Development of a Scalable and Sustainable Infrastructure for Global, Collaborative Engineering Design Education

智力价值在这项研究中，将开发一种可扩展的方法，使学生能够获得全球能力的重要属性。这项研究背后的中心思想是将国际学生设计团队聚集在一起，他们通过基于互联网的交流和设计工具在设计项目上进行合作。同时，团队将作为试验床，研究和开发协同设计教育的方法。因此，这项研究有两个主要目标：1)开发和完善一个可扩展的框架和支持基础设施，使工程学学生能够学习和实践一流的全球工程设计方法；2)为基于互联网的协作式全球工程设计教育提供一个学习、开发、改进和验证方法和技术的环境。这两个目标是协同的，将同时实现。这项研究将作为试点项目进行，为期两年。在第一年，杨百翰大学的团队将与国外的团队在一个设计和建造项目上进行匹配。该项目将在一个班级的背景下进行。第一年的主要重点将是了解执行问题，即回答诸如：应该如何选择项目？以及？如何使用技术来支持有效的协作？第二年，美国四所大学的代表队将与国外的代表队进行配对。第二年的重点将是评估这种方法在多大程度上能够很好地发展全球能力的关键属性。广泛影响这项研究的影响可能是深远和重大的。这项研究被视为可能发展一个由美国球队与国际球队合作的全国网络的必要的第一步。尽管我们在这里只提出了一个试点计划，但我们认为成功的一个主要标准是该计划是否可以扩展到试点学校以外的学校。如果成功，许多学生可以因此获得和练习全球工程技能。

Intellectual MeritIn this research, a scalable approach to enable students to acquire important attributes of global competence will be developed. The central idea behind the research is to bring together international student design teams which collaborate on design projects via Internet-based communication and design tools. At the same time, the teams will be used as a test bed to study and develop methods for collaborative design education. Thus the research has two main objectives: 1) to develop and refine a scalable framework andsupporting infrastructure that allows engineering students to learn and practice best-in-class methods for global engineering design, and 2) to provide an environment to study, develop, refine and validate methods and technologies for Internet-based collaborative, global engineering design education. These two objectives are synergistic and will be pursued simultaneously. The research will be conducted as a pilot program run for two years. During the first year, teams at Brigham Young University will be matched with teams abroad on a design-and-build project. The project will be conducted within the context of a class. The main focus of the first year will be on understanding implementation issues, i.e., answering questions such as ?How should projects be selected?,? and ?How can technology be used to support effective collaboration?? For the second year, teams at four universities in the U.S. will be matched with teams abroad. The focus of the second year will be on evaluating how well this approach is able to develop key attributes of global competence.Broader ImpactsThe impact of the research could be far reaching and significant. The research is seen as a necessary first step towards the possible development of a national network of U.S. teams partnered with international teams. Although we are here proposing only a pilot program, we consider a main criterion of success to be whether the program is extensible to schools beyond those in the pilot. If successful, many students could thereby acquire and practice global engineering skills.