Civil Engineering Education Research Articles

Sustainability and ethics as decision‐making paradigms in engineering curricula

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to explore the rationale for teaching sustainability and engineering ethics within a decision‐making paradigm, and critically appraise ways of achieving related learning outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents the experience of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney in teaching environmental sustainability and engineering ethics to third‐year undergraduate students. It discusses the objectives of the course and the merits and drawbacks of incorporating ethics and sustainability in the same teaching framework. In addition, it evaluates ways of incorporating theoretical and applied perspectives on sustainability.FindingsEthics and sustainability overlap but do not coincide; incorporating them in the same engineering course can be effective, provided that points of linkage are clearly recognized in the syllabus, a suitable combination of theory and practical applications is drawn upon and adequate teaching methods, including decision‐making case problems, are used.Research limitations/implicationsWhile environmental sustainability, economic rationality and ethical reasoning can be easily fitted into the syllabus, social sustainability is more difficult to teach because it requires a significant conceptual departure from deep‐seated preconceptions on the part of students and teachers, and does not lend itself easily to conventional classroom activity, such as lectures and weekly workshops. Further research on effective ways of incorporating social sustainability in engineering curricula is therefore needed.Originality/valueThe paper evaluates sustainability issues within the context of civil engineering education.

Civil Engineering Education and Complex Systems

Civil engineering is an interdisciplinary field, and most of the projects designed and built represent very complex systems, both during the construction phase and in the built phase. This research describes how a course in land development that included engineering design elements, lectures that also touched on other related fields, and a field journal assignment at a “green” (sustainable) construction site facilitated students’ understanding of complex systems. Results suggest that this course design facilitates the development of students’ proficiencies in several skill sets, and can increase students’ understanding of the complexity involved in civil engineering projects.

Industry News

This article announces the release of the second edition of “Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st Century: Preparing the Civil Engineer for the Future,” published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The second edition of the report outlines the body of knowledge that would be required to broaden and deepen the preparation of future civil engineers. It includes 24 specific outcomes related to levels of achievement that ASCE believes are needed for someone to start practicing civil engineering at the professional level. The concepts and ideas from the 2004 report have been clarified for this new edition, and their implementation would represent a historic change in civil engineering education. The second edition of the report recommends that the 24 outcomes making up the body of knowledge be attained through one of two paths to fulfillment that are discussed in the article.

UK civil engineering education in the twenty-first century

The paper reviews many of the recent changes in the general and specific education of civil engineering graduates including: grade inflation at GCSE, AS and A level; the pressure on engineering education due to university expansion in non-traditional subject areas; the negative effect of research assessment exercises leading to skewed academic appointments; common teaching for three years for MEng and BEng (Hons) degrees; the proliferation of MSc degrees; the potential threat arising from the Bologna declaration; together with some views from industry. The paper concludes with a proposal to maintain the ‘gold standard’ MEng degree by developing closer relationships between industry and academia via the initial professional development of graduates.

ASCE Global Center of Excellence in Computing

During the last two millennia, civil engineers were perceived to be within the group of principal pioneers of our civilization, since they were leaders who initiated important changes to our world. Unfortunately, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, many no longer see us as leaders. Often, we are now perceived as followers and technologists who have conceded leadership to other professions such as those related to information science and fields— engineering or otherwise—that are not in civil engineering. Recent attempts to address this crisis are already at both the national and international levels for example, Anderson et al. 2006; Arciszewski 2006; Institution of Engineers 1996; NAE 2004, 2005; NSF 1995; Royal Academy of Engineering 2006; Russell and Stouffer 2005; Russell et al. 2006; Seely 2005 , including the activities of the ASCE Body of Knowledge II Committee ASCE 2004 and the recent NSF-sponsored workshop on “Reforming Civil and Environmental Engineering Education,” held in October 2006 in Istanbul, Turkey. Today, recovering lost leadership requires recognizing of two factors that currently drive progress in our society and our profession. These factors are globalization and computing. They are strongly interrelated, since recent advances in computing have accelerated the globalization of civil engineering. Also, the growing scale of international projects and cooperation increases demand for new generations of methods and tools that draw on advances in computing. Such demand subsequently drives computing research and creates new needs for education. Globalization is a very old phenomenon that has always initiated changes in civilizations. It is a complex process of gradual cultural, social, political, and technological changes that are closely interrelated and that may affect participants in unpredictable and undesired ways. In civil engineering, globalization is currently an unavoidable fact of life. Many construction companies have global operations; and many consulting companies, even small ones, are planning to establish international activities. Computing is often understood by practicing civil engineers to be just a skill associated with making and using computers as

Raising the Bar for Civil Engineering Education: Systems Thinking Approach

The civil engineering profession has been undergoing an identity search. With the advent of information technology and the global market, competition from engineering offices elsewhere and from other local professions is unprecedented. Technical engineering knowledge is no longer a guarantee for career success; rather a combination of numerous professional skills is required. The growing unease of civil engineers about their undefined role in the knowledge economy has led many to question civil engineering education. Although there is a push to enhance the humanistic and business aspects of the curriculum, there is a shove in the opposite direction to strengthen the technical content and keep abreast of technical change. Discussion of this socioeconomic problem within the ASCE forum has often used linear deterministic thinking that is characteristic of technical problems. Social and economic systems are usually more complex and harder to understand than technological systems. If we start making new policies to address the problems of the profession based on fuzzy, incomplete, and imprecise mental models, we may end up with counterintuitive results. This paper proposes a systems thinking approach to the reform of civil engineering education based on System Dynamics modeling, a feedback-based object-oriented modeling paradigm. Such a tool can capture the dynamic nature of complex systems and the nonlinear feedback loops that are often responsible for counterintuitive results of policy making.

Students Teach Students with the West Point Bridge Designer

This is a continuing series of quarterly articles on lessons learned and best practices in civil engineering education. The intent of the series is to reinforce good practices, describe new or developing practices, and provide a forum for what works well and what does not. It is hoped that this series will be an important quarterly read for all civil engineering educators and all those interested in what’s going on in civil engineering education today. Writers and topics will vary from issue to issue. Contact the column editor, Steve Ressler, if you wish to contribute to an upcoming issue.

Civil Engineering Education in a Visualization Environment: Experiences with VizClass

AbstractVizClass, a university classroom visualization environment, was developed to bridge the gap between high‐tech engineering practice and low‐tech engineering pedagogy. It contains a suite of digital whiteboards, a three‐dimensional stereoscopic display, and specialized software for engineering visualization. Through observations, interviews, surveys, and examination of student work, we investigated student and teacher attitudes toward VizClass and its effect on teaching and learning processes. Observed benefits of teaching in the new environment include increased ability of faculty to visually explain complex problems, increased ability of students to conceptualize engineering problems, and increased engagement of students in after‐class collaboration.

Classroom Demonstrations in Introductory Mechanics

This is a continuing series of quarterly articles on lessons learned and best practices in civil engineering education. The intent of the series is to reinforce good practices, describe new or developing practices, and provide a forum for what works well and what does not. It is hoped that this series will be an important quarterly read for all civil engineering educators and all those interested in what’s going on in civil engineering education today. Writers and topics will vary from issue to issue. Contact the column editor, Steve Ressler, if you wish to contribute to an upcoming issue. This is the fifth in a series of articles that expand on ideas and techniques that are included in the ASCE ExCEEd ~Excellence in Civil Engineering Education! Teaching Workshops.

Training Faculty to Teach Civil Engineering

Adoption of ASCE’s Policy Statement 465 and subsequent discussion of the what, how, and who of teaching the body of knowledge (BOK) that will be required for professional civil engineering practice has heightened the need for continued improvement in civil engineering education. ASCE has explicitly said the role of educators and practitioners in teaching the body of knowledge is critical and has listed faculty-related success factors for teaching the BOK. A key success factor is statement 465’s call for faculty and practitioners to properly prepare to “effectively engage students in the learning process.” This paper considers this challenge and discusses an instructor training program that effectively prepares faculty and practitioners to actively engage students in the learning process as envisioned by Policy Statement 465. We will show quantifiable evidence of the positive results gained by using this instructor training program through student and instructor feedback. Additionally, alternative shorter ...

Survey of the National Civil Engineering Curriculum

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive survey of over 40% of the nation’s undergraduate civil engineering programs. This analysis is based on uniform data collected for accreditation and is principally concerned with three major groups of courses: (1) math and science, (2) general education, and (3) engineering topics. The analysis reveals what is currently being taught in our nation’s civil engineering undergraduate programs, what is not being taught, and the implications for future professional practice. The paper discusses how the average national curriculum has changed historically, how well the curriculum satisfies Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria, and what the current distribution of courses and topics says about the priorities of civil engineering education. Overall, the curriculum was found to be highly specialized in terms of technical subjects but lacking in focus regarding the liberal arts, professional skills, and systems thinking.

Student Assessment of a Problem-Based Learning Experiment in Civil Engineering Education

This paper describes an experiment with problem-based learning (PBL), an instructional methodology used in response to the challenges posed by today’s professional education. Contrary to the conventional model that places an application problem after concepts or topics have been introduced, PBL uses the problem to initiate learning. Besides promoting the construction of knowledge, it may also contribute to the development of some skills and attitudes deemed important for engineers’ professional practice. This research, of a qualitative nature, intended to investigate how students evaluate this methodology and its potential to attain the educational goals set for the course. In order to answer the research question, the methodology was implemented in the civil engineering curriculum of a Brazilian public university. The results herein presented, deriving mainly from classroom observations and an end-of-course questionnaire, show that most of the students evaluate the methodology positively. Even considerin...

Information Technology in Civil Engineering Curriculum

The fast-moving world of information technology confronts the civil engineer with constant change. This creates challenges for educators and students because rapid change requires curricula to be flexible and educators to gain competency and access to new equipment and software. Whereas a decade ago, civil engineering educators debated how to teach “programming,” the picture is now much more complex. The paper reports on how information technologies are changing the practice of civil engineering and offers a new framework for integrating next-generation information technology into the civil engineering curriculum at the department level.

Model for Education, Professional Preparation, and Licensure of Civil Engineers

In October 1998, ASCE’s Board of Direction adopted Policy Statement 465: First Professional Degree, which supports the concept that the master’s degree or an equivalent would be required for a graduate engineer to practice civil engineering at the professional level. In the writer’s opinion, this requirement alone may not be enough to narrow the gap between the education, professional preparation, licensure, and continuing education requirements of engineering and those of other traditional professions such as medicine, law, architecture, and accounting. Data from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, indicate that engineering does not compare well with those four professions in those areas. Other data suggest that undergraduate civil engineering education has not changed significantly over the past 40 years to keep pace with major advances in civil engineering practice, even though the bachelor’s degree has been the entry-level degree for engineering practice during that period of time. A model is presented for the development of a process that will lead to the entry-level degree of professional civil engineer. This degree will carry with it not only recognition by the granting university of completion of all the academic requirements, but also satisfaction of all the licensing requirements of the state board of technical registration. It will allow the graduate to practice civil engineering lawfully in the state of issuance and to use the title of professional civil engineer in all his or her professional dealings. The development of this process will take time and require input from academia, practice, and licensing agencies under the sponsorship of one or more professional societies.

Advancing Sustainable Development of Infrastructure Systems

Sustainability is a concept born from the global movement toward better management of resources. A 1987 United Nations World Congress document ~called the Brundtland Report! defined sustainability as ‘‘management of resources such that current generations are able to meet their needs without affecting the ability of future generations to meet their needs.’’ This definition of sustainability has led experts in many disciplines—technical and social—to call for an increased concern for environmental and resource management within their fields. However, practical interpretations of this definition are still largely missing. These interpretations are mostly being advanced by academic researchers and have yet to be incorporated into corporate and governmental structures. Indeed, leaders in engineering, chemistry, economics, and philosophy have translated this concept of sustainability into a call for action. The field of civil and environmental engineering, while not a primary player in the sustainability movement, has not been idle. The ASCE Committee on Sustainability was formed in 2001 and includes a cross section of ASCE’s membership profile. For the past 2 years, there has been one session at the ASCE National Conference on the topic of sustainability in civil engineering, including discussions on the role of sustainability in civil and environmental engineering education. The 2003 ASCE Construction Research Congress had two sessions on sustainability, and more are planned for the 2005 meeting. The May 2004 ASCE Structures Congress included one session on economic and environmental life-cycle assessment. These efforts are a good professional starting point, but should not be seen as sufficient to enable the levels of change needed. The National Science Foundation—a primary source of funding for engineering research in the United States—has been supportive of sustainable engineering projects, including the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems in the Engineering Directorate. Programs from the U.S. Department of Energy and the EPA have also been supportive of this area over the past decade. Current national environmental priorities are not necessarily in line with global sustainability goals. For example, United States policy is currently dubious of the implications and causes of global climate change from greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations. The United States is not a player in the official global Kyoto Protocol implementation to reduce emissions to below 1990 levels. This could have the undesirable side effect of undermining our leadership positions in global environmental management, as well as in the development of environmental control technologies. Europe and Asia are poised to take over these leadership positions without further American efforts

Sustainable Engineering: State-of-the-Art and Prospects

Since the 1985 Brundtland Report and the 1992 Rio Declaration were published, sustainable development has become a well-known global political paradigm. However, sustainability has been applied to forestry for centuries in Europe. The historic development of the issue of sustainability is briefly described as well as the possibilities of how sustainability can be transferred into the construction sector. This sector is the most important contributor of the industry in resource consumption and waste production. Architects and engineers need to consider the entire lifetime of buildings “from cradle to grave” and the ecological, economic and socio-cultural aspects. This refers to an assessment of the environmental impact of construction activities such as the consumption of materials, energy and land, and human- and eco-toxicity of emissions as well as optimizing life cycle costs. In addition, some principles of planning actual developments in the international standardization by the International Standardization Organization (ISO) and the Committee for European Codes (CEN) are shown. The interest of investors in the performance of buildings is growing and is influencing project development and planning. Construction materials and components have been developed under new conditions which will lead to new levels of global competition. Universities need to understand sustainable engineering in a new approach to the education of civil engineers in fulfilling their responsibility for the built environment.

Organizing and Delivering Classroom Instruction

of s, in id dte e. s, his is a continuing series of quarterly articles on lessons earned and best practices in civil engineering education. The ntent of the series is to reinforce good practices, describe new r developing practices, and provide a forum for what works ell and what does not. It is hoped that this series will be an mportant quarterly read for all civil engineering educators and ll those interested in what’s going on in civil engineering eduation today. Authors and topics will vary from issue to issue. ontact the column editor, Steve Ressler, if you wish to conribute to an upcoming issue.

Assessment of the Computing Component of Civil Engineering Education

This paper presents the results of two surveys conducted by the American Society of Civil Engineers' Task Committee on Computing Education of the Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology to assess the current computing component of the curriculum in civil engineering. Previous surveys completed in 1989 and 1995 have addressed the question of what should be taught to civil engineering students regarding computing. The surveys reported in this paper are a follow-up study to the two earlier surveys. Key findings of the study include: (1) the relative importance of the top four skills (spreadsheets, word processors, computer aided-design, electronic communication) has remained unchanged; (2) programming competence is ranked very low by practitioners; (3) the importance and use of geographic information system and specialized engineering software have increased over the past decade; (4) the importance and use of expert systems have significantly decreased over the past decade; and (5) the importance and use of equation solvers and databases have declined over the past decade.

Sustainability and the formation of the civil engineer

Civil engineering is changing and needs to change more. This paper attempts to put the evolution of technology and the development of engineering into its historical context, and with it the emergence of problems whose solutions extend beyond technology alone if they are to achieve systems-level solutions. The balancing of economic, social and environmental objectives, both now and into the future, has become known as sustainable development and this is increasingly a key driver at a range of organisational and spatial scales. It is argued that sustainable development is now absolutely central to the practice of civil engineering and this needs to be reflected in the education and training of civil engineers. The outcomes from an Institution of Civil Engineers task group to address these issues are reported. A systems- and process-based approach is advocated which depends on the development of specific attitudes, systems skills and domain knowledge. Some of the barriers to such an approach are recognised and ways of overcoming them are suggested and discussed.

Sustainability and the formation of the civil engineer

Civil engineering is changing and needs to change more. This paper attempts to put the evolution of technology and the development of engineering into its historical context, and with it the emergence of problems whose solutions extend beyond technology alone if they are to achieve systems-level solutions. The balancing of economic, social and environmental objectives, both now and into the future, has become known as sustainable development and this is increasingly a key driver at a range of organisational and spatial scales. It is argued that sustainable development is now absolutely central to the practice of civil engineering and this needs to be reflected in the education and training of civil engineers. The outcomes from an Institution of Civil Engineers task group to address these issues are reported. A systems- and process-based approach is advocated which depends on the development of specific attitudes, systems skills and domain knowledge. Some of the barriers to such an approach are recognised and ways of overcoming them are suggested and discussed.