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A guideline for planning and implementing an action-based and

transnational course in higher engineering education:
A Case for Sustainable Value Creation

T. Stock1
Research Fellow
Chair for Sustainable Corporate Development, Technische Universität Berlin
Berlin, Germany
E-mail: [email protected]

C. Haskins
Associate Professor
Department of Production and Quality Engineering,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Trondheim, Norway
E-mail: [email protected]

B. Gładysz
Postdoc Researcher
Institute of Production Systems Organization, Warsaw University of Technology
Warsaw, Poland
E-mail: [email protected]

M. Urgo
Assistant Professor
Mechanical Engineering Department, Politecnico di Milano
Milan, Italy
E-mail: [email protected]

H. Kohl
Professor
Chair for Sustainable Corporate Development, Technische Universität Berlin
Berlin, Germany
E-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
This paper outlines a generic guideline for planning and implementing an action-
based and transnational course in higher education for training the engineering
competencies required in a future dynamic European workplace and economy. This
guidance is intended for universities, research and teaching institutes, as well as for

1
Corresponding Author
T. Stock
[email protected]

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companies interested in establishing novel teaching concepts by closing the gap

between know-how and experience. The guideline will provide suggestions and
lessons learned for the realization of an efficient and effective implementation.
Important development phases of the guideline are explained through a use case
based on a master course, which has been jointly established in cooperation by four
European universities. Learning objectives for this course aim at raising the
awareness about sustainable value creation by focusing on the development of
sustainable and technological innovations with entrepreneurial objectives.

Conference Key Areas: Sustainability and Engineering Education, Curriculum

Development, Engineering Skills
Keywords: Guideline for Higher Education, Transnational Teaching and Learning,
Sustainable Value Creation

INTRODUCTION
The future working environment of young engineers within the dynamic European
society and economy will be coined by mobility, intercultural exchange, and virtual
cross-border communication. Future engineers will be more and more required to
work in international teams and be able to interact effectively and efficiently with
colleagues, suppliers, and customers coming from different countries as well as
cultural backgrounds. Moreover, modern digital engineering tools are driving this
change in a very fast way. As a result, the training of mobility as well as of
transnational and intercultural competencies has become a strong requirement for
teaching and learning in higher education. To this aim, the paper outlines a guideline
for planning and implementing an action-based and transnational course in higher
education for training young engineers towards a future dynamic European
workplace and economy. It aims to empower organizations to implement their own
action-based and transnational activities by providing highly practical-oriented
recommendations. This guidance is intended for universities, research and teaching
institutes, as well as for companies interested in establishing novel teaching concepts
in higher education. The action-based and transnational course addressed within this
guideline consists of the following training and teaching phases involving a
consortium of international learners and supervisors:
 A project working phase driven by a challenging engineering problem including:
 International mobility phases for both students and teachers
 Virtual cooperation and collaboration through digital tools
 E-learning lectures
The paper outlines the methodical background (1) and the state-of-the-art (2) for the
action-based and transnational course. The guideline (3) addresses the activities:
preparation, development, as well as implementation, evaluation, and follow-up.
Important development phases of the guideline are explained on the basis of a use
case patterned on the master course “European Engineering Team”. Learning
objectives for this course aimed at raising the awareness about sustainable value
creation by focusing on the development of sustainable and technological
innovations with entrepreneurial objectives. The concept, first results, and outcomes
of the course are described in [1] and at the project website (engineering-team.net/).

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1 METHODICAL BACKGROUND
The framework for the action-based and transnational course in higher education
follows the concept of Experiential Learning, based on the research results from
David Kolb [2, 3]. Experiential Learning is based on a learning cycle of reflecting on
the impacts of performed activities and subsequently deriving and implementing
measures for improving these activities [3]. For combining the learning cycle with the
search for solutions during the project work of the course, a specific logic was
developed. This logic is an integration of the approaches presented in [3, 4, 5, 6, 7]; it
supports the natural problem solving behaviour of humans and originally is inspired
by the TOTE-Model [8]. Fig. 1 shows the logic of the learning cycle applied during the
project working phase. Moreover, specific elements have been developed for training
different competencies of the learner. The structure of the relevant competencies is
oriented on the competence profile for sustainable leadership [9] and consists of four
main competencies: professional competence, methodical competence, social
competence, and self-competence. Table 1 points out the relevant course elements
for training the four main competencies. For the improvement of the course, different
evaluation activities with a subsequent development of improvement measures are
carried out. The framework has been implemented and evaluated within the first and
second cohort of the European Engineering Team.
solution task

clarify task
Exit Iterate  Develop
or pivot synthesis alternative
solutions
A generate
learn  Evaluate,
B solutions
Kolb‘s learning styles: D improve,
A – Reflective Observation C analyses and reject
B – Abstract Conceptualization solutions
C – Active Experimentation design
D – Concrete Experience test
experiments

Fig. 1. Learning cycle for the project working phase (in accordance with [10])

Table 1. Course elements for training the competencies

Competencies Course Elements
Professional  Depending on the involved  Project topic
and engineering disciplines  E-learning lectures
methodical  Application of specific engineering methods
competencies and tools depending on the project topic
 Application of digital tools for communication
Social  Intercultural competencies  Intercultural team composition
competencies  Capacity for team work  Project work in small teams and with work
 Communication capability packages
 Willingness to resolve conflicts  Periodic presentations of the work progress
 Persuasive strength
Self-  Self-confidence and leadership  Mobility phases
competencies  Mobility and flexibility  Intercultural teamwork
 Engagement and reliability
 Target orientation and
commitment

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2 STATE-OF-THE-ART
The state-of-the-art derives from approaches for action-based and transnational
curricula in engineering education, considering both virtual and physical elements.
The virtual-oriented approaches put an emphasis on online cooperation between the
transnational partner organizations.
 Moore and May describe an interactive online course for engineering students
based on a web-platform between the University of Virginia and the Dortmund
University [11].
 Petrea and Velescu present an example of a mostly virtual-oriented approach
with only one initial meeting for inter-university teaching of science students in a
foreign language (French) [12].
 TRIP was a project aimed at using web services for distribution of large software
engineering projects [13].
 Teaching students global software engineering skills using distributed Scrum in
inter-university Canadian-Finnish teams was described in [14].
The physical-oriented approaches are essentially characterized by short-term,
collaborative working phases, which take place with a co-located team and specific
tasks and objectives.
 The BASE Transnational Training Course established by Fundação da Faculdade
de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa (FFCUL) and by the Ecologic Institute in
Berlin provides a curriculum for the implementation of climate change adaptation
projects using hands-on experiments and case studies for 16 learners [15].
 “Global Engineering Teams” managed by Global Education Team UG is an
international and interdisciplinary project-oriented study course specifically for
engineers [16].
 Jane presented a transnational course prepared by four European universities in
the area of construction engineering and management [17]. All the activities were
performed during physical meeting. The entire course lasts 28 academic weeks
and students reside 9-10 full weeks at three different campuses, respectively.
 Mukerji presents further examples in [18].
The approach presented in this paper integrates both sets of practices and puts the
focus on sustainability in entrepreneurial engineering.

3 GUIDELINE
The guideline is one of the final deliverables from an ERASMUS+ strategic
partnership project. It captures lessons learned from our experiences as well as
practical recommendations for any educational or training consortium interesting in
replicating our engineering program. The guideline will be structured in the main
activities: preparation (3.1) development (3.2), as well as implementation, evaluation,
and follow-up (3.3). These activities are briefly outlined in this paper and are
undergoing continuous improvements as we proceed with the ERASMUS+ project.
Each activity covers different development phases (A-I) for the action-based and
transnational course in higher engineering education. These phases address the
development of different course elements.
3.1 Preparation
The definition of the course curriculum is the first relevant phase (A) for initiating the
future action-based and transnational teaching and learning activity. This phase
follows a fairly typical planning model including the development of the course
elements A.1-A.5 It covers the definition of a vision and mission for the course (A.1),

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as well as an outline of the leaning outcomes (A.2) and learning contents (A.3). This
includes a definition of specific competencies for the course as well as a generic
description of the applied procedures, principles, methods, and tools. The learning
outcomes and learning contents define specific teaching and learning activities
against which a duration and workload needs to be subsequently determined (A.4).
Lastly, the target group and pre-requisite knowledge of the participants (A.5) are
elaborated. For the development of the course elements, it should be ensured that
they can be realized by applying the learning cycle in Fig. 1.
Within the second phase (B), the necessary stakeholders have to be identified,
selected, and first contacts have to be established (B.1). The main relevant
stakeholders are the transnational teaching partners from different countries. The
partners should be selected according to the different competencies required to
realize the learning outcomes as well as the learning contents. Besides, it should be
ensured that the curriculum can be adjusted to the individual academic calendars of
the partners. Other relevant stakeholders are e.g. external experts or organizations
who/which are required for supporting the course with know-how or materials. For
establishing the cooperation with the stakeholders, it seems to be more promising to
select stakeholders with already existing good contacts on all organizational levels,
e.g. from chair, to department, and up to administrative level. All project partners
should be involved as early as possible in the development of the course elements.
This process was applied by the European Engineering Team, with an early
assessment of the feasibility of the course concept and detailed schedule for each
university’s curriculum and academic calendar. Concurrent to the selection of the
stakeholders, a funding for the mobility phases (B.2) and the required materials for
the project working phase (B.3) need to be specified.
The alignment of the course schedule to the academic calendars of the partners as
well as the establishment of a funding for the course has been experienced as
especially critical for the development of the European Engineering Team.
3.2 Development of the course model
After the preparation, the detailed course model has to be elaborated. This covers as
a first development phase, the definition of the educational contents (C). The
concrete topic for the project working phase (C.1) has to be determined. Moreover,
the duration, sequence and objectives of the mobility phases (C.2) have to be
specified. Additionally, a set of topics for the supporting e-learning lectures (C.3)
must be selected, addressing professional and methodological as well as transversal
competencies for the students.
In a second phase (D), the roles and expectations on both teachers (D.1) and
supervisors (D.2) have to be detailed. This includes to define “who teaches what and
when” as well as the learning outcomes and outputs for the students.
A third phase addresses the development of a concept for the quality assurance of
the curriculum (E). In this context, an evaluation plan (E.1) and specific evaluation
criteria (E.2) must be defined.
Lastly, the communication between the different stakeholders has to be set (F). For
this purpose, the communication infrastructure and required tools are selected, e.g.
for web-conferences. A first schedule for the communication between the different
stakeholders is specified, especially taking into account the virtual cooperation and
collaboration phases (F.1-F.3). Table 2 shows a detailed use case for the course
elements of the development phases C-F based on the European Engineering Team
(EET).

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Table 2. Use case for the course elements for the development phases C-F
C Educational contents
C.1 Project working phase: The project topic for the EET is to find a solution for breaking the chain
of infection by developing an autonomous disinfection vehicle for application in hospitals based on
the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. This covers the development of a
prototype as well as the development of a suitable business model. A sub-group of 4-8 students will
be working on one topic supervised by four teachers from the partner universities.
C.2 Mobility phases: Four mobility phases at each of the partner universities are planned, one at
each partner university with a duration of five days: week 14, Milan – introductions, define and
analyze the problem to be solved; week 19, Trondheim – refine the problem definition and candidate
solutions; week 41, Berlin – active prototyping; week 2, Warsaw – final meeting and introduction of
the solution to investors.
C.3 E-learning lectures: For assisting the project work of the students the following e-learning
lectures have been defined: Sustainable Value Creation, Systems Thinking & Systems Engineering,
Technology Management, Circular Economy, Development of sustainability-oriented Startups,
Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Virtual and Augmented Reality, and Digital Factory. The
partner universities are recording the screen-casts and are prepare an exercise for each topic.
D. Roles of and expectations on teachers and learners
D.1 Roles of and expectations on teachers: For the EET, two different roles are required to be taken
by the teachers: lecturer for the e-learning contents and supervisor for the project work of the
students. The teachers are expected to be PhD students, post docs, or professors. Moreover, the
teachers must attend all mobility phases and must closely supervise a small sub group of up to five
students according to their individual competencies.
D.2 Roles of and expectations on learners: The students (learners) are expected to take different
roles according to the project, such as project managers, product developers, or business model
developers. In terms of the learning outcomes, the following expectations have been determined:
ability to critically assess the goodness of a solution and its ability to meet a real customer’s need;
ability to work together and at the same time work in smaller groups that are capable of effectively
sharing information between themselves; demonstrate (virtual) communications techniques learned
during the project; ability to structure plans that address interdependencies and pre-requisites
between the groups; ability to use abstract methods such as digital simulation or drawing to support
decision making and design; ability to critically assess the contributions of a proposed solution to
sustainable development. As output during the course, the students need to produce different
reports including a reflection on the progress of the project work as well as a description of the
produced results. Furthermore, the students have to create presentations for each mobility phase.
E Concept for quality assurance
E.1 Evaluation plan: It is necessary to monitor the learning and teaching progress and outcomes.
During the course, three course evaluations are carried out with the participating students based on
an anonymous online questionnaire. At the end of the EET an evaluation and improvement
workshop is carried out by the teachers. As part of the workshop, feedback and possible
improvement measures will be discussed with the students during their last mobility phase.
E.2 Evaluation criteria: For monitoring qualitative evaluation criteria, the change in the intercultural,
mobility, methodical, professional, and self- competence of each student are evaluated during the
anonymous online questionnaires. Therefore, the students rate their competencies in terms of
speaking/understanding/writing English, sustainability, dealing with valued rules/norms, and
expectations of people from other cultures, startup development, etc.
F Communication between the stakeholders
F.1 Communication of teachers and leaners: The infrastructure for communication between teachers
and learners is designed as an open-source web-based platform. Moreover, the teachers and
students meet physically at the mobility phases and virtually during the project work on the basis of
web-based conference calls.
F.2 Communication between students for the virtual cooperation and collaboration phases: The
communication between the students is organized in a decentralized manner. The students
themselves chose within their group, the relevant digital tools for organizing their work.
F.3 Communication between teachers: The communication between the teachers takes place during
the mobility phases, as well as by using web-based conference calls.

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3.3 Implementation, Evaluation, and Follow-Up

This final section of the guideline includes recommendations for project
management, for implementing the educational contents, and for continuous
evaluation. The implementation of the course model entails an effective transnational
project management (G) of the curriculum. This requires the adherence to
responsibilities and scheduled meetings as well as the usage of the digital,
communication tools. Secondly, the educational contents have to be implemented
(H). This activity comprises the acquisition of students (H.1) as well as the
operational planning and execution of the mobility phases (H.2), the virtual
cooperation and collaboration phases (H.3), and the e-learning lectures (H.4). After
the course is implemented and performed, evaluation and follow-up actions (I)
ensure the educational quality of the curriculum and identify possible criticalities and
subsequent improvements.

4 SUMMARY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The paper addressed the definition of a guideline for planning and implementing an
action-based and transnational course in higher education for training the
engineering competencies required in a future dynamic European workplace and
economy. The main activities highlighted were: preparation, development of the
course model, as well as implementation, evaluation, and follow-up. Important
development phases for the main activities were explained on the basis of a real
implementation of a master course focusing on the development of sustainable and
technological innovations with entrepreneurial objectives.
This research was supported by the ERASMUS+ Strategic Partnerships Project “New
Culture in Higher Education: Project-Oriented Learning Beyond Borders” funded by
the European Union, project number 2015-1-DE01-KA203-002207.

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