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ContentsENGINEERING EDUCATION DEVELOPMENTS TOWARDS THE NEW MILLENNIUM : A UNITED KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
ABSTRACT
The development of engineering education over the period 1960 to the present day, 1997, will be reviewed. In particular, the Open University formation in the late 1960's and its unique teaching methods for a wide range of education will be discussed. The effects of the development of the professional engineering bodies for the new Millennium will be identified.
INTRODUCTION
The period, 1960 to date, have been ones of radical change for both higher education and industry not only in the United Kingdom but also in the rest of the world. This period id primarily concerned with external life, changing practices in industry, the issues of finance, and the government of the day.
These influences have seen the change from an elitist system to mass higher education today, in the 1990's.
Today engineering education is a key element of the wealth of a country and therefore is integral in the national policy of the country and the world economy. The days of engineering companies designing and producing goods and products for their national wealth have transferred to competing in the global market.
This has implications for the training of engineers from a nationalistic basis to a world engineer trained in modern skills and practices in the global economic market of today. This has resulted in wide debate of its standards, registration, and professional practice of engineers in the world, and will continue for several years.
EVOLUTION OF THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: 1960 - 1990'S
Considerable literature and learned publications have been produced over the last thirty years on the evolution of higher education and engineering education. However, the cardinal report known as The Robbins Report of 1963 is probably the most significant for changes in the 1960's and still debated today, The Robbins Report identified a number of recommendations including:
These recommendations, fully implemented, and still discussed today marked the transfer from the elitist educational system towards mass higher education today. The quantitative evidence has shown the following student numbers:
These figures may be considered in terms of the work force, by age range, and the percentage who benefited from higher education for the years 1985 and 1995 as shown in table 1.
| Age | 1985
% with qualification |
Total labour force | 1995
% with qualification |
Total labour force |
| 16-19 | 0 | 3,632 | 1 | 2,668 |
| 20-24 | 9 | 4,627 | 15 | 3,937 |
| 25-29 | 18 | 4,059 | 22 | 4,578 |
| 30-34 | 20 | 3,745 | 23 | 4,693 |
| 35-39 | 18 | 4,114 | 23 | 4,081 |
| 40-44 | 15 | 3,391 | 24 | 3,763 |
| 45-49 | 14 | 3,138 | 21 | 4,059 |
| 50-54 | 12 | 3,017 | 18 | 3,279 |
| 55-59 | 10 | 3,056 | 15 | 2,985 |
Table 1: H.E.Qualifications: Labour Force in 000's
In considering graduates in work a further study 6 months after graduation for the different disciplines, table 2 provides the following figures for 1996/97.
| Discipline | % of Graduates |
| Medicine & Dentistry | 79% |
| Biological Sciences | 70% |
| Computer Science | 68% |
| Engineering & Technology | 70% |
| Law | 78% |
| Humanities | 75% |
| Languages | 70% |
| Arts & Design | 59% |
| Education | 78% |
Table 2: Percentage of UK students in work or further study six months after graduation
Robbins also discussed in his aims of higher education a hint of the need to inculcate what has become known as over the last twenty five years as "transferable personal skills". This has resulted in the broadening of degree courses to provide diversity and depth of the general and specific and engineering skills required by industry. These have evolved and emerged over the years with numeracy and literacy together computational skills ranging from basic computer programming through to a competent working knowledge of information technology, internet and the variants involved in the area. Further important skills included, group and team working, project planning in which a major final year project for all types of scientists and engineering is virtually mandatory. Graduates are also expected to be experienced in the "Global" world they work in. The calls for economic and environmental perspectives to be considered together with the knowledge of standards of trading throughout the world. Consequently graduates of today require more skills than in previous years to prepare them for the world market. The foundation for all these skills are introduced in the University curriculum and possibly through work experience, however, the majority of experience will be gained by graduates in their industrial occupation. To integrate industrial experience and University study simultaneously is difficult. However the recommendation, by Robbins, for an Open University paved the way for this to become reality and make a major paradigm change in higher education over the last quarter of a century.
THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
The Open University was awarded its Royal Charter in 1969 to provide teaching, scholarship and research for mature students studying in a distance teaching environment throughout the United Kingdom. Under the guidance of the first Vice Chancellor now Lord Perry of Walton, a diverse series of objectives were established to promote the original faculties of Arts, Social Science, Education, Science, Mathematics and Computer Science and Technology for undergraduate and associate students who would study a single course for a year to update their professional knowledge.
THE TEACHING FRAMEWORK
The students entering the University would have no qualifications or qualifications ranging from - school certificate, ordinary and advanced level; Higher National Qualification or even a degree from another University. These qualifications would be given credit and therefore a student would study less courses and hence graduate earlier. Teachers, who obtained a teaching diploma where unique in being awarded up to 50% credit and therefore gained their degrees very quickly helping to establish the academic reputation of the University in the Higher Education environment.
The teaching methods of our students were and still are today, 26 years later unique. They study at home and receive through the post all correspondence text books, home experimental kits and videos and today computers. The courses students study are presented at a range of academic levels. These start at Foundation level moving through levels 2, 3 and 4. The last two levels being equivalent to final honours level of the traditional U.K. university.
Courses are weighted as either 30 points (½ credit) or 60 points (full credit) representing respectively approximately 200 hours and 400 hours of study during the academic year from February to October over 32 weeks.
Originally students were required to successfully complete study in 6 credits for a Bachelor of Arts degree or 8 credits including two credits at 3rd or 4th level for a B.A. Honours degree.
The success of the University teaching system depended on the basic infrastructure of the United Kingdom to provide a good delivery system for students receiving their course material and communication between students and their academic tutors. In addition the radio and television infrastructure for transmitting the associated programmes for each course was an essential service to integrate the University directly into our students homes. In the majority of the universities thirteen regions students live within close travelling distance of their study centre where they meet fellow students and their academic tutor. However, a number of regions, notably, Scotland, West country and Wales, although they have highly densely connerbations in the major cities also have large rural areas where it is prohibitive, because of distance, for students to attend tutorials. In this case students and staff use telephone conferencing introducing the true concept of the distance learning University.
Over the last twenty five years these regulations have changed to encompass the views of students studying the scientific subjects and re-align the university with other universities in the U.K.
This has resulted in adding the Bachelor of Science degree with and without Honours to the B.A. degree. Further, to equate our students study in line with other universities the requirements for either an ordinary or honours degree is reduced to 6 credits. But the honours students must still study two credits at 3rd or fourth level.
STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY
The students enter the university with or without qualifications. Their aim is either to study for a specific degree profile to enhance the professional career they are currently in or change their direction. Others enter for the experience of a university education and may study across several faculties. In some cases employers will financially fund the students fees and provide time off from work to complete their studies each year.
Enrolment in the early years was the acid test for all staff fortunately there was no particular worry but perhaps shock. The early years of the "70's" registered initial applicants at 41,000 students for 24,000 places, limited by our funding from the government. During the last two decades, applications have risen to 69,000 in 1992 for an intake of 28,500 and over the last year of 1995, 64000 applications for about 35,000 places. The split of students between the Arts, Social Sciences, Education, Mathematics, Science and Technology is 52% and 48% respectively correlating with 51% male and 49% female students with a medium age on entry of 37 years and 38% of students well below normal entry qualifications for university.
THE LEARNING PROCESS
The University provides a unique learning that has led the World over the past quarter of a century and continues to do so today by exploiting and applying modern techniques of computers, communications and audio video techniques.
Initially and today the learning process for all students is through a framework of specially written texts with clear aims and objectives, television and radio programmes, audio and video cassettes together with personal tuition and counselling services. Practical experience is provided by home computers and scientific kits known as Home Experimental Kits. All these items are delivered to the students home during the academic year.
Students are placed in groups geographically located through the United Kingdom which is divided into 3 regions. They are assigned to a tutor-counsellor on entry to the university who is responsible for the students academic study in the first year for their foundation studies. Thereafter they act in a counselling role for the remainder of the student's university career. After foundation studies students move through the 2nd, 3rd and 4th level courses where applicable. For these post foundation courses, students are assigned to a tutor who is normally a specialist in that subject.
Hence a tutor counsellor will in addition to teaching basic academic material teach students study skills which are important when they are studying at home and provide help with reading skills, numeracy skills and how to organise their study time. At post-foundation level the tutor is responsible for tutoring the academic content of the subject.
ASSESSMENT
Students are academically assessed for each of their courses through continuous assessment and final end of year examination with the two components each contributing 50%. The continuous assessment consists of the Tutor Marked Assignment (TMA) for which the students will submit between 4 and 6 TMA's according to the course being full or half credit. These assignments are critically assessed by their tutors who advise them of their errors, deviations and quality of their work. The tutor may never meet the students and consequently the marking, comments and overall appraisal of these assignments will either encourage or drive the student from the course. The other half of the continuous assessment is the Computer Marked Assignment (CMA). This form of assessment for which the students will submit between 4 and 6 during the year, again according to full or half credit course. The assignment will contain a number of questions either numerical, literal or facts with a number of answers for each question, and requiring the student to select the correct answers or statement. The student sends the CMA into the University by a certain date. This is marked by the computer and returned to the student.
Consequently by the end of their studies for the year the student has completed 50% of the assessment for the course in a relatively free environment of being able to take considerable time working on either their TMA's or CMA's, collaborating with fellow students and anybody else. The remaining 50% namely the three hour examination under controlled conditions evaluates their true academic performance.
In addition to the course texts and videos the Home Experimental kit is a key component for students studying Engineering and Science. To enable students to obtain practical experience of their subjects they are sent equipment to carry out home laboratory work. This seems adventurous but to provide the highest academic provision there was no alternative. In this area we have probably achieved remarkable success due to the ingenuity of our academic staff, project officers and technicians who have developed the equipment. The HEK's have ranged from a full set of chemicals and associated with our Faculty of Science Foundation course through to my colleagues in Environmental Engineering providing sound level meters and water treatment equipment. Again our Science Faculty provided a laser and full optical bench, lenses and developing equipment for students to produce their own holograms at home. Our Department of Electronics produced back in 1971 a unique piece of equipment called the Generator scope. This combined an oscilloscope, signal generator and regulated power supply enabling students to design, build and test electronic circuits in their own homes. This was so successful students and other people, primarily engineers, wanted to buy them.
These Home Experimental Kits across all our courses have been very successful, however, we are limited in time and apparatus what we can teach. Therefore to extend this practice and provide intensive experimental work the one week residential school is provided for certain course. These summer schools are held in the months of July and August when normal universities are on summer vacation and we can use their laboratories and rooms in addition to their accommodation. These schools provide a centralised period of study, giving the students a chance to take part in group activities with fellow students and staff. They provide the essential opportunities of carrying out field work as relevant to our environmental students or visit galleries for Arts students.
THE STAFF
The production of the course materials is through teams of full time academic staff working in teams of up to 20 members, with consultants/specialist and assessors of their products over a period of three years. The staff are responsible for maintaining the courses during the lifetime with responsibility of producing TMA's, CMA's examination papers and summer school material where relevant.
The students in the 13 regions are looked after by tutors and tutor counsellors who are academic colleagues appointed in the regions. They hold similar positions to the full time staff in the university and in some cases are very senior and experts in their own fields. They not only assess the TMA's and CMA's but provide evening or Saturday morning tutorials at the local study centres which are normally situated at a local university or college. In the University this represents 3,500 full time staff throughout the university together with 7,500 tutorial staff supporting the order of over 200,000 students in 306 study centres.
PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION
Many of our students are studying to develop their careers and obtain professional membership of institutions such as Electrical Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Physics, Chemistry, Business Management.
For the institutions a specific profile of our courses is recommended and provided students attain the relevant grades and have the necessary industrial experience, will after an interview be admitted as Chartered Engineers of the relevant institutions.
The Engineering Council has issued guidelines of courses including the course T401 Technology Project Course which is virtually mandatory for admission.
This T401 project course enables students to carry out a 400 hour programme of work in a specific engineering area. This course is unique in so far that in addition to building on the students Foundation, 2nd and 3rd level courses will allow them to integrate their industrial experience and qualifications where relevant.
Projects are either submitted by students, sometimes in conjunction with their employers support or by university staff. The students are supervised by local tutorial staff with expertise in the area of the project. The supervision arrangements are normally on a 1 or 2 students per member of staff compared with the normal staff ratio of 1 : 25.
The student submits two interim reports during the year and a final full report at the end of the year. The supervisor and another member of the full time staff carry out an oral examination at the end of the year and award an appropriate pass grade.
It is the basis of the report together with the students industrial experience with a final interview by the Institute that paves the way to chartered Engineer status.
COMPUTING DEVELOPMENTS
The University teaching has evolved and continues to become more innovatory through the development of a Personal Computing Policy for which the Faculty of Technology has paved the way. The majority of students taking computing and other technology courses have their own computer at home. The students are recommended to buy a computer to a certain specification or are loaned a computer. The software, provided by course teams is sent to students which they use throughout the academic year. The software is selected which will run on a variety of machines so long as they satisfy the minimum specification.
The software is used on a range of courses in the Faculty of Technology including:
POST GRADUATE COURSES : MA AND MSC STUDIES
The University similar to other U.K. institutions has produced a range of masters courses from the different faculties. In particular the Faculty of Educational Studies an MA course with a dissertation in key topics covering education teaching skills and management. Many student are teachers and members of the full time and tutorial staff therefore preaching and putting into practice the philosophy of education.
The faculties of Technology and mathematics and Computer Science have masters degrees in manufacturing and in Commerce and Industry. The courses offer a range of modules. After passing a series of modules leading to a post-graduate diploma they qualify to complete a dissertation for the award of the respective masters degrees. The students taking these courses are from industry, with financial support from their companies. In particular their studies are based on short residential attendance for intensive study of the modules. Therefore they put into practice their academic knowledge but in turn reciprocate by contributing their own personal engineering knowledge. In addition a number of post graduate packs providing updating in communications engineering are also available.
RESEARCH
Similar to other universities the O.U. has always believed that high quality teaching must be based on high quality research. The University has an extensive programme of research, with eight subject areas rated of international excellence, including computer science and design.
The students following research degrees, in particular Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) on a full time basis are based at Milton Keynes, where they are the only students present! Overall in 1995 550 full time and 789 part time students were studying across the faculties of the University. Many of them are sponsored by the research councils of the UK and industrially. Therefore we are adopting in a number of respects to the USA system of higher degree study.
THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION
The formation and the development of the European Economic community and the lowering of trade barriers and educational interchange among the members has been very productive for the University. We currently have in excess of 10,000 undergraduates studying through 46 study centres in Europe.
In particular we have courses in French and German following quite soon. To enable students to undertake concentrated study through our residential programme we are holding the summer school at the University of Caen, France. With the developments of electronic mail and multi-media and the demand from Europe for our courses, this will be a growth areas in our future.
The world growth of multimedia has allowed us to introduce these techniques into our courses. This has allowed in addition to text, broadcasts, HEK's, tutorials and home computing to incorporation of graphic packages, animation and sound and video in a computer configuration Further developments of these techniques in the virtual laboratory is also under way. We are developing a low-cost computer peripheral to allow the computer to be used as an oscilloscope. This could lead to replacing expensive home experimental equipment on courses and providing innovatory "virtual laboratories" to our students, especially those in remote areas.
THE VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY DIMENSION AND MULTIMEDIA
A programme of innovatory research and development towards an electronic virtual campus through computer mediated communication (CMC) is used to provide learning strategies without the need of face-to-face contact is currently under development. The design is influenced through a number of key findings:
This will allow development beyond the traditional learning paradigm of being tied to specific times and places, and possibly tutorials and printed texts. These developments are possible through the emergence and deployment of advancing computers, information technology and communication technology. These development have brought to academic teaching and education new technologies of multimedia communication using broad band local and wide area networking, in addition to the Internet. Further evolution of services will be provided through the ISDN (Integrated Services Data Network) and ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) services.
From these key advances, an interactive multimedia distance learning system should have the following attributes:
Many of these attributes are already in service leading to a highly responsive and interactive system for both students and staff at all levels of the University.
The latest achievements are only a further progressive step from the multi-media concept and practice introduced twenty five years ago with the use of course material, radio and television broadcasts, tapes, home experimental kits, tutorials and home computing. The latter providing text, graphics, animation, sound and video with CD ROM's.
This has primarily been applied in 1995 with the introduction of our second presentation of the course THD204 Information Technology course. This course examines as part of the course text and strategy historical and technological processes involved in the uses, control and access to various forms of I.T. applications and critically examines some of the assumptions underlying technological developments. The course gives experience of spreadsheets, database which many students have experience of through our foundation course in Technology, T102 and industrial experience. The use of CD-ROM'S giving access to a wide variety of indexed textual, graphical and audio reference material together with computer based learning materials are used providing the first experience for students and staff that will enable future programmes to build on.
In the development of electronic kits for our students studying analogue and digital electronics the use of the computer to be used as a signal generator and oscilloscope is being trialled with a high degree of success.
With this success other "virtual" instruments may be developed via the adoption of the computer. Our course in Instrumentation which covers transducers and signal processing may be simulated with the computer and provide signal conditioning, data processing together with spectrum analysis facilities. This will provide a full instrumentation system in a virtual laboratory environment saving costs on equipment and using real components.
VIRTUAL CAMPUS CONCEPT
The development of the virtual campus concept is under development by a team of staff, making use of computer communications networking. The group is developing an interactive learning support environment. The team is using a new course, Renewable Energy Technology, for this work. The course is supported by CD-ROM enabling students to examine energy supply together with spreadsheets modelling for a simulated public enquiry into energy resources.
JANUS AND DELTA PROJECTS
The European Commission has initiated an EC Delta project JANUS for evaluating telematics for distance learning purposes. This is a European wide development to establish a data communications network using VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal). The system will use a number of stations positioned in Universities, colleges and research institutions. The features will include a 1.5Mbps video and data exchange with video conferencing. Within this European project sites in Milton Keynes (Open University), Heerlen in the Netherlands, Athens, Crete, Aveiro in Portugal and Finland.
The system will be in applications as exchange of lectures among universities, exchange of presentations with discussions in seminars and symposiums together with video conferencing.
This trial project leads to the promotion of a very exciting concept of a European Open University Network (EOUN) and potential of leading to a World Network. This will eventually lead to universities combining their academic expertise and experience for producing new courses.
This will enable students and universities to work through study centres and computer data communication networks for learning using telematics networks. These developments are already undergoing trials through access to databases operating via JANUS VSAT Network. The future developments will involve all types of university staff and students, enabling a truly international distance learning experience using the latest technology.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The last thirty years has seen a major development and expansion of higher education in the United Kingdom. The continuation of the expansion will depend on the economy of the government, the demands from industry, and the views of universities and professional bodies to maintain the highest standards of the scientific and engineering profession.
Further, there is, and will continue to be, the concept of life long learning, enabling scientists and engineers to receive updating in specialists skills, but also be aware of the global market they work in. As the communications technology evolves into the next century and the information services diversifying from the university into companies and people's homes the learning experience will be concentrated to the place, time and most convenient place for the recipient. This is a major paradigm shift from years ago, but will allow people to update across the world, wherever the expertise exists.
The global world of education, training and technological change is here, today, we should take maximum advantage of it, for the future will be determined by it, and that of our scientists and engineers in the future.