Engineering curriculum review: processes, frameworks and tools

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Engineering curriculum review: processes, frameworks and tools Anna L Carew1, Paul Cooper2 1

Australian Maritime College and CALT, University of Tasmania, Locked Bag 1399 Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia ([email protected] ) 2 School of Mechanical, Materials and Mechatronic Engineering, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia ([email protected] )

Abstract Periodic review and enhancement of curricula in engineering is vital to maintaining the quality and currency of undergraduate degree programs. The process of reviewing curriculum, however, is challenging on many fronts, and can appear overwhelming to those leading the review and implementing subsequent changes to the curriculum. Particular challenges include: involving all academic staff in the process to promote ownership of change; developing processes to guide the review toward improvements in the quality of content and of students’ experiences of being taught; and remaining mindful of the constraints and requirements of contextual factors like university policy, needs of external stakeholders and finite time and money for teaching. This paper describes selected processes and tools that the authors have adapted or developed and applied in engineering curriculum review at three different engineering faculties. Two of these faculties were Australian and a third South American. We explain each of the processes and tools, and then discuss how each has contributed to simplifying, representing and facilitating discussion about the unwieldy amount of information embodied in engineering curriculum. We also comment on the different responses to use of these tools and processes at the three engineering faculties in which they have been applied.

Keywords: curriculum renewal, stakeholder consultation, program mapping, course objectives

1. DRIVERS FOR PERIODIC REVIEW OF ENGINEERING CURRICULUM Periodic review and enhancement of curricula in engineering is vital to maintaining the currency and quality of undergraduate degree programs. The need to review and update curriculum has numerous drivers including: the need to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology; shifting social expectations and aligned shifts in legislation and regulation of engineering work; and the changing expectations of the regulators of and participants in higher education (eg. students, academics, government and accrediting bodies). Engineering is a field where innovations in technology mean that the currency and connection between engineering curriculum and the technology used in industry need constant attention. The fundamental concepts of engineering tend to be relatively stable (eg. conservation of energy, corrosion chemistry, fluid mechanics). Technological innovation, however, means that the examples we use to illustrate the application of such fundamentals need to keep pace with current applications in professional practice (eg. solar photovoltaic cells with nano-technology components, corrosion characteristics of new alloys, behaviour of particulates in reverse osmosis water treatment). A second element of currency is the need for engineering curriculum to remain up-to-date with emerging social and political pressures which increasingly influence the daily work of engineers. The social environment within which engineers work holds the professional accountable through a range of codes, legislation and regulation (eg. building codes and standards, emissions standards, occupational health and

safety requirements, environmental management standards, codes of ethics for professional engineers). In addition, growing community concern over issues of sustainability have led to greater pressure on contemporary engineers to consider the wider ramifications of technical decisions (eg. life cycle analysis, ecological footprints, triple bottom line accounting) and to engage a wider range of stakeholders in formulating and solving problems-in-context (eg. community consultation, deliberative democracy, consensus conferencing). Emerging social and political pressures mean that engineering curriculum must now encompass some of the tools and attributes that will allow graduates to deploy their technical knowledge appropriately in the socio-political contexts of their work (Mitchell et al, 2004). In addition to the drivers related to the currency of what students are taught (keeping up with technology, and preparing to operate appropriately in complex social and political context), changes in the higher education sector mean that curriculum must be rethought in relation to how students are taught. During the past decade, leading engineering accrediting bodies (eg. ABET, Engineers Australia) have adjusted accreditation processes for a much stronger emphasis on ‘outputs’ (as opposed to earlier emphasis on ‘inputs’). This shift parallels a broader philosophical shift toward a student-centred philosophy of teaching (Biggs, 2003) that now pervades the thinking and reporting requirements of regulators of higher education in Australia (eg. Department of Education, Science and Technology), and elsewhere. The shift in attention to outputs means that it is no longer sufficient to merely report on the content to which students have been exposed. Now, accrediting bodies and government regulators are seeking evidence that the approach to teaching has resulted in demonstrable student learning. Engineering curriculum and approaches to teaching, therefore, must be structured to deliver demonstrable student learning of engineering fundamentals, familiarity with up-to-date technological applications, and development of the soft skills or graduate attributes required to operate in complex socio-political contexts. In addition to the drivers discussed above, other factors underline the need for engineering faculties to undertake periodic curriculum review. These include: shifting student demographics (eg. the ‘massification’ of higher education and associated changes in preparedness and motivation of incoming students; greater or lesser numbers of mature-age students with industry experience; changes in representation of international/overseas students and students from non-English speaking backgrounds); the substantial proportion of engineering graduates now taking up non-engineering jobs on graduation (some suggest ~30%); greater attention to quality assurance and accountability within the higher education sector; and the needs of a globalised engineering workforce for international benchmarking or parity to aid recognition of courses and qualifications across national borders (eg. Bologna Accord, Washington Accord). Now, more than in the past, engineering faculties have an array of reasons to undertake curriculum renewal.

2. CHALLENGES TO & CONSTRAINTS ON ENGINEERING CURRICULUM REVIEW Engineering curriculum needs regular maintenance. However, the process of reviewing engineering curriculum is challenging on a multitude of fronts. The task can appear quite overwhelming to those leading the review and trying to institute subsequent changes to the curriculum. While to others it may seem that they do not have a voice that can influence the overall outcome of a review. Particular challenges include: involving all academic staff in the process so as to promote ownership in any changes; developing processes to guide the review toward improvements in the quality of content and of students’ experiences of being taught; and remaining mindful of the constraints and requirements of contextual factors like university policy, needs of external stakeholders and finite time and money for teaching.

2.1 Engagement, ownership and distributed decision-making An important part of the ethos and approach to curriculum review described in this paper is that a consultative approach works best in decision-making about engineering curriculum. While this ethos originally came out of the authors’ shared and somewhat instinctive approaches to crafting and guiding

processes with academics, it has strong support in the literature on curriculum renewal (Foster, 1995; Walkington, 2002) and some of the management literature (Checkland, 1995; Garvin and Roberto, 2001). Garvin and Roberto (2001) suggested that there is a small set of process traits that tend to be linked with superior decision-making outcomes. Two of these traits are particularly salient in curriculum review: perceived fairness, and dissent or debate. Garvin and Roberto (2001) suggest one trait of good decisionmaking is perceived fairness which can be measured through the level of ongoing participation by those who have a stake in the outcomes of the decision. The authors suggest that a decline in participation prior to final decisions is an early warning that participants have lost faith in the decision process and there will likely be problems in the eventual implementation of decisions. A second trait is the level of dissent and debate which the authors suggest is essential to quality decision-making because it allows a range of options and opinions to be put forward and discussed, and it encourages transparency and thorough analysis of options. In the case of engineering curriculum, it is essential that the people who will be asked to deliver the new curriculum (i.e. academics) have a sizeable say in how, why and what changes should be made. This is partly insurance against revolt at the point of implementation, but it is also a good way to ensure that the academics who will deliver the new engineering curriculum have a thorough understanding of the curriculum as a whole and, particularly if new approaches to teaching are recommended, what the value of change will be for students and for the health, vitality and longevity of the degree program.

2.2 Processes and objectives of review Few engineering academics have formal qualifications in organizational change management, tertiary teaching or curriculum design. This means that those tasked with leading curriculum review are most often engineering academics at the middle management level of the faculty (eg. Department Head/Head of School, Sub-dean or Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning, Discipline Leader). These middle management roles tend to entail a wide range of tasks which means that the time-pressed review leader is unlikely to have the time and resources to tap into relevant literature. The Academic Development literature offers several models and examples to guide curriculum review (eg. Walkington, 2002; Foster, 1995; Leonard et al. 1998), and the management literature offers an array of methods to manage organizational change. Hence the challenge for those leading an engineering curriculum review is the initial need to get a set of common objectives and rough timeframe formally agreed to by all academics in the Faculty before the process gets fully underway. Once the process gets underway, the challenge is to research, discover or intuit processes to perform a review likely to meet the agreed objectives.

2.3 Taking account of context and constraints Engineering curriculum is developed and delivered by academics, however, there are a wide range of stakeholders who have a legitimate claim over the content, delivery and end results of engineering education. Employers and the professional body have an interest that graduates be work-ready and ethical, respectively. Students in most countries pay for their degrees (either directly or through foregone earnings and opportunity cost). In Australia, an increasingly regulated higher education sector is answerable to the Federal Government for the quality of undergraduate education it provides. And within universities, arrangements like service teaching mean that students and academics in faculties other than engineering may have a legitimate say over the quality or and approach to teaching that an engineering curriculum delivers. As the preceding statement highlights, those leading curriculum review are accountable to a wide range of interested parties beyond the immediate academic team who teach engineering. A challenge for engineering curriculum reviewers when proposing changes to an existing curriculum is in taking account of the needs of external stakeholders, while also maintaining a clear view of the constraints and affordances of university policy structures and the finite resources (i.e. time, money, equipment, expertise) that might be available for teaching.

3. PROCESSES & TOOLS FOR CURRICULUM REVIEW IN ENGINEERING This paper describes processes and tools that the authors have adapted or developed and applied in engineering curriculum review at three different engineering faculties. Two of these faculties were Australian and a third was South American. The Australian Faculties were both ‘large’ by Australian standards (ie. between 600 and 1000 undergraduate students in total) and ‘research intensive’ (ie. amongst the top 12 Engineering Faculties in Australia in terms of research funding and output of patents and papers). We subsequently refer to the Australian Faculties as Faculty A and Faculty B. The South American Engineering Faculty was in a mid-sized Chilean technical university which specialized in teaching engineering. The South American university will subsequently be referred to as Faculty C. In the following sections, we explain a range of processes and tools, and discuss how each has contributed to catalyzing and carrying out engineering curriculum review. The processes and tools discussed are not a comprehensive ‘how to’ for engineering curriculum review, however, the insights we share should act as prompts for reflection on process for those who have an interest in successful curriculum renewal. The processes and tools discussed are: • Tools to explain the vision and process in overview • Assessment of drivers for review • Curriculum maps • Program objective review • External stakeholder consultation

3.1 Tools for sharing the vision and processes with academics As with any process of change it is important to provide the people involved in that change with a clear picture of the process that is being adopted in deciding what change is to occur and how it is to be implemented. Engineers usually identify closely with graphical representations of complex systems and thus we have found that use of several key process charts has helped get the various groups of academics involved in a given review sharing the same vision as to the direction and outcomes of the review. Our overall framework of the review process (Figure 1) was based on the work of Leonard and others (1998) and depicted curriculum review as an iterative process with four stages (initiate, analyse, design, implement) and two ongoing inputs (stakeholder, evaluation).

Stakeholder Input

1.Initiate & Plan Renewal

2. Analyse Existing Curriculum

3. Design Updated Curriculum

4. Implement Updated Curriculum

Review & Improve FIGURE 1. Curriculum Review Framework Adopted by Faculty B (based on Leonard et al., 1998) Any degree program curriculum is a complex mix of information, resources, teaching methodologies, etc that are shaped by factors both at the level of the overall objectives of the program and by influences at much more refined levels of detail within subjects or topics. Engineering Academics generally consider the full range of detail of their degree program very rarely, and at Faculty B we believed that having a

relatively simple graphic illustrating the link between various key elements in the curriculum, or constraints thereon, assisted everyone involved in the curriculum review. The diagram shown in Figure 2 was used in several situations to help explain, agree or formalize the complex interrelationships between key facets of the curriculum under review.

Program Objectives

Subject Outlines Map of Curriculum

•Mastery Skills •Grad Att’s •Assessment

Key Learning Areas/Mastery Skills/Content

Uni Graduate Attributes

Accreditation Requirements

FIGURE 2. Schematic used to show the links between key influences on the Engineering Curriculum for review purposes at Faculty B.

3.2 Assessment of Drivers for Review One of the central themes of change management is the need to understand the timeliness of change. Timeliness is a somewhat qualitative concept in that it infers a set of coinciding events and conditions that bring a system to a state which would allow or support change. Engineering curriculum can be envisaged as a ‘soft system’ made up of different types of system elements: physical infrastructure of classrooms, laboratories and offices; human factors in the form of students, academics and administrators; stocks and flows of financial capital; and social, cultural and institutional practices (Checkland, 1995). As a soft system, the timeliness of curriculum change depends on the coinciding states of any one or a number of these system elements. In deciding to embark on curriculum review in engineering, it is important to consider the readiness of the system for change. A/Prof Brenton Dansie from the University of South Australia (Dansie, pers comm.) has described this as taking an ‘environmental scan’ and Foster (1995) called it ‘policy analysis’. An environmental scan is the process of taking a coolheaded look at the political and institutional context; the climate within which a proposed curriculum review might take place. Factors to consider during an environmental scan include: • the strength of drivers for change - if the drivers are not strong or influential enough, change has less chance of being enacted • given these drivers, what emphasis should the review have - if the driver is a need to demonstrate quality assurance processes to a government body who oversees the university’s operation, the emphasis of the review might be in examining the policy frameworks and committee procedures that the Faculty has for managing quality • whether competing pressures or constraints, or changes in the context might derail curriculum review - for example, if a new Dean is expected then a full scale curriculum review should probably be delayed until the Dean can put his or her stamp and direction on it • how stable the existing curriculum has been in recent years – academics who have undertaken recent fundamental curriculum change may be suffering from what could be termed ‘change fatigue’ and have limited resources of patience and enthusiasm to invest in more change

• • •

whether those driving the review or those responding to the drivers have sufficient resources to sustain a review and enact the recommended changes the degree of goodwill that exists between different groups in the faculty who share a stake in curriculum and may need to negotiate and concede to allow change what evidence exists to suggest that the curriculum is in need of change – these might be adverse survey results at subject or degree level (eg. Course Experience Questionnaire results); declines in student enrolment or unusually high student attrition rates; adverse comment from review for accreditation of the degrees; or consistent or widespread adverse comment from employers of graduates from the degrees.

At Faculty A, an environmental scan was undertaken somewhat belatedly at the conclusion of a substantial curriculum renewal. The scan revealed that the conditions for success had been firmly in place from the very outset of the process. In this case, the curriculum review had been driven by a number of significant factors, each of which focused in some way on the importance of embedding graduate attributes in all undergraduate Engineering degrees. These factors included: a Faculty-wide decision to adopt a standard six credit point model for all subjects; a move by three of the four Departments in the Faculty to a common first year; acquisition of funding for a Faculty-wide curriculum mapping project; substantial institutional pressure for Faculties to contextualize and embed generic attributes in all undergraduate degrees; the second round of review by the University’s Academic Board for Teaching and Learning; and impending review for continued accreditation by the national professional body (Engineers, Australia). Each of these events, in addition to a strong commitment from the then Dean and senior faculty management, added to the impetus which drove curriculum review through to successful completion (Barrie et al., 2003). Faculty C offers a contrast to Faculty A in terms of the strength and direction of drivers for curriculum change. An environmental scan undertaken at Faculty C showed that the University’s impending institutional accreditation coincided with the timeframe allocated for review. Given the time commitments and high priority of institutional accreditation, this review was somewhat compromised and its scope and focus needed to be adjusted in recognition of such a strong competing event (Goldfinch et al, 2007). This was a clear case where the drivers for review were not sufficiently strong to support or sustain a fundamental, wide ranging change process.

3.3 Curriculum Maps At the most basic level, a curriculum map simply provides a way for students and staff to visualize the overall structure of a degree program and how the subjects are linked formally through pre and corequisites. More complex representations of a degree can also be used to map certain aspects of a program; such as Graduate Attributes or particular technical skills. Often, we have presented these maps as aids to students in understanding the structure of their courses and negotiating enrolment. For example, at Faculty A, maps like the one shown in Figure 3 were included in the student handbook as a guide to enrolment. Curriculum maps also have a role to play in opening up conversations amongst engineering academics about curriculum. Interestingly, engineering academics have often responsed quite strongly to seeing their degree laid out on a single page, as a single entity. During curriculum review work at Faculty B we presented a curriculum map during a meeting of the faculty’s teaching and learning committee. The committee had representation from each of the Schools within the Faculty which meant that approximately eight engineering academics were present. The majority had not seen their degree laid out in this way before. The discussion that ensued which questioned the explicit (formal prerequisite structure) and implicit (assumed knowledge) elements of the degree demonstrated the useful thought and debate that such a simple tool can promote.

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DEGREE PROGRAM MAP 2006 Assumed knowledge some examples

Pre-requisite

Co-requisite

CHEM103 Chemistry for Engineers

ENGG101 Foundations of Engineering

MATH187 Mathematics 1A Part 1*

1st Year Spring

ENGG152 Engineering Mechanics

ENGG154 Engineering Design and Innovation

MATH188 Mathematics 1A Pt 2*

2nd Year Autumn

ENGG251 Mechanics of Solids

2nd Year Spring

MECH215 Fundamentals of Machine Component Design

MECH226 Machine Dynamics

3rd Year Autumn

MECH382 Manufacturing Engineering Principles

MECH321 Dynamics of Engineering Systems

3rd Year Spring

MECH311 Mechanical Engineering Design

MECH365 Control of Machines & Processes

1st Year Autumn

4th Year

ENGG153 Engineering Materials

MECH252

ENGG252 Engineering Fluid Mechanics

Engineering Experimentation and Thermodynamics

MATH283 Mathematics 2E Part 1

MECH201 Engineering Analysis

MECH372 Solids Handling and Process Engineering

ECTE290 Fundamentals of Electrical Eng.

MECH341 Thermodynamics

MECH343 Heat Transfer & Aerodynamics

all subjects

ENGG452 Thesis A

PHYS143 Principles of Physics for Engineers

MECH4xx Electives

ENGG361 Project and Business Management

ENGG461 Management and Human Factors in Eng

FIGURE 3. Example of a Degree Program Map from Faculty B showing pre/co-requisite and some assumed knowledge requirements in an Engineering degree. The map shown in Figure 3, has utility in allowing academics to see their degree as a cohesive, single entity. At the most basic level, such a map can be used to catalyse discussion about the order in which subjects are delivered and designation of prerequisite subjects. Examples of such discussion would include: whether two substantial engineering science subjects should be offered in the same semester, whether two subjects with challenging group research projects should be offered at the same time, whether students are afforded ongoing exposure to particular strands of learning or whether there are substantial gaps between the introduction to a topic area and its continuation. Curriculum maps can be a point of departure for discussions about the hidden or assumed knowledge strands that sit within the curriculum, and these discussions can lead to conversations about the ‘hand shake’ between subjects. Here the term ‘hand shake’ refers to the process where an academic teaching a particular course properly accommodates incoming students with regard to their proficiency and knowledge that has resulted from their previous learning in the program. The curriculum map offers one particular perspective on the curriculum as a whole. An alternate way to consider the curriculum as a whole is in considering the overall aims of the curriculum in terms of what

students can do as a result of completing the degree. In the next section we discuss a mechanism for debating and agreeing the overall objectives of an engineering curriculum.

3.4 Program Objective Review Program Objectives or Outcomes 1 (POs) are statements that accurately describe what students from a given undergraduate degree course will be able to do at the point of graduation. Like learning objectives, POs can be written in a range of ways but generally have the following two elements: Do What: ‘Students should be able to…(VERB)’ With What: ‘…with (CONTENT or TOPIC) knowledge’ Program Objectives are sometimes written with the following two additional elements: How Well: ‘…for…(specified PURPOSE)’ Within Constraints: ‘…given (CONDITIONS/INFORMATION)’ For example, a PO for an undergraduate Civil Engineering course might read: Graduates will be able to design (VERB) roads (TOPIC) for light vehicular traffic (PURPOSE), taking into account vehicular loading, existing ground properties, local environmental conditions, and local availability of road building materials, machinery, labour and expertise (CONDITIONS). A process that the authors have used with some success in supporting Engineering curriculum review is the collective redevelopment of POs. A suite of POs can be seen as the definitive and agreed destination or objective of an undergraduate degree. As such, the redevelopment of POs offers an opportunity to clarify what academics who teach the degree feel that they are contributing to. That is, what is the shared outcome that each academic’s efforts in the classroom are aiming to achieve? Like the curriculum maps discussed above, redeveloping POs can remind engineering academics who might be a little subject- or topic-focused that the teaching they do in their subject or unit is an integral part in the four year joint effort that produces a graduate, and that their content and approach to teaching ricochets through the whole degree. A further motivation for using PO redevelopment in curriculum review is the promotion of a cohesive philosophy. As Walkington (2002) has pointed out, engaging a wide range of interested parties in processes of reflection and review at curriculum level offers the opportunity to develop consensus and shared purpose. In describing a particular strategy for building consensus around curriculum review she suggests (Walkington, 2002; pg 140): ‘…shared understandings from this debate and deliberation produce a general set of principles that guide the change. They provide aims, a rationale and a general philosophy that underpins further decision-making.’ Working collectively on redevelopment of POs offers an opportunity to build a shared sense of purpose and to bring into the open any philosophical or practical points of difference that a group of academics might have about the point of their degree. For example, during PO redevelopment with Faculty A, it became apparent that the previous Head of School and the current Head of School had distinctly different views on what parts of the problem solving process were the rightful domain of graduates from their discipline.

1

The difference between ‘objective’ and ‘outcome’ is simply that the first is what the course or program aspires to achieve, while the second is what the program can demonstrably prove it has achieved (eg. via assessment that comprehensively reviews and documents student proficiency in the stated outcomes).

In a second example of the use of PO redevelopment for curriculum review, a group of academics who all taught in a particular discipline at Faculty B met to consider their program objectives. The group did not have a previously stated set of POs but had seen some examples from other Universities and two of the group had attempted to draft POs that represented what the discipline currently taught. The two draft sets of POs were circulated at the meeting and the participants commenced reconciling the two, and agreeing and applying appropriate verbs to explain their shared expectations of graduates’ competence (Bloom, 1956). At this point of the meeting, it was realized that the POs the group had devised represented what students graduating from the currently existing degree could do, but that these POs did not necessarily represent what the future of the discipline held, or what the profession might need from graduates who would come into the workforce in four or five years time. This realization catalysed a lengthy discussion about the future of the discipline and the group eventually came to a consensus about what they wanted future graduates to be able to do. In this way, the group established a clear mandate (in the form of accurate and agreed POs) for changes that the currently existing degree required to align it with the future needs of the profession. In terms of curriculum review, the group had arrived at a consensus position on change that was based in their own deliberations and negotiations over the future direction of their own discipline. In terms of change management, Garvin and Roberto (2001) and Walkington (2002) have suggested that group consensus built on genuine, respectful debate offers a sturdy platform for enacting change.

3.5 External Stakeholder Consultation Engineering, like most professional degrees, has strong links with industry. Industry partners influence accreditation processes and criteria through engagement with the professional bodies; and many students benefit from industry placement or cadetships woven into the undergraduate years. Thus, the role of industry in commenting on engineering curriculum is important vis à vis industry needs and student capability on joining the workforce. While it would be shortsighted to pass full responsibility for engineering curriculum to industry, the voice of industry offers a counterpoint to some university drivers which may be focused on building research capacity in undergraduate students, or on teaching engineering science from a primarily theoretical perspective. Thus, input from industry provides contextualization and helps the development of important student attributes such as ethical behaviour, tolerance, innovation, citizenship and critical thinking. As highlighted by Hadgraft and Prpic (2004), consultation with industry on curriculum needs to carefully managed for two reasons: the process needs to be carefully thought through because the particular industry representatives invited to comment (ie. invitation list) and the form in which their comment is gathered (ie. what questions are asked) will determine the quality of information that results from external consultation. Secondly, being invited to comment raises the expectation amongst industry partners that their views will be taken seriously and that some change will be enacted in line with the comment received. Given this, it is important to design the external communication process carefully and to enter the process being clear with participants about how information will be used, and with a commitment to listening to and considering all input received. External stakeholder consultation was undertaken during engineering curriculum review at Faculty C. The process was designed as a half-day workshop during which several invited Industry representatives worked in discipline-based groups with academic staff who taught in the disciplines under discussion. Three disciplines were represented and each of the three groups discussed and defined the ‘strengths’ and ‘weaknesses’ of graduates from the current degrees. Strengths and weaknesses were nominated in terms of recent graduates ‘hard’ (technical) and ‘soft’ (non-technical) skills or knowledge, and each discipline based group reported nominated strengths and weaknesses to the entire group. Discussion then moved on to defining the ‘ideal’ graduate attributes for graduates of each discipline, in terms of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills and knowledge. The information generated during this external stakeholder consultation session was collated and used to inform further discussions amongst academics in the faculty about the strengths and weaknesses of the existing degrees. Interestingly, there was considerable unanimity about what constituted the most desirable ‘soft’ skills, most of which were common across all discipline areas. This had

considerable implications for redevelopment of the core curriculum at Faculty C as it suggested the soft skills might best be embedded and taught within the core.

4. CONCLUSION A range of demands from within and outside the engineering profession make it imperative that the engineering education providers conduct regular maintenance on engineering degree programs. In our experience, engineering curriculum review can be a challenge. As such, there is a compelling need for the engineering education community to build our collective competence, knowledge and resources to support this important activity. The processes and tools described in this paper are not a comprehensive guide to carrying out curriculum review in engineering, however, each of these processes and tools has been trialled and adapted (in real-time) to support aspects of the three engineering curriculum reviews that the authors have been involved with. The ideas and processes described above appear to have assisted our academic colleagues in making sense of the complex and multiply co-owned entity that is engineering curriculum, and in making collective decisions to change that entity. We offer these processes and tools, and our insights and experiences gained from using them as prompts or props for any others who face the somewhat daunting prospect of carrying an engineering curriculum review through to a successful conclusion. References [1] C.A. Mitchell, Carew, A.L., and Clift. R. “The role of the professional engineer and scientist”, in Azapagic, A., Perdan, S. and Clift, R. “Sustainable development in practice: case studies for engineers and scientists”. Wiley, London (2004). [2] J.B. Biggs “Teaching for quality learning at university”, SRHE and Open University Press, UK (2003). [3] G. Foster “Design of university courses and subjects: a strategic approach”. HERDSA Green Guide 15 (1995). [4] J.Walkington “A process for curriculum change in engineering”, Eur. J. Eng Educ., 27/2, 133-148 (2002). [5] P.B. Checkland “Systems Thinking, Systems Practice”, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester. (1995) [6] D.A. Garvin and Roberto, M.A. “What you don't know about making decisions” Harv. Bus. Rev., 79/8, September (2001). [7] M.S. Leonard, D.E Beasley, K.E Scales, and D.J Elzinga “Planning for curriculum renewal and accreditation under ABET Engineering criteria 2000” ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition (1998). [8] S. Barrie, Jain, P. and Carew, A.L. “Generic graduate attributes: a research-based framework for a shared vision” Staff Educ. Dev. Intl, 7/3, 191-200 (2003). [9] T, Goldfinch, Carew, A.L., Cook, C., Olivares, P and McCarthy, T. “Initiating curriculum review through interactive workshops: with a Chilean twist”, AaeE Annual Conference (2007). [10] B. Bloom “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives” McGraw Hill, New York (1956). [11] R. Hadgraft and Prpic, K. “Analysis of industry needs in engineering degree renewal” AaeE Annual Conference (2004).