EDUCATION

New methods in engineering educationJ.N. Nielsen, M.Sc.

Indexing terms: Education and training

Abstract: Aalborg University Centre (AUC) started in 1974 in Aalborg, North Jutland, as an experiment inengineering education. The history and the ideas behind the experiment are described in Section 1 of thepaper. The key words in the educational method are problem (project)-orientation, teamwork and technologyversus society and nature. The study is divided into two parts. The first year, the 'base year', is common to allstudents of engineering and natural sciences. The following years, the 'superstructure', have 5 differentbranches ('sectors') of engineering. The project-oriented, team ('group')-organised educational method worksextremely well in the superstructure, which is described in detail in Section 3. The base year, which is des-cribed in Section 2, is a controversial year. It has several interesting features. Most of the initiative, forinstance, is left over to the students, and there is a strong emphasis on technology-society-nature relations,training in teamwork and project-planning. But the outcome is arguable and a heated discussion as to themerits of the base year has been running for years inside (and outside) the university. The evaluation of theadvantages and disadvantages of the AUC educational method is placed in connection with the descriptionsin Sections 2 and 3, and is reasonably objective. In Section 4, the author puts forward a few personal, con-cluding remarks on the merits of the AUC and its methods.

1 The history and the ideas

In the beginning of the seventies, the Danish Governmentdecided to create a university in Aalborg, North Jutland. Itwas to be called 'Aalborg University Centre' (AUC) andshould cover engineering, natural sciences and mathematics,business, social sciences and humanities. There were twoideas behind covering such a broad area in a relatively smalluniversity. One was to give a broad selection of educationalpossibilities to the youth of North Jutland. The otherwas to create good possibilities for a fruitful co-operationbetween engineering, business, social sciences andhumanities.

Planning started accordingly in about 1972. It is necessaryto know that the Danish Parliament in 1970 passed a newlaw for the universities. This stated, in brief, that theinternal affairs of universities with regard to education andresource allocation (but not research) was to be managedby democratically elected councils in the universities.Councils, planning and directing educational matters, wereto consist of 50% academic staff and 50% students. Theeducational structure of command is a hierarchy as shownin Fig. 1. This structure was, in the main, used in theplanning phase from 1972, when so-called interim councilswere established, to the start of the course in 1974. Theinterim councils had a mixed composition.

There were in Aalborg, at the time, two engineeringschools. One, Aalborg Teknikum, gave young handicrafts-men from lower secondary school a 1 + 3 years' education

Konsistorium

faculty of engineeringcouncil

planning/civilengineeringcouncil

constructioncouncil

informationenergycouncil

naturalsciences/mathmaticscouncil

Fig. 1 Educational hierarchy

Paper 850A, received 28th May 1980J.N. Nielsen is with the Institut for Elektroniske Systemer, AalborgUniversitetscenter, PO Box 159, 9100 Aalborg, Denmark

IEEPROC, Vol. 127, Pt. A, No. 7, SEPTEMBER 1980

in engineering, leading to a bachelor's degree. The other,Aalborg Ingenieurakademi gave students out of high schoola 3—31 years' education, leading to a bachelor's degree.These engineering schools with their staff, equipment andbuildings were integrated lock, stock and barrel into AUCas the main part of the faculty of engineering, naturalsciences and mathematics. There was also in Aalborg abusiness school, that was integrated into AUC as part of thefaculty of social sciences.

The preplanning interim councils with a 50/50 member-ship of staff and students were made up as follows. On thestaff side they consisted of teachers from the integratedinstitutions (mainly moderately conservative) and newstaff members from natural sciences, mathematics, socialsciences and humanities (definitely less conservative, afterthe 1968 revolution). The student members of the councilswere partly from the integrated institutions and partlyinvited students from other universities. The majority ofthe students had rather radical ideas about universities andsociety. So there were different points of view on what thenew university should look like. On the upper hierarchiallevel, the business and engineering staff members were asmall minority that had a lot to say, but was little heard,about the main structure of AUC.

The government finally decided on an educationalstructure for AUC, based on the suggestions from themajorities in the interim councils.

The educational possibilities are shown schematicallyin Fig. 2, and the institutional structure in Fig. 3. But thereally interesting features are the following characteristicsof the educational method, here formulated for theeducation of engineers, but being very similar to the othereducations at AUC:

(a) As practical engineering is problem solving, thestudies at AUC are project-organised. This means thatabout 70% of the time in each half-year term is spent onwork on one specific project. The theoretical coursesserve the main purpose of supporting the project work.

(b) Most practical engineering work today is teamwork,so the students are organised in project groups of 4-6students, working on their project of the term with ateacher as supervisor.

(c) Technology has a heavy impact on nature, societyand human individuals, so the students must, whererelevant and possible, in their project work take into con-

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sideration the effect of their proposed technical solutionson human and natural surroundings, and vice versa.

(d) In order to get the students accustomed to problemsolving, teamwork and considering technology in a wideperspective, the first year at AUC is a base year. It iscommon to all students of engineering, natural sciencesand mathematics, and places strong emphasis on broadproblems, project planning, teamwork and social sciences.The base year is followed by a superstructure of 2̂ —4years.The reactions of the majority of the engineering staff tothe scheme described above varied from scepticism tostrong opposition. It is ironical that they were forced intoan educational scheme, well suited to engineering education,by radical students and by staff from social sciences and thehumanities, for which the scheme is less suited, or notsuited at all.

2 The base: the controversial year

The first year, the base year, aims to prepare the studentfor futher education and a professional career afterwards.He should achieve in the base year:

(a) A broad vision over the art and science of engin-eering.

(b) Insight into the potential and limitations of differentscientific theories and methods.

(c) Ability in problem specification and solution.(d) Understanding of the complexity of problems.(e) Ability in teamwork and communication.

base

arts andaestheticslanguageandeducation

superstructure

Danish. French. English, German,music

j history and social subjects

cO V

o o

economics and(administration

business economics

publicworks {construction or planning |

building (construction or planning I

industry

information

(construction or systems design I

and control (systems design

energy [construction or systems design |

mat hematics .computer science, physics

1

intermediatelevel

graduate level +•

graduate-teachers •level

(/) Ability in using general methods to describe andsolve technical problems.

(g) Ability to analyse the consequences of technologicaldevelopment.Everybody at AUC agrees that this is a beautiful purpose.But several consider it totally unrealistic, and among those,who believe it realisable, there are strongly differingopinions on how to realise it. So the base year is continuallychanging. (And that alone may justify it. How can youmake things better, if you do not try?)

Fig. 3 Institutional structure

degreedesignationin Danish

Cand-Mag.

Socionom

Cand. Mag.

Kand.Samf.

Cand.Merc.

H.A.

Landinspektor

Akademiingenior

CivilingeniorAkademiingeniorCivilingeniorAkademiingeniorCivilingeniorAkademiingeniorCivilingeniorAkademiingenior

Civilingenior

Cand.Scient

• years of study

approximateequivalentin English

B.A./M.A.

Bachelorof social work

B.A./M.A.

M.A. Economicsadmin.

BCom/M.Com.

B.A. economics

Chartered surveyorB.Sc.

M.Sc.B.Sc.M.Sc.B.Sc.M.Sc.B.ScM.Sc.B.Sc.M.Sc.

M.Sc.

Fig. 2 Educational possibilities

476 IEEPROC, Vol. 127, Pt. A, No. 7, SEPTEMBER 1980

At present, the base year has the following contents:(i) Courses: introduction to the base year and AUC

history of technologymathematics, datalogy and physicsproduction processes, organistion andeconomy of societydrawing and graphical communication

(ii) Projects in: social sciences (small)technology 1 (small)technology 2 (the whole, last half-yearterm).

The idea behind this is self-explanatory in connection withpoints (a)—(g). Let us take a look at how it works, when itworks.

The students are organised in groups of 6—8 students,the groups being organised in a big group of approximately80 students. The big group has a theme, for instance'energy and transportation'. All project work of the projectgroups has to be inside this frame.

Now take the lucky coincidence of 6—8 very bright andimaginative students forming a group, plus getting as itssupervisor a teacher with a deep sense of the fundamentalsof engineering method, positive towards the new systemand working energetically on it. The first term will berather full of courses, but about 1/3 of the time will bespent on 2 minor projects, one in social sciences and onein technology. The students will learn a lot from thecourses, and during the two minor projects they will beginto learn self-disciplined and planned work. They will getto know the frustrations involved in (for them) difficultwork. The teacher will help, guide, inspire, maybe force alittle, when necessary. Coming right out of high school,they will not be able to make very good projects, neitherin social sciences, nor in technology. But they will get afeeling for the complexities of the world and learn thenecessity of learning.

In their second term, spent nearly totally on one techno-logical project, they will still not be able to make a projectthat anybody would buy. But take as an example a projectlike "The energy supply of Asaa', where Asaa is a littletown in Northern Jutland. They will get material about thetown from different sources. They will learn, that a problemof this kind is a complex of minor problems, that may beorganised into a hierarchy, and that it has several aspectsbeside those, that directly concern energy. They will beinspired and helped by their supervisor to solve, more orless superficially, a few selected problems differentlyplaced in the problems hierarchy. This will give them some,rather random, concrete knowledge, but more importantlythey will see that the choice of one particular solution toone particular problem generally will affect and be affectedby the solutions to other problems, (even seemingly remoteones), in the whole complex. (This is one of the aspects,where the teacher has a chance of really earning his money).

So, in the run of the base year, this group of studentswill have acquired considerable skill in organised, disciplinedwork and teamwork. And although they get limitedscientific and technical knowledge, compared to the firstyear of classical engineering educations, they will be muchmore clever in other and equally important respects.

But, alas, the description ^above was for the Luckycoincidence of very bright students getting into the samegroup and getting an unusually good teacher as supervisor.This situation is an exception, so for the majority ofstudents the base year is considerably less fruitful thandescribed above. Several teachers and students judge the

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base year as a year of frustrating and idling waste of time.A few students even leave AUC and go to other universitiesor somewhere else. The problem, of course, is a difficultone to solve. A thorough preplanning of the project workby the teachers might take away a lot of the frustrationsand idling from the students, but it would conflict withone of the basic ideas of the base year, that the studentsthemselves must learn to show initiative and must learn tolearn by mistakes and frustrations.

In the author's opinion, the situation is neither ideal,nor catastrophic. Even in the worst of cases, where somestudents seem to get nothing from the base year, theynevertheless do. Furthermore, the base year, for moststudents, is their first year away from home, in a newgeographical site, new social surroundings, so they have alot to get accustomed to. (In the author's own day ofstudying, a considerable amount of time was 'wasted' onnonengineering problems, to great personal advantage).

All aspects considered, the base year at AUC is aninteresting experiment in engineering education with highand far-reaching goals. It is excellent, that at least oneuniversity spends one year of study in this way, and it isforgivable and must be accepted, that this difficult task issubject to mistakes and failures.

3 The superstructure: the efficient years

The superstructure is the 1\ or 4 years following the baseyear. It is also project and group-organised. As an example,I will describe the 'Information sector', which has the sameeducational structure as the other engineering sectors.Although the outcome of the base year is controversial,the superstructure is generally considered to be efficient.This is partly due to the fact that it is an easier task. Themain purpose of the superstructure is to teach the studentsthe technical side of engineering in well defined areas, amuch more limited purpose than we find in the base year.Furthermore, the planning and directing is performed bystudy councils, consisting of only engineering staff andengineering students. Thus, much (but not all) politicaldogfighting is avoided. The following description is dividedinto seven points, covering the organisation of time andsubjects, the project-groups, the teachers, the projects, thecourses, the examinations and the thesis.

The superstructure is divided into half-year terms. Thetime at the university is divided into modules of 6 x 4hours, which gives 30 modules to a term with 40 hours aweek at the university. The smallest unit being 4 hoursmeans that the students always will have at least 4 hours insuccession to spend on any actual task. The 30 modules perterm is divided as follows:

(a) the project of the term 13 modules(b) project-related courses 5—7(c) background courses 4—7(d) different activities of the student's own choice 3-6.

Every term has a theme, characterising the main subject ofthe term. In the information sector, the theme for the thirdterm is 'Analogue electronics', and for the fourth term'Digital electronics and computers'. After the fourth term,the students may specialise in computers and control, instru-mentation or telecommunication. After the sixth term astudent may prepare a thesis for a bachelor's degree or goon for another 4 terms to graduate in 'Systems engineering',specialising in either telecommunications, medical elec-tronics or process control.

The students are organised in groups of typically 4—6

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students. Bigger groups are avoided, but smaller groupsdown to individual students are allowed and do frequentlyoccur. The students make the grouping themselves. Alreadyin the base year, students get to know each other, and thegrouping is done as much on intellectual as on socialcriteria. In other words, the bright boys, able to work inteams, begin to group together from the third term. Thissorting out continues through the following terms andresults in several good groups, and now and then a so-called'supergroup'. It also results in mediocre and/or unsociablestudents being, in reality, forced to form so-called'remainder groups' or to work individually. Several of thesestudents never get to the thesis term, but drop out. (This isa hard way, but at least it simulates real life). Each grouphas a working room of its own with desks, chairs, black-boards, a typewriter and a few other minor facilities.Each group is furthermore allocated laboratory space andequipment.

The teachers belong to the institutes (Fig. 3) and aredrawn upon to teach in the sectors, as project-group super-visors (one for each project-group), as project-consultantsor as teachers of theoretical courses./Besides teaching, theacademic staff does research and individual after-educationand spends much time on planning and directing theeducation at this, still new (and democratically organised)university. The relations between teachers and studentsare generally relaxed, frank and informal, but the majorityof students are frank without being flippant or impolite.

At the beginning of each term, each project group mustselect a project from among a few proposed projects, orsuggest a project of its own invention. In the latter case, thesuggested project will be accepted by the staff, if it satisfiesthe project specifications of the term and is reasonablydifficult.

Let us, as an example, look at the project work of thethird term, the first term after the base year. The theme isanalogue electronics. It is specified, that the project mustcontain at least all the following constructions:

(i) a stabilised power supply(ii) a typical low-frequency preamplifier

(iii) a filter(iv) a low-frequency power amplifier.

These constructions, as the reader will naturally recognise,together form the main parts of much low-frequencyequipment. Each of them is, furthermore, well suited todemonstrate fundamental aspects of analogue electronicsand circuit theory.

Now the project is to construct the laboratory stage ofan apparatus, able to do a certain job; for instance, amplifywith a specified frequency response and distortion, aninput signal from a given transducer and deliver a specifiedpower into another specified transducer. The apparatusmust be constructed through calculations, it must be builtand tested in the laboratory, and it must be described in atypewritten report of typically 100 pages. At the beginningof the third term, most students know little or nothingabout electronics and circuit theory. (They may haveworked on infrastructure or pollution problems or someother nonelectronics problems in the base year). To supporttheir project work, they are given courses, which takemost of the first half of the term. In their project workthey are assisted by their supervisor. (And more or lessgently directed or downright kicked, according to theirneeds and the temperament of the supervisor). Generallythe students work hard on their projects and often achievesurprisingly good results. So they learn by doing.

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The theoretical courses fall into two categories, project-related and background courses. The project-related coursesare directly applicable to the project of the term. In thethird term described above, there are courses in circuittheory and analogue electronics. The background courses aretypically social sciences, mathematics, physics and funda-mental theories. In the third term, for instance, there isone background course, 'Signal and systems analysis'. Thiscourse covers time- and frequency-domain analysis, Fourierseries and transformation, transfer functions, stability,theory of complex functions, analytical functions, con-formal mapping. Notice that certain elements of mathe-matics are taught in the same course as some of theirapplications. Similarly, certain elements of physics andother elements of mathematics are taught in the project-related courses in circuit analysis and electronics. Such'integrated' courses are one of the special features of theAUC system. Another special feature is that alreadymentioned, that the students always have at least 4 hoursin succession, to use on any task, in any course. A mini-module of a course usually consists of a lesson by theteacher of approximately one hour, followed by 3 hours ofproblem solving in the group-rooms, with the teacherwalking from room to room, assisting the students.

The examinations fall into two categories. The back-ground courses are examined individually in traditionalways on a pass/no-pass basis. The projects and project-related courses are examined as a unit at the end of eachterm. The examination of a group takes \—1 day. It isrun by the supervisor of the group with one or twoappointed controllers. These controllers are taken fromthe staff, except after the second and fifth term, wherethey come from industry or other universities.

Partly based on the written project report, eachindividual student of the group is cross-examined by thesupervisor and the controllers in both the project work,the report and the related courses. The student is expectedto be able to respond to widely different questions coveringseveral topics. If you take the previously described thirdterm, the student must be able to describe the 'how's and'why's and 'why nots' of the project work, and to solveproblems (at the blackboard, without specific priorpreparations) in transforms, differential equations, circuittheory, electronic components, electronic circuitry,measuring methods etc.. (Of course, each student is notexamined in all this, but he does not know beforehandwhere the lightning will strike).

The examination is on a pass/no-pass basis. If the projectwork or the report is not satisfactory, the group as a wholegets a 'no-pass' and must do further project work and/orreport writing. If the project work and report get a pass,there is still the risk, that individual students get a no-passfor their cross-examination. They will then have to tryagain later. This examination of the project units is fairlythorough, and very few of the nincompoops get as far asthe thesis term.

In the thesis term, the students generally work individu-ally, or in small teams of two, on their thesis project. Thisis very often a real problem from industry or institutions.They generally work hard and efficiently. (The group workof preceding years seemingly does no harm to their abilityto tackle a problem individually). The project examinationis in the same style as described in the preceding paragraph,with two outside controllers from industry or other uni-versities. Each student is given marks on a 0—13 scale.(The outside controllers have usually been very satisifed

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with the results achieved, which also is shown throughgenerally high marks).

4 Concluding remarks

With regard to the base year, its value is not reallymeasurable. But, in the author's opinion, it is to a highextent comparable with the old problem of assessing thevalue of indulging in topics like philosophy, literatureand fine arts.

With regard to the superstructure (and of course certainelements of the base year), it has identifiable merits ofwhich the main ones are listed below:

(a) The work on relatively big projects, taking (with therelated courses) 70% of a whole term, makes the studentsfamiliar with attacking complex and new problems. As theygenerally achieve good results, they become justifiablyself-confident.

(b) The project work teaches the students to use theirvarious skills and knowledge as an integrated tool ofproblem solving.

(c) The project work forces the students to read muchliterature, often in foreign languages (mostly English).

(d) In the run of a master's education each student hasto write major parts of ten big reports and several smallerones. This gives them an opportunity to learn to write well.(At the project examinations, the reports are evaluatedboth in regard to content and form).

(e) The group work definitely trains the students inteamwork, work-planning, self-discipline and negotiation.(Several of the students do turns in the councils, therebygetting further experience in negotiation).

Of course the AUC system has its disadvantages and short-comings. In the author's opinion, the following are themain ones:

(i) The time spent on frustration, discussions andabortive ideas in the project work is unavoidable and mustbe taken from somewhere. And it is taken from the timethat in classical educations is spent on learning a lot of factsand on acquiring considerable skill in manipulating (but notreally using) theoretical tools. It is difficult to estimate thedangers of this. The deep and broad knowledge of naturalsciences particularly, typical of classical educations, mayhave a profound, though uncharted, influence on anengineer's academic integrity and intellectual powers.

(ii) The project work, although tested in laboratory, isnot tested in other respects such as reliability, economy andserviceability. So it is not so much realistic as ideallydesirable. This is a shortcoming, but as the students seem tobe fully aware of this fact, it does not necessarily representa danger.

(iii) The group organisation tends to make the studentslead rather inbred lives in their small hard-working groups.(This may be compensated for in their private lives, generallynot known to the author). Furthermore, as already hinted,the group organisation may be very hard on students, thatfor some reason do not fit well into a reasonably goodgroup. (The group problem alone really deserves a paper,or rather a whole book, which the author anyway, is notqualified to write).

All things considered, it is the opinion of the author, thatAUC creates efficient, self-confident engineers, and thatthe best engineering educations before the end of thecentury should be conducted along lines similar to AUC.

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