Requirements for a Web 2.0 Course Management System of Engineering Education

Abstract

technology [4] to a course management system of ED education as it has become a major technology which supports multimedia content publishing and sharing over the Internet. The authors proposed a concept of a new Web 2.0 course management system of ED education as the first step to complete the proposed system. Kanazawa Institute of Technology is a pioneering university in Japan that began its Engineering Design education in 1996. Our Engineering Design courses are characterized by project-based learning in groups. The current web-based information systems for Engineering Design education at KIT are composed of the following independent systems: a course website, an e-Learning system, an oral-presentation review system, and a report-submitting system. The systems are causing unnecessary confusion to both instructors and students, because it is composed of a variety of independent software and their human interfaces are not unified. 2. Learning activities of Engineering Design education A total of 1,700 engineering students from all fourteen engineering divisions must take ED courses. Fifty ED classes are offered in each year. A class consisting of approximately 34 students is divided into seven teams. Each team consists of 4 to 5 students. In order to maintain a high level of quality in the course management, a learning manual for students as well as a course management manual for instructors have been published and revised every year. The students must conduct two hours of in-class instructed learning as well as four hours of outside-class learning activities in teams per week for ten weeks. In our ED education, the Engineering Design Process (EDP) is defined as the process by which the following activities (stages) are performed. The authors analyzed students' learning activities in Engineering Design courses and then designed a new Web 2.0 course management system of Engineering Education in order to help students' learning. The paper shows the first stages of our research efforts toward the completion of a new Web 2.0 course management system of Engineering Education.