Engineering Commons^™

The Design And Impact Of Unaccounted For Gas Reduction Policies For Natural Gas Distribution Network In Ireland And The United Kingdom, Utkarsha Chavan, Anthony Reynolds

Conference Papers

Unaccounted for gas (UAG) is the challenge faced by the natural gas industry which has financial, environmental as well as safety implications. The regulators have the authority to control the extent of the financial costs that can be passed on to the end-users by the transporters and distributors to recover the cost of UAG. There has been action taken by the regulators in Ireland and the United Kingdom to reduce the amount of UAG, which is beneficial to end-users as well as transporters and distributors. This paper discusses the design of the UAG calculation methodology of the distribution network. It …

Sustainable Development And The Sdgs: Revealing Engineering Academics, Students And Employer Viewpoints, Una Beagon, Klara Kövesi, Brad Tabas, Bente Norgaard, Riitta Lehtinen, Brian Bowe, Christiane Gillet, Claus Spliid

Conference Papers

As the world’s focus turns to the future and not the present, the engineering profession must respond to the ever increasing need to bring about a sustainable future. The objective of this paper is to support the reform of engineering education by acknowledging and building upon the current awareness and understanding of sustainable development held by key stakeholders in the process.

This paper presents the outcomes of a study involving twelve focus groups with Academics, Employers and Students in four European countries (Denmark, Finland, France and Ireland) as part of the A-STEP 2030 European Project. Based on the findings, it …

The Identification Of Future Professional Skills For The Graduate Structural Engineer And The Co-Creation Of Their Definitions., Aimee Byrne, Una Beagon, Darren Carthy, Patrick Crean, Caitriona Depaor, Louise Lynch, Dervilla Niall

Conference Papers

Employers recognise that the future is changing and as such the structural engineer’s role is changing along with the skill set required. The skills gap has been acknowledged yet there is no consensus on which skills are most important for these engineers. This research presents the outcome of a project which proposes future professional skills needs for the structural engineer and the co-creation of their definitions. A review of the most recent relevant literature alongside chartership requirements of the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and Engineers Ireland (EI), as well as consideration of three seminal consultation and analysis reports on …

Attracting Diverse Talent To The Engineering Professions Of 2030 Activity 1 Outcomes, Una Beagon

Conference Papers

As the world’s focus turns to the future and not the present, the engineering profession must respond to the ever increasing need to bring about a sustainable future. The objective of this paper is to support the reform of engineering education by acknowledging and building upon the current awareness and understanding of sustainable development held by key stakeholders in the process.

This paper presents the outcomes of a study involving twelve focus groups with Academics, Employers and Students in four European countries (Denmark, Finland, France and Ireland) as part of the A-STEP 2030 European Project. Based on the findings, it …

Insights Into The Integration Of The Sdgs In Engineering Program Curricula As Seen Through The Prism Of The Perceptions Of Engineering Students And Educators, Klara Kövesi, Brad Tabas, Christiane Gillet, Una Beagon, Brian Bowe

Conference Papers

In this paper, we offer insight into how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being integrated into engineering programs. We investigate the question: “what opportunities and barriers should we take into consideration in order to better integrate the SDGs into engineering programmes?” We undertook two exploratory focus group studies with engineering students and academic participants that explored their perception of SDGs’ integration to their programs. Our results show significant differences between the perceptions of students and academics, and this indicates the need for a more comprehensive and balanced integration of the SDGs into engineering curricula. We particularly recommend a …

Engineering Students' Perceptions Of Their Development Of Professional Skills, Caitriona Depaor, Una Beagon, Aimee Byrne, Darren Carthy, Patrick Crean, Louise Lynch, Dervilla Niall

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

An Approach To Mapping The Development Of Professional Skills In A Structural Engineering Programme, Patrick Crean, Dervilla Niall, Una Beagon, Aimee Byrne, Darren Carthy, Caitríona De Paor, Louise Lynch

Conference Papers

Engineers of the future will be presented with complicated, complex problems and their role in the development of sustainable solutions to global problems will become even more critical. Recent literature highlights the need for the development of a set of professional skills in order to address these challenges. These skills include technical, non-technical and attitudinal skills. This paper describes a case study of a whole-of-programme review of teaching and assessment of professional skills in a structural engineering programme. In a systematic process, lecturing staff mapped the modules they teach against a set of professional skills, which were distilled from literature …

Considering Children’S Travel Needs: Perceptions Of Transport Planning Professionals In Ireland, Sarah Mcdonagh, Sarah Rock

Conference Papers

In recent years it has been reported that in an international comparison of children’s independent mobility that Ireland has one of the lowest rates of both children’s independent mobility and active travel among several countries (Shaw et al., 2015). Children’s independent mobility and active travel are shown to be affected by several factors including parental time pressures and lifestyle choices; societal fears (‘stranger danger’); and the fear of traffic and road safety (Shaw et al., 2015, Hillman et al., 1990; Lynch, 1977; Johansson, 2006; Shaw et al., 2013; and Zwerts et al., 2010). This research focuses on the latter – …

Engineering Students' Preferred Roles: Are They Stable, Are There Gender Differences?, Darren Carthy, S. Craps, Kevin Gaughan, H. Knipprath, Brian Bowe, G. Langie

Conference Papers

Being able to situate oneself in an engineering role is a developmental process. Students may initially have idealized perceptions of a professional role and over time, they make this role more congruent with their own values and goals [1]. In light of this, Higher Education Institutions are being challenged to offer learning experiences and career exploration activities to enable students to clarify their interests, values and competencies in relation to a professional role [2]. This study compared the professional role preferences of more than 700 engineering students at TU Dublin (Ireland) and KU Leuven (Belgium). Professional role preference was measured …

Developing An Open-Book Online Exam For Final Year Students, Keith Quille, Keith Nolan, Brett Becker, Sean Mchugh

Conference Papers

Like many others, our institution had to adapt our traditional proctored, written examinations to open-book online variants due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper describes the process applied to develop open-book online exams for final year (undergraduate) students studying Applied Machine Learning and Applied Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning courses as part of a four-year BSc in Computer Science. We also present processes used to validate the examinations as well as plagiarism detection methods implemented. Findings from this study highlight positive effects of using open-book online exams, with 85% of students reporting that they either prefer online open-book examinations or …

Integrating Ethics Across The Engineering Curriculum Through Sustainability And Legislative Topics, Diana Adela Martin, Eddie Conlon, Brian Bowe

Conference Papers

The paper explores the inclusion of sustainability and legislation related coverage in Engineering programmes in Ireland in the context of increasing calls for integrating ethics across the curriculum. It is part of a broader study examining engineering ethics education conducted in cooperation with the national accrediting body, Engineers Ireland. The study includes 23 Engineering programmes from 6 institutions in Ireland that underwent accreditation between 2017-2019. Qualitative research methods have been employed, such as documentary analysis of module descriptors and of materials submitted for accreditation, as well as interviews with evaluators serving on accreditation panels and lecturers within the participant programmes. …

Engineering Students As Co-Creators In An Ethics Of Technology Course, Gunter Bombaerts, Karolina Doulougeri, Shelly Tsui, Erik Laes, Andreas Spahn, Diana Adela Martin

Conference Papers

Research on the effectiveness of case studies in teaching engineering ethics in higher education is underdeveloped. To add to our knowledge, we have systematically compared the outcomes of two case approaches to an undergraduate course on the ethics of technology: a detached approach using real-life cases and a challenge-based learning (CBL) approach with students and stakeholders acting as co-creators (CC). We first developed a practical typology of case-study approaches and subsequently tested an evaluation method to assess the students’ learning experiences (basic needs and motivation) and outcomes (competence development) and staff interpretations and operationalizations, seeking to answer three questions: (1) …

Are We In The Digital Dark Times? How The Philosophy Of Hannah Arendt Can Illuminate Some Of The Ethical Dilemmas Posed By Modern Digital Technologies, Damian Gordon, Anna Becevel

Conference Papers

Philosophers are not generally credited with being clairvoyant, and yet because they recognise, record and reflect on trends in their society, their observations can often appear prescient. In the field of the ethics of technology, there is, perhaps, no philosopher whose perspective on these issues is worth examining in detail more than that of Hannah Arendt, who can offer real perspective on the challenges we are facing with technologies in the twenty-first century. Arendt, a thinker of Jewish-German origin, student of Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, encountered her life turning point when she was forced into becoming a refugee as …