Industry and Higher Education

This special issue of Industry and Higher Education is devoted to a selection of papers, reviewed and revised for publication, from the Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration held in San Diego, CA, 30 January–2 February 2001.

This paper describes three distinct applications of a case methodology in which practitioners presented a workplace problem in class, received case presentations and recommendations from student teams, and then assisted in student evaluation. The paper also presents and tests four hypotheses – that the methodology results in: more student enjoyment, higher case realism, greater transferability to workplace situations, and more accurate perceptions of the partnering company. In all three studies, the hypotheses receive support.

To cope with new challenges, universities of technology need to team up and complement their continuing engineering education programmes with open distance learning. The European FACILE project provided a starting point for collaboration among universities in providing continuing engineering education with facilitated open distance learning. Facilitated open distance learning combines the flexibility of open learning with support of the learning process through local support centres. Following experiences with FACILE, European centres will form a network acting as a geographically separated virtual centre for continuing engineering education which will offer programmes for an audience located all over Europe.

The Vanderbilt–Northwestern–Texas–Harvard/MIT Engineering Research Center in Bioengineering Educational Technologies is the only such National Science Foundation sponsored Center specifically focused on educational technologies. The Center teams bioengineering, learning science and learning technology specialists in universities and industry to determine what bioengineers should learn, how it should be conveyed, and how learning should be assessed. Potential industrial and practice partners include companies and national laboratories that practise bioengineering, those that provide enabling technologies for construction of learning modules and assembly into courseware, and major publishers and others who will assist in courseware dissemination. Modular design should make Center courseware useful in continuing as well as curricular education. Continuing education marketing strategies include recruiting companies to provide employee, client, customer, and patient groups as test-beds and customers for courseware, and advertising for continuing education through professional societies and advocacy groups.

The Bucknell University Small Business Development Center (SBDC), home of the Product Development Center (PDC), assists inventors and small firms in transforming their ideas into marketable products. The PDC combines traditional management services with the resources and expertise of a top-notch engineering department. The PDC provides assistance on various types of projects, including product design, prototype development, product testing, feasibility analysis, and process improvements. In response to the increasing demand for these services, the PDC has increased the number of engineering students employed in the Center. Since the SBDC is housed in the College of Engineering, students and engineering faculty work closely with industry counterparts in the design and development of new products. The Stage-GateTM process has been successfully implemented to create a multidisciplinary team approach to product development. The results have been remarkable, with measurable benefit to the College's educational mission and to private enterprise. This paper highlights the Bucknell University Product Development Center and how industry and education can collaborate most effectively to achieve excellent results.

This paper explores issues relating to the fields of engineering education that are constantly evolving. Business, industry, and higher education institutions must come to a consensus on what skills, talents and resources engineers need if they are to survive in a technological society. The authors investigate a growing division between higher education and industry. The results of a national survey by the US Consensus Bureau on hiring, training, and management practices in American business indicate an increasing conviction among employers that colleges and universities have not adequately prepared students for rapidly changing market environments. The authors also examine the issues that have apparently contributed to the divergence between industry and academia. To bridge the gap between industry and academia, guidelines are suggested that can result in producing a new generation of engineers. Data were gathered from a survey soliciting perceptions from business, industry and engineering students at various colleges and universities. The results of this survey are also discussed.

The ‘Teaching in the Factory’ approach goes beyond a simple engineering ‘co-op’ experience, bringing together academic rigour and real-world experiences and generating a winning situation for all constituents. This approach provides teams of engineering students with the opportunity to work on projects in a real factory environment, gives students a solid technical education, and exposes them to significant engineering challenges in a factory/business setting. It also benefits companies by bringing fresh engineering minds to solve problems, obtaining faculty expertise in systematic problem solving and project management, and acquiring help to complete important projects.

Academics in the engineering and engineering technology disciplines have a storehouse of knowledge and talent that is potentially valuable to small and medium-sized manufacturing firms. These firms' facilities often have a limited number of engineers who must wear many hats. The Pennsylvania-based firm Can Corporation, with a workforce of over 200, has a single mechanical engineer on staff, who is the plant engineer, the maintenance supervisor, and the environmental compliance officer. An internship during 1999–2000 for a member of the local college engineering faculty, affiliated to Penn State University, proved to be a win–win arrangement for both parties. This paper presents a case history, identifies the benefits gained by the academic participant, discusses the benefits to the industrial partner, and provides recommendations for future internships. Penn State University's policies and practices applicable to internships are presented. The intention of the paper is to encourage members of engineering and engineering technology faculties to view an industrially sponsored internship as a method of providing valuable service, an opportunity to refresh engineering skills, and a source of supplemental income.

Based on the authors' experience at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), an effective way for members of engineering technology faculties to keep abreast of new developments in their field is to establish a faculty internship programme. The internship programme at MTSU, fully supported by the university's industrial advisory council, is set up to be a very simple and paper-free process. Every semester one faculty member spends the entire semester working as an engineer at a local firm and continues to draw his or her normal salary from the university. The firm, in turn, reimburses the university for the cost of replacing the faculty member with an adjunct. Since the faculty member is employed as a contractor in the host company, he or she retains the employment benefits from the university.