The EPICS Program was created in 1995 with the dual purposes of improving engineering education and addressing compelling needs within our communities. The model broke with many traditional academic traditions, involving students in multidisciplinary teams of students from first-year to fourth years for multiple semesters or even years on projects…

Developing intercultural communication competence (ICC) is a pursuit that has captured the interest of researchers in several disciplines for a number of decades. The urgency and interest to produce graduates who are ready for the global marketplace has never been more prevalent amongst educators as it is today. This article outlines strategies…

The Charles Sturt University (CSU) Engineering programme is a new course (degree programmme) established in 2016 by a university that had not previously taught engineering. This start from scratch occasion was taken as an opportunity to build an all-new programme structure and philosophy. Students at CSU Engineering complete a sequence of three…

The Makerspace phenomenon has morphed into three readily identifiable types characterised by accessibility: dedicated, distributed, and mobile. The research presented in this paper describes a type of Makerspace that is defined by its purpose: to improve the confidence and ability of primary education students in STEM education. This approach is…

Purpose: This paper narrates a case study on design thinking-based education work in an industrial design honours program. Student projects were developed in a multi-disciplinary setting across a Computing and Engineering faculty that allowed promoting technologically and user-driven innovation strategies. Design/methodology/approach: A renewed…

Within existing ICT degrees there is a widely-held belief that content must be tailored for different "kinds" of students--often two differing student groups: a technical group requiring detailed Computer Science knowledge and a separate group requiring less technical, more strategic ICT knowledge and skills. Our institution has produced…

This article describes a mathematics support programme at the University of Queensland, targeted at first-year engineering students identified as having a high risk of failing a first-year mathematics course in calculus and linear algebra. It describes how students were identified for the programme and the main features of the programme. The…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how industrial ecology can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development through its incorporation into an engineering curriculum. Design/methodology/approach: A model has been developed for assessing sustainability learning outcomes due to the incorporation of the concept of industrial ecology…

The rapid expansion in higher education in the 1960s and early 1970s brought a reexamination of university teaching and learning, placing significant attention on the role of faculty development. The steady growth of this field has been reflected in the establishment of centers, offices, and divisions at many colleges and universities that are in…

The umbrella of Australian research higher degree (RHD) offerings has broadened from the traditional MPhil/PhD programmes to include a range of professional masters and doctoral degrees. This article reports on the experiences of three PhD students, engaged in an informally managed industry partnered research programme, described in this article…

In the modern working environment it is essential for a structural engineer to have an understanding of abstract concepts in structural behaviour and an ability to use them qualitatively. This paper presents the findings of a study on how effectively students acquire such conceptual understanding within a new project/design focused degree course.…

After centuries of protectionism in international trade, the course is inexorably set for trade amongst nations without borders. More and more countries are joining the World Trade Organization and companies are repositioning themselves for the conduct of their activities in an environment free from physical borders and national legislative…

This paper describes the pedagogical principles that underpin the design of the Master of Engineering Practice, a distance education program offered by the University of Southern Queensland. This innovative program enables experienced engineering technologists to use their workplace learning to assemble portfolios that demonstrate their…

The literature review is an academic genre that has a natural place in theses, dissertations, and other genres such as the lab report. The typical final (fourth) year project in the engineering curriculum is an example where such an extensive review can take place (Krishnan & Kathpalia 2002). Second language students may have special…