2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This paper will discuss the efforts of two departments at a regional engineering college to establish undergraduate and graduate certificate programs with an emphasis on design and material standards. The goal of the certificate programs is to increase student understanding of and appreciation for professional standards as relates to engineering design and material characterization. This paper will describe the components of the certificate programs and progress to date.

A major component of the certificate program is developing content modules across a wide spectrum of courses. Successful course modules implemented in Spring 2022 and those currently under development in Fall 2022 will be discussed in the final paper. In Spring 2022, students completed post-course surveys. Although the survey had few responses (14 completions), it indicated an increased understanding of how standards can be applied in design and material characterization (86% of respondents), while 93% of respondents indicated an increased appreciation of design and material standards. By the time of submitting the final paper, Fall 2022 pre- and post-survey results will be available and increase the statistical significance of survey results. Faculty assessments of student learning will also be discussed for Spring and Fall 2022 courses.

In addition to direct integration into existing courses, the certificate programs require students to attend a seminar series. The Spring 2022 and Spring 2023 seminar series will be discussed in the final paper, as well as feedback from seminar attendees.

The last component of the certificate program focuses on the senior capstone project for undergraduates and the thesis for graduate students. The application and review criteria for student projects will be discussed. A summary of student projects will be provided.

This work was performed under the following financial assistance award 70NANB21H175 from U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.