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Visiting Professors' Scheme
Visiting Professors in Integrated System Design: What we have done so far
In the pilot phase of this
scheme, Birmingham, Brunel, City, Edinburgh and UCL
were asked to propose their own strategy to help
their students to become more “system aware”. In the
first round of open competition, Bath, Cranfield,
Loughborough, Plymouth, Queen’s Belfast and Surrey
were also admitted to the scheme. In this year’s
competition, we expect to make five more
appointments.
Extracts from some of the
previous proposals highlight the approaches of the
successful bidders:
University A:
By using the VP to facilitate
integrated thinking between the disciplines, the
concept of multidisciplinary thinking can be
injected into existing and new courses across the
Engineering Sciences and other faculties. The idea
is that systems integration is seen as a core
element of thought rather than as a bolt-on addition
once some discipline has been exhausted. The
Visiting Professor would be an additional
cost-neutral resource to facilitate the
encouragement of systems integration principles and
to stimulate interdisciplinary and interdepartmental
activities.
University B:
Its past history of systems
engineering and recent moves aimed at renewal have
meant that University B is some way ahead of the
game in this field. However, it recognises that the
position is fragile and is in urgent need of
resource if the University is to sustain its current
commitment and enhance its offering. There is a need
to extend the teaching to cover techniques in proper
depth and to illustrate these with case studies.
Realistic case studies are considered essential for
students to get a proper grasp of the relevance and
utility of systems engineering to the real world.
University C saw the role of the VP as:
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To liaise with staff
across the School of Engineering and from
industry to provide a number of lectures in
appropriate modules on fundamental concepts
within systems engineering in the first and
second years of the undergraduate programmes.
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To develop further the
multi-disciplinary projects, that have been
successfully running for the last five years in
years 3 and 4 of the programmes, but with a
stronger systems engineering component.
University D:
We propose an
interdisciplinary team learning group design
exercise in year 4……For example, a multidisciplinary
group of engineering students from three of our
disciplines could study topics such as hydro power
generation, water resource systems, nanotechnology,
or other larger scale systems. Group design projects
are already incorporated into our syllabus as part
of the BEng and MEng degree programmes, but to date
they are only mono-disciplinary.
We thus propose introducing
“team” final year group study exercises from
different disciplines where the topic is extended
beyond a mono-disciplinary theme, with each student
studying their separate component part while still
working as a group.
Is there a unique way?
Every year, The Academy brings
together all of the participating universities and
their visiting professors in a workshop to review
progress and “issues”. Over the last year we have
spent some time examining the question: “Is there a
common approach to system integration that we should
propose as a model for all applicants to the
scheme?” The simple answer is “no”. David Stupples
(VP at City University) presented a keynote paper at
this year’s workshop which reviewed major issues and
history in Systems Integration, and proposed a three
tier model for teaching system integration. We would
commend all applicants to read
this paper (129KB) .
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