing this resulted in the students barred from taking the final examination (Academic Regulation UiTM, 2003). Other regulations and procedures


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follow through as stipulated in the Academic Regulation UiTM (2003) and applied to all students enrolled.. 3.2. Accreditation

Accreditation had been made compulsory to all associate colleges by the National Accreditation Board (LAN) conducting UiTM programmes. This is a requirement before any student registered with the colleges is eligible for the study loan scheme provided by the government. As such, UiTM is confident that basic requirements to learning facilities and qualified academic staff are available in the associate colleges.

As for the Diploma in Civil Engineering programme is concerned, the Academic Board of the Faculty of Civil Engineering UiTM had audit the engineering qualification obtained by the academic staff of the associate college. The Faculty Academic Board (LAF) had instructed all academic staff with engineering degrees teaching civil engineering at the college to register with the Board of Engineers Malaysia in ensuring that they graduated from an accredited programme and qualified lecturer. Membership to The Institution of Engineers Malaysia is also encouraged along with industrial involvement with practicing engineers in promoting life long learning amongst the academic staff. The lecturers are encouraged to collaborate with the industry through students’ site visits and establishing real projects in the classroom. 3.3. Assessment

Quality assurance on assessment is made simple with the conduct of common evaluation. The final examination in most civil engineering courses comprised 60% of the course grade. The final examination papers with answer scheme were set and the grading carried out by the faculty members. This leaves only 40% course work grading to be carried out by the academic staff from the associate college. During examination, coordinators from CCE observed the examination process carried out at the associate colleges. Any continual improvement when necessary will be suggested to the college to ensure quality is upheld.

In courses that do not have final examination, at least a formative test is conducted common between the associate college and the faculty. Common tests are usually conducted on the 10th to 14th week in the semester. Similarly, the common tests with answer scheme were set by the lecturers from the faculty, but the grading is carried out by the college.

Other formative assessment (i.e. not common) by the college, went through a screening process by the Head of Division in the faculty prior to the assessment. To date the assessment prepared were according to the level required by the faculty.

Auditing of course works are randomly carried out by the coordinator aided by the Head of Division

in the faculty. Common practice is for the copies of the course works sent by the college to the CCE for evaluation. Complete course works audit is usually carried out during visits to the college. Outcomes from the evaluation exercise notified to the management of the associate college for necessary improvement actions. 3.4. Visit

The University is very serious in ensuring quality assurance is in place. As such audit and monitoring visits were carried out regularly. Audit is done yearly, whilst monitoring visits were done at least twice a semester.

Qualified internal auditors carried out audit which emphasized on the academic delivery systems and the supporting infrastructure especially staff development in ensuring quality learning opportunities. During these visits interviews are also conducted with students and lecturers to assess their levels of satisfaction. Documents such as Teaching Portfolio and Course File are thoroughly checked to ensure quality delivery and assessment

The monitoring visits were conducted by the coordinator and accompanied by the faculty management team. The visits are an important means by which checks are made to ensure the quality of delivery, standards and the uniformity of assessment, and the agenda includes a review of resources, discussions with staff and students. Observation on classroom conduct for teaching and learning was made, and also audit of the course content was carried out. Visits to civil engineering laboratories and computer laboratories were also made and audit of the laboratory equipment and engineering software carried out to ensure compatibility to those in the faculty. Similarly, the library of the associate colleges will have to get reference books and related materials equivalent to the University. The monitoring visits actually help the associate colleges to improve continuously. During these visits, the team will meet the management, staff and students. 3.5. Workshop

Teaching and learning workshops had been conducted regularly as means of quality delivery. Teaching workshops are conducted at the beginning of every semester. This helps academic staff from the associate colleges to prepare for their teaching according to the syllabus especially when there is improvement made to the lesson plans. As in engineering programme, new curriculum using the outcome based education (OBE) had been in place. For example EC110, the implementation using OBE had been carried out beginning July 2006, allocating 10% of the total assessment as soft skill. To accommodate this, the workshop went through details of the lesson plan according to courses. Lecturers from associate colleges have the


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opportunity to meet their co lecturer in the faculty, discussed the scope of their lecture materials and modules in detail, and visited the teaching laboratories at the university. As part of quality check, the lecturers should be able to assess their students learning outcomes at the end of the semester.

Workshops to facilitate extra curricular activities to further enhance soft skill in the students are also carried out according to the need. On top of that, associate colleges are encouraged to attend any courses or workshops conducted by the faculty as their continual professional development (CPD) activities.

Teaching workshop conducted to new lecturers had been made compulsory to all lecturers from associate colleges. Through this workshop the lecturers would be able to carry out themselves as academician accordingly, of which some standardization of delivery and assessment to the students can be achieved. 4. Quality opportunities

In providing quality learning opportunities at associate colleges, academic coordinators from each faculty and UiTM’s branch campuses (state campuses) had been appointed to manage the University's relationship under the purview of CCE. Coordinators are appointed for a fixed term, as a means of encouraging rigour in the conduct of their responsibilities. The coordinators will ensure that all academic domains are carried out accordingly and special attention is given to the quality of delivery, standards and the uniformity of assessment, as previously mentioned. Evidence of students attending the course, samples of assessments and assignments are compiled in the course files and made available to the coordinators and auditors when monitoring and audit visits were conducted.

Fig. 1 shows a triangulation concept between student, staff and adviser. The triangulation is the primary source to providing the quality learning opportunities as the relationship promotes continual improvement within the education atmosphere.

4.1. Student information and support

Student information and support is the main

learning opportunity required and need to be provided by the University. Recent developments of web based information had given opportunities to students to seek information, guidance and support from the University web page. However, there is lack of evidence in ensuring students getting all of the information they required. Nevertheless, student handbooks relating to the Diploma in Civil Engineering programme, Academic Regulation and procedures was made available to the students during registration at the associate college.

Fig. 1. Triangulation concept

The university is in the process of ensuring that all students throughout the country are able to download lecture materials and handouts electronically using i-Learn. It will be soon that all students from associate colleges will be able to access into the system. As such, a good network of learning materials will be available for students use. On top of that, students from associate colleges are free to use the University’s library throughout the country.

4.2. Staffing and staff development

Recruitment of academic staff in the associate

colleges needs to fulfill the requirements established by the University, especially for engineering. The LAF requires that all engineering courses to be taught by engineering graduates from accredited programme. The faculty had requested the associate college to ensure that all academic staff register as graduate engineer with the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM). Through monitoring visits the importance of registering with the BEM is regularly highlighted and reminded. On top of these, CCE then requires all academic staff to undergo an academic workshop in preparing the lecturer towards quality teaching and learning. Audit is conducted by CCE every semester to ensure the associate college complies to the regulations whenever there is staff turnover.

Technical supporting staff is the backbone to facilitate all laboratory work and maintenance of laboratory equipment. The associate college has to provide enough training to these staff in ensuring quality laboratory demonstration can be conducted to the students.

The University has provided staff development support primarily through the regular and extensive visits of staff to the associate college. The present management of the faculty has agreed to include staff from associate college attending future seminars on teaching methods. There had been a significant change in the teaching methods beginning July 2006. Student-centred approach is encouraged under the outcome based education system adopted by the

STUDENT

ADVISERSTAFF

QUALITY LEARNING

Information, support, development

Curriculum

Responsibility, reality


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faculty. This will provide smooth transition for students who continued to their bachelor degree programme at UiTM. 4.3. External examiner and industrial advisers

External examiner and industrial advisers

contributed to the quality of the programme by giving feedback to the curriculum and technical activities carried out by the students and staff. External examiner will be a good reference for the academic staff to refer to beside the University. It adds credibility and integrity of the associate college.

The associate college should also be proactively involved with the industry and get the industry to come in to the college giving feedbacks addressing the responsibility and reality, in the form of technical talks, site visits, technical visits and collaborative research work. In this respect, both the students and staff will gain practical knowledge and enhances healthy networking. It will also provide a good platform for graduates from the associate college the initial step to start off their career.

The university and the associate college have to agree on quality opportunities provided to the students and staff. The appointment of advisers in ensuring quality learning completes the triangulation. 5. Conclusion and recommendation

In capitalizing Vision 2020, engineering graduates are vital. To be successful and to promote prosperity, engineers must exhibit more than first-rate technical and scientific skills. In an increasingly competitive world, they must help in making good

The triangulation had mentioned that advisers play an important role in ensuring quality learning opportunities. This is still lacking in the associate colleges. It is recommended that associate colleges

to appoint industry advisers and their critical input promotes integration between engineering education and the reality by conducting development programmes and visits to the associate colleges.

Though the faculty’s management team considered that the college had established procedures and practices capable of assuring the provision of good quality learning opportunities and support for students, it is still necessary for the university to strengthen its liaison arrangements with the college, particularly in respect of the support it provided for staff development, both academic and technical. This ensures that students received appropriate education through the franchised programmes. Acknowledgements

Acknowledgement is due to the Faculty of Civil Engineering UiTM and Pusat Pendidikan Usahasama, UiTM. References 1. Academic Regulation UiTM, Regulation and

Procedure, Clause 2.8 : Class Attndance, Office of Academic Affairs, 2003.

2. Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi, Revealing the 9th Malaysian Plan, April 2006

3. Drucker, P.F., Managing for the future: The 1990s and beyond. New York: Truman Talley Books/Plume, 1992

4. InED Magazine, UiTM, Issue 5, December 2006 5. Pennoni, C.R., Managing your career in an era of

change. Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practices, ASCE 124(3), (1998) 75-77


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The Experience of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UiTM, SHAH ALAM: Accreditation by IMechE

Abdul Rahman Omar a, Ahmed Jaffar b, Roseleena Jaafar c

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam,

a Email: [email protected] b Email: [email protected]

c Email: [email protected] Abstract The faculty of Mechanical Engineering, UiTM had spearheaded from other public and private universities in Malaysia to seek accreditation for the first time from The Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) UK for its Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) Mechanical programme. To be accredited, the programme must satisfactorily incorporate the UK-SPEC General Learning Outcomes which will have to be mapped to the faculty’s Programme Educational Objectives and Programme Outcomes. The courses content have to be integrated to bring all the learning outcomes together and taught in a systematic approach to become a total system. Project design covering issues such as sustainable development, risk, health and safety and professional ethics are areas of concerned. This paper provides guidance and information in responding to IMechE’s UK regulations and requirements and to share experience with other academic institutions on the accreditation process. Keywords: engineering accreditation; general learning outcomes; UK-SPEC learning outcomes; IMechE 1. Introduction

The UK system of engineering accreditation led by the Engineering Council (EC) and its professional engineering bodies is branded and recognized world-wide. UiTM is convinced that by getting the UK’s accreditation, there will be quality in its engineering curriculum, programme delivery and support systems, and into all facets of its training, using international benchmarks of quality. The University can anticipate real benefits and improvement that also includes the following achievements: • resulting in a more directed and coherent

curriculum, • producing graduates with attributes more

relevant to industry stakeholders and marketable to both local and overseas industries,

• achieving Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) as part of the EAC (Engineering Accreditation Council Malaysia) academic requirements,

• contributing towards academic requirement to achieve registration as a Chartered Engineer (CEng), and

• achieving world-class university standard.

In September 2006, the faculty of Mechanical Engineering was visited by a team of evaluators from The IMechE UK to accredit its undergraduate degree programme in Mechanical Engineering. The accreditation team consisted of three members from

UK, a local IMechE representative and an observer from the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM).

2. Commitment The faculty started embarking seriously in the

accreditation process in year 2005 and established a task force led by the Deputy Dean for Quality and Research together with several team members to initiate efforts towards preparation of the accreditation documentation on the curriculum and syllabus, lab work, industrial training, project work; introducing awareness to academic staff and students; and ensuring the learning facilities and the quality management system are put in placed and ready for the visit. The initial effort was done at the University level where the management team, headed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic and Internationalization, made a trip to City University in UK. At the time of visit, City University was undergoing its accreditation process for its engineering programmes. An invitation was extended to the City University key members to come over to respective engineering faculties in UiTM to review our documentation, as well as to look at the overall system and facilities that the faculties have and comment on the level of preparedness and readiness for the accreditation process. A few months later, another visit was made to the National University of


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Singapore to further solicit ideas on the accreditation process, areas of focus and expectations.

3. Preparation of Documents 3.1. FORM IAF Issue 1(Initial Assessment Form)

In order to aid the accreditation process, the development and drafting of documents for submission before the accreditation visit was the responsibility of the faculty. The paperwork prepared was for the accreditation of new programme and leading to Charted Engineering (CEng) status. The initial documentation was the FORM IAF Issue 1 (refer Fig. 1) that served as supplementary information and submitted three months prior to the scheduled visit. The main contents of the document are divided into the following sections: (i) Quality Assurance Audit (QAA) Institutional Audit Review (ISO 9001:2000). The faculty was successfully certified with the ISO 9001:2000 standard in March 2004 by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LQRA) in the UK. Subsequently, routine surveillance audits were conducted every six months. The quality assurance audits oversee the development and implementation of quality assurance and enhancement policies practiced consistently within the faculty are in line with the University’s mission and vision. It has generally reported that “The quality system in the faculty has been implemented effectively and maintained satisfactorily”. How does this helps in the accreditation? Mainly, the Quality Management System (QMS) requires the operational and management processes and records to be effectively planned, operated and controlled in order to assist the faculty in providing tertiary education in teaching and learning for all of its engineering programmes as required by the International Standard. (ii) External Examiners’ Report. Reports by the faculty’s external examiners for the last three years were provided. The reports were based on the overview of the content, delivery, facilities and procedures associated with the programme and emphasizing on the review of the examination procedures as operated by the faculty within the University’s procedures. The external examiners are thorough and generally satisfied with the quality of provision and the standard of the awards. However, they have raised a few issues which have been responded to and addressed by the faculty. (iii) Thread Diagram of Programme. The thread diagram (refer Fig. 2), tabulated information, shows the major areas of Mechanical Engineering and its respective courses over a study period of two years. This table should cover all courses inclusive of elective topics over the four study years. The content is very much similar to Table C2 (Distribution of Engineering Courses According to the Areas) as specified in the EAC Accreditation Manual [3] when

applying for programme accreditation and new programme approval.

Fig. 1. FORM IAF Issue 1. (iii) Course/Programme/Student Handbook. The provision of student handbook for the programme is part of the additional documentation requirement that is to be made available during the visit. The faculty’s student handbook supplements the University’s handbook and the contents include information on academic regulations, administrative procedures, courses, industrial training, etc. that will assist students during their study period. 3.2. FORM OS Issue 3(Refer Figure 3)

This set of documentation was forwarded to the Accreditation Department, UK at least six weeks prior to the visit. Completing the form and supplementary information is only part of the process but to extract the information is very much dependent on how good is the faculty’s system of record tracking, storing, compiling and updating of data. A good system can only be generated if there is a QMS in placed.

A flow diagram will be required to show the progress of students through the system for the last three cohorts. It should clearly indicate direct entrants, resit numbers from previous year and admissions, awards and destination of students would also be beneficial and to be made available. The documentation would also include an Output Standards Matrix summarizing the courses underpinning the UK-SPEC Learning Outcomes as discussed further in this paper.


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Fig. 2. Thread Diagram. 4. On-Site Accreditation Visit A site-visit will be conducted over three days and during the visit, the team members will interview the academic staff, administrators, and students; visit classes; review course syllabi and student work; examine student and faculty folders; examine administrative records and policy statements; assess physical facilities, library resources, and instructional equipment. A few of the important activities are highlighted as below. 4.1. Industrial Interaction A special visit to Proton, Shah Alam, was organized for the team members to show the link that the faculty has with the industry. Proton has employed a number of the faculty’s graduates and the team was able to meet up with them during the visit. The team members noted the importance of the Project Design process encompassing the initial pre-planning to the final marketing stage and the engineering activities involved in the plant.

Industry participation in the development of the curriculum to ensure its relevancy is strongly encouraged. The curriculum must be updated regularly to keep abreast of the needs of the industry, particularly in areas experiencing rapid changes. The programme should provide students the opportunity to acquire industrial experience via internships, conduct design projects with industries and for faculty staff members to participate in industries to gain professional engineering experience. There must also be a form of communication channel between the faculty and the industry, so that feedback can be

given to the faculty concerning the quality of the teaching-learning. 4.2. Laboratory and Workshop Facilities

The team visited most of the laboratories and workshops in the faculty. It is advisable that all academic and supporting staff is present during the visit in order for the panel to acquire information. Prior to this visit, much preparation was done to ensure that the health and safety features are covered in the laboratory and workshop premises, and lab sheets are to be made available for every experiment conducted. The team has high commendable opinion of our well-equipped laboratories and workshops. 4.3. Interview with Academic Staff

A group of senior academic staff, representing the major areas of mechanical engineering, was identified prior to the visit. They were selected to meet the team. During the session, they were asked on how teaching delivery methods and approaches were conducted especially on the Design courses and how these courses are able to meet the UK-SPEC outputs. The embedment of certain issues such as economic, social and environmental in related courses were discussed and evaluated.

Suggestions were made by the panel on recommended teaching and learning methods employed and stresses the importance of integrating the courses especially in design projects.

4.4. Interview with Students


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A group of students from different semesters of the programme were gathered for discussions with the IMechE team. They were asked on their learning environment, academic support and facilities, students’ activities within the faculty as well as student membership with professional bodies.

From the discussion with the students, the team concluded that our students were highly motivated and enthusiastic about their studies. Our students felt they were well supported by having an academic advisor and enjoyed their learning environment. However, the students would like to have more opportunity for student exchange programmes with universities abroad and wish for more choices for industry placements and assistance to access industry contacts. Whilst students had fairly good industry

Fig. 3. FORM OS Issue 3.

awareness and exposure, they lacked a definitive focus on issues such as sustainability, maintenance and safe disposal concepts and the exposure to wider engineering disciplines.

Students were very keen to develop further on their soft skills so as to prepare them for their working life and also as part of their personal development for future career prospects. They need to experience closer ties and liaison with the professional bodies of their profession, to demonstrate their wider interests in engineering and gain access to networking opportunities with other professionals. 5. General Learning Outcomes Every degree programmes have aims and expected learning outcomes and these are normally captured in the programme specifications. The courses of which the programme is composed are similarly specified in terms of their aims and learning outcomes and these must necessarily be congruent with the aims and learning outcomes for the programme as a whole. One of the primary goals of

accreditation is to verify that the aims and learning outcomes of a degree programme and its constituent components are consistent with the standards expected of a professional engineer. This task reduces to one of mapping and auditing the declared outcomes for the programme against the UK-SPEC learning outcomes and thereby ensuring that all of the facets required of a chartered engineer are developed in the graduate output.

In preparing for accreditation, the faculty will need to provide a commentary explaining how this mapping is achieved as well as supplying evidence which demonstrates convincingly that graduates from the programme have achieved the desired learning outcomes. Each programme should cover general and specialised professional (general learning outcomes) content of adequate breadth and depth, and should include appropriate components in the areas of Sciences and Humanities. The programme should ensure that graduates have the following attributes [1]: • Knowledge and Understanding: Students must be able to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of essential facts, concepts, theories and principles of their engineering discipline, and underpinning science and mathematics. They must have an appreciation of the wider multidisciplinary engineering context and its underlying principles. They must appreciate the social, environmental, ethical, economic and commercial considerations affecting the exercise of their engineering judgment. • Intellectual Abilities: Students must be able to apply appropriate quantitative science and engineering tools to the analysis of problems. They must be able to demonstrate creative and innovative ability in the synthesis of solutions and in formulating designs. They must be able to comprehend the broad picture and thus work with an appropriate level of detail. • Practical Skills: Students must possess practical engineering skills acquired through, for example, work carried out in laboratories and workshops; in industry through supervised work experience; in individual and group project work; in design work; and in the development and use of computer software in design, analysis and control. Evidence of group working and of participation in a major project is expected. • General Transferable Skills: Students must have developed transferable skills that will be of value in a wide range of situations. These include problem solving, communication, and working with others, as well as the effective use of general Information Technology (IT) facilities and information retrieval skills. This also includes planning, self-learning and improving performance, as the foundation for lifelong learning/Continuous Programme Development (CPD).

In-line with the above, the faculty has formulated its own general learning outcomes


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(Programme Outcomes) which graduates should possess. The following list of generic attributes ensures that graduates are adequately prepared to enter and to continue the practice of mechanical engineering. 1. Ability to acquire and apply knowledge of

engineering fundamentals. 2. Ability to communicate effectively, not only

with engineers but also with the community at large.

3. Having in-depth technical competence in a specific engineering discipline.

4. Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution.

5. Ability to utilize a system approach to design and evaluate operational performance.

6. Ability to function effectively as an individual and in a group with the capacity to be a leader or manager as well as an effective team member.

7. Understanding of the religion, social, cultural, global and environmental responsibilities and ethics of a professional engineer and the need for sustainable development.

8. Recognizing the need to undertake life-long learning, having entrepreneurship vision and possessing/acquiring the capacity to do so.

9. Ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data.

10. Ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams. 11. Knowledgeable in contemporary issues. 6. UK-SPEC Specific Learning Outcomes

The desired UK-SPEC Specific Learning Outcomes have been defined for both the BEng and the MEng degree and these can be found in the UK-SPEC Accreditation Handbook. The programme content has to satisfy and mapped to the UK-SPEC Specific Learning Outcomes [1] underpinning science, mathematics and engineering principles; engineering analysis and practice; design, economics, social and environmental context. The course content and material that have been designed should able to address the level of coverage either at BEng or MEng level. This information is presented in an Output Standards Matrix form as shown in Table 1.

Design is one of the output criteria of the learning outcomes that describes the creation and development of an economically viable product, process or system to meet a defined need. It involves significant technical and intellectual challenges and can be used to integrate all engineering understanding, knowledge and skills to the solution of real problems. The BEng (Hons) graduates will therefore need the knowledge, understanding and skills to:

Reference Statement D1 Investigate and define a problem and

identify constraints including environmental and sustainability limitations, health and safety and risk assessment issues;

D2 Understand customer and user needs and the importance of considerations such as aesthetics;

D3 Identify and manage cost drivers; D4 Use creativity to establish innovative

solution; D5 Ensure fitness for purpose for all aspects

of the problem including production, operation, maintenance and disposal;

D6 Manage the design process and evaluate outcomes.

In addition, the MEng degree as an enhancement to the BEng (Hons) may be characterised by the following attributes: Reference Statement

D1m Wide knowledge and comprehensive understanding of design processes and methodologies and the ability to apply and adapt them in unfamiliar situations;

D4m Ability to generate an innovative design for products, systems, components or processes to fulfil new needs;

D5m Ability to generate ideas for new products

and develop and evaluate a range of new

solutions.

With reference to Table 1, the course on Ergonomic Design addresses the output criteria statements D2 and D6. The students should also be able to demonstrate competence and achieved D4m and D5m attributes at MEng level. Each of the other output criteria on the learning outcomes requirements are further highlighted and discussed. 6.1. Underpinning Science, Mathematics and Engineering Principles

Generally, students should gain good fundamental

understanding on the principles through practical exercises and a systems approach. In our curriculum, advanced engineering calculations are extensively used to cross check computer based analysis and results which further underpins the understanding of principles and methods. The courses on Finite Element, Vibrations and other advanced engineering topics such as CFD are acceptable standard at MEng level which able to provide an understanding of a range of mathematical models. 6.2. Engineering Analysis (E) and Practice (P) The curriculum has embedded emerging areas of technology through the use of engineering software


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Table 1. Output Standards Matrix Form

packages such as Fluent. Visits to industry will support students in their understanding and industrial awareness of engineering practice wherever necessary. The practical facilities in the faculty should be adequate so that students are able to get very good hands-on experience across a range of manufacturing processes.

In the manufacturing courses, there are topics emphasizing on certain areas such as CAM which is introduced through mini-projects using the recently purchased 3 axis machining centre. The course on Metrology will able to assist students to understand more modern methods of measurement including laser technology and this is supported by seminars, presentations, etc. However, there is a need to ensure that there is a system approach to look at the totality of the system rather than various subsystems and components. Case studies and examples need to be developed for students to gain a clearer total systems perspective. Students are also required to gain awareness of codes of practice and industry standards, contractual issues and intellectual property rights 6.3. Design

Students should undertake a progressive study of technical engineering design starting with a study of engineering drawings to a more advanced design throughout the course. The Design course should be creative and innovative. Students have to gain an understanding of the total design process from concept through to detailed design. Projects have to include elements and issues such as project management, identifying and managing cost drivers and a breakdown of costs to show appreciation of commercial constraints; end customer and user

needs; maintenance and disposal issues; embedding economic, social and environmental drivers into the course content.

Experience of team-working in group projects, involvement in major individual projects, is considered very important to develop a range of skills as well as self-confidence. 6.4. Economics, Social and Environmental Context

The teaching material and assessment should address the economic, social and environmental context in which engineers operate in the real world including issues of sustainable development, health and safety factors, professional ethics, project management and commercial risk associated with product development. These key issues should also be integrated throughout the programme and identified clearly as an output in mini-projects, case studies, industry placement reports, etc. Ethical issues are covered by introducing the Institution of Engineers Malaysia’s (IEM) Code of Ethics and this can be drawn in parallel to students’ religious discipline in respect to ethics as an embedded feature of their culture.

7. Project Work

There are other key areas of concerned and one of

it is on the project work. Individual project work (semester 7 and 8) should have a good technical design content but it needs to reflect a range of solutions techniques that will optimize solutions and/or to show a range of decision making options, incorporating key cost drivers, health and safety considerations, risk assessment and project


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management considerations, etc. The projects should incorporate the development of soft skills and project management and strategic issues, as well as the extensive areas that incorporate the design processes. In addition, statements on the supervision, guidance and assessment undertaken by the faculty to assure the standards of the projects are met have to be provided. This will include project guidelines, marking guide (rubric) for reports and breakdown of marks for elements awarded to the projects. The panel would be very pleased if students have undertaken their projects in industries. A broader range of projects will be required to achieve MEng level learning outcomes including a well designed group projects to provide students with experience working at a higher level in a group environment. 8. Outcome of the Accreditation

Following the accreditation visit, a report will be prepared highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and, where necessary, identifying any action points that will need to be addressed before accreditation can be confirmed. As a result of the team’s investigations, the following issues were raised: • An effective staff training and development

programmes are in placed for all academic, technical and support staff and a number of guest lecturers from various countries are invited throughout the year to provide input to the programme and contribute to research.

• Entry requirements are stringent and appropriate to enable students to progress through the full programme of study. There are appropriate credit arrangements for students transferring in.

• The faculty has developed strong industry links and collaborative activities in Malaysia and has a policy of compulsory industry placement of 10-12 weeks for each student during their degree programme. However there is currently no major group project to satisfy the MEng accreditation.

8.1. Action Plan

There were some points raised at the end of the

visit which would require the faculty’s attention and recommendation. These issues need to be addressed and submitted to the IMechE as “Action Plan”. The issues that required attention from the faculty were: • To strengthen the institutional membership ties

for staff at UiTM with the IMechE, for professional recognition as Chartered Engineer.

• To strengthen further in learning-outcomes underpinning Engineering Analysis (E) & Practice (P).

• To review the programme and include open-ended elements in assessment and examination papers.

• To embed health and safety features as part of the cours material and industrial placements. Overall, the BEng (Hons) degree programme was

considered by the panel to be suitable for accreditation and subject to the production of a satisfactory “Action Plans” from the faculty based on the above issues.

9. Conclusions International accreditation built around other

internal quality assurance mechanisms has proven to be an effective tool in enhancing the quality of the engineering programmes in UiTM. The accreditation has also brought public and professional confidence and respect in the quality of its engineering graduates. This has given the faculty’s programme international, regional and local recognition and respect.

In conclusion, the panel commented that the University has provided world class facilities and the faculty has created a teaching and learning environment that is a credit to the University and to Malaysia. In fact, the same remark was made by the Chief Executive of IMechE, Sir Michael Moore, at the University’s 50th Anniversary Dinner held at Sunway Hotel.

Should any institution wishes to pursue accreditation for the MEng degree, it would require considerable thought and planning to further cover the specific learning areas together with appropriate professional development assessed against the industry competence framework of UK-SPEC. The MEng degree requires further technical depth and technical breadth before it can be considered for accreditation.

However, these issues are being seriously taken into consideration and action plans are on the way to ensure the faculty’s BEng (Hons) degree programme is to be full-fledged equivalent to MEng level. References 1. UK Standard for Professional Engineering

Competence. Chartered Engineer and Incorporated Engineer Standard. The Engineering Council, Maltravers Street, London. Engineering Council (EC), 2003.

2. The University of Birmingham, Institutional Self-Evaluation Document, February 2004.

3. EAC Accreditation Manual 2006.


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Quality Assurance for Open Learning Units in an International Postgraduate Program

Alma P. Eufinado, M.S.C.E., Melba T. Mendoza, M.S.Ch.E. , Hercules R. Cascon

College of Engineering Xavier University ~ Ateneo de Cagayan, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines Abstract There is an effort to offer a postgraduate program which is convenient for the learner in terms of space and time in that learning may be obtained anywhere and anytime as long as tools are available to facilitate and support learning, hence, an industry practitioner, for instance, can access information on technical courses, participate in class activities, consult his mentor, and do other similar activities right in his own workplace or home. The so-called correspondence education has allowed the learner to obtain learning through correspondence between teacher and student by way of mails and television. Today this correspondence takes place via the internet. Communication is faster and almost all teaching methods employed in traditional face-to-face classroom instruction can be applied or replicated. Five partner academic institutions in Europe and Asia have forged a linkage to study the possibility of offering an international postgraduate program towards sustainable technology through open learning. The partners are yet in the process of developing the materials for the learning units and establishing a quality assurance system that will harmonize the various quality assurance systems of the partners. One of the issues currently looked at is the way the level of achievement that a student gains in a program can be measured in order to award him the degree. In this paper a comparison of the way units are credited in the five partner institutions is presented. It attempts to offer a solution to harmonizing, not necessarily making uniform, the different ways of giving credits to units earned if a collaborative international postgraduate degree program is endeavored to be offered. Keywords: quality assurance; open learning; credits; learning units 1. Introduction

This paper attempts to identify the commonalities as well as differences in the way quality assurance is ensured in five universities in Asia and Europe for postgraduate programs, in particular in the way credits to units to be taken by a student are given. Answers to the following problems are sought: 1. What is the quality assurance system for higher

education in each university, namely, University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (Malaysia), Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), De La Salle University, and Xavier University (Philippines)?

2. What are the commonalities in the way credits are given to units in postgraduate programs in the five partner universities? What are the differences?

3. Is it possible to adopt a common quality assurance for all the above-named universities for a postgraduate open learning program? If it is, what could be a common system to assure quality of open learning units in an international postgraduate program?

Quality assurance is defined as planned activities carried out with the intent and purpose of

maintaining and improving the quality of learning rather than simply evaluating activities [1]. In educational systems quality assurance means putting in place a mechanism in which standards and quality of instruction, facilities, laboratories and other learning resources, are maintained, if not, improved. These standards mentioned in the preceding statement are ways of describing the level of achievement that a student has to reach to gain an academic award (for example, a degree).

This paper examines and compares the quality assurance systems of five universities in Europe and Asia which are currently engaged in a project of developing, testing, and disseminating information on three open learning units. The project aims to embed the units in postgraduate programs in the partner institutions and to offer the said units as short term courses for industry practitioners. The project will investigate extensions to the units and conditions for quality assurance leading to proposals for an accredited international MSc Degree in Sustainable Technology. The challenge is not much on the embedment of the open learning units or on offering the units as industrial short term courses. The challenge is more on creating an entire postgraduate open learning program the units of which can be


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credited in any partner institution or in any other institution not part of the partnership.

2. The process in the quality assurance of higher education in the countries of the partner institutions

2.1. United Kingdom

Higher education institutions in the United Kingdom are autonomous and as such, are responsible for the standards and quality of the programs they offer. It is imperative that they do regular monitoring and periodic review, which is an internal activity undertaken by the department through its program team, to ensure that the program is able to meet its goals and objectives, such as, the accomplishment of the intended learning outcomes. Other than the internal evaluation which is carried out by the university itself an external evaluation is carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, which is responsible for ensuring that these higher education institutions maintain, if not improve the standards and quality of education.

2.2. Malaysia

The quality assurance process undertaken by higher education institutions in Malaysia is similar to that of the United Kingdom. The process involves two parts: an internal evaluation and an external evaluation. In the first part the institution constitutes a task force to self-assess its programs, whether they comply with nationally agreed standards, based on certain criteria. The internal task force may also invite external examiners in the self- evaluation. The other part of the quality assurance is the external evaluation involving the Quality Assurance Division which constitutes a panel of reviewers to study and review the report of the internal evaluation submitted by the institution. The panel then visits the institution not only to evaluate the institution if it operates within standards but also to clarify some issues identified in the report.

2.3. Sweden

The quality assurance process for higher

education in Sweden is very similar to the other countries’. There is self- assessment conducted by the higher education institution to evaluate the programs based on developed guidelines, and an external assessment which can involve international assessors and student bodies for peer review. In the external assessment the assessors visit the institution to observe the institution or program. The assessors interview students and staff to fully understand the institution’s system and the other aspects that need to be observed. The output of the external assessment is a written report given to the institution which can give its comments and feedback on the report. The

head of the National Agency for Higher Education then either approves or disapproves the accreditation. If the institution receives a very low assessment it is given two years to improve on the areas of weakness. If a special review still finds the institution or program not considerably improved the authority to award a degree is withdrawn from the institution or program.

2.4. Philippines

In the Philippines where the authors come from, universities adhere to policies, standards, and guidelines of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), a regulating body of the government mandated to formulate and implement policies, standards, and guidelines for higher education in the country. The CHED is mandated to safeguard the quality of higher education in the country. For instance, before a program may be offered by a university it has to secure the necessary permit and recognition from the CHED which gives the university the authority to operate the program, if the proposed program complies with the standards set by the CHED. Generally, a university in the Philippines conducts self - survey and periodic monitoring of its programs with the vision, mission, and objectives of the university and of the program in consonance with government regulations as the guiding principles. It also applies for accreditation from an accrediting body, such as, the Philippine Association for Accrediting Schools, Colleges, and Universities (PAASCU) for peer review.

How did open learning come to be? It can be said that the history of open learning has its roots from technology – based correspondence education which gained popularity in the early 1900s when audiovisual instructional materials and tools were introduced in schools and universities. In 1940s some educational institutions in the US had used the television to transmit instructional materials to the public. The introduction of television as an instructional medium was an important entry point for theorists and practitioners outside of the correspondence education tradition and marks parallel paths for correspondence study and instructional media [6].

Although open learning is becoming popular in the Philippines with the University of the Philippines taking the lead in this endeavor only a few universities in the country have so far gone into this direction. Open learning, which is both a process which focuses on access to educational opportunities and a philosophy which allows the learner to choose how to learn, when to learn, where to learn, and what to learn as far as possible within the resource constraints of any education and training provision [2], is yet to be employed by several universities in this country. As such, universities offering graduate degree programs through open learning have yet to establish quality assurance systems which at this


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time, may be gained from experiences and practices in universities abroad.

The United Kingdom which began introducing open learning in the universities in the early seventies is one of the signatories in the Bologna Declaration in 1999. The Declaration is a vital document which reflects the shared vision of European countries for the development of higher education in Europe. It is not a reform imposed upon the government or any educational institution, but is a commitment freely taken by the same. It aims at coming to a convergence of all higher education systems to address common European problems and issues faced by the different European institutions to offer their citizens greater mobility in terms of employment. The Declaration recognizes and respects the diversity of cultures and languages and the autonomy of the higher education institutions.

The University of Portsmouth (UoP) of the United Kingdom entered into an international collaboration with four other universities in Europe and Asia and was granted by the European Commission a funding for the Asia Link project entitled Open Learning Provision for Postgraduate and Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology. Under this project the five partner institutions develop, test, and disseminate three open learning units which are to be embedded in postgraduate programs of each institution and to be given as short term courses to industry practitioners. It is envisaged that quality assurance could be studied for the possibility of offering an international MSc degree in Sustainable Technology. 3. Research Design

This study is descriptive in nature as it presents a collection and analysis of gathered data and information. The data presented herein are obtained from the proceedings of meetings and workshops among the partners all directed towards developing a quality assurance for an internationally accredited MSc in Sustainable Technology. 3.1. Findings and Discussion

In a meeting on 19 – 23 February 2007 in De la Salle University, Manila and subsequently on 22-27 October 2007 in the University of San Carlos, Cebu City the partners tackled the commonalities, as well as differences of quality assurance of the partner institutions. At the start of the discussions some confusion arose from the differing terminologies used by the various participants. So as to avoid repeating this confusion it is best that some terms are given an explanation before they are used. A learning unit or simply a unit is a subject or a course which makes up a program such as the MSc in Sustainable Technology. Credit refers to a figure attached or associated to a learning unit when the unit has been successfully completed. Total learning hour refers to the length of time required to complete a unit. It is

composed of lecture or contact or teaching (taught) hours and student study hours. Lecture or contact or teaching (taught) hour is the length of time specified for faculty in a traditional face-to-face instruction to conduct a lecture or consultation with the students. Student study hour is the length of time expected of a learner to dedicate to doing the requirements of the units, such as, assessment activities and case studies, on his own.

Table 1 outlines the commonalities and the differences in the way credits are given for postgraduate programs in the five institutions for traditional education.

UoP has a total of 180 credits for an MSc course, i.e., 120 credits of coursework and 60 credits of thesis or project. The lecture or contact is between 36-40 hours per unit. UoP specifies a student study hour of approximately 114 so that the total learning hours for each unit is 150. Normally it takes 1 year to earn an MSc degree.

UTM on the other hand has 36 credits for an MSc course and 39 credits for a Master of Engineering program. The latter is composed of 11 units of 3 credits each, and a 6-credit practicum. The lecture or contact is 42 hours for every 3 credits. Like the UoP, UTM specifies a student study hours of approximately 120 so that the total learning hours is 162 for each unit.

KTH of Sweden uses what is called the Swedish Academic Credit (SAC). Each learning unit has 4 or 6 SACs so that it normally requires 15 units of 4 credits each or 10 units of 6 credits each plus a 20-credit project or thesis to complete a postgraduate program normally in 2 years. SAC is equivalent to 1.5 credits of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). KTH’s total credit for a full MSc program is 80 SACs or 120 ECTS. Under this system the total learning hour prescribed for a postgraduate program is 3,200. This is more than twice the total learning hours of UoP.

It can be gleaned from Table 1 that Philippine partners have the same number of credits, that is, 48 credits, for the Master of Engineering program. This credit is composed of 14 units of 3 credits each plus a 6-credit practicum. A credit of 3 means a lecture/ contact with the students of 3 hours per week under the traditional system of education. DLSU having 3 semesters per school year has about 42 hours of lecture or contact per trimester while XU which has only 2 semesters per school year has 48 hours of lecture or contact per semester. Both universities do not specify the number of hours required for a student to dedicate to studying alone on each unit. DLSU also offers MSc in some engineering fields. The MSc, a research – oriented program, has a total credit of 36 which is broken down into 30 credits of coursework and 6 credits of research or thesis.

It is observed that UoP and UTM have about the same specification for learning hours for each unit, i.e., 150 ~ 160 hours. These universities prescribe that the number of hours that a student should devote to studying each unit is about 114 ~ 120; the number


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of hours for lecture or contact between the professor and the student is 36 ~ 40 for each learning unit. However, they differ in the total learning hours for the entire program by about 450 hours. The difference is due to the fact that while the prescribed learning hours for each unit are almost the same the number of learning units in the post graduate program in both universities differ by 2, UTM having 10 learning units while UoP has 8 learning units.

The Philippine partners have the same credits for the Master of Engineering Program, a postgraduate program offered by both universities, since this program adopts the credit system which was prescribed by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) consortium of network schools. However, both universities, like most, if not all, universities in the Philippines do not specify the number of hours that a student should spend studying on his own for each unit. To be compatible with UoP’s credit system DLSU and XU can choose to adopt 2,100 learning hours for the 14 units in their MEngg program and modify the 480-hour practicum requirement to a 900-hour practicum requirement, almost the same as KTH’s learning hours for thesis or project, of which 300 hours is for industry exposure and immersion and the remaining 600 hours is for the technical report- writing, for a total learning hour of 3,000 for the entire program. This is twice

that of UoP’s total learning hours of 1,500 the reason being that a postgraduate program in DLSU and XU normally takes 2 years to complete while that in UoP takes 1 year. Philippine partners can therefore specify 150 learning hours per unit if they were to follow UoP’s and UTM’s learning hours of 150 ~ 160. Hence, if an internationally accredited MSc program is to be offered, the Philippine partners, like the other partners, can make use of all learning units that will be developed without deviating from the number of units that should be offered by the program since this number of units is prescribed by the consortium of DOST network schools in which both DLSU and XU are members of.

There is reason for using the model as presented in the following table for crediting units in open learning programs although the model is that for traditional face-to-face education. Since the attainment of the learning outcomes is made the basis for the award of a degree this should also be the basis for the award of a degree in open learning. The learning outcomes for a particular program have a meaning when quantified. It therefore becomes evident that the total learning hour is a suitable yardstick for measuring the attainment of the learning outcomes.

Table 1. Comparison Among five Universities in Europe and Asia on Credits for a Postgraduate Program in Traditional Higher Education

1 Excluding hours of self-study or student study hours

If the five institutions have to develop an MSc Program in Sustainable Technology the individual units of which can be credited in any of the partner institutions, it would be appropriate to develop a logical framework for crediting these units without attempting to disrupt each partner institution’s own system of crediting units. What could be a common basis for crediting learning units would be outlined in the objectives of the Bologna Declaration, the UoP and KTH being two of its signatories. One of the salient points in the Declaration is the objective of establishing a credit system such as the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

The ECTS is a credit system which considers the student workload required to achieve the objectives of a program. These objectives are specified in terms of the learning outcomes and competence to be acquired. ECTS is based on the principle that 60 credits measure the workload of a full-time student during one academic year. The student workload of a full-time study program in Europe amounts in most cases to around 1,500-1,800 hours per year and in those cases one credit stands for around 25 to 30 working hours [6]. Since the declaration aims at coming to a convergence rather than a standardization of European higher education, KTH

Taught Units Project Units Total (Taught and Project)

No. of

Yrs Institution/ Degree No. of

Units Credit/Unit

Total Learning

Hrs

Total Credit

Total Taught

Hrs

Project Credits

Total Contact Hrs

Total Learning

Hrs

Total Credits

Total Learning

Hrs

UoP (MSc) 8 15 1200 120 288~320 60 - 300 180 1500 1 KTH (MSc)

SAC

10-15

4-6

2400

60

900

20

~200

800

80

3200

2

UTM(MEng) 11 3 - 33 - 6 - - 39 1950 1-

11/2 XU(MEng) 14 3 - 42 672 6 - 480 48 11521 2 DLSU (MSc) (MEng)

10 14

3 3

-

30 42

420 672

6 6

- -

12 480

36 48

4201

11521

2 2


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and UoP can continue to adopt their current quality assurance systems, including their credit systems, and at the same time be compatible with the credit system specified in the Bologna Declaration. Each unit of the current credit system of the UoP can be multiplied by a factor of 1/3 so that the total credit of 180 for a postgraduate program can be credited as 60 credits. On the other hand, each unit of the current credit system of the KTH can be multiplied by a factor of 3/2 so that the total credit of 80 for a postgraduate program can be credited as 120 ECTS credits for a 2-year equivalent student workload. Thus, with these factors of equivalency carried out both these European universities can still very well fit into the system described by the Bologna Declaration without the necessity of changing their current systems. For the non- European partners the same credit system may be adopted if they have to fit in the credit system as described in the above. Hence, for UTM its MEngg program can carry a factor of 20/13 for each of its various units. DLSU’s and XU’s

MEngg program can carry a factor of 5/2 for each of its units, which means that a learning unit of 3 credits has an equivalent credit of 7.5 in this harmonized system of the ECTS. Table 2 presents the factors of equivalency for ECTS credits of each partner institution. The factor is multiplied to the local credit of a partner institution for a unit earned. The product is the ECTS credit for the unit.

It should be noted that the factors discussed in the above to be used in the computation of the ECTS credits do not have any other meaning except as figures which should be multiplied to the credits earned in the delivering institution to be credited in the harmonized system of ECTS. As can be observed the factor is derived by dividing the 60 ECTS base credit by the institution’s credit for a year of student workload so that for KTH, for instance, a student workload in a year is 40 Swedish credits, hence, the factor is 60/40 or 1.5.

Table 2. Factors of Equivalency, Fe, from Local Credits to ECTS Credits

How should a learning unit of 6 credits derived from the KTH be handled by the other partners, such as the UoP, for example? The 6 credits should be multiplied by 1.5 (KTH’s equivalent factor) to get its ECTS equivalent credits of 9. This SAC of 6 is the credit of 1 unit in the KTH. 1 unit of the UoP is 15 credits or 5 ECTS. What this means is that if the international MSc program is to be offered by the five institutions one or two partner universities, in this example UoP, which has the shortest time to complete an MSc program (1 year), can get a credit less than the credit received by the other partner institutions for the same learning unit. It seems plausible because KTH requires more learning units than UoP for a program so that for someone who has taken units from KTH he/she can have his/her ECTS credits transferred to UoP if he/ she desires to do so and will be able to complete the same program in lesser time. However, this is not supposed to be the case if the quality assurance of the partners has to be trusted. It is herein proposed that a different factor should be described to show the relations between credits of one institution to another. This is necessary for the case of a student who wishes to transfer from one institution, which for illustration purposes we

shall call sending institution to another institution, which we shall call receiving institution. To determine this factor of conversion, Fc, the local credit for a unit of the receiving institution is divided by the ECTS credit for a unit of the sending institution. To get the corresponding local credit in the receiving institution of an ECTS credit of a sending institution this factor of conversion is multiplied with the ECTS credit earned. For example, a learning unit taken in KTH by a student has a local credit of 6. Its ECTS credit is 6 x 1.5, or 9. If the student transfers to UoP for any reason this learning unit is to be credited as 9 x 5/3, or 15 local UoP credits. Table 3 illustrates the point emphasized in this section. It can be observed that it is important for the receiving institution to have all the information about the credit system of the sending institution so that proper crediting of units earned by a student can be done. Of course, the transferee has to comply with the other requirements of the program before his admission in the receiving institution to ensure quality assurance.

Institution Computations: base credit of 60 ÷ total credits for 1 year student workload = Factor of Equivalency

Factor of Equivalency of Institution/Program,

Fe UoP 60÷180 = 1/3 1/3 KTH 60÷40 = 3/2 3/2 UTM 60÷39 = 20/13 20/13

DLSU/XU (MEngg) 60÷24 = 5/2 5/2

DLSU (MSc) 60÷18 = 10/3 10/3


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Table 3. Factors of Conversion, Fc, from ECTS Credits to Local Credits

4. Conclusion

The quality assurance systems observed by the five universities described in the preceding sections are all similar to one another. There is usually an internal assessment done by the higher educational institution on its program enabling it to identify its strengths and weaknesses. The assessment is based on developed criteria and guidelines to ensure academic quality and student support. Part of quality assurance is an external assessment or peer review which provides for an evaluation of several areas for review.

It is now clear that it is not possible to standardize or make a uniform system of crediting units for all the partner institutions as each university has a unique and distinct way of crediting units. Besides, there are different guidelines and policies that have to be respected by the partner institutions each in their own region. DLSU and XU, once they offer an open learning MSc program have to comply with the CHED Memorandum Orders (CMOs) related to Open Learning and Distance Education, such as, CMO 35 Series of 2000 and CMO 27 Series of 2005. While presently the Philippine system does not specify the number of learning hours for each credit of a learning unit the Philippine partners should adopt a specification for student study hours so as to guide both the professor and the student of how much time is needed for correspondence between professor and student, face to face or otherwise, and the number of hours that the student has to spend studying on his own for each unit. Student study hour means to include studying for tests or exams,

solving problems, reading, making reports, and

the like. The authors believe that this could be one way of informing the students in advance of how much time is expected of them to be devoted to a learning unit. It protects the interests of the students in a manner that they are given requirements which can be completed within a just timeframe based on the specified learning hours. It also safeguards the professor at the same time from the demands of excessive number of hours to be devoted to the development of course materials, preparation for the assessment of student learning, an other like activities required of academic staff.

Of course, it is not to say that this is the only criterion for a harmonized quality assurance but it is to say that crediting the units in this manner is one of the ways of looking at an answer for one of the issues involved in quality assurance. Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the European Union for the funding in the preparation, as well as, in the presentation of this paper under the Asia Link project. They would also like to acknowledge the partner institutions, University of Portsmouth, Royal Institute of Technology, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, and De La Salle University for the bright ideas and good practices they shared in the workshops in Manila and Cebu. Their contributions paved the way towards the realization of this paper. References

1. J.H. Lee, Open and Distance Learning in

APEID, UNESCO Bangkok, Conference Proceedings in ODL for Agricultural Development and Rural Poverty Reduction: A Workshop to Explore Innovation and Best Practice in Asia and the Pacific, FAO Bangkok, 28 June 2005

2. Nigel Paine, 1989. Open Learning in Transition: An Agenda for Action. London: Kogan Page with the National Extension College

3. D.P. Bosworth, 1991. Open Learning, England, Cassell Educational Limited

4. Commission on Higher Education. CMO No. 35 Series of 2000, Updated Policies and Guidelines on Open Learning and Distance Education.

5. Commission on Higher Education. CMO No. 27 Series of 2005, Policies and Guidelines on Distance Education

6. http://www.digitalschool.net/edu/DL_history_mJeffries.html

7. http://ec.europa.eu./education/programmes/socrates/ects/index_en.html

8. http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf

Factors of Conversion from ECTS Credits to Local Credits, Fc Receiving Institutions Sending

Institution Factor of

Equivalency, Fe UoP KTH UTM DLSU/XU UoP 1/3 3 6/5 3/5 3/5 KTH 3/2 5/3 2/3 1/3 1/3

UTM (MEngg) 20/13 13/4 13/10 13/20 13/20 DLSU/XU (MEngg)

5/2 2 4/5 2/5 2/5


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9. http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no 10. http://www.port.ac.uk/ 11. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/ 12. http://www.ched.gov.ph


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Final Year Projects and Thesis: Are Supervisors Under or Over Specifying the Scope Of Work?

Junaidah Ariffin a, Suhaimi Abdul Talib

Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor Email: a [email protected]

Abstract Being a comprehensive university, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) offers a variety of programmes at different academic levels. Programmes at Bachelor, Masters and Doctoral levels require the submission of a report/thesis that constitute partial or full requirement for the degree being sought. Traditionally the scope of work is being defined subjectively, mainly determined by the supervisors. There are occasions, where too much work or too little has been set for the student, resulting in either the student having to extend the duration of study or in the thesis/report not meeting the standards of the examiners. There is a serious need to establish a guideline of what is expected and acceptable for reports/thesis at different academic levels taken through different mode of studies. This paper outlines the scope and differentiates the expectations for final year project reports resulting from a Bachelor degree programme, dissertations from a Masters programme carried out by coursework, theses resulting from Masters and PhD programmes carried out by research. Areas addressed include, setting out of the research direction, literature review, scope of work, data analysis and discussions for the different levels of academic programmes. Keywords: engineering education; final year projects; thesis 1. Introduction

Final year individual projects or research projects are common in engineering education. They are used in Diploma programmes right through to Doctoral programmes. These projects are introduced into the curriculum either as a partial or full requirement in the award of the degree being sought. The Faculty of Civil Engineering at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) has introduced the final year project in the curriculum since it began the Bachelor of Engineering programme in 1970. Although not specifically stated at that time, the final year project was introduced to develop the following attributes in the training of engineering students, a. Ability to apply basic knowledge of science,

mathematics and engineering. b. Ability to identify, formulate and solve

engineering problems. c. Ability to use a system approach to design and

evaluate operational performance. d. Ability to design and conduct experiments, as

well as to analyze and interpret data. e. Ability to communicate effectively. f. Ability to acquire the capacity for lifelong

learning.

These attributes are generic and are applicable to any final year research reports irrespective of levels

of academic programmes. However, the expectations of these reports in terms of content, breadth and depth of analysis vary depending on the level of academic programmes. The objective of this paper is to discuss and compare the different expectations for Bachelor degree final year reports, M.Sc. dissertations, M.Sc. theses and Ph.D. theses. The term dissertation used in this paper refers to the final year project report submitted as a partial requirement for the award of the Master of Science by coursework, while the term thesis refers to the final report submitted as a full requirement for the award of either Master of Science by research or Ph.D. by research. 2. Final Year Project reports, dissertations and

theses at Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM

Following the granting of a university status to UiTM, the Faculty introduced several other programmes, including Masters of Science by coursework, Masters of Science by research and a Ph.D. by research. The introduction of these programmes brought with them the need to assess final year projects for the Bachelor of Engineering programme; dissertations for the Masters of Science by coursework programmes, and theses for Masters of Science and Ph.D. by research programmes.


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Some problems in determining the scope of work had emerged with the introduction of various levels and modes of programmes. At times, the Faculty faced difficulties in dealing with submissions of quality that are either excessively over or below the requirements of a particular academic programme. This problem arises from inexperience supervisors and the lack of guidelines defining the scope of work needed for a particular programme of studies. One of the major causes of these problems is attributed to supervisors not understanding the concept of credit hours. In the Malaysian context, one (1) credit hour in a bachelor programme is equivalent to 40 hours of student study time. Thus the amount of work that can be expected from a student undertaking a final year project must commensurate with the credit hour allocated for the course. Table 1 shows the allocation of time for various activities to be undertaken for a 6 credit hour final year project in a Bachelor of Engineering Programme. Since the programme is designed such that student are required to simultaneously undertake another 10 credit hours, made up of other courses, the reasonable amount of time that students can afford on this project is 240 hours. Table 1. Recommended time allocation for a six (6) credit hour Final Year Project at Bachelor of Engineering programme

Stages of Project

Recommended Time

Activities

Stage I

50 – 80 hours Literature Search/Review

Formulating Research Direction

Design of Experiments

Stage II

60 – 90 hours Data Collection Preliminary Data

Analysis Stage III

50 – 80 hours Thorough Data

Analysis Discussion

Report writing

A project can be divided into three major stages, as shown in Table1. One third of the time is needed to conduct literature search and literature review, to formulate the research direction, and to design experiments or data collection methods and tools. Another third of the time should be spent on data collection, that may either involved laboratory work or field work. Some data analysis can be completed during the data collection stage. The remaining time should be allocated for thorough data analysis and writing the final report. Proper planning and close supervision by the supervisor based on the three-stage approach will ensure that students will be assigned a reasonable scope of work that would result in a good quality final year research project report. The same concept can be used to determine the scope of work and time to be allocated for the

various activities for other academic programmes, may it be, M.Sc. by coursework, M.Sc. by research or PhD by research 3. Expectations and Quality of Final Year Project

Reports, Dissertations and Theses

Recommendations provided in Table 1, provide guidance in estimating the amount of work expected from students in terms of time allocation. A guideline is also needed in determining the breadth and depth of the report, dissertation and thesis contents. Table 2 provides a comparison on the different levels of expectation associated with the different academic programmes. The following discussion will focus on comparing two sets of programmes in order to gain better understanding of the guideline provided in Table 2. The two sets of programmes are Final Year Project against M.Sc. dissertation and MSc thesis against Ph.D. thesis. 4. Differentiating the Bachelor Degree Final Year

Project and the M.Sc. Dissertation

In terms of credit hours, both are worth 6 hours. The Final Year Project is conducted over two semesters, namely in semester 7, with 2 credit hours and in semester 8 with 4 credit hours. The M.Sc. dissertation is conducted within one semester, namely in semester 3, with 6 credit hours. In both cases, students will be simultaneously undertaking other courses. With the time limitation, and constraints of having to attend to other courses, the amount of work that can be achieved in both projects would be similar. However, the expectations in terms of depth of the project reports are significantly different.

The dissertation is expected to be of a higher quality in at least 3 aspects. First, the quality of literature review should demonstrate students’ ability to analyze and synthesize information from the literature. Furthermore, students should also demonstrate their ability to compare and evaluate related material that is presented. Second, the data analysis must be done to a deeper depth. A more advanced statistical analysis is expected in the dissertation compared to the final year report. For dissertations, graphs and tables provided must reflect deep thinking and provide more information that can be translated into knowledge rather than plotting or tabulating raw data. Third, the quality of discussion in dissertations must include quantitative and qualitative aspects. Furthermore, a possible explanation of the observation must be provided. On the other hand, for the final year report, it would suffice if discussions deal with describing the observed results.


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Table 2. Guidelines for determining the standards/requirements for the Bachelor of Final Year Project & M.Sc Dissertation and M.Sc Thesis & Ph.D. Thesis

Bachelor of Engineering FYP (over 2 semesters –

6 credit hours)

M.Sc. Dissertation Project (over 1 semester –

6 credit hours)

M.Sc. Thesis (12-18 months)

Ph.D. Thesis (36 months)

Research Direction Ability to formulate research direction (b/ground; problem statement; scope of work; research methodology) 2-3 stated objectives




Literature Review Good flow of information; Proper citations that are consistent with the list of references; awareness on plagiarism. Reference should include a variety source of reference types e.g. journals, proceedings, workshops, unpublished reports, trade magazines etc.

Literature Review Good flow of information; Proper citations that are consistent with the list of references; awareness on plagiarism; element of critical review must be present; references must comprise at least 30-50% journals & thesis

Literature Review Good flow of information; Proper citations that are consistent with the list of references; awareness on plagiarism; material referred to covers a decent duration; element of critical review must be present; references must comprise at least 50% journals & thesis

Literature Review Good flow of information; Proper citations that are consistent with the list of references; free from plagiarism; material referred to covers a decent duration; element of critical review must be present; gap in the body of knowledge to be clearly identified; references must comprise at least 70% journals & thesis

Methodology For experimental based projects Standard laboratory apparatus and the use of standard methods are acceptable For modeling based projects Use of existing model is acceptable For census type projects Use of standard questionnaires is acceptable

Methodology For experimental based projects Standard laboratory apparatus and the use of standard methods are acceptable For modeling based projects Use of existing model is acceptable For census type projects Use of standard questionnaires is acceptable

Methodology For experimental based projects Standard laboratory apparatus and the use of standard methods are acceptable. Some aspects of studies should be based on designed or tailor-made experiments For modeling based projects Some improvements of an existing model are expected. For census type projects Some aspects of questionnaire design are expected

Methodology For experimental based projects Standard laboratory apparatus and the use of standard methods are acceptable. Some aspects of studies should be based on designed or tailor-made experiments For modeling based projects Significant improvements or development of a new model are expected For census type projects Significant (or novel / innovative) inputs into design of questionnaires are expected


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Table 2. Guidelines for determining the standards/requirements for the Bachelor of Final Year Project & M.Sc Dissertation and M.Sc Thesis & Ph.D. Thesis…(cont.) Data Collection For primary data (expt-based) 56-84 hours worth of activities For secondary data Reasonable length of one set of data acceptable. For census type research A sample set is adequate.

Data Collection For primary data (expt-based) 56-84 hours worth of activities For secondary data Reasonable length of one set of data acceptable. For census type research A sample set is adequate.

Data Collection For primary data (expt-based) 6 months of lab./field work. For secondary data Significant length of data and reasonable number of sets are expected. For census type research A significant sample size to be representative is expected.

Data Collection For primary data (expt-based) 8-12 months of lab./field work. For secondary data Both significant length of data and number of sets are expected. For census type research Both significant sample size and number of samples are expected.

Data Analysis Able to present data in the most appropriate form; analysed data presented in graphs & charts; some basic statistical analysis

Data Analysis Able to present data in the most appropriate form; data analysed to secondary level; effective use of graphs & charts; effective use of statistical analysis; able to critically analyse data etc.

Data Analysis Able to present data in the most appropriate form; data analysed to secondary level; effective use of graphs & charts; effective use of statistical analysis; modification of existing models; evaluation of models, techniques etc.

Data Analysis Able to present data in the most appropriate form; higher level of data analysis; effective use of graphs & charts; effective use of statistical analysis; proposing new models; evaluation of models, techniques etc.

Discussion Able to describe what was observed from collected data

Discussion Able to describe what was observed from collected data; Able to explain the observed data

Discussion Able to describe what was observed from collected data; Able to explain the observed data

Discussion Able to describe what was observed from collected data; Able to explain the observed data; Able to introduce a model that fits the observation

5. Differentiating M.Sc. theses and Ph.D. theses

Comparing the columns on MSc. Thesis and PhD Thesis in Table 2, there are four major differences that distinguish the two programmes. First, the literature review for a Ph.D. thesis must be comprehensive and must clearly identify gaps, anomalies and controversies in the existing body of knowledge. This is important to justify pursing an original piece of research investigations. Second, the laboratory work in a PhD programme must include experiments that are specifically designed by students to fulfill part or all objectives of the study. Third, the data analysis will need to include the introduction of a model that is capable of simulating or explaining the observations made during the study. Fourth, the findings of the study must constitute original contribution towards enhancing the body of knowledge.

6. Concluding Remarks

Guidelines discussed in this paper define the characteristics of the Bachelor degree Final Year Project, M.Sc. dissertation, M.Sc. Thesis and Ph.D. Thesis. These characteristics are useful for new supervisors in determining the scope of work for students. It is expected that the use of this guideline at the Faculty of Civil Engineering will reduce the problem of over and under specifying scope of work and quality expectations for final year project reports, M.Sc. dissertations, M.Sc. theses and Ph.D. theses. References 1. Aalborg University, The Assessment of a Ph.D.

Thesis. Faculty of Engineering and Science, Aalborg University, Denmark, unpublished.

2. Danish Government, Ministrial Order on the PhD course and on the PhD degree. Government of Denmark.


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3. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Guideline in conductiong Final Year Project EC220. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, unpublished, (2003).

4. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Guideline for Dissertations and Thesis Submission –Master and PhD Degree. Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, unpublished, (2007).

5. UKM, Guidelines for the preparation of thesis and dissertation assessment report. Center for

Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, unpublished.

6. UM, External Examiner Assessment Form for MTech. Dissertations. Institute of Postgraduate Studies, Universiti Malaya, unpublished.

7. USM, Examiners’ Thesis Assessment Form. Institute of Graduate Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia, unpublished.


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Proposed Rubrics for Evaluation of Class Project

Masine Md Tap a, Adnan Hassan a, Robiah Ahmad b

a Department of Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Faculty, Universiti

Teknologi Malaysia. b Department of Applied Mechanics, Mechanical Engineering Faculty, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

Abstract Outcome based approach to engineering education requires that students be assessed in order to evaluate their technical and generics skills. Under this challenge the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia has decided to propose an assessment matrices to assess these skills. One of these generic skills is report writing. This paper describes in detail, the development of the assessment matrices for report writing in particular class project report. A general matrix was developed, applicable across the courses offered by the Faculty. A case study course, Work Design is selected to demonstrate the application of the proposed assessment matrices. However the general matrix is further detailed to suit the assessment for this particular course. Comparison is then made with the current evaluation method used for the case study course. The course requires students to conduct a class project and submit a written report. Currently in the effort to ensure effective learning, the project is progressively submitted and evaluated so that mistakes do not snowball at the end of the semester. This put a heavy burden on the lecturer and seems to encourage students to wait for a mistake to be detected before attempting to do better. The outcome based approach and the development of the proposed assessment matrices or rubrics will hopefully solve this whereby students are given the detailed assessment matrices at the beginning of the course as guidelines and set the target for quality report. Keywords: assessment matrices; written report 1. Introduction

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia is implementing outcome-based approach covering technical and generic skills. Outcome-based education is an approach to improvement that focuses on the outcomes and on greater accountability for results [1]. This approach requires that students be assessed to evaluate their skills. In view of this Faculty of Mechanical has decided to propose an assessment matrice or rubric to assess these skills. One of the skills to be assessed is report writing. There are three types of reports that a student may have to produce; final year project, laboratory report and class project report.

This paper will focus on the development of rubrics for class project report. Currently evaluation of written class project reports is done by respective lecturers using their own evaluation techniques and marking schemes. With the proposed rubrics evaluation will be consistent with faculty’s objective. As these rubrics will also be made known to students, it will allow students to use it as a benchmark for an effective learning performance measure.

2. Development of the outcome-based rubrics 2.1. Basis of development The key issues that need to be determined before developing the rubrics are: The desired outcome Why the need to learn it. How students will learn it. How to know they have learnt it. The desired outcome - Mechanical Engineering Faculty has identified a

number of learning outcomes a student should acquire. One of them is the ability to prepare, submit and present quality technical reports within the given time frame [2].

The need to learn it - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering produces a

range of engineering graduates. In their profession they will be required to write and communicate through written report.

How students will learn this skill.


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- The Faculty has identified various methods of teaching and learning such as lectures, tutorials and project assignments [2].

Assessment of their report writing skills - The assessment rubrics will be a guide to

lecturere and students. This will be duscussed in the following sections.

2.2 Criteria to be assessed

The assessment of the report may be done base on

8 items of the report. These are listed in Table 1. Level of complexity is based on six levels, they

are: 1. Knowledge 2. Comprehension 3. Application 4. Analysis 5. Synthesis 6. Evaluation

2.3 Evaluation scale

It is proposed that the skill acquired by students be evaluated on a scale of 1 to 5. The value of 1 indicates the worst performance and the value of 5 indicates the best performance. The evaluation scale is shown in Table 2.

The evaluation scale is to be used by all courses that require students to conduct class project and submit a written report. However, this is very general and does not identify specific requirements of each course. But this may be further detailed to suit specific courses. The following section discusses a proposed evaluation scale for Work Design course.

3. Proposed rubrics for Work Design course

Table 3 shows criteria assessed which is similar to Table 1 but has been detailed to specify the assessment criteria of the specific course.

Table 1. Criteria assessed in written report

Item Indication of achievement of OBE Level of

complexity Introduction 1. Able to explain the objective of report.

2. Able to define the problem to be solve. 3. Able to report on relevant literature reviews and theories.

Comprehension

Methodology 1. Able to explain the methods or procedures used to achieve objective. Comprehension Data collection

2. Able to collect adequate data and present it clearly and accurately using appropriate techniques.

Application

Analysis and detail design

1. Able to analyse data and use it to formulate detail design. 2. Able to specify detail design.

Analysis and synthesis

Interpretation of results and discussion.

1. Able to interpret results accurately. 2. Able to describe the relationship between results and related theories

and literature reviews.

Evaluation

Conclusions 1. Able to conclude on the results of the study. Comprehension References 1. Able to use and refer to relevant sources of information. Application Organisation, clarity and timely submitted

1. Able to organise report and enable reader to understand report content. 2. Able to write in a clear format and language. 3. Able to submit report on time.

Application


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Table 2. Evaluation scale

Criteria Weightage Evaluation Scale 1

(below expectation) 2 3

(acceptable) 4 5

(outstanding) Introduction 20 Objectives not clearly

defined or none given. Problem to be solved not clearly defined. Background study of related literature review and theories not sufficient.

Between below expectation to acceptable.

Has outlined objectives and addressed them at the end of the work. Problem and justification adequately defined. Adequate background study of related literature review and theories given.

Between acceptable to outstanding

Has defined objectives in detail and addressed them comprehensively. Problem to be solved and the importance/justification of solution is clearly defined. Extensive background study of related literature review and theories given.

Methodology 5 Methodology of study not clearly defined. Lack explanation on how the study will be conducted to achieve project objective.

Between below expectation to acceptable

Adequate explanation on methodology of study.


Methodology of study is clearly defined. Explains clearly the methods used in data collection, analysis, development of solution. Explains clearly the procedures in conducting the study.

Data Collection

15 Data collected not adequate. Data poorly presented.


Adequate data collected. But data not well presented.


Complete data gathered. Data properly presented in tables, diagrams, etc.


20 Simply restating gathered data and information. Detail design lack clarity. Explanation not complete. Diagrams, tables and drawings not complete or not given.


Adequate detail of design with adequate explanation, diagrams, tables and drawings.


Detailed analysis with good supporting evidence. Shows clearly specifications of detail design with concise explanation, diagrams, tables and drawings.


20 Inadequate intepretation of results. Shallow discussion of results.


Adequate interpretation of results. Adequate discussion of results demonstrating integration in selection and use of theory.


Comprehensive and detailed interpretation of results. Clear and complete discussion of results demonstrating integration in the selection and use of theory. Able to relate accurately between results, related theories and literature review.

Conclusion 10 Unsubstantiated/invalid based on generalisation only, or no conclusion at all.


Conclusion partially supported by results/findings


Analytical and clear conclusions well grounded in theory and literature showing development of concept and solution to problem.

References 5 Irrelevant reference / referencing is absent / unsystematic


Some related reference


Highly related reference, proper format and consistently accurate.

Organization, Clarity, Timely submitted

5 Unclear presentation. Disorganized flow of presentation. Late submission (1 days or more)


Acceptable presentation and timely submitted.


Proper language, smooth flow, grammatically correct, clear diagram, and timely submitted

100 marks is equivalent to a specific percentage of total marks of the course.


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Table 3. Criteria assessed in written report modified for the Work Design course

Item Indication of achievement of OBE Level of

complexity Introduction 1. Able to explain the objective of report.

2. Able to define the work to be studied and the problem to be solve. 3. Able to report on relevant theories, principles and guidelines of work

design that will be used to solve problem.

Comprehension

Methodology 1. Able to explain the methods or procedures used to study the problem, and propose and evaluate solution.

Comprehension

Data collection

1. Able to collect adequate data and present it clearly and accurately using appropriate charts, diagrams and techniques taught in course such as two-hand charts, process flow charts, multi-activity charts, from-to charts, process flow diagrams and/or pattern motion diagrams.

Application


1. Able to analyse data identify problems and weaknesses in case study job. Able to use the appropriate theories , principles and guidelines to formulate solution such as ergonomics, principles of motion economy, DFMA, SMED, design of jigs and fixtures and/or poka yoke.

2. Able to specify propose solution. 3. Able to measure effectiveness of propose solution (work

measurement).

Analysis and synthesis


1. Able to interpret results accurately. 2. Able to describe the relationship between results and related theories

and principles used in analysis in producing the desired work improvement.

3. Able to quantify improvement.

Evaluation

Conclusions 1. Able to conclude on the results of the study. Comprehension References 1. Able to use and refer to relevant sources of information. Application Organisation, clarity and timely submitted

1. Able to organise report and enable reader to understand report content. 2. Able to write in a clear format and language. 3. Able to submit report on time.

Application

Table 3 shows that with appropriate modifications

to the indication of achievement of OBE the criteria to be assessed can still be used. The evaluation scale does not need to be modified as it provides a fair scale of evaluation based on the criteria to be assessed. 4. Current practice for work design course

With the current practice the marks allocation for Work design course are as follows:

Exam : 60% Test : 30% Class project : 30% Total 100% The Work Design course currently requires

students to submit their class projects into two parts. Referring to Table 4 the first part (Project I) is completed and submitted at the end of the first half of the semester (before semester break). This is evaluated and marked accordingly and returned to the students after the semester break. Students are given the chance to correct mistakes and improve their marks. They then proceed to continue with part two of the project. This together with the corrected

version of the first part of the project is submitted at the end of the semester. Marks for part 2 is adjusted according the corrections made and is added to the marks given for part 2. Both marks are total up to become the final marks which constitute 30% of the total course marks.

This method is used to give opportunity for students to identify and rectify mistakes before the marks are finalised.

5. Discussion

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering UTM has proposed matrices for evaluating written class project report to that a more systematic evaluation is practices across the courses offered. Although the courses vary in terms of the knowledge content from each other, each will be using the same evaluation matrices. Thus the matrices need to be generic.

A case study course was selected to ascertain if the evaluation matrices proposed by the faculty may be implemented. Table 3 shows that the proposed criteria to be assessed (from Table 1) may be modified and detailed to accommodate specific knowledge content of the course.


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It is expected that these will provide clear guidelines to lecturers in providing a fairer and systematic evaluation of student’s report. Students will benefit by using them as guidelines too to better learning.

In the case of Work Design it may even eliminate the need for progressive submission of written report and repetitive evaluation and time consuming corrections. The matrices or rubrics which should be made known to students at the beginning of the program will provide a target or benchmark to better learning.

Table 4. Current written report evaluation

Content Marks Comments

Project I : Introduction (4) Existing method : Information / discussion, diagrams & charts. (6) Problem identification. (4) Proposed method : Information / discussion, diagrams & charts. (6) Expected improvement. (4) Preliminary comparison & discussion. (6)

Subtotal 1 :

/30 = /15

Project II : Preparation for measurement: Number of observations (2) Elements division (4) Data (6) Calculations : Allowances (2) Rating (2) Normal time (2) Standard time (2) Discussions (6) Conclusion (4)

Subtotal 2 :

TOTAL

/30= /15

=

6. Conclusion

The assessment matrices proposed by the Faculty is part of an important effort to the implementation of outcome based education. These are applied across the Faculty to all courses each with specific field of knowledge but with appropriate modification within each criterion it can be made to suit each course. How effective this is can only be known after it is implemented and feed back from students and lecturers is assessed. Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank all the members of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia involved in the design of the proposed rubrics. References 1. G.C. Furman, Administrators’ perceptions of

outcome-based education: a case study, International Journal of Education Management 9 (6) (1995) 32-42.

2. Learning Outcome Documents, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2006.


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Development of a Postgraduate Program in Industrial Engineering – Process and Lessons Learned

Sha’ri Mohd Yusof, Mohamed Shariff Nabi Baksh, Adnan Hassan, Safian Sharif

Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Abstract This paper describes the process of developing a postgraduate program course at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. The paper begins with a brief introduction about the program concept and structure. This is followed by a description of the process that the committee had to go through until program is approved and ready for implementation. The description given here will hopefully provide some guidelines for future program developers as to how to approach the process and some lessons that future ‘curriculum developers’ be aware of and possibly make the process much more effective. It is believed that industry involvement through their inputs and feedback throughout the development process has made it into a good program. Keywords: industrial engineering; curriculum development; postgraduate 1. The background

Industrial Engineering concern with the design, development, installation, and improvement of integrated systems (industrial, or service) consisting of man, material, equipments, management systems using science and engineering to predict specify and improve the system [1]. The major body of knowledge that encompass Industrial Engineering (IE) is very wide covering production systems design, production control, total quality management, productivity and operations research [3]. IE is used very much in advanced countries such as United States.

The undergraduate program for Industrial Engineering in Malaysia is relatively new where only UTM has an established program for slightly more than 20 years. However, this is still within the Mechanical Engineering school. Other universities (such as UPM, UIA, UiTM) offer mixture of production engineering, manufacturing engineering, or manufacturing systems engineering programs. Universities in United States, China, Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and even Saudi Arabia offer comprehensive IE programs. The need for IEs graduates in Malaysia is very high, as almost 90% are already employed within six months of graduation.

As the Malaysian economy becomes much more sophisticated with the addition of new emerging technologies based products and services in the areas of telecommunications, aerospace,

biotechnology, nanotechnology, the need for IEs will be even greater. IEs can be employed in not only industrial sector but also government and service sector to improve the various delivery processes such as health care, education, transport services, local authority’s services, finance processing, and operations management.

The development of a postgraduate program will eventually help in enhancing some of these economic activities to make them better, therefore, increased productivity and quality of products and services, without forgetting the traditional industry such as manufacturing and agriculture. There is also a need to integrate, coordinate the multiple disciplines in an organization to achieve high productivity. Professionals from various backgrounds, whether engineering, social science, arts and design, or medical related fields can help develop, improve and install the various integrated systems of work to achieve higher productivity and quality levels.

This paper is based on the experiences that have been obtained in developing a master for industrial engineering at UTM. 2. Initial Concept

The first stage in developing this program was to determine the kind of postgraduate program that will be beneficial for the country. Issues such as the philosophy of it, the target market, and


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stakeholders requirements were addressed. Basically, the ‘product’ that will meet customer needs. As academics, we tend to have the notion that academic content is of paramount importance. It may not fit the needs of customers, or the potential candidates who wants to gain the degree, if it is too academic content oriented. Throughout the development of this program, the faculty members have come to the consensus that the program must strike a balance between being ‘too academically inclined ' and ‘too industry based’. It should be in between kind of program especially when the program is IE. This is especially important since IE is ‘practical engineering’ and very much ‘management engineering’ biased. Therefore, it must have industry flavors. An industry focused program should be more hands on less theoretical approach when compared to one which is academic research based. The amount of discussions and academic discourse required to determine the main objective for the program can be time consuming. The philosophy of the master degree to be awarded must be agreed upon and understood by the faculty members. In our case, we will be developing master by taught course similar to existing program in the faculty.

The first source of curriculum content comes from the faculty members own postgraduate experience. Since we have diverse background of people including those who complete their studies from US, UK and in various modes including coursework, research, modular; all of them were useful in defining, refining, redefining, enhancing and formulating the initial draft of the program.

Various samples of IE programs from local and overseas universities need to be compared. Such information is available through respective universities websites or published prospectus. Variants of similar programs could also be seen and evaluated. However, one point of caution is if too many of these programs are gathered and compared, it can result in a loss of direction.

The first draft was ready for comments by the committee at the faculty level. The justification to conduct the program must be clearly written and spelled out. It must address major stakeholders, which are the Ministry of Education (now Ministry of Higher Education), the industry, the university authorities, and the potential candidates. Justification can include maximizing the use of the university’s resources including academic staff, to utilize the knowledge already gained by members of faculty

Another source of input for curriculum is the board of studies which comprise of industry and academic from other institutions. We were fortunate to have in the committee, alumni of UTM in Industrial Engineering, with abundant experience in IE in a multinational company. The information obtained encompasses the contents to be included in the subjects. One area which was felt to be important is the modeling and simulation of

production systems. This was included in the program.

The initial concept of the program is crucial towards further enhancement and improvement of the whole structure which finally will benefit the students. 3. Establishing the needs

In establishing the needs, we conducted a survey on prospective students and the outcome of the survey provided the basis for conducting the program. Some of the things asked were interests in joining, the reasons for doing an IE postgraduate, preferred mode of teaching and learning, and competencies required for IE specialists. The respondents were also asked to rank the importance of subjects from a list given in the questionnaire. The list resembles the potential subjects including Production and Operations Management, Quality Engineering, Human Factors Engineering, Modeling and Simulation and others. 4. Development process

The first step in developing the program is preparing the draft curriculum structure. This will outline the subjects, number of credits, and other university requirements. Parallel to this, the task force has to prepare the Working paper for the Proposed Master in Engineering (Industrial Engineering). The format must comply with the Ministry’s format which cover details such as the institution offering this new program, the name of this program (it is very important and we found that deciding the name can involve some serious arguments), starting dates, program objectives, learning outcomes, market study, curriculum structure, intake requirements, compare with local and overseas universities of similar programs, and board of studies memberships and comments.

This working paper has to go through a series of presentations at faculty and university levels. Having approved internally, the working paper will be submitted to the Ministry of Higher Education, Management Department (now Higher Institution Department) for presentation and approval. Throughout this process, comments and suggestions will have to be taken on board for changes. Even at the final stage, policy change must be accommodated and followed that the program is approved. This process for getting approval took two years in total.

Along the way, before senate approval, a workshop was held to enhance the draft curriculum program. This workshop was attended by the Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering faculty members as well as representatives from industry (Intel, MAS, and ON semiconductor) who helped to further focus the


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structure, concept, approach, objectives and rationale of the program. Feedback from industry covers content revisions as well (exclusion and inclusions of certain topics in a particular subject). In fact the committee went through each subject’s content in detail. At the end of the workshop, there was already a completed proposed curriculum structure together with the subject contents down to the number of hours for topics to be taught. It was an important step that must not be left out if one was to develop a new program

The next stage was to refine the curriculum based on the workshop feedbacks and outcomes. Having revised the structure and contents, the working paper now has to be presented to a board of studies. The role of the board of studies during the discussions/ meeting was to give their opinion of the program. When the board has agreed on the program, then only the working paper [3] was tabled and presented to the Senate Committee for Postgraduate Studies chaired the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic and Internationalization). During the internal approval process, the faculty has invited a visiting professor who was able to provide assessment and reported by him. Generally, he strongly believes that the program is very good with some refinements [4]. Table 1 gives a summary of all the various steps and activities involved. It is no easy task and there are many activities that were run in parallel (similar to managing those critical paths of project management). A simplified critical path network diagram is given in Fig. 1 as illustration only. 5. Lessons learned

There are a number of lessons that has been learned from the whole process of developing the new postgraduate program in Industrial Engineering. These lessons can be grouped into three main aspects; Curriculum, People and Industry Support.

The first concerns the curriculum contents and structure. The curriculum drawn up must be based on industry needs, and could be refined by academics that actually possess the knowledge, i.e. knowledge owners/experts. The syllabus must be

cross examined with other universities offering similar type of program locally and internationally. In our case, we compared with numerous universities in US, UK, Singapore, Korea and Australia. This will ensure that the body of knowledge is current and widely applied in other places as well. The curriculum must also meet all the requirements of the stakeholders. For example, a policy on the number of credit hours was changed at the very last minute when tabling the program at the Ministry resulted into adjustment of some subjects. In our case we added one elective subject and introduce a three credit hours Research Methodology subject. Therefore, some kind of flexibility must be built in the curriculum to accommodate these changes, and expect these changes to be introduced. The final curriculum structure is shown in Table 2.

Secondly, the people involved in developing the program must be committed and well versed about the field of study. We are fortunate to have faculty members who have diverse experience including industry experience of various sectors such as electrical and electronics, automotive, textile, metal stamping, and others. This provided a rich source of knowledge which eventually went to the newly developed program. There must be a champion who can act as the coordinator and integrator. He or she needs interpersonal skills to balance the needs of academics and the interests of industries. The team involved in the development must have good understanding and strong support from the program owner, in this case the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

Finally, there must be strong support from

industry. In our case, Intel played a major role in helping us fine tune and improve the curriculum structure, contents and other aspects including duration of program, intake requirements and others. In fact, they have indicated very strong interest of sending their engineers to the program.

In a nutshell, three major lessons learned are proper curriculum design mechanism, committed academics, and strong industry support. These are the key ingredients for developing a successful postgraduate program by taught course. It is envisaged that the program will be a success with

Concept Design

Conduct curriculum development

Conduct market survey

Tabled at faculty’s academic board

Meeting with Board of Studies

Prepare Draft Working Paper

University approval – Senate and Board of Directors

Submit to Ministry of Higher Education

ApprovalStart

Fig. 1. Network of Main Activities in Developing the Master in IE Program.


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continuous improvement in the future. The future challenge is to continue enhancing and improving the program to meet the needs of future engineers in strive toward human capital excellence in our country.

6. Concluding Remarks

The development of any new postgraduate program must begin with the end in mind. In our case the end in mind was how to meet customers (potential students) needs as well as all the stakeholders including the university and the Ministry of Higher Education. The process of developing is a daunting one, and it took about two years since inception before it was approved and now being conducted. All the required development steps must be done with full commitment and with perseverance, and then only one can see that it can reach its final stage for approval. This journey is only just the beginning, as the department now embarks on implementing the program with the first group of students on a part time basis beginning July 2007 in Intel Penang.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to extend their appreciation to UTM and the Ministry of Higher Education for approving and allowing the Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering to run the program. The authors would also like to thank everyone who has contributed to the development of the program, including faculty members, Mr. Anwar Ali of Intel, Mr. Zailani Mohd Zaid of MAS, Mr. Kabir Ahmad of NPC , and Mrs. Rohana Abdullah (formerly ON Semiconductor and now at UTEM), and Dr Mohd Yusof Ismail of UPM. References 1. Turner, W.C., et al. (1996), Introduction to

Industrial and Systems Engineering, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, USA.

2. Hicks, Philip E., (1994), Industrial Engineering and management – A new Perspective, McGraw-Hill, New York

3. Working Paper for New Program Master of Engineering (Industrial Engineering), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. January 2007

4. Report on Master of Enginnering (Industrial Engineering), Prof El Sayed (Rutgers University Distinguished Professor), August 2006


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Table 1. Summary of Activities in the Development and Approval of Master of Engineering (Industrial Engineering) Program Stage Issues / Activities Output Estimated Time Concept Design (January 2005)

Name of new program Number of credit hours (32) Subjects to offer Academic focus /Industry focus Duration 12 months

Curriculum structure Program objective Learning outcomes

12 months

Prepare Draft Working paper (April 2005)

Comply with Ministry of Higher Education format and requirements

Draft Working paper for Master of Engineering (Industrial Engineering)

2 months

Workshop between department and industry (6th – 8th June 2005)

Refine subjects names, contents, focus Discuss relevancy

Enhanced and modified curriculum structure and subject contents

1 month (including preparation)

Conduct market survey (November 2005)

Conduct survey to potential students

Results from survey providing evidence and justification for running the new program

2 months (survey execution and analysis)

Tabled at faculty’s academic board (25th January 2006)

Check working paper content, rationale for program, justifications and implications to faculty

Version 2 Working paper 1 month

Meeting with Board of Studies 27th February 2006

Obtain feedback and gain approval of program

Enhance overall program objectives and contents

2 months

Review by Visiting Professor (August 2006)

Suggest some subject content changes

Improve the curriculum Very positive comments

2 weeks (Coincides with

University approval process – Senate (2nd Aug 2006) Board (3rd November 2006)

Improve on comments given

Improved version for curriculum structure and Working Paper

3 months

Submit to Ministry of Higher Education and tabled on 29th Jan 2007

Improve based on new of credits requirement by MQA/LAN

Improved version for curriculum structure

1 month

Program Approval Letter of Approval 4th March 2007


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Table 2. Master Engineering (Industrial Engineering) Final Curriculum Structure

Total

NO. CODE SUBJECTS Credit Hours

1.

UHP 6012 UHP 6022 UHZ 6312/ UHZ 6322 UHZ 6112/ UHZ 6122

University Compulsory (1 subject) Development and Global Issues Seminar or Science Philosophy and Social Development (For local students) Malay Language I/II (For foreign student of Malay Origin – Indonesia /Brunei/Singapore) Malaysian Culture I/II (for other foreign students)

2

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

MMN 1113 MMN 1123 MMN 1213 MMN 1313 MMN 1413 MMN 1903 MMN 1900

Core Subjects Production and Operations Management Supply Chain Management Human Factors Engineering Quality Engineering Modeling and Analysis of Operations Systems Research Methodology Graduate Seminar

18

1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

MMN 2133 MMN 2143 MMN 2153 MMN 2163 MMN 2223 MMN 2233 MMN 2243 MMN 2323 MMN 2333 MMN 2343 MMN 2353 MMN 2413 MMN 2423 MMN 24x3 MMP16x3

Electives (Choose 4 subjects) Group 1 (Operations Design and Management) Lean Manufacturing Facilities Planning and Design Project Management Engineering Economy and Accounting Group 2 (Safety) Safety Engineering Safety Management Environmental Engineering

Group 3 (Quality) Quality Management Industrial Measurement Advanced Design of Experiment Reliability Engineering Group 4 (Modeling) Applied Modeling of Operations Systems Information Technology for Industrial Engineering Special Topics (depend on current research areas) Option (Approved subjects in M.Eng.AMT*)

12

1. 2.

MMN 1912 MMN 2924

Masters Project Masters Project I (Project Proposal) Masters Project II

6

TOTAL

38


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Methodology for Pre – Implementation Testing of Open Learning

Units for Postgraduate and Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology: A Quality Assurance Application

Hercules R. Cascon, Melba T. Mendoza

ChE/ME Department, Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan, Philippines Abstract

In support to the global agenda of promoting sustainable development, a European Commission – Asia-link Programme assisted project entitled Open Learning Provision for Postgraduate and Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology has been implemented through the consortium of five universities in UK, Sweden, Malaysia and Philippines. The open learning units will be applied to postgraduate programmes and also as industrial short courses. Ultimately, the units will be extended into an international open learning course in Master of Science Degree in Sustainable Technology. As a pre – implementation quality assurance protocol, the open learning units would be tested using a specifically designed methodology. The testing parameters would be on the respondents’ perception on units’ educational, accessibility, cost effectiveness and marketability aspects. The methodology shall involve exposure of respondents to the open learning units on-line, filling up a questionnaire and data processing/analysis. With the expected results of the test, the project implementers hope to identify the users’ perceptions and use them as basis for the units’ improvement.

Keywords: online and distance learning, quality assurance 1. Introduction

The project entitled Open Learning Provision for Postgraduate and Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology is a European Commission and Asialink Programme - funded project that aims to create web – based open learning units which will be embedded to postgraduate programmes and also as stand alone industrial short course offerings within the partner universities. The universities in consortium for this 3 – year project are the University of Portsmouth (UoP) of UK, De La Salle University (DLSU) and Xavier University (XU) of Philippines, Royal Institute of Technology – Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH) of Sweden and the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) of Malaysia.

The project started with training for open learning unit preparation in the first semester of 2006 (Year 1 of implementation), followed by the development of the three open learning units: Unit 1 – Energy Engineering, Unit 2 – Clean Technology and Life Cycle Assessment and Unit 3 – Environmental Management Systems up to the first semester of Year 2. Following would be the testing of the open learning units (a quality assurance activity) which is scheduled within the second semester of Year 2 to the first semester of Year 3. In the later stages of the project (Year 3), another quality assurance activity for the open learning units will be implemented as a prerequisite

to their inclusion in the graduate programs of the partner universities and for offering as stand alone industrial short courses. As a last phase of the project, drafting and finalization of the Master of Science in Sustainable Technology will be accomplished[1]. At the time of writing of this paper, the project is on the preparatory stage for the testing of the units.

The project endeavors to incorporate a continuous process of quality improvement particularly in the design of the contents of the open learning materials and in their conversion to the Web – published form. An evidence of this can be seen in the iterative nature of development, evaluation and improvement for the open learning units as reflected in the activity flowchart of the project[1].

2. Conceptual Framework The open learning units are the basic learning materials for the on-line course, an example of a non-traditional education delivery concept that goes by different names such as distance education (DE), distance learning (DL) or open and distance learning (ODL).

ODL is now globally accepted as an educational model that could be an alternative to the traditional face – to – face teaching or training. Rightfully, it is


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an answer to the ever changing and growing social training needs particularly that now we have technologies that make the distance learning process more convenient. Conjoined to this non-traditional learning model is the higher concern for quality of education. Distance learning is always interrogated with the requirement to prove that the quality of learning that could be gained from it is at least equivalent to the traditional face – to – face teaching[10, 6]. Literature reveals that quality has always been an issue in distance education, distance learning or open learning[3]. Quality assurance in distance and higher education is in serious attention by the concerned entities such as the institution providers, scholars and other stakeholders. Learners particularly, due to the attendant considerable cost of availing to these distance learning services, are demanding better quality in terms of products, services, processes and deliver systems. In addition, governments all around the world exert control over educational institutions through the creation of quality assurance and accreditation agencies; with the main common thrust to promote quality standards, best practices and benchmarks[6,7].

There are several quality assurance procedures that can be implemented for internal institutional audit. The ones that are directly relevant to the present stage of implementation of this project are self evaluation, peer review by an expert panel, and surveys of key stakeholders[6]. An example of these audit activities was reported by Kaynama and Keesling when they developed their Web-based Internet marketing course. They used a technique called “assessment quality circle” to gather information from students on their reactions to the learning experiences and use them as inputs for the improvement of the course. They also described the Holland process model for course design that involves seven cyclic stages. These are the definition stage, analysis stage, design stage followed by a development stage. After the development stage, implementation stage follows, then the course is assessed. The evaluation stage is “central” to all steps; it is a seamless process that is intermediate to all steps and measures the efficacy of the teaching/learning environment[5].

Of the many components of distance education delivery, course design has always been the first aspect subjected to internal quality audit. This is because course design mirrors curriculum quality which ultimately determines the effectiveness of a training or education intervention, aside from the instructor/tutor[9]. Course quality assessment is best implemented in a cooperative system in which both customers (learners) and suppliers (educational institutions) work together so that the needs, requirements and expectations are meet in a continuous basis[10]. Further, student (or other stakeholders) evaluations of instruction has been described as “one of our most consistent and strongest indicators of course quality[7,9].

There are common parameters at which an online learning material will be evaluated on. The Open University of United Kingdom web - published a document on the validation for open and distance learning courses and programmes. This document provides guidelines that are basically based on twelve principles for the design of ODL systems. Some of the guidelines given are about the accessibility, costs, and academic content that must be current thinking and in the relevant field of studies. Another guideline is the need to include informed peer comment (on academic content and pedagogical approach) at one or more draft stages of learning materials and allow for the incorporation of feedback into the subsequent and final versions. The practice of clearly attributing the origins of materials used (published images and articles) should be observed. Learning material contents should be chosen so that they are sensitive to diversity in the cohort of students and should be varied to accommodate diverse learning styles[11].

Rekkedal, in his article regarding the trying out phase of a learning environment for mobile learners which was phase 1 of the NKI sub-project of the European Union Leonardo Project “From e-learning to m-learning” reported on the assessment of user friendliness, didactic (educational or teaching) efficiency, technical feasibility and cost effectiveness of the mobile learning environment that his team designed[8].

Browell, in her article on “Using and producing multimedia materials” characterizes good quality multimedia products (which are usually important components of online learning materials) if they are “with clear training messages and learning points”, “good overall design”, “easy to use and navigate”, “short and easily assimilated”, “highly interactive” and “ with platform versatility”[4]. Bash, in her dissertation on the development of CAI modules identified the characteristics to be evaluated which are content, user appeal, operational features, and technical aspects[2]. 3. Purpose

This paper accounts the development of a methodology to be used for the pre-implementation testing of the open learning units which is a crucial quality assurance activity. This paper will explain on the pertinent reasons for each of the essential steps of the methodology, will describe the expected outcomes and specify strategies on how the collected data will be processed, interpreted and used for improvement of the open learning units.

It is hoped that through this methodology, experts’ and prospective students’ perceptions about the open learning units will be known. The following questions serve as guide for methodology design:

1. What are the respondents’ perceptions (both the expert and non-expert groups) of


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their interaction with the open learning units in terms of:

a. Content aspects (didactic efficiency)

b. Technical aspects (accessibility, user-friendliness, user appeal, etc.)

c. Cost effectiveness and marketability aspects

2. Basing on the results of the survey, what are the aspects and components of the open learning units that

a. Favorably corresponds with the expectations of the respondents?

b. Did not measure up to the respondents’ expectations and need to be improved?

4. Research Design Survey research will be employed to capture the perceptions of the prospective learners and experts about the open learning units. Both quantitative data (obtainable from properly formulated closed form items in the testing instrument) and qualitative data (from open – ended items) shall be obtained. Equally crucial to the formulation of effective questions would be the selection of the group of respondents that can adequately represent the targeted population. 4.1 Methodology The methodology designed for the pre-implementation testing of the open learning units is described by the following steps:

• Selection of survey respondents • Design of questionnaires • Pilot testing of questionnaires for fine

tuning • Actual testing of the open learning units • Data analysis and reporting of results

4.1.1 Selection of survey respondents

One of the main aims of this project is to disseminate the concepts of sustainable development such as renewable energy, clean technology and environmental assessment to a particular target group. This group is comprised of academic staff who will undergo training and updating in areas of open learning units development and subject specific skills; postgraduate students, mainly young people who, when in employment, will initiate business and support company activities in sustainable technologies; middle managers in manufacturing and process industries who wish to improve the environmental profile of their companies and will come to understand the associated economic and social benefits[1]. With this in mind, the

methodology is developed with these stakeholders/clients of diverse backgrounds in consideration. This would mean that the open learning module will have to be user – friendly, interesting, aesthetically pleasing aside from being coherently organized, comprehensive, exact, relevant and scholarly. Further, as a way of verification and confirmation, the adherence of the learning units to these requirements must not be apparent only to the prospective learners and more so to the experts on sustainable technology and on-line education systems.

To adequately represent the population, purposive sampling to include all segments would be used in identifying the respondents. The following is a matrix showing the classification of the respondents:

Table 1. Count and classification of respondents

Classification Represented Sector Expert Non-

expert Academe 4 1 Postgraduate students 0 3 Small &medium enterprise 0 3 Manufacturing & process industries 0 5 Government agencies 0 3

Reviewer Experts

The panel of experts will be composed of four members that will include an expert on environmental risk assessment, a part - time faculty member of XU’s Master of Engineering Program and who is also a holder of master’s degree in Environmental Engineering, another is an educator that has experience in being the tutor of another online class. Another expert has extensive exposure to open learning modules for having finished a doctorate degree by ODL. Respondents from big manufacturing companies

Five respondents from separate manufacturing

companies operating in the locality will be tapped for testing participation. Individually, these companies are engaged in oleo-chemicals processing, powdered beverage (milk and coffee) production, fruit and juice canning, electric power generation (from coal) and metallic ore processing. The representative from the oleo-chemicals processing plant is targeted to test Unit 3 (EMS), the one that represents the beverage company is to be exposed to either Unit 1 (Energy) or Unit 3 (EMS). The fruit canning company representative is scheduled for either Unit 2 or Unit 3 testing, and the remaining two company representatives are set to test the Energy Unit (Unit 2). Respondents from Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)


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Three (3) respondents from SMEs are invited. One is from an enterprise engaged in meat processing business. Another respondent is an owner and manager of a hog farm. The third respondent of this group is a proprietor and operations manager of a poultry farm. Respondents from the Academe of Related Discipline

A professional electrical engineer and faculty member of XU and who is also active in consultancy and contracting work will be tapped as one of the respondents hailing from the academe. In addition, two (2) graduate students in XU’s Master of Engineering Program with specialization on environmental management and energy conservation will be included as respondents for the testing of the open learning units. Respondents from Concerned Government Agencies

Relevant practitioners and professionals from the Environmental Management Bureau of the Department of Environmental Resources (EMB - DENR), Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy will also be tapped as respondents for the testing of the open learning units.

4.1.2 Design of Questionnaires

Presented below are the two set of questionnaires developed for two respondent groups; a group of experts and a group of prospective learners/customers of the open learning units (postgraduate students, middle managers in manufacturing and process industries, professional practitioners/staff from concerned government agencies). The Questionnaire for Expert Reviewers

Evaluation for Unit ___ Date:_______________ Please check: Core materials____ Case Study 1_____Case Study 2_____ Name:_________________ Age:______ Gender:_________ Educational attainment: _____________________________ Company/Institution/Agency: ________________________ Position/Designation________ Length of Service _________ Computer competency (Pls. check): None ___ Minimal ____Intermediate ____ Advanced _____

Part I. In the context of Accessibility to the Learning Units, please put a checkmark in the box that best completes the statement.

1. The kind of computer I use most of the time is: � PC � Apple Mac � Laptop � Others ________ (please specify)

2. The operating system that this computer is using is: � Windows 95/98/ME/2000 (underline) � Windows XP/Vista (underline) � Macintosh � UNIX/LINUX (underline) � Others ___________ (please specify)

3. I have an Internet connection of the type: � Modem or ISDN � ADSL/DSL � Cable Modem � LAN � Wi-Fi/WLAN (wireless) � Broadband � Others ____________ (please specify)

4. The Internet browser I am using is: � Microsoft Internet Explorer � Mozilla Firefox � Others _________ (please specify)

5. My Internet connection has a rate or speed of: � 14.4K � 28.8K � 33.6K � 56K � 128K � Others ___________ (pls. specify)

6. My computer has: (encircle all that apply): � a printer � CD, CD/RW, DVD or DVD/RW drive � sound card and speakers � microphone � Web camera � Others: ____________ (please specify)

Any comment on the technical aspect of the test?

Part II. Please rate the following aspects of the learning unit by checking on the appropriate box.

Legend: E = Excellent, G = Good, M = Marginal and P = Poor

A. Presentation aspects E G M P 1. Accessibility Quickness to download and ease in navigation

2. Screen design, placement of text fields, pictures and diagrams

3. Quality of illustrations, figures,


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drawings and graphs are clear and free of non-essentials. 4. Symbols and units comply with the International System of Units (SI)

5. Structural organization or sequencing of topics

6. Titles and sub-titles are brief and descriptive

7. Length of time allotted for the material (150 contact hours per module)

8. Style. The material is well-written and understandable.

B. Educational Aspects E G M P 1. Comprehensive-ness. The core material and the case study include all the important aspects of the subject.

2. Exactness. The information provided in the material is reliable.

3. Relevance. The topics discussed are pertinent to the subject.

4. Presentation of topics and ease in reading.

5. Variation in text, pictures, animation in order to sustain the interest of the learner.

6. Illustration richness. The material contains static and dynamic illustrations to text explanation for fast and correct understanding.

7. Acknowledgment of the work of others. References are adequate in number and accurate in content.

For sub-part C, use the following criteria legend: D = Doctoral level M = Masteral level UG = Undergraduate level SV = Short Vocational course C. Level of difficulty D M UG SV 1. The module is appropriate for training at the level of …

Any comment on the non-technical aspects of the test?

The Questionnaire for Non-experts

Evaluation for Unit ___ Date:_______________ Please check: Core materials____ Case Study 1_____ Case Study 2_____

Name:_________________ Age:______ Gender:_________ Educational attainment: _____________________________ Company/Institution/Agency: ________________________ Position/Designation________Length of Service _________ Computer competency (Pls. check): None ___ Minimal ____Intermediate ____ Advanced _____ Part I. Common with part I of the experts’ questionnaire

Part II. Please rate the following aspects of the learning unit by checking on the appropriate box.

Legend: E = Excellent, G = Good, M = Marginal and P = Poor

A. Presentation Aspects E G M P 1. Quickness to download and ease in navigation

2. Quality of illustration, appropriate use of graphics, tables and animations.

3. Screen design, clarity of screen display (use of colors, text font)

4. Length of time allotted to the material or time frame (150 contact hours)

5. Style. The material is well written and understandable.

B. Educational Aspects E G M P 1. Relevance of the topics to learner’s profession or career

2. Presentation of topics and ease in reading

3. Sequencing of topics or organizational structure.

4. Relevance of core material to the accompanying case study.

5. Exactness or reliability of the information provided in the module.

For sub-part C1, use the following legend for criteria: RC = Relatively Cheap RA = just Right and Affordable BE = a Bit Expensive EX = Exorbitant C. Marketability RC RA BE EX 1. Considering the content and the aspects covered, I find the price….

For sub-part C2, use the following legend for criteria: WE = I will enroll as soon as I can


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PE = I plan to enroll in the next 2 years ME = I might enroll in the near future NE = I cannot see myself enrolling WE PE ME NE 2. If given the opportunity to avail of this open learning module,

Any comment on the non-technical aspects of the test? 4.1.3 Pilot testing of the questionnaires

One expert with experience as tutor in an online course, one faculty member and a graduate student will be tapped for pilot testing of the questionnaires. They would be exposed to the open learning units (a unit core material and a case study) on-line for at least two hours and would evaluate it using the questionnaires. The researchers together with three respondents of the pilot test would then have a focus group discussion to further clarify and finalize all necessary changes and improvements needed for the questionnaires. 4.1.4 Actual testing of the open learning units

All respondent will be given a background of the project and the learning units by means of an orientation talk to be given by the members of the project team. Each respondent will be given about two (2) hours to interact with the open learning units on-line. A respondent will be assigned to evaluate on a single unit only that will be comprised of the core material and either of the two case studies provided. Preferably, the open learning units will have to be accessed through computers and Internet connections usually used by the respondents (at home or at work). For cases at which this arrangement would prove to be very inconvenient, the respondent will have to use an Internet-connected computer within the XU campus. The respondents can start to fill up the questionnaire while they are interacting with the open learning units.

4.1.5 Data analysis and reporting of results

Data from the close-ended questionnaire items will be evaluated by univariate frequency distribution. The qualitative results from the comments or suggestions of the respondents would also be analyzed by identifying their commonalities and differences, and by consideration on their possible causes, effects and merits for the improvement of the open learning units.

5. Expected Results

Through this methodology, it is expected that the newly – completed open learning units will be validated and improved in terms of content, technical, presentational and marketability aspects. The survey results are expected to identify both items of the open learning units effectively designed and items that need to be improved. With improvement of quality, it is hoped that the project will be able to fully disseminate learning on sustainable development to its targeted group. 6. Conclusions

The purpose of designing the testing methodology for the open learning units is to identify the units’ weaknesses so that it can further be improved. Investigations on the underlying concepts on why the testing has to be done revealed that it is an important component of continuous quality improvement system. Generally, pre-implementation testing of online learning modules are focused on their technical, educational, presentational, and marketability aspects.

It is the expectation of the authors that the improvement of the open learning units could be effectively accomplished using the methodology.

References 1. University of Portsmouth 2005, Asia-Link

Programme Fourth Call for Proposals (2005) Grant Application Form Document, United Kingdom

2. D. M. Bash, Development of a Computer-Assisted Instruction Module to Teach Transitional Physiology of the Cardiovascular System To Student In A Teacher Preparation and Special Education Program, PhD Dissertation, The George Washington University, 1992. Retrieved August 26, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.

3. T. Belawati, A. Zuhairi, The Practice of Quality Assurance System in Open and Distance Learning: A Case Study at Universitas Terbuka Indonesia (The Indonesia Open University), International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 8(1) (2007). Retrieved August 26, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.

4. S. Browell, Using And Producing Multimedia Materials, Industrial and Commercial Training 28(7) (1996) 9. Retrieved August 27, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.


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5. S. A. Kaynama, G. Keesling, Development of a Web-Based Internet Marketing Course, Journal of Marketing Education 22(2) (2000) 84-89. Retrieved August 28, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.

6. D. Kirkpatrick, Quality Assurance in ODL, <http://www.col.org/colweb/site/cache/bypass/pid/4593 > [Accessed 2007/08/21]

7. Qi Wang, Quality Assurance – Best Practices for Assessing Online Programs, International Journal on E-Learning 5(2) (2006) 265-274. Retrieved August 24, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.

8. T. Rekkedal (2002). Trying Out a Learning Environment for Mobile Learners: Evaluation of the course “The Tutor in distance Education” – Phase 1 of the NKI sub-project of the EU Leonardo Project “From e-learning to m-learning,

<http://www.nettskolen.com/forskning/m_learning_2000_2005.pdf > [Accessed 2007/08/20]

9. B. L. Stewart, C. L. Waight, M. M. Norwood, S. D. Ezell, Formative and Summative Evaluation of Online Courses, Quarterly Review of Distance Education 5(2) (2004) 101-109. Retrieved August 27, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.

10. G. M. Steyn, S. Schulze, Assuring Quality of A Module in Human Resource Management: Learners’ Perceptions, Education 123(4) (2003) 668-680. Retrieved August 20, 2007 from ProQuest Suite of Databases.

11. UK Open University. Validation for open and distance learning courses and programmes. <http://www.open.ac.uk/validate/pics/d35645.pdf> [Accessed 2007/08/20]


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Development of Web-Based Open Learning Units in Sustainable Technology

M. R. I. Purvis a, T. J. Olivera , A. B. Culaba b, R. R. Tan b, M. B. Bionab, K. B. Avisob, N. M. Ghazali c, T. H. Fransson d, A. C. Sevillano e, A. P. Eufinadoe

a Department of Mechanical & Design Engineering, University of Portsmouth. Anglesea Building, Anglesea Road, Portsmouth, Hants, PO1 3DJ

b Center for Engineering & Sustainable Development Research, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines

cFaculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 UTM Skudai, Johor Malaysia d Department of Energy Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

e College of Engineering and Technology Complex, Xavier University, Corrales Avenue, Cagayan de Oro City

Abstract There is an identifiable need to provide focussed support for training and business in sustainable development. The aim of the project is to develop, test and disseminate three open learning units allied to the subject area of sustainable development. The project relies on a consortium of five university partners located in the UK, Sweden, Malaysia, North Philippines and South Philippines. A focus for the preparation of the open learning units will be at a newly formed Centre for Sustainable Development (CSD) based at De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines. The units will be applied to postgraduate programmes within the partner universities and also be used as industrial short courses. The target groups are academic staff and postgraduate students, companies and other organisation who will affiliate with the Centre for Sustainable Development during the term of the project. The project will investigate extensions to the units offered and conditions for quality assurance leading to proposals for an accredited International MSc Degree in Sustainable Technology. It is intended that the CSD will act as a centre for business cooperation between Asia and Europe. The EU funded project will run for a term of three years after which the activities are expected to be self sustaining. Keywords: open learning; clean technologies; international cooperation 1. Introduction

Increasing environmental concerns have called

for the development of methodologies and technologies geared towards sustainability. Research thrusts are thus focused on techniques such as optimizing resource and energy utilization and minimizing environmental impacts of industrial processes. From these issues emerged the concepts of clean technologies, renewable energy and environmental management systems. These are essential tools towards sustainable development and must thus be well disseminated, particularly to people in the industry, in order to maximize their impact and significance. However, these tools are often encountered and mastered in the university and are thus foreign to industrial practitioners unless they decide to pursue postgraduate studies. With industrial estates located far from universities and with the time constraints experienced by industrial practitioners, the conventional education system cannot address their need for learning. Thus, it is essential that alternative modes of knowledge delivery be explored and developed.

2. A Post Graduate and Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology Project A project entitled “A Post Graduate and

Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology” is being undertaken by five university partners from Europe and Asia. The five project university partners are the University of Portsmouth, UK; De La Salle University – Manila, Philippines; Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia; Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden and Xavier University – Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. These partners are working towards the project goal of developing, testing and disseminating three open learning units in sustainable development with funding from the European Commission’s Asialink Programme.

This project addresses the need for disseminating sustainability concepts to industrial practitioners either through a postgraduate degree or through short course trainings and thus takes into consideration their constraints and needs. The learning materials will be developed and designed particularly for on-line delivery. This will thus address concerns such as time availability and geographical proximity, which


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constrain industrial practitioners from obtaining postgraduate degrees. 2.1 Project Goals and Objectives

In working towards the project goal the following objectives must be realized:

1. To develop and test three open learning units in areas of (1) Energy Engineering, (2) Life Cycle Assessment and Clean Technology and (3) Environmental Management Systems. 2. To embed units in partner postgraduate programmes

3. To develop units as stand alone short courses for industries in partner countries 4. To establish a Center for Sustainable Development in Manila, Philippines to act as a focus for pedagogic and business activity between Europe and Asia. The project is to be completed within a three-year

time frame beginning from the year 2005 and ending in the year 2008 within which the following main activities are to be conducted:

1.Development of training tools on Sustainable development and tools; 2.Offering of open learning units on sustainable technologies and energy engineering; 3.Modelling for resource conservation and environmental impact assessment and management systems 4.Adaptation of units to account for local conditions using case studies and comparative studies; 5.Use of units in partner postgraduate programmes;

6.Development of short course programmes for the industry; 7.Establishment of a Center for Sustainable Development at Manila, Philippines; 8.Study of professional accreditation for environmental auditors and teachers in further and higher education; formulation of curriculum for international MSc in Sustainable Technology; 9.Generation of business activity between Europe and Asia using the specialisms focused on the Center for Sustainable Development.

Figure 1 shows the project schedule.

2.2 Role of Project Partners

Each partner university has a key role in reaching the objective of the project as can be seen in Figure 2 and can be summarized as follows:

University of Portsmouth (UoP), United Kingdom

1. Applicant and overall management of the project 2. Lead institution for the preparation of the content of Learning Unit 3 on Environmental management systems 3. Contributor to problem solving activity on ‘Cleaner Production’ in Learning Unit 2 4. Lead institution for project reporting and evaluation 5. Contributor to problem solving activity on ‘Biomass Combustion’ in Learning Unit 1

De La Salle University – Manila (DLSU-M), Philippines

Project Schedule

Implementation and Preparation

Year 1 Semester 1

Development of Open Learning Units

Year 1 Semester 2

Year 2Semester 2

Year 2Semester 1

Year 3Semester 1

Year 3 Semester 2

Training for Open Learning

Unit Preparation

PROJECT MANAGEMENT, EVALUATION AND AUDIT

Quality Assurance and Testing of Open Learning Units

ASSEMBLY OF DATABASE

Marketing of Units as Stand

Alone Short Courses

Business Planning,

Implementation of Stand Alone Short Courses, Project Closing

Draft of MSc in Sustainable Technology

Finalise MSc in Sustainable Technology

Figure 1 Project Schedule (CESDR, 2007)


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1. Management of Center for Sustainable Development at DLSU 2. Lead institution for the preparation, delivery and dissemination of three open learning units in the Philippines 3. Lead institution for the preparation of the content of Learning Unit 2 on Life Cycle Assessment and Clean technologies 4. Assembly of industrial database 5. Contributor to problem solving activity on ‘Renewable Energy’ in Learning Unit 1 6. Contributor to problem solving activity on ‘Contaminated Land’ for Learning Unit 3 7. Manager of e-platform

Royal Institute of Technology- Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), Sweden

1. Lead institution for training and advisory service for the preparation of open learning units 2. Networking and publicity of the units

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia

1. Lead institution for preparation of the content of open learning Unit 1 2. Contributor to problem solving activity, ’Economics of Waste Management’ for Unit 2 3. Institution for the dissemination of the project in Malaysia

Xavier University (XU), Cagayan De Oro, Philippines

1. Lead institution for comparative studies in Educational Quality Management and testing of open learning units in industry and university 2. Contributor to problem solving activity,

‘Agro-Waste Management’ for Unit 3

2.3 The Open Learning Units

The 3 open learning units which are to be developed are (1) Energy engineering, (2) Life Cycle Assessment and Clean technologies and (3) Environmental Management Systems. These are briefly discussed below: Unit 1: Energy Engineering

This is based on the commitment of all partner countries to comply with their Kyoto Protocol obligations to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and to rapidly introduce renewable energy technologies.

The production of biofuels in Malaysia and the Philippines is having a significant impact on improving employment. Also, micro-hydro projects are providing important health and economic benefits to villagers living in locations remote from power lines. Unit 2: Life cycle Assessment and Clean Technologies

Cleaner Technologies and Life Cycle Analysis are concerned with the conservation of resources, particularly materials used in manufacturing industry and transport fuels, and life cycle methods, which can be employed to analyze clean technologies. This has been a strong area of collaboration between UoP and DLSU-M for about ten years. Unit 3: Environmental Management Systems

Environmental Management Systems is recognized as an essential tool in the assessment of sustainable technologies. Many companies in partner countries are seeking training for accreditation according to ISO 14001. The willingness of stakeholders to invest in companies is increasingly

e-Platform Manager

Local Project Management

Communication between PartnersCoordination of Information

Monitoring of Project ProgressMarketing Website

e-Conferencing

Project Management Budget Holder

UOP

Unit 1 Leader

Unit 2 Leader

All Partners

Sustainable Development

Centre

UOP

Training in Preparation of Open Learning Units

DLSU

XU Testing and Unit

Evaluation

KTH

e - PLATFORM AND PORTAL

UTM

Unit 3 Leader

DLSU

Figure 2 Role of Project partners (CESDR, 2007)


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becoming dependent upon such actions. It is known that an increasingly significant proportion of international stock market transactions are being driven by the green stakeholder.

The units will each consist of a core material and two case studies. The core material discusses on the founding principles and theoretical concepts of the learning unit while the 2 case studies will serve as assessments where students can apply and integrate learned concepts and principles. A lead university with the expertise in the training material develops the core content and contributions on problem solving and comparative studies will be provided by the other partner universities. These have been discussed as well in the previous section regarding the role of the partner universities. The structure and delivery of the units will be on the interactive open learning platform CompEdu, which has been compiled by Professor Fransson of the Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. A screen shot is provided in Figure 3.

Each open learning unit is roughly equivalent to a lecture module with 150 learning hours (i.e., 30 – 40 lecture hours plus 110 – 120 hours of learning activities). The units are to be divided into “chapters” each corresponding to a 1 – 2 hours lecture session. At the moment, the content has been developed and is being formatted to fit the e-platform.

3. Conclusion

This project involves the development of extensive e-learning units for use in industrial and post-graduate training in 4 different countries in Asia and Europe. The multidimensional nature of the cooperation ensures that the content of the material has a distinctly international flavor. Some issues have arisen in the development of these units, particularly with respect to synchronizing academic credits. However, there remains considerable potential for a truly international, web-based MSc programme to be developed from these open learning units.


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Acknowledgements The authors would like to acknowledge the European Commission for making this project possible. References 1. Center for Engineering and Sustainable

Development Research (2007). De La Salle University – Manila, Philippines. Postgraduate and Industrial Training in Sustainable Technology. See http://sustech.dlsu.edu.ph

2. Center for Micro-Hydro Technology for Rural

Electrification (CEMTRE) (retrieved 2007). De La Salle University – Manila, Philippines. See

http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/research/centers/cemtre/index.asp3

3. Guinee, J. B. ed (2002). Handbook on life cycle assessment. Operational guide to the ISO standards. Kluwer, Dordecht.

4. ISO 14040 (1997). Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment – Principles and Framework. International Organisation for Standardisation, Geneva

5. Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Energy Technology, Sweden. CompEdu – Platform (retrieved in 2007). See http://www.compedu.net.

6. UNDP (2000). World Energy Assessment, USA.

Available online http://www.energyandenvironment.undp.org/undp/index.cfm?module=Library&page=Document&DocumentID=5037

Figure 3 CompEdu Platform (Royal Institute of Technology, 2007)