Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board Research Articles

Reframing engineering design: integrating design thinking and systems thinking in engineering education and practice to address wicked problems

The conceptualization of “engineering design”, as outlined by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB), has shifted over the years, however, the gap in engineering education remains a prevailing deficiency in engineering education and practice lies in the exclusion of non-technical competencies (such as empathy, communication, innovation, and creativity) that are impeding engineers from effectively addressing complex issues. These frameworks offer a robust methodology for tackling complex, dynamic, and interconnected challenges—referred to as “wicked problems”. In addition, this paper proposes a fourth-year engineering design course that explicitly incorporates these approaches, addressing the identified gap in social competencies within engineering education. By integrating these approaches into the foundation of engineering design education, there may be an avenue to equip engineers with the skills needed to empathize with stakeholders, understand contextual landscapes and generate meaningful solutions that contribute positively to society.

Investigating Canadian Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Graduate Attributes: Frequency, Criticality, and Relative Importance

This study investigates the perceptions of Canadian engineering students regarding the frequency and criticality of the 12 graduate attributes (knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors that engineering students are expected to demonstrate upon graduation) outlined by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). This study aims to assist engineering educators in gaining a better understanding of students’ expectations regarding how engineering competencies will be demonstrated in practice. This information can guide the improvement of engineering curricula and help engineering programs meet accreditation requirements for continuous enhancement. Descriptive and test statistics were used to analyze a quantitative survey administered to 340 undergraduate engineering students at a large Canadian university. Findings suggest that the students perceived the frequency and criticality of most graduate attributes differently. Individual and teamwork, communication, professionalism, lifelong learning and engineering tools, were viewed as more frequent than critical, while ethics and equity, impact of engineering, investigation, and design were perceived as more critical than frequent. The study also found that communication, individual and teamwork, and problem analysis were perceived as the graduate attributes with the highest relative importance (frequency multiplied by criticality), which is consistent with the literature.

Supporting teaching practice, program improvement, and accreditation efforts in an engineering program

This paper emphasizes the essential role of a support person for faculty teaching and assessing the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes as part of an ongoing accreditation cycle. It details the continuous program improvement process adopted by the Department of Biosystems Engineering at the University of Manitoba, and the role of engineering stakeholders. It recounts a study that details the supportive efforts of a Research Associate who helped to validate and implement rubrics with individual professors as outcomes-based tools for teaching and assessing the 12 CEAB graduate attributes, which resulted in the creation of 14 rubrics for 12 courses. Findings included new pedagogical understandings, the appreciation of individual support from the Research Associate, and the continued use of rubrics; the work led most professors to think deeply and in new ways about teaching and assessment. There was evidence that six professors engaged in ‘reverse design’, developing rubrics with targeted learning outcomes and course materials in mind. The work led to critical improvement in teaching practices and evidence of continual program improvement. Despite overall engagement and success, some professors continued to struggle with the concept and use of rubrics. In sum, this experience emphasizes the benefit of a dedicated person to support professors to implement rubrics, and in creating and sustaining an outcomes-based assessment culture in the department.

“Accreditation VS COVID”: The Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board’s transition to virtual accreditation visits in 2020/2021

“Accreditation VS COVID.” This was the subject line of an email that a representative from a CEAB-accredited program sent to the CEAB Secretariat in Spring 2020. The COVID-19 global pandemic created multiple shifts in how engineering programs operated, which necessitated a reimagining of how CEAB accreditation (operating in the same novel environment) could survive and thrive. This work provides an overview of the CEAB’s efforts between March 2020 and June 2021 as theory, plans and implementation activities came together to transition the CEAB accreditation system to a completely virtual modality for the 2021/2022 visit cycle; it speaks briefly to identified best practices and lessons learned. Administrators and faculty of baccalaureate engineering programs will find this work to be of interest for the insight it provides into the CEAB’s processes. Moreover, accreditors of other disciplines and members of the general higher education community may find value in the work as part of a larger discussion of best practices for virtual quality assurance evaluations. This work presents the results of an environmental scan and literature review that was undertaken in 2020 (and updated in 2021) and includes reflections on the transition process from members of the CEAB Task Force on Virtual Visits and the CEAB Secretariat. The work this reflection piece will present has enabled the CEAB to offer ongoing accreditation reviews for Canadian baccalaureate engineering programs regardless of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Assessing Ethical Sensitivity Development in Undergraduate Engineering Students

Canadian engineers are expected to uphold high ethical standards as part of their responsibility to the profession and society. This expectation is echoed in the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes and in the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer [1], [2]. Part of upholding high ethical standards as an engineer involves the essential skill of being able to detect and identify ethical issues. This refers to one’s Ethical Sensitivity (ES), which is often overlooked in Engineering Ethics Education (EEE) currently. EEE in North America primarily focuses on the action plans and justifications developed to address presented ethical dilemmas, not on how to identify ethical dilemmas. This then leads to the question, are students’ ES skills being developed over the course of their undergraduate career? While there is some existing research on ethical decision-making and the factors that influence it, there is markedly less research on ES, less on ES assessment, and even less on ES assessment in engineering students. Additionally, the majority of ES assessment tools currently used are either not designed to specifically assess ES, are not designed for engineering, and/or cue the participant in some way to the ethical dilemmas presented, which could misrepresent the participant’s actual ES abilities. This research will investigate current literature on ethical sensitivity and will also describe a research method to assess ES development in undergraduate engineering students. The focus of this paper will be on a pilot study currently in progress along with the next steps for this research. These results can provide insight to educators, ideally resulting in more effective teaching practices, and ultimately creating more ethically conscious engineering graduates.

What about sustainability? Adding the “S” to leadership and management competency development in the engineering curriculum

To provide a framework for engineering educators to map leadership and management skills development in the curriculum, the authors previously created a Leadership-Management Development Model (LMDM). In this paper we look to extend the model to include sustainability by using an “environmental limits approach”, creating a Leadership-Management -Sustainability Development Model (LMSDM). Adding the sustainability dimension provides a contextual purpose for leadership and management development as it relates to creating and stewarding sustainable socio-technical engineering solutions. This can set a common language and a harmonized framework in the context of skills development and application in engineering practice to complex socio-technical problems. Ultimately the model will allow programs and instructors to map and situate the development of leadership, management and sustainability concepts in their programs in an integrated manner., and to examine learning outcomes relevant to the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes (GA). Curricular examples are provided to give insight into application of the LMSDM in engineering courses and programs. Future work will include mapping the developed LMSDM to engineering curriculum at multiple institutions.

Using content validity measures to evaluate the Biosystems Engineering Program at the University of Manitoba

An exploratory case study was designed to determine the relative importance of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes as perceived by University of Manitoba engineering stakeholders. Findings were used to examine the content validity of the Biosystems Engineering program. The overarching objective was to explore how graduate attribute emphasis in engineering programs reflect graduate attribute importance reported by key stakeholders. Problem Analysis, Investigation, Design, Communication Skills, Impact of Engineering on Society & the Environment, and Use of Engineering Tools had similar expected (mean relative importance) and observed (content and assessment program coverage) data percentages. The gap was wider for other graduate attributes, with the most surprising being Knowledge Base. Overall, the pattern of results suggests that various professional attributes (e.g., Professionalism, Ethics & Equity, and Lifelong Learning) should be more prominent in content and assessments within an engineering program. Recommendations to improve methods to assess content validity in engineering programs are discussed.

ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN CANADA IN THE WAKE OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC

In this article, a number of difficulties faced in research, teaching and learning by engineeringinstructors, researchers, students and administrative staff in the universities in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed. A few solutions, such as use of a sample online assessment tool, that might aid in better delivery of engineering courses are provided. The effectiveness of such solutions devised for short-term use and their applicability in the longer-term online teachingare discussed. Special focus is given to engineering education due to the special standards of course delivery and assessment required by the Engineers Canada and Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board.

Building the Engineering Mindset: Developing Sustainable Leadership and Management Competencies in First Year Engineering

The broad inclusion of sustainable engineering leadership and management concepts are increasinglyrecognized as necessary to ensure the relevance of an engineering education in a rapidly shifting world.Engineering leadership and management are integral to the engineering mindset and necessary to addressthe complex engineering problems faced by society. Examples of these complex problems can be seen in theUN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by all UN member states, including Canada, in 2015[1]. The Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) identifies the need for strong non-technicalskills with a majority of the Graduate Attributes focusing on non-technical skills such as communication,teamwork, ethics and lifelong learning [2]. The UN SDGs are well aligned with the CEAB GraduateAttributes [3] and could be very effectively operationalized in engineering programs through the use of asustainable engineering leadership and management model.

An undergraduate hydrometallurgy laboratory emphasizing engineering design

ABSTRACT The development of a set of laboratory experiments, intended to help undergraduate students meet Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board requirements for Engineering Design outcomes, is described. The laboratory, which is part of a third-year-level course in hydrometallurgy, is aimed at advancing the ability of students to generate and use experimental results to design an industrial copper leach/solvent extraction/electrowinning plant. Emphasis is placed on the students demonstrating the ability to use their engineering knowledge in weighing the pros and cons of the various process options that they test in converging to a final flowsheet.

INCREASING STUDENT AWARENESS OF PROFESSIONALISM USING THE PROFESSIONALISM ASSESSMENT TOOL (PAT) IN A SENIOR UNDERGRADUATE ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSE

The Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board’s definition of professionalism, one of twelve graduate attributes, does not mention professional behaviour, but rather focuses on understanding the role of engineers in society. While difficult to define, challenging to teach, and even harder to assess, the engineering faculty at the University of Guelph felt professional behaviour was an important element of professionalism to consider in their curriculum. This study investigates how professional behaviour might be taught and assessed. The researchers developed course material on professional behaviour for the winter 2019 offering of a third-year multidisciplinary design course (369 students), using Kelley et al.’s (2011) Professionalism Assessment Tool (PAT). Using a quasi-experimental design, the researchers assessed whether student professionalism improved based on their change in PAT scores over the semester using a Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test. They also analyzed a sample of student final reflections on professional behaviour. Student PAT scores increased significantly over the semester (n = 340, p<0.05), but the effect sizes observed, using Cohen’s d, were small (0.14 to 0.29). The student reflections (n = 53) suggest that improvements to their professionalism were a result of working in a team, experience gained from their project, and individual efforts made to behave professionally. While infrequently discussed in the reflections, over half of the post-term survey responses revealed that students felt the lab activities helped improve their professional skills generally, and/or increased their awareness of these skills. The improved awareness aspect of student professionalism was an unexpected, but important outcome of the PAT-based course material and may have reinforced student ownership of their soft skill development.

A Snapshot of Entrepreneurship Education at Canadian Engineering Schools – A Representative Overview from EETI SIG Members

With the rise of an innovation-based, technology-centric economy over the past two decades, there has been a shift in the market, enabling technological entrepreneurs to build business ventures that have realized accelerated growth and reached considerable scale. This “new economy” has created a need for individuals with a balanced skill set accompanying both business acumen, and technological innovation of complex systems. In esponse to this need, post-secondary engineering education institutions are teaching more business and entrepreneurship content. In Canada, most of the major post-secondary engineering education institutions offer some form of entrepreneurial education. However, approaches and programs offered by respective institutions vary in their approach to teaching engineering entrepreneurship, yielding a variety of different program implementations. There is, thus, a strong need to develop a Community of Practice focusing on engineering entrepreneurship education in Canada to foster a more rigorous and collaborative effort to evolve entrepreneurial teaching and learning. This paper is a first attempt to document and interpret the current state of a select number of Canadian Engineering Entrepreneurship Education programs. The founding members of the Canadian Engineering Education Association’s (CEEA) Engineering Entrepreneurship and technology innovation (EETI) Special Interest Group (SIG) have collaboratively collected information regarding the current practice of Engineering Entrepreneurship education within their affiliated institutions. This paper examines the Institutional Context, Strategy, Business Infrastructure, as well as the programs employed for Teaching and Learning at both the Undergraduate and Graduate levels. Our goal is to present a snapshot of the current practice for which entrepreneurship education is delivered at the institutions for which the founding members of the EETI SIG reside, as well as, discuss how entrepreneurship intersects with the other areas of engineering education, for example, design, the maker space movement, and professionalism, as well as, many of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board’s twelve graduate attributes.

COMPARISON OF THE CIVIL ENGINEERING CURRICULUM AMONG SEVERAL CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES

Growing attention to environmental sustainability, modular construction, and application of new generation of materials, accompanied with advanced data collection techniques and computer modeling, has revolutionized the area of Civil Engineering within the past few years. This demonstrates the necessity of continually reviewing the curriculum to assure that graduating engineers are knowledgeable enough to deal with complex problems in their area of specialty. This is also essential to satisfy the continual improvement process (CIP) requirements mandated by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). As a first step to design a rigorous CIP, a comprehensive comparison was made between the Civil Engineering curricula of the University of Alberta (UofA) and eight other major universities across Canada, including the University of Calgary, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Windsor, University of Regina, University of British Columbia (UBC), University of Waterloo, and Polytechnic of Montreal. After categorizing the courses into twelve different streams, it was observed that some universities paid less attention to a specific stream in comparison with the average, which could be identified as a gap in the curriculum. A capstone design or group design project that is multidisciplinary and covers multiple areas of specialty is the predominant approach followed by most of the universities.

Teaching engineering innovation, design, and leadership through a community of practice

Instructors with a diverse mix of industrial and academic experience teach our process design courses. The instructors work in close collaboration with working professional engineers including industrial technical specialists, entrepreneurs, and academic colleagues with an industrial focus. We prepare unique process design projects and advise student teams collectively. Many of the industry advisors are long-term contributors and over time some have become instructors for the design course. Our community of practice offers students a window on engineering design practice and innovation as they transition to the professional community. This paper explores how a community of practice contributes to student development, the achievement of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) graduate attributes, and the development of an innovation ecosystem. By providing targeted direction to industrial participants in a process design course community of practice, we show that the focus of the community and their motivation for participation can be shifted over time from benchmarking competence to innovation competence that also supports student innovation and leadership capacity development.

INCORPORATING TIMBER EDUCATION INTO EXISTING ACCREDITED ENGINEERING PROGRAMS

The demand for large and tall timber buildings is increasing across Canada. The recently constructed Brock Commons building in Vancouver and the upcoming Arbour building in Toronto are two such examples. These buildings are challenging for practitioners to design, and presently only a limited number of engineering institutions across Canada offer a course in timber design. There is a growing demand for engineering graduates who can contribute to the creation of these structures; however, the number of graduates who meet this criterion is lagging. Separate courses in timber could be introduced to more universities, however the addition of a new course may overload students, whose course schedules are already tightly regulated by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board. Moreover, the creation of a new course can take several years and will therefore not meet the current industry demand quick enough. The research herein presents a method of incorporating timber education within the existing civil engineering curriculum in Canada, without the introduction of an additional course. The purpose of the proposed method is to offer an efficient solution that will provide engineering students with knowledge of the timber industry quickly to meet industry demand. Two timber learning modules were integrated within the existing Structural Steel Design course at an accredited university. The timber learning modules paralleled the topics covered within an undergraduate timber design course. Students were surveyed before and after the learning modules were presented to assess level of interest and motivations, knowledge of the industry, and level of understanding. After the learning modules were presented, 76% of students indicated they had some level of confidence in contributing to the design of a timber building. These results show that the timber learning modules were successful at introducing and generating an interest in timber design, and that students gained basic knowledge they could apply in practice.

DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION OF TECHNICAL WRITING SKILLS ORIENTED TOWARD ENGINEERS’ NEEDS

Written communication is among the skills future engineers must develop and master in order to excel in their profession. Employers and the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board also require this skill. Students in all Polytechnique Montréal programs have one course credit in their program devoted to written and oral communication. The training is provided by Polytechnique’s Centre d’études complémentaires (centre for complementary studies) for all programs. 
 Despite the implementation of this process, we noted that civil engineering students had difficulty employing good technical writing practices in their work, such as capstone projects, lab reports and hands-on assignments. The students saw written communication workshops as satellite training and employed their learning only to a small degree in their other courses. The students were essentially stagnating instead of making progress throughout the bachelor’s degree.
 In response to these issues, a common approach was put into place for the entire civil engineering program as a complement to the trainings provided by the Centre d’études complémentaires. This approach has been a success; student response has been positive and improvement has been observed in the courses where writing is required. The students especially appreciate this when they perform their mandatory internship, because they feel this training makes a difference and helps them distinguish themselves.

DEVELOPING GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES USING A SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT PROJECT

Ashby’s sustainability assessment method provides a systematic framework for dealing with complex, multidisciplinary problems. It also provides a framework for helping graduate students develop many desired graduate attributes. In this study, Ashby’s method was used in a third-year group sustainability assessment project, after which the development of three Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board graduate attributes (i.e., professionalism, impact on society and the environment, and life-long learning) were assessed. Students were surveyed to self-assess their level of competence in selected graduate attribute indicators, using Western Engineering programs’ Graduate Attributes indicators and rubric. After completing the project, most students assessed their abilities to be good to excellent under most indicators. Students also rated the project as being effective in developing these attributes.

Teaching and learning design engineering: What we can learn from co-curricular activities

A gap exists in the effective teaching and learning of design engineering. The Design graduate attribute is one of 12 attributes developed by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board to which Canadian universities must comply across engineering curriculum. This paper discusses how student run design-build-test-compete co-curricular activities meet CEAB Design graduate attribute indicators using the example of the SAE International Collegiate Design Series (CDS) team at Concordia University, Concordia SAE. Advantages, challenges, and recommendations are made for integrating aspects of the co-curricular platform into existing academic infrastructure in the interest of attributing accreditation units to this type of design experience. This approach would improve accessibility by providing all students the opportunity to participate in co-curricular-like activities, improve resource allocation to co-curricular activities, and improve student engagement and motivation in engineering design learning.

Learning to Learn: Defining an Engineering Learning Culture

Learning is a cultural construct. Beliefs, perceptions and values regarding learning shape the culture of a classroom and a program of study. A framework for engineering education grounded in the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) Graduate Attributes and engineering practice is proposed. Methods and activities to shape a learning culture in engineering design education consistent with a community of practice and lifelong learning are also proposed. This transformational approach offers an opportunity to teach lifelong learning and integrate engineering practice and engineering education, while entrenching graduate attributes more deeply in the engineering curriculum. Accountability, engagement, recognition, motivation, appreciation, credibility, and continual improvement are key elements of a functional learning culture. Learning moments are a concise way to make learning to learn a relevant part of each session and encourage student reflection and metacognition.

Arduino-based Sensor Device – An Engineering Physics Second-year Design Project within the Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS) of the Queen’s Engineering Professional Spine

In 2011, Queen’s Engineering began rollout of its "Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS)". The EDPS is a "professional spine" sequence of courses over four years, meant to address and incorporate into all of its engineering programs the majority of the 12 Graduate attributes required by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). In year 1, the first EDPS course – Engineering Practice I - introduces students to engineering design and problem solving, but with little formal instruction in the design process and engineering tools. Formal instruction in these aspects comes in second year, in Engineering Design and Practice II (course number APSC200). Finally, in third and fourth year, students undertake significant design projects in their discipline. 
 The second-year version of the professional spine, APSC200, is a one-term course taken by all students. This begins with a 6-week Faculty-wide course module, followed by a 6-week program-specific module. In the first Faculty-wide segment, students learn the design process – problem definition and scope, idea generation and broadening tools, decision-making tools, economic analysis, stakeholders, risk, and safety. Students are exposed to the necessity of formal design techniques via a zero-level "P0" project, and taught these techniques during a more extensive P1 project.
 The second 6 weeks of APSC200 involves a discipline-specific project (P2) in which the student teams practice the skills introduced in the earlier portion of the course while working through a design project chosen to emphasize the skills of their program. This paper focusses on the development and implementation of the P2 project for students in the Queen’s Engineering Physics program. The goal of this project is to introduce discipline-specific tools and techniques, to excite students in their chosen engineering discipline, and to put into practice the formal design techniques introduced earlier.
 The P2 project developed for Engineering Physics was entitled a "Compact Environmental Monitoring Station". The premise was that the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) issued an RFP for small, cheap sensor devices that could be provided to every Ontario household, and set up to "crowdsource" environmental data for the MOE. Student teams were required to research and justify which environmental parameters would be appropriate for their monitoring device, decide on parameters to monitor, design the device, and build a working prototype of the device.
 The device specifications required the use of an Arduino-based platform, interfacing the chosen sensor(s) to a laptop computer using MatLab. Since only some students were familiar with Arduinos and MatLab, two "just in time" workshops were delivered on these topics, using a "flipped lab" approach.
 For the prototype design and build, students had only 4 weeks and a budget of $100. Arduino boards and some basic sensors were supplied, with students able to source and purchase other components within their budget. The prototype-build provided the students with a valuable hands-on experience and also helped them to fully appreciate unexpected practical design constraints. Given the short timeframe (4-weeks) for the design and build, prototypes were very impressive, with many including solar power or rechargeable batteries, Bluetooth connectivity, 3-D printed packaging, IPhone or Android apps, as well as calibration functions.
 This paper will summarize the development of this Engineering Physics P2 module, and will report on the first year of offering it in its current format.