Engineering Education in the Digital Age: Challenges and Solutions

Tim Berners-Lee ushered in the digital age in 1989 with his invention of the world wide web, which he introduced to the world in August 1991. After more than 30 years, people across generations have learned to use digital tools to socialize, learn, and make a living.

Naturally, many engineering educators are looking for digital teaching solutions to help their institutions gain a solid academic reputation and attract high-quality students, researchers, and education partners.

For many educators, digital learning tools will exist alongside traditional education formats, according to a discussion paper published by Dr. Jonas Gallenkämper from Verein Deutscher Ingenieure. “Digitized teaching will occupy a growing share of educational processes and thereby enter into a symbiosis with existing educational formats,” he wrote. “Digitization of education will, in particular, take place in those areas in which it can significantly contribute to the improvement of teaching and learning processes and of knowledge transformations.”

Although many universities are taking advantage of digital tools, students still need to learn engineering fundamentals. Engineering educators must know how to properly use digital tools to enhance students’ foundational knowledge, not replace it. In addition, digital tools should promote critical thinking to enable students to become mature and ready for the industry.

Daily Challenges for Engineering Educators

Engineering educators often find themselves balancing their research work with teaching. They cannot always concentrate on research because they must also focus on curriculum development, administrative activities, maintaining engineering resources, and student engagement. Here’s a look at some of the challenges engineering educators face.

Curriculum development

Educators must ensure that their engineering programs meet the requirements of professional accreditation councils in their respective countries. For example, US universities must meet academic requirements from ABET. This ensures that engineering graduates have recognized training to enter their respective professions. Keeping up with the ever-changing accreditation goals is a challenge for engineering educators.

They also have to stay on top of industry and technology trends. For example, recent years have seen a boom in the Internet of Things (IoT), telecommunications, and cybersecurity. Educators who have been teaching for a long time need to stay current with new technologies and ensure that their students get the training and exposure they need to prepare for fast-evolving industries.

Administrative activities

Besides all the teaching and research work, educators bear the burden of administrative activities. In addition to creating daily homework assignments, weekly quizzes, and exams, educators need to assess their students on time and provide meaningful feedback. Students often need small-group or individual attention, especially on engineering projects and technical papers. If this work involves extensive data collection and analysis, it can quickly overwhelm educators.

Engineering resources

Engineering educators collect hardware, software, and test accessories over time. Managing these tools to ensure that they are using these resources effectively for engineering education and research work is time-consuming.

Student engagement

Preparing students to be industry-ready engineers is a top goal of engineering educators. University environments tend to comprise large lecture-style classes. It is important for educators to keep the students’ learning experience interactive and engaging. How can they encourage students to think critically, solve problems, and make informed engineering decisions?

Leveraging Digital Technology Solutions

Along with the challenges university engineering educators face, there is a need for a unified web-based digital learning suite with secure one-stop access to university engineering lab resources, measurement data analysis tools, and industry-relevant learning resources. Here are some functions to look for in a digital learning suite.

Streamline the teaching workflow

A digital learning suite with a single web interface location can simplify the management of university engineering lab resources. For example, an educator or lab instructor may need to set up instruments for up to 10 benches and 50 students for a lab exercise. On top of that, the lab instructor needs to engage and assess student groups from multiple benches in real time during the lab sessions through seamless built-in digital collaborative tools. A complete digital learning suite enables educators to do all these things in front of a single PC.

Enhance the teaching workflow

What if the educator can perform lab instructions remotely, demonstrating measurements on a device under test, capturing data, and plotting that information on graphs in real time for students to see? A digital learning suite should include built-in teaching courseware resources to support the educator’s fundamental teaching curriculum as well as on-demand, industry-relevant learning resources related to IoT, cybersecurity, RF microwave, power systems, and more.

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Figure 1. Readily available industry-relevant courseware for students

Maximize lab resource utilization

Many educators have voiced concerns over managing their lab test equipment and apparatus. Most test equipment requires scheduled maintenance and calibration to ensure usability and accuracy. The digital learning software suite or engineering teaching lab management software should manage the scheduled maintenance and calibration of all the educator’s lab resources. The software should also interface and communicate with old test equipment or ovens so they are useful again for lab exercises or research work.

Summary and Learn More on Keysight Solutions

University educators and lab instructors need digital technology to help them overcome repetitive administrative activities by streamlining their teaching workflows. Educators can build a robust curriculum with the help of readily available industry-relevant learning resources. Digital technology can automate lab resource utilization to save precious time, allowing educators to focus on cutting-edge research work. Educators can also use digital collaborative tools to engage and assess students during after-class consultation sessions.

Keysight Technologies offers a digital learning suite that covers all the above solutions and is accessible through a secure encrypted interface on a web location.

Keysight has many resources to help you start a digital learning experience.

Learn more about the Keysight SR101EDUA digital learning suite.

Check out other Keysight industry-grade test instruments, which will be valuable companions to the SR101EDUA digital learning software suite. Find out more about the Keysight Smart Bench Essentials general-purpose test instruments: EDU34450A digital multimeter, EDU36311A DC power supply, EDU33212A waveform generator, and InfiniiVision 1000 X‑Series oscilloscopes.

Find out more about Keysight FieldFox handheld RF and microwave analyzers for your RF and microwave lab bench.

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