DOES A MASTER’S PROGRAM IN ENGINEERING REQUIRE A FINAL PROJECT?

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DOES A MASTER’S PROGRAM IN ENGINEERING REQUIRE A FINAL PROJECT?

H. Audunsson, R. Rudd, R. Kristjánsson, O. Moschetta, S. Rouvrais (2022).  DOES A MASTER’S PROGRAM IN ENGINEERING REQUIRE A FINAL PROJECT?. 48-57.
2022 18th International CDIO Conference, Reykjavik University, Iceland
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Within engineering education frameworks worldwide, requirements for a master’s degree are diverse and very few graduate-level engineering courses are recommended for accredited programs. To ascertain how common the requirement for a final project at the master’s level is, an ad hoc review of international master’s programs was conducted. This review included several of the highest-ranking universities internationally and selected universities in Europe. From this review, it is established that the standard practice is to require students attempting a master’s degree in engineering to complete what we term a final project course, which may or may not be research-focused, and typically corresponding to one semester of work. This paper summarizes how the considered universities integrate a final project course into their programs and distinguishes how these might differ from traditional research-focused master’s dissertations. We discuss some practical difficulties of managing such projects. We conclude by providing a rubric for self-assessment and final project course integration that aligns with the criteria for continuous improvement in a graduate program quality framework.

Authors (New): 
Haraldur Audunsson
Ralph Rudd
Ragnar Kristjánsson
Olivier Matthieu S. Moschetta
Siegfried Rouvrais
Pages: 
48-57
Affiliations: 
Reykjavik University, Iceland
IMT Atlantique, France
Keywords: 
Final project course
dissertation
thesis
learning outcomes
rubric
Master of Science
CDIO Standard 2
CDIO Standard 5
CDIO Standard 8
Year: 
2022
Reference: 
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on October 18, 2022 - 04:49   Maria Siiskonen
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