Binnen het projectonderwijs wordt nog vaak drooggezwommen. Enerzijds door de verstrekte projectopdrachten anderzijds door de suboptimalisatie van oplossingen. Deze zijn namelijk sterk afhankelijk van de verbonden modules en docenten. In de praktijk zijn de oplossingen echter altijd een afweging van tijd, geld en kwaliteit. Onze Human Engineers leren om daar op een goede manier mee om te gaan. Dit door de integratiemodule Integrated Product Development (IPD). IPD is een multidisciplinair project waarbij studenten van verschillende Fontys Instituten werken aan de commercikle en technische uitwerking van een bedrijfsopdracht. Marktonderzoek, doelgroep bepaling en productspecificatie zijn een vast onderdeel van een IPD project evenals het ontwerpen en bouwen van een prototype en het financieel onderbouwen van een Go/NO go advies aan de ondernemer. Het project vindt plaats in het laatste onderwijssemester, net vssr het afstuderen en is dus te zien als een open project met een bedrijf als opdrachtgever. De Human Engineering studenten zijn in deze projecten de verbindende schakel. De specialisten in de projectgroepen, de technische studenten, willen nogal eens zoeken naar mooie oplossingen vooral in technische zin. Daarbij gaan ze vaak volledig voorbij aan het belang van de ondernemer (winst maken) en het belang van de klant (kwaliteit en bedieningsgemak). Ook het projectwerk heeft een enorme sprong vooruit gemaakt door het team uit te breiden met Human Engineers. De Human Engineering studenten focussen vooral ook op het halen van targets (kosten) en deadlines (tijd), het maken en nakomen van afspraken en de communicatie binnen de groep en naar buiten toe (ondernemer en klant). Huidige studenten en alumni geven aan dat het project zeer realistisch is en dat het vergelijkbaar is met problemen die ze in hun werk tegen komen. Zeker blijven doen is hun advies. Organisatorisch vergt het wel een en ander omdat er bijvoorbeeld afstemming dient te komen tussen de verschillende instituten met betrekking tot: beoordeling van de studenten, afstemmen van lesroosters en vergoeding voor docenten. Ook het onderhouden van bedrijfsrelaties om bijvoorbeeld aan de opdrachten te komen blijft een moeilijke, tijdrovende zaak.
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De projecten op gebied van "Integrated Product Development" (IPD) bij Fontys worden beschreven. Aan de orde komen de verschillende vormen, waarin deze projecten in de loop der jaren zijn uitgevoerd en de samenwerkingsverbanden die hieruit zijn ontstaan. Er wordt aandacht besteed aan de onderwijsvormen, die hierbij worden toegepast. Tenslotte worden de belangrijkste leereffecten van deze projecten vastgesteld en wordt stilgestaan bij het belang van participatie in deze projecten door informaticastudenten.
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The Technical Departments at the Fontys University of Professional Education in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, offer a course which is devel-oped around the principles of Concurrent Engi-neering. Integrated Product Development (IPD) project teams are multi-disciplinary groups which develop products in co-operation with the regional industry. The companies involved are sponsoring the developments and the revenue is being used for more intensive group coaching by tutors and specialists. We experimented with communication technology to find a good compromise between time and costs. It turned out that intelligent pagers resulted in minor improvements, mobile phones are still too expensive, e-mail is functional but creates no group cohesion and most of the com-panies are rather conservative in their use of new communication tools. We also found out that the use of a Computer Supported Co-operative Work (CSCW) server is a possibility for information interchange as an alternative for e-mail attachments. The server is also used as an archive. In future we expect that CSCW will be an effective tool for project sup-port and control.
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Our IPD-projects have changed: more international partners became involved and simultaneously we started to carry out real projects for real companies. This caused a number of problems. In order to be able to give full support to the projects and conclude them with a nice, formal symposium we need financial funds. Therefore companies were asked for additional sponsoring, which introduced new problems. How we dealt with all these problems is explained in this paper. Other ways of co-operating with different partners in the IPD-projects are also considered. A recent development is to create combinations with students from secondary technical education that already work in practice. First experiments have started in February 2004. First results and further plans on these combinations are reported here.
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An investigation in the learning effects of integrated development projects. In two subsequent semesters the students were asked how they rated their competencies at the start of the project as well as at the end of it. The students voluntarily filled out a questionnaire. After the last questionnaire a number of students were also interviewed in order to learn more about their perceptions. It was a remarkable outcome of these interviews that a lot of students tended to give themselves lower ratings in the end if they met any difficulties in for instance communication or co-operation during the project. Then the questionnaire showed a decrease in the student's ratings, while anyone else would say the student did learn something after recognizing these difficulties. It required a different interpretation of the outcomes of the questionnaires. The investigation showed that co-operating in general and in multidisciplinary teams in particular, co-operating with companies and also working according to plans are the four objectives that are recognized mostly by the students. The factors that actually contribute to, or block, the learning effects remained unknown yet.
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An on-going investigation in the learning effects of IPD projects. In three subsequent semesters the students were asked how they rated their competencies at the start of the project as well as at the end of it. Also questionnaires were filled out and students were interviewed. A lot of students tended to give themselves lower ratings in the end than in the begin. It appeared that if they met any difficulties in for instance communication or co-operation during the project, that they interpreted this as a decrease in competencies. Finally the students were explicitly asked to mention an eventual increase in competencies and also a possible contribution for this effect. Only a few factors that actually contribute to the learning effects have been defined.
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It has become a topic at Dutch educational institutes to feel not only responsible for improvement of theoretical and practical skills, but also of 'competences' in a broader sense. The curriculum of the Electrical and Electronic (E&E) Department has been changed enormously in the past decade. Fewer lessons and many more projects were introduced. We have choosen to let the students work on competences especially in the projects they are in. With the introduction of competences and the aid of a student portfolio we have given the tools to the students to improve their competences in a broader way. At the E &E department we introduced two different ways of working on competences. In the first years of their study students choose different roles in our projects every time. We have described all the roles and the related tasks for each specific role. While working on a role, the students indirectly work on different competences. This way of working inforces a broader educational level (a student shouldn t work on things he already knows or is able to handle) and the hitch hiking behaviour is banned out. Students now do take responsibility while contributing to the project teams. Inquiries amongst the students confirm these results. The second way is working on the specific competences in their traineeship and thesis work in the last part of their study. This will be introduced in autumn 2004 in the E&E department. In this paper we will show you how we are implementing the integration of competences, like the E&E department did, for IPD projects as well. This implementation is planned to start in autumn 2004.
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Described are the results of a study that was set up to get insight into the appreciation of students for distance learning, especially concerning online lab-experiments. We wanted to know whether an online lab-experiment is more or less effective than a regular one and how it can be used in IPD-projects. Preliminary data analyses have shown that the appreciation of an online lab-experiment is dependent on a number of items, like the educational contents of the experiment itself, the way accompanying theory is presented, possibilities of doing the experiment in an alternative way, the organization around the experiment etc. It appears also that students give serious suggestions on developing other online lab-experiments and the way to use it in IPD-projects. A description is given of the web-based experiment "cube measurement", which is carried out using a remotely operated robot and image processing functions. The students' appreciation is discussed and suggestions are given on how comparable experiments can contribute to work in an IPD environment.
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In the fall of 1999, we started, the Integrated Product Development- Collaborative Engineering ( IPD-CE) project as a first pilot. We experimented with modern communication technology in order to find useful tools for facilitating the cooperative work and the contacts of all the participants. Teams have been formed with engineering students from Lehigh University in the US, the Fontys University in Eindhoven, The Netherlands and from the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany. In the fall of 2000 we continued and also cooperated with the Finnish Oulu Polytechnic. It turned out that group cohesion stayed low (students did not meet in real life), and that Internet is not mature enough yet for desktop video conferencing. Chatting and email were in these projects by far the most important communication media. We also found out that the use of a Computer Support for Cooperative Work (CSCW) server is a possibility for information interchange. The server can also be used as an electronic project archive. Points to optimise are: 1. We didn't fully match the complete assignments of the groups; 2. We allowed the groups to divide the work in such parts that those were developed and prototyped almost locally; 3. We haven't guided the fall 2000 teams strong enough along our learning curve and experiences from previous groups. 4. We didn't stick strong enough to the, by the groups developed, protocols for email and chat sessions. 5. We should facilitate video conferencing via V-span during the project to enhance the group performance and commitment.
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Within the profile Technical Information Technology (ICT Department) the most important specializations are Embedded Software and Industrial Automation. About half of the Technical Information curriculum consists of learning modules, the other half is organized in projects. The whole study lasts four years. After two-and-a-half year students choose a specialization. Before the choice is made students have several occasions in which they learn something about the possible fields of specialization. In the first and second year there are two modules about Industrial Automation. First there is a module on actuators, sensors and interfacing, later a module on production systems. Finally there is an Industrial Automation project. In this project groups of students get the assignment to develop the control for a scale model flexible automation cell or to develop a monitoring system for this cell. In the last year of their studies students participate in a larger Industrial Automation project, often with an assignment from Industry. Here also the possibility exists to join multidisciplinary projects (IPD; integrated product development).
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