Optimizing Power Skills in Interdisciplinary, Diverse & Innovative Academic Networks (OPSIDIAN)

加拿大要在竞争激烈、以知识为本的全球经济中保持领导地位，就必须充分利用其生产力和创新潜力。科学、技术、工程和数学方面的基本技能虽然是必要的，但对于技术创新和生产力增长来说，已经不再足够。权力技能，如多样性和跨学科驱动的沟通、团队合作和领导力，现在已成为不可避免的互补能力。然而，工业界和学术界都缺乏充分利用跨学科和多样化团队的潜力的能力。 OPSIDIAN是一个独立的项目，它将获得权力技能放在培训的核心位置。学员将在OPSIDIAN横向围绕的五个工程领域(生物医学、民用、计算机、工业、机械)实践这些技能。该计划将提供知识和工具，以培训学生在创新的科学和工程团队中整合跨学科和多样性。利用以建构主义为基础的方法，培训将被整合为一个积极的情境化的知识共同构建过程，充分让学生参与到他们的学习过程中。高度可转移和可演变的权力技能将使受训者在未来的就业前景中拥有明显的优势，因为学术界、行业和政府都在积极寻求这些技能。 据我们所知，OPSIDIAN将为加拿大各地的工程学研究生提供独特和创新的培训模式。它在培养学生在跨学科和多样化的科学和工程团队中有效协作、相互联系和创新的方式上孕育了一种范式的变化。随着时间的推移，OPSIDIAN的雄心是将其培训模式从东海岸到西海岸转移到其他加拿大大学。

For Canada to secure its leadership in a highly competitive knowledge-based global economy, it must take full advantage of its productive and innovative potential. Fundamental skills in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, although necessary, are no longer sufficient for technological innovation and productivity growth. Power skills, such as diversity- and interdisciplinary-driven communication, teamwork and leadership, have now become inescapable complementary competencies. Yet, both the industrial and academic research communities are ill-equipped to fully exploit the potential of interdisciplinary and diverse teams. OPSIDIAN is a stand-alone program, which places power skills acquisition at the core of the training. Trainees will put these skills into practice across five engineering fields (biomedical, civil, computer, industrial, mechanical) around which OPSIDIAN transversally articulates. The program will provide the knowledge and tools to train students to integrate interdisciplinarity and diversity in innovative science and engineering teams. Leveraging a constructivism-based approach, training will be integrated as an active contextualized process of knowledge co-construction, fully engaging students in their learning process. The highly transferable and evolvable power skills will grant trainees with a clear edge in their future job prospects, as those skills are actively sought by academia, industries and governments. To our knowledge, OPSIDIAN will offer a unique and innovative training model across Canada for engineering graduate students. It breeds a change of paradigm in the way students are trained to efficiently collaborate, interrelate and innovate within interdisciplinary and diverse science and engineering teams. Over time, OPSIDIAN's ambition is to transfer its training model to other Canadian Universities from coast-to-coast-to-coast.