Developing innovation competences in engineering education through project-based and challenge-based learning

There is a gap between industry needs and engineering graduates’ competences that since the past two decades has been under discussion. Engineering graduates are perceived as “too theoretical” by the industry and face difficulties when adapting to the practical working context. This gap is being mostly tackled by project-based courses. Furthermore, the expected competences of the future engineers go beyond the purely technical skills. Competences like creativity, innovativeness, business skills, sense of responsibility, problem-based thinking, collaboration, ability to communicate and effectively dealing with stress and uncertainty, among others, will be increasingly important in the future. Innovation competences in particular are key to tackle current societal challenges, but there is limited understanding about what innovation competences are developed through different types of project-based courses. An education that remains only in the scope of technical skills traditionally expected from engineers will eventually limit the capabilities of the engineers to influence strategy and management decisions, as well as concept definition for new products and services. Institutions like ABET, CDIO and ENAEE – EUR-ACE®, highlight these demands for future engineers’ competences. Ultimately, the more engineers master the innovation process beyond the technical aspects, the more impact they can have in shaping the society of the future, and the greater chances they have to position themselves as decision makers. This study discusses what are the innovation competences needed for engineering students and pedagogical approaches to develop those competences, with the aim of understanding how to better design educational strategies to improve innovation competences in future engineering graduates. A broad literature review was developed on existing innovation competences models and pedagogical approaches to develop innovation competences, going from problem-based to project-based learning to challenge-based education, from New Product Development to Design Thinking, and through different strategies to measure innovation competences. Through a mixed method approach, combining quantitative analysis of surveys and qualitative content analysis of project results, we compared two experiential learning courses developed at the UPC Telecom school: a project-based course and a challenge- based course. We compared self-perception on innovation competences using the INCODE (Innovation Competences Development) Barometer and we developed a qualitative content analysis of project results and self-reflection documents of two groups of engineering students from Telecom Engineering school from UPC going through CBI (Challenge Based Innovation) course versus PDP (Product Development Project) course. CBI is an innovative learning experience carried out by three institutions: Telecom Engineering School of UPC, ESADE Business School and IED Instituto Europeo di Design in collaboration with CERN, where mixed teams of students from the three institutions face open innovation challenges through Design Thinking, with the objective of designing solutions to complex societal problems, considering the use of CERN technologies if suitable. PDP is the “standard” capstone course taken by Telecom engineering students following a classical project management approach based on the CDIO framework. Results shows that experiential learning approaches like project-based and challenge-based education are good educational strategies for developing competences and, explicitly, innovation competences in engineering education, but each strategy emphasizes some competences more than others. Project-based courses demonstrates better results in Planning and Managing Projects. Creativity, Leadership and Entrepreneurship are more developed through a challenge-based approach combined with Design Thinking.Existe una brecha entre las necesidades de la industria y las competencias de los graduados en ingeniería que se ha estado debatiendo desde las últimas dos décadas. Los graduados en ingeniería son percibidos como "demasiado teóricos" por la industria y encuentran dificultades para adaptarse al contexto laboral real. Esta brecha se aborda principalmente mediante cursos basados en proyectos, desarrollando las competencias esperadas de los futuros ingenieros, que van más allá de las habilidades puramente técnicas. Competencias como la creatividad, la innovación, las habilidades empresariales, el sentido de la responsabilidad, el pensamiento basado en problemas, la colaboración, la capacidad para comunicarse y afrontar eficazmente el estrés y la incertidumbre, entre otras, serán cada vez más importantes en el futuro. Las competencias de innovación en particular son clave para abordar los desafíos sociales actuales. Pero hay una comprensión limitada sobre qué competencias de innovación se desarrollan a través de diferentes tipos de cursos basados en proyectos. Instituciones como ABET, CDIO y ENAEE - EUR-ACE®, destacan estas demandas de competencias de los futuros ingenieros. Este estudio analiza cuáles son las competencias de innovación necesarias para los estudiantes de ingeniería y los enfoques pedagógicos para desarrollar estas competencias, con el objetivo de comprender cómo diseñar mejores estrategias educativas para el desarrollo de competencias de innovación en los futuros graduados en ingeniería. Se desarrolló una extensa revisión de la literatura incluyendo modelos de competencias de innovación y enfoques pedagógicos existentes para desarrollar competencias de innovación, pasando del aprendizaje basado en problemas al aprendizaje basado en proyectos y la educación basada en retos. También se estudió el desarrollo de nuevos productos (NPD) y el pensamiento de diseño (Design Thinking), así como diferentes estrategias para medir competencias de innovación. A través de un enfoque de métodos mixto, combinando el análisis cuantitativo de encuestas y el análisis de contenido cualitativo de resultados de proyectos, se compararon dos cursos de aprendizaje experiencial desarrollados en la escuela Telecomunicaciones de la UPC: un curso basado en proyectos PDP (Proyecto de desarrollo de producto) y un curso basado en retos (CBI-Challenge Based Innovation). Se analizó la autopercepción sobre competencias de innovación utilizando el Barómetro INCODE (Innovation Competences Development), y se desarrolló un análisis de contenido cualitativo de los resultados de proyectos y documentos de autorreflexión. CBI es una experiencia de aprendizaje innovadora llevada a cabo por tres instituciones: Escuela de Ingeniería de Telecomunicaciones de la UPC, ESADE Business School e IED Istituto Europeo di Design en colaboración con CERN, donde equipos mixtos de estudiantes de las tres instituciones enfrentan desafíos de innovación abierta a través del Design Thinking, con el objetivo de diseñar soluciones a problemas sociales complejos, considerando el uso de tecnologías CERN (si es apropiado). PDP es el curso final ¿estándar¿ que toman los estudiantes de ingeniería de telecomunicaciones siguiendo un enfoque clásico de gestión de proyectos basado en el marco CDIO. Los resultados muestran que los enfoques de aprendizaje experiencial como la educación basada en proyectos y la educación basada en retos son buenas estrategias educativas para desarrollar competencias y, específicamente, competencias de innovación en la educación en ingeniería. Pero cada estrategia enfatiza algunas competencias más que otras. Los cursos basados en proyectos demuestran mejores resultados en la planificación y gestión de proyectos. La creatividad, el liderazgo y el espíritu empresarial se desarrollan más a través de un enfoque basado en retos combinado con Design Thinking.Postprint (published version

Market entry mode of higher education internationalization: a case study of a post-1992 university

The aim of this research is to examine higher education (HE) internationalization in terms of international recruitment and academic collaboration with the focus on a single institution case study. The research investigates how the case study university conducts HE internationalization, identifies key implementation issues of HE internationalization, and develops an education-specific market entry dynamic framework. The discussion of the difference in the process of internationalization across faculties is also included. This research adopts the interpretivist philosophy and inductive approach, with focus of a single institution. Based on the positions and job responsibilities, the total of 20 interviewees from three key departments (Corporate, Department 2 and Faculty) were selected and 22 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The total of 329 pages of interview transcripts were analyzed. Other types of data collection include observation and secondary documentary data. The answers from each group were used in a comparative analysis, resulting in an overlap pattern structure that indicates the level of the university's internal integration. Data analysis strategies include content analysis, critical discourse analysis (CDA), colour coding, and categorization of meaning. The market entry dynamic framework is the main outcome of this research. This framework provides a number of education-specific modes of entry and programme delivery methods to guide institutions' internationalization. The implementation issues raised in this research indicate that the university's internal integration has a major impact on HE internationalization. These issues highlight the areas where the university needs to improve. Faculty-specific factors explain the difference in the process of internationalization across the four faculties at the case study university, and explain the reasons why the levels of internationalization are different among these faculties. This dynamic framework contributes to rich understanding of HE internationalization in terms of international recruitment and academic collaboration at the present case study, and creates a sound basis for further studies across the HE sector. Since there is only one university involved in this research, the associated research generalizability is low. Therefore, further research in this area is encouraged to test the generalizability of this framework at other universities through quantitative population studies

Knowledge Communities in Online Education and (Visual) Knowledge Management: 19. Workshop GeNeMe‘16 as part of IFKAD 2016: Proceedings of 19th Conference GeNeMe

Communities in New Media started in 1998 as a workshop series at TU Dresden, and since then has annually dealt with online communities at the interface between several disciplines such as education and economics, computer science, social and communication sciences, and more. (See Köhler, Kahnwald & Schoop, 2015). The workshop is traditionally a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue between science and business and serves to share experiences and knowledge among participants from different disciplines, organisations, and institutions. In addition to the core themes of knowledge management and communities (in the chapters of the same name), the main focus of the conference is also on the support of knowledge and learning processes in the field of (media-assisted) higher education. This is complemented by an informational perspective when it comes to more functional and methodological approaches - use cases, workflows, and automation in knowledge management. In addition, systems and approaches for feedback, exchange, and ideas are presented. With the focus of knowledge media design and visual research as well as creative processes, this time there is also a highlight on visual aspects of knowledge management and mediation. For IFKAD 2016, three GeNeMe tracks were accepted which focus on the interface of knowledge communities and knowledge management as well as knowledge media design in science, business, or education. In this conference volume you will find detailed information about these three tracks: -- Knowledge Communities I: Knowledge Management -- Knowledge Communities II: Online Education -- Visual Knowledge Management [From the Preface.]:Preface IX Vorwort XIII Knowledge Communities I: Knowledge Management 1 Process Learning Environments 1 Two Steps to IT Transparency: A Practitioner’s Approach for a Knowledge Based Analysis of Existing IT Landscapes in SME 13 Social Media and Sustainable Communication. Rethinking the Role of Research and Innovation Networks 26 Consolidating eLearning in a Higher Education Institution: An Organisational Issue integrating Didactics, Technology, and People by the Means of an eLearning Strategy 39 How to treat the troll? An empirical analysis of counterproductive online behavior, personality traits and organizational behavior 51 Knowledge Communities II: Online Education 64 Sifa-Portfolio – a Continuing Education Concept for Specialists on Industrial Safety Combining Formal and Informal Learning 64 Analysing eCollaboration: Prioritisation of Monitoring Criteria for Learning Analytics in the Virtual Classroom 78 Gamifying Higher Education. Beyond Badges, Points and Leaderboards 93 Virtual International Learning Experience in Formal Higher Education – A Case Study from Jordan 105 Migration to the Flipped Classroom – Applying a Scalable Flipped Classroom Arrangement 117 MOOC@TU9 – Common MOOC Strategy of the Alliance of Nine Leading German Institutes of Technology 131 A Survey on Knowledge Management in Universities in the QS Rankings: E-learning and MOOCs 144 Visual Knowledge Media 157 Generating implications for design in practice: How different stimuli are retrieved and transformed to generate ideas 157 Behind the data – preservation of the knowledge in CH Visualisations 170 Building a Wiki resource on digital 3D reconstruction related knowledge assets 184 Visual media as a tool to acquire soft skills — cross-disciplinary teaching-learning project SUFUvet 196 Graphing Meeting Records - An Approach to Visualize Information in a Multi Meeting Context 209 HistStadt4D – A four dimensional access to history 221 Ideagrams: A digital tool for observing ideation processes 234 Adress- und Autorenverzeichnis 251Gemeinschaften in Neuen Medien hat 1998 als Workshop-Reihe an der TU Dresden begonnen und seither jährlich das Thema Online-Communities an der Schnittstelle mehrerer Disziplinen wie Informatik, Bildungs- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Informatik sowie Sozial-und Kommunikationswissenschaft u.a.m. thematisiert (vgl. Köhler, Kahnwald & Schoop, 2015). Der Workshop ist traditionell ein Forum für den interdisziplinären Dialog zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft und dient dazu, Erfahrungen und Wissen unter den Teilnehmern aus verschiedenen Disziplinen, Organisationen und Institutionen zu teilen. Die inhaltlichen Schwerpunkte der Konferenz widmen sich neben den Kernthemen Wissensmanagement und Communities (in den gleichnamigen Kapiteln) auch der Unterstützung von Wissens- und Lernprozessen im Bereich der (mediengestützten) Hochschullehre. Ergänzt wird diese eher organisationswissenschaftliche durch eine informatorische Perspektive, wenn es um stärker funktionale bzw. auch methodische Ansätze geht – Use Cases, Workflows und Automatisierung im Wissensmanagement. Darüber hinaus werden Systeme und Ansätze für Feedback, Austausch und Ideenfindung vorgestellt. Mit den Schwerpunkten der Wissensmediengestaltung und visuellen Forschungs- sowie Kreativprozessen wird diesmal auch ein Schlaglicht auf visuelle Aspekte von Wissensmanagement und -vermittlung geworfen. Für die IFKAD 2016 wurden drei GeNeMe-Tracks angenommen, die sich auf das Interface von Wissensgemeinschaften und Wissensmanagement sowie die Wissensmediengestaltung in Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft oder Bildung konzentrieren. Im vorliegenden Tagungsband finden Sie detaillierte Informationen zu diesen drei Tracks: -- Knowledge Communities I: Knowledge Management -- Knowledge Communities II: Online Education -- Visual Knowledge Management [Aus dem Vorwort.]:Preface IX Vorwort XIII Knowledge Communities I: Knowledge Management 1 Process Learning Environments 1 Two Steps to IT Transparency: A Practitioner’s Approach for a Knowledge Based Analysis of Existing IT Landscapes in SME 13 Social Media and Sustainable Communication. Rethinking the Role of Research and Innovation Networks 26 Consolidating eLearning in a Higher Education Institution: An Organisational Issue integrating Didactics, Technology, and People by the Means of an eLearning Strategy 39 How to treat the troll? An empirical analysis of counterproductive online behavior, personality traits and organizational behavior 51 Knowledge Communities II: Online Education 64 Sifa-Portfolio – a Continuing Education Concept for Specialists on Industrial Safety Combining Formal and Informal Learning 64 Analysing eCollaboration: Prioritisation of Monitoring Criteria for Learning Analytics in the Virtual Classroom 78 Gamifying Higher Education. Beyond Badges, Points and Leaderboards 93 Virtual International Learning Experience in Formal Higher Education – A Case Study from Jordan 105 Migration to the Flipped Classroom – Applying a Scalable Flipped Classroom Arrangement 117 MOOC@TU9 – Common MOOC Strategy of the Alliance of Nine Leading German Institutes of Technology 131 A Survey on Knowledge Management in Universities in the QS Rankings: E-learning and MOOCs 144 Visual Knowledge Media 157 Generating implications for design in practice: How different stimuli are retrieved and transformed to generate ideas 157 Behind the data – preservation of the knowledge in CH Visualisations 170 Building a Wiki resource on digital 3D reconstruction related knowledge assets 184 Visual media as a tool to acquire soft skills — cross-disciplinary teaching-learning project SUFUvet 196 Graphing Meeting Records - An Approach to Visualize Information in a Multi Meeting Context 209 HistStadt4D – A four dimensional access to history 221 Ideagrams: A digital tool for observing ideation processes 234 Adress- und Autorenverzeichnis 25