Incorporating Realism into Senior Design

The senior design course at Purdue University involves all seniors in their last semester before graduation and is titled “Civil Engineering Design Project.” It is described in the catalog as “Planning, design, and analysis of a civil project; an integrated and realistic group project involving as much as possible all major aspects of the civil engineering profession.” This high enrollment course (30 to 100 students per semester) has been taught since the early 1960s and there have been many approaches to teaching it. Involvement of practitioners has varied from nearly no involvement through nearly total responsibility for the course. The author has observed the teaching of this course for $15\text{years}$ and has the lead responsibility for the course in the spring semester for the past $6\text{years}$ . The article is based on a paper presented at the American Society of Engineering Education Conference (Drnevich 2005a) in June 2005 and at the 4th Global Colloquium on Engineering Education (Drnevich 2005b) in September 2005. It describes the course and approaches to teaching it and will summarize observations of what worked well and what did not work well. In this article, I will use much material from the paper, but look specifically how environmental issues are being addressed. Comments from the readers of this article are most welcome. The course continually evolves as we learn how to do things better.

The capstone design course in Civil Engineering at Purdue University, CE498, has been ongoing since 1960. The projects designed in this course over the years indicate significant diversity of project types that include river channel improvements, waste disposal facilities, wildlife preserves, railroad relocation, highway relocation, bridges and bridge rehabilitation, airports, farm facilities, retail stores, office buildings, campus and research buildings, recreational complexes, and athletic facilities. Most of the projects are real in the sense that they were either under consideration or in process at the time that they were being designed in the course. Students worked with actual project information and generally had to diligently search to obtain that information. Design products of the course were not used in the actual construction, but in many cases had an influence on actual designs. This occurred because persons actually involved in the real projects almost always participated in the course. Hence, the definition of “practitioner” associated with this course is a broad one that includes

In a typical semester, it is not unusual for 10 or more “practitioners” to be involved in the course. The nature of their involvement may range from the presentation of a technical session to participation as a reviewer and to critique the sessions where the student teams make their formal presentations.

Course Details. The course is taught every semester and is limited only to seniors in their last semester before graduation. This requirement allows for having a more complete preparation for taking this course. Class sizes have ranged from a low of about 25 students to more than 110 (with 22 teams). Students are formed in teams of five persons, but sometimes teams of four or six persons are allowed, depending on the total number of students in the class. Originally, and until recently, each student on a team represented a civil engineering subspecialty. Typically, there would be a structural person, a geotechnical person, an environmental/hydraulics person, an environmental person, a construction person, and a transportation person. The assignment of these subspecialty responsibilities was based on student interest, elective courses taken, and occasionally, expediency. Frequently, students were assigned to areas outside those of their interest or where they only had a basic level course. These students were challenged to become productive team members.

Typically, the course has three to four faculty persons assigned each semester, with one faculty person having the role of lead instructor. Faculty persons are from the various subspecialties listed above. Additionally, there are three to four teaching assistants (1 to 1.25 FTE) assigned to the course, again from the subspecialties. The faculty and teaching assistants constitute the “instructional staff” for the course. They participate in the planning of the course through weekly staff sessions, attend all of the technical sessions of the course, give some of the technical presentations, and are engaged in grading of the presentations and products.

Course Objectives. While objectives for this course were clearly established by the faculty who founded and taught the course over the years, with the advent of Engineering Criteria 2000 (ABET 2000), our faculty updated the course objectives in the mid-1990s to read: By the end of this course, the student will be able to

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in Team Formation. Starting in the mid-1990s, course lead instructor Robert Whitford began having the students take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator⁴ (MBTI) test (Meyers-Briggs 2000). The MBTI identifies personality types by use of four letters, E or I, S or N, T or F, J or P as described in Table 1. The test was scored, and a qualified MBTI person was invited to a class session to interpret the test and help students and instructors gain a better understanding of, and respect for, personality differences. The instructional staff frequently makes use of the MBTI of team members along with advice from the qualified MBTI person in resolving disputes and poor performance of teams and/or members of a team.

The instructors make use of this information along with grade point average and elective course history in forming the teams. It is interesting that about 60% of the class can be typed as introverts, and the most common type is Introvert, Sensor, Thinker, Judger, (ISTJ). However, significant variations occur. For example, in the spring 2006 class over 60% of the class were typed as Extroverts.

Site Visits and Architectural Conceptual Drawings. Students generally have a difficult time visualizing what the completed facility will look like and how the design of selected components affects the overall facility. Efforts are made to get students to visit the site of the project and or sites of similar projects. Where buildings are concerned, an effort is made to obtain architectural schematic drawings for the facility or for similar facilities to assist the students in forming better images of the project.

Dedicated Design Laboratory. In 1998, the Edgar B. and Hedwig M. Olson Design Laboratory was established. It provides a design environment similar to that found in engineering design firms, with a resource library containing codes, design guides, project drawings, specifications, regulations, handbooks, product data, construction cost references, computing facilities with 17 high-end stations, and support equipment that includes two large format (size D) color plotters, scanning facilities, video encoding station, a television, LCD projector, and a VCR. All classrooms used for the course and student presentation have built-in computers and LCD projectors. The lab is supervised and is open for over $100\mathrm{h}\text{per}\text{week}$ and has extended hours during project report deadlines. Another nearby computing lab with 35 stations is available $24\mathrm{h}∕\text{day}$ , $7\text{days}∕\text{week}$ . All systems have a broad array of up-to-date design, analysis, and CAD software. These facilities significantly add to the realism in the course.

Changing Focus from Subspecialties to Broader Perspective. The author experimented in the last five spring sessions of teaching the course by broadening the focus and responsibilities for all the students. With the past focus on the subspecialties in the Civil Engineering program at Purdue, instructors noted a tendency for students to only do the work in their subspecialty and not contribute to the work in other areas. Since work across the subspecialties is not evenly distributed in most projects, some students were greatly overloaded while others enjoyed a relatively light load. Since the spring 2001 session, no assignments to subspecialties were made, and lectures associated with subspecialty topics were presented to the entire class. Students were advised that everyone in the team had responsibility for responding to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) and Request for Proposals (RFP) and that the formal checking process would require that they develop competence in several, if not all, areas needed to meet project objectives and deadlines. It was explained to them that their degree was in civil engineering and not in a subspecialty and that it was quite likely that each would have to work in a variety of subspecialties or at least work with people in other subspecialties as their careers progressed. Reference was made to the Civil Engineering Program Criteria (ABET 2000) of the Accrediting Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) that specifies that “graduates…demonstrate proficiency in a minimum of four (4) recognized major civil engineering areas....” (A proposal for modifying this phrase to “can apply knowledge of four technical areas appropriate to civil engineering” is under consideration.) Furthermore, people with the broader vision were more likely to advance to leadership positions. This approach appears to have been appreciated by at least some of the students (typically the better ones), and there was more widespread ownership of the work, i.e., increased teamwork.

Addressing Environmental Topics. One continuing issue is with students with major interests in environmental engineering when a topic does not appear to have much of an environmental engineering component, such as a pedestrian bridge in an urban setting, which is the topic this semester. We attempt to overcome this by specifying in the RFP that reports include an environmental assessment identifying the relevant regulations. Several lectures are devoted to environmental regulations and the role they play in the planning, design, and construction of all facilities. We find that the regulatory aspects of engineering design are quite complicated and are not adequately covered in the regular undergraduate environmental engineering courses.

Use of the Web for all Course Materials and Products. In the mid-1990s, instructors of this course began using the web for course information so that students could get ready access to this information. In spring 2001, we began the use of WebCT (http://www.webct.com/), a course authoring system adopted by Purdue University. This greatly expanded the use of the web while restricting access to only the instructional staff and students. It not only provides course information (syllabus, calendar, lecture notes, and references, etc.), but it is a communication tool between students, members of their teams, and course faculty and staff. One web page is devoted to team names, photos of teams, listing of team members, team e-mail addresses, and individual e-mail addresses. We also generated a link from the individual student to that student’s resume. With a large class size, this helps tremendously in getting to know the students as individuals.

WebCT was helpful in having the students report their work hours through the Timesheet link and for each student to get an up-to-date listing of his/her progress in the course through the My Grades link. WebCT allows for easy posting of grades and will automatically calculate the overall grades, including assigning letter grades according to criteria established by the instructor. We found that WebCT was not especially good for permanently archiving materials from a given semester, and a separate, permanent Web-site, with restricted access is now being used for reference materials and for course deliverables.

Design-Build. In spring 2001, the instructors used the Design-Build approach in place of the Design-Bid-Build approach. The course was conducted in two phases, Phase I: Request for Qualifications and Phase II: Request for Proposals. Student teams engage in role-playing to generate an identity and history for their firms, to provide a written statement of qualifications, and to make oral presentations before becoming eligible to receive the Request for Proposals (RFP). For Phase II, the RFP and associated addenda set the criteria for the products and deliverables. The RFP was crafted with the assistance of practicing professionals.

Professionalism and Ethics. Rather than the traditional student-teacher relationship, the approach taken since the spring 2001 semester was a professional one. For all activities except the presentations, the course instructors played the role of principals in the firm. The teaching assistants played the role of engineering managers. The students were then the design engineers. For the presentations, the students then took on the role of principals of their firms while the instructors joined others from engineering practice in the role of owners and clients.

At the outset of the course, references were made to the Codes of Ethics of ASCE (ASCE 2006) and to the National Society for Professional Engineers (NSPE 2006) as guides for activities and relationships in the conduct of this course. The relationships among design professionals and between them and their clients were addressed through several assignments from the course text Quality in the Constructed Project: A Guide for Owners, Designers, and Contractors (ASCE 2000). Several of the in-class sessions discussed these relationships and the roles of professionals. The presentations and discussions led by practicing professionals are especially effective.

Students generally dislike this course while they are taking it because it was so different from other courses that they had taken and it entails so much work. However, a survey of alumni done in 1995 indicated that it was among the best courses they had taken. From the spring 2001 offering of the course, a mid-term request for feedback provided generally favorable comments and helpful suggestions that were frequently implemented for the remainder of the course. The course and instructor evaluations at the end of the semester are generally quite positive.

In the spring of 2004, the Civil Engineering Advisory Council, which consists of 15 practitioners and five faculty persons, were charged with reviewing senior design and making nearly unconstrained recommendations to the faculty for how the School of Civil Engineering can best prepare students for their futures, whether they be in engineering practice, graduate school, or other careers. The constraints placed on the Council were that the program had to meet ABET EC2000 accreditation criteria (ABET 2000) and resources for accomplishing the design component were within reason. The Council took this charge seriously and conducted interviews with project “owners” such as the Purdue Athletic Director (for the Mackey Arena projects), with course instructors and other faculty, with recent graduates of the program, and with students currently taking the course. In the fall of 2004, the Council provided a written report (unpublished report to Fred Mannering, July 2004) to the School Head with its findings and recommendations. Recommendations are excerpted below from the report.

Specific recommendations of the Council included

In summary, the insight that the Council provided during this evaluation enabled us to formulate and recommend suggestions on how the course can be improved to provide an even higher level of reward for all involved in its teaching and learning. Many of the recommendations have been implemented.

Few practitioners are skilled as educators and few educators are actively practicing civil engineering. Involving practitioners in design courses presents an opportunity for faculty to enhance their understanding of engineering practice issues if they actively participate in the sessions with the practitioners. Since few practitioners are skilled in the art of teaching, educators should work with them in preparing presentations and handout materials.

Expertise of practitioners can be very helpful in designing the course itself and in key components of the course such as RFQs and RFPs. Practitioners can be especially effective in listening to student presentations, engaging them with questions, and providing feedback on both the positive aspects and shortcomings of their designs and presentations.

Students don’t get much information on career topics such as performance evaluations, advancement, and interaction with colleagues and clients. Practitioners involved with Human Resources can be especially helpful in this arena. They also can be helpful to the course instructors with resolving individual and team performance issues. The Myers-Briggs information is very useful in these situations.

The senior capstone design course in Civil Engineering at Purdue University has a long history of preparing students for engineering practice. Some recent changes include migrating to a closed, Web-based system, broadening the role of the individual student, making use of newer contract delivery methods such as design-build, and incorporating environmental assessment. All of these changes seem to be beneficial to the learning process and the building of teamwork. They also will prepare the student to better enter the profession of civil engineering.

This course is the signature course of the Civil Engineering Program at Purdue, but it is very resource intensive and requires significant time and effort. In the university, the demands for financial resources seem to be at all-time highs, and pressures are on faculty persons to spend their time in ways that support their tenure, promotion, and professional stature. In 2004 the Civil Engineering Advisory Council reviewed senior design at Purdue, strongly endorsed the course, and made numerous recommendations for improving it. Many of their recommendations are now incorporated into the course.

The author is indebted to his many predecessors and colleagues who contributed so much to the traditions of this capstone design course. Among those who had lead instructor responsibilities include Marion B. Scott (the course founder), Harvey Wilke, Alfred Steffen, Donald (Mike) Shurig, Robert D. Miles, C. William Lovell, Robert Whitford, Daniel Budny, and Tommy Nantung. Special mention is due to colleagues James Alleman, Robert Frosch, David Harmelink, Robert Jacko, Judy Liu, Suzanne Karberg, Dennis Lyn, Santiago Pujol, P. Suresh Rao, Andrzej Tarko, and to the many teaching assistants who were patient with me and worked very hard to make senior design a positive experience for the students. The Assistant Dean of Students, Linden Petrin, has been exceptionally helpful with using the Myers-Briggs. The author is especially grateful to the Civil Engineering Advisory Council for the extensive evaluation of senior design at Purdue and for the helpful recommendations made. Finally, the success of this course depends greatly on the many practicing engineers who participate in this course through guest lectures, providing data and advice, sitting on panels, providing access to sites, and much more. On behalf of the faculty and students, the author thanks them.