FINAL YEAR PROJECTS – A MEANS OF ADDING VALUE TO GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES

Andrew Nafalski, Özdemir Göl and Kevin McDermott

University of South Australia

School of Electrical and Information Engineering
Mawson Lakes 5095, Australia

Abstract

This paper illustrates the process of developing graduate qualities by means of motivational final
year projects. Such projects place substantial responsibility on the students to take their own
initiatives, and to attain the knowledge base required for accomplishing tasks essentially outside
their area of formal learning. In doing so, they develop graduate qualities sought by their
university, by potential employers and professional organisations, both in Australia and globally.
The projects involve complete cycles of engineering design from conceptualisation to realisation,
thus giving ample scope for the exercise of the full spectrum of such qualities. It is postulated that
these projects play a crucial role in converting semi-reflective learners into immediately
employable professional engineers, aware of the need for, and capable of, continuous professional
and social development.

1. INTRODUCTION

There has been an increasing emphasis on the
acquisition of graduate attributes or qualities in the
course of undergraduate university studies. The
impetus has come from many stakeholders, including
government agencies, employers, professional bodies
and society at large. The underlying concerns have
been both professional, in the sense of graduates being
able to deliver technically sound solutions in a
complex working environment, and ethical, as regards
their responsibilities for sustainable development and
moral action. Universities and professional bodies
have developed sets of desired generic graduate
attributes and key performance indicators gauging the
effectiveness of providers in achieving the stated
outcomes of educational programs. This increase in
accountability has caused institutions to look more
carefully at how their programs are structured and
implemented, and particularly at how the desired
qualities are to be inculcated and nurtured [1], [2].
The intrinsic link between technical knowledge and
generic attributes of practitioners is beginning to
emerge in basic texts [3] with explicit statements of
the outcome dictated content and delivery.
Most readers will be aware of the emphasis on
demonstrated acquisition of generic skills now
required by accreditation authorities. There is an
emphasis in these criteria on what graduate engineers
are able to do. This is consistent with Bloom’s
Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, in which the
ability to execute is classed as a higher level activity
than the acquisition of knowledge per se. The
Taxonomy is depicted in Fig. 1 [4].
In engineering, final year projects have always been
considered as the means of demonstrating the efficacy
of knowledge and skills acquired by more formal,
usually didactic processes.
higher level
judgement
synthesis
application
action
analysis
comprehension
state
knowledge
Fig 1. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Within the School of Electrical and Information
Engineering (EIE) at the University of South Australia
(UniSA), they are not only seen as a proving ground
of problem solving and design prowess, but also as an
instrument of adding value to other desired graduate
attributes. These range from communication skills
through professional and ethical responsibilities to
ability to function in multi-disciplinary teams.
Activities implicit in and associated with final year
projects are mapped against the University’s list of
desired graduate qualities (UniSA uses the term
qualities rather than attributes) [5].
2. IMPLEMENTATION OF GRADUATE
QUALITIES
Within UniSA, the engineering schools pioneered the
development and use of a method for planning and
determining the extent to which generic qualities are
developed in programs and courses. For each course,
curriculum designers enter proportions of the course
which are conceived as leading to the formation of
each of the generic qualities. The typical total
weighting for a course is 4.5, the nominal unit value
for a standard one-semester course. These weightings
are summed by academic year for each program, and
the results represented graphically [6].
When represented graphically, this information
reveals possible deficiencies in the spread of graduate
qualities over the entire program. Anomalies can be
addressed to provide better balance. Course
objectives, relevant teaching and learning strategies,
and assessment methods are devised to achieve the
graduate attributes to the extent envisaged.
The process has not been without controversy, since it
has been viewed by some as an overly mechanistic
way of representing abstract attributes.
Notwithstanding, it has been adopted throughout the
University as a pragmatic means of infusing the
importance of graduate attributes into program design.
Furthermore the approach facilitates measurement of
achievements in terms of graduate attributes, which is
increasingly a requirement by professional accrediting
bodies such as the Institution of Engineers Australia
(IEAust), Accreditation Board of Engineering and
Technology (ABET) in U.S.A. and the Institution of
Electrical Engineers (IEE) in U.K.
In order to measure the level of attainment of the
graduate qualities, the University has developed
‘generic indicators’. For example, regarding the
Quality No. 3, a graduate will:
• gather, evaluate and deploy relevant information
to assist problem solving – i.e. analysis and
synthesis;
• define researchable questions in the discipline or
professional area;
• apply strategies to conceptualise problems and
formulate a range of solutions;
Fig. 2 The Systems Engineering process
• be able to initiate creative responses to problems
and frame such responses as opportunities.
The complete list of graduate qualities and generic
indicators is given in Appendix 1. These generic
indicators can be used in developing objectives,
strategies and assessment, and for verifying the
likelihood that courses will achieve the proportions of
graduate quality development claimed [6], [7].
3. SYSTEMS ENGINEERING
FOUNDATION
Students are not expected to spontaneously develop
the insights and skills required for successful
completion of complex projects without some measure
of prior preparation. This is achieved within the
School by incorporating formal teaching of the
Systems Engineering (SE) approach in all program
streams.
Systems Engineering – a holistic view of the
enterprise, rather than simply ‘engineering of systems’
– has become indispensable in the planning of
complex projects, such as the design of contemporary
large commercial aircraft. The discipline received
considerable impetus during the space race. Later, it
was found to be indispensable for the successful
implementation of large software projects. Amongst
other advantages, the rigorous decomposition of the
software suite into modules with minimal,
functionally defined interfaces enabled such systems
to be tested, something which is impossible for
complete systems with their infinite number of
possible states. One possible representation of key SE
activities is given in Fig. 2 [8].
At UniSA, the drive for the inclusion of SE in
programs conducted by the School of EIE came via
both the ‘complex project’ and software engineering
practices. The School has a defence industry
sponsored research entity, the Systems Engineering
and Evaluation Centre (SEEC), and a flourishing
Computer Systems Engineering Centre. Both are
involved in teaching the common undergraduate SE
courses. The pedagogy employed is itself based on SE
principles. Introductory description and discussion
starts with user needs for successful project outcomes,
suggests necessary functions and metrics, before
teasing out specific methods which are then assessed
and refined to produce a total SE approach. The
students then practise this sequence in developing
group projects.
The accreditation visit of IEAust [13] has confirmed
the merit of the SE approach in the course sequence
and final year project courses. In these courses
emphasis is on ample scope and requirement for
problem identification, definition and solution in ill-
defined and open-ended situations, with emphasis on
lateral thinking. A good introduction is also given to
software engineering methodologies, which are seen
as a combination of design and project management.
The report stated: “Business and management aspects
of engineering were treated in the Systems
Engineering strand of subjects – which the staff saw as
discipline-specific… The Panel was particularly
impressed with this strand and with the explicit
attention given to development of systems thinking
skills.”
4. THE NEED FOR EXPERIENCE
From its beginnings, engineering education was a
form of tutelage. The earliest engineers learned their
craft through observation and practice, supplemented
by whatever instruction was relevant and available.
Increasingly, the learning of engineering has been
transferred from the workplace to the schools, theory
has been substituted for practice, and the attempt has
been made to prepare candidates for a lifetime of
practice by a concentrated academic indoctrination. In
contemporary universities, with their emphases on
accountability, economies of delivery and promotion
by research, experiential learning is generally under
threat for other reasons.
However, there are some things which can only be
learned by experience. Manual skills are an obvious
example, but students returning from cooperative
work placements consistently report that their
experiences have taught them valuable
implementation skills, which can be demonstrated to
map onto the most commonly desired generic
qualities. They are insistent that these skills are not
achievable through conventional courses.
Learning derived from experience is commonly
persistent. It is transferable, and often influential. For
example, emotions are the manifestation of earlier
experiences, stored subconsciously, but triggered by
contemporary events. Our emotions may be based on
past experiences, but they are applied involuntarily to
new circumstances, whether appropriately or not.
The case for experiential learning can be argued from
theoretical considerations. In another place, the
authors have argued the case for experiential learning
on physiological, psychological, epistemological and
pragmatic grounds [9].
It seems then, that there are special learnings
obtainable through experience, and corresponding
reasons why we should resist the prevailing trend to
continue to replace experiential learning by academic
indoctrination. An obvious and common vehicle for
students to learn by experience is in their final year
projects. Within the School of EIE at UniSA, final
year project work is weighted relatively heavily.
5. FRAMEWORK OF FINAL YEAR
PROJECTS
The following is a typical statement for the aims of a
final year engineering design project within the
School of EIE:
“To provide students with experience and appreciation
of the process of performing engineering projects in
one of the streams of engineering associated with
information technology, including the specification,
design and development, customer interaction and
reporting processes. Students will work together in
teams under the guidance of an experienced
supervisor, often from industry, and learn about the
processes of team-work.”
The expectation is that, on completion of the subject,
the student will be able to:
• perform a systems requirement analysis for an
information technology engineering project and
prepare related system specifications;
• propose and investigate candidate solutions for
the project, taking into account the international
context;
• undertake literature and computer database
searches;
• write a project management plan;
• schedule tasks and establish milestones for the
project team;
• allocate functions to software and/or hardware
for the effective achievement of the performance
requirement;
• model, analyse or simulate subsystems, as
required;
• write a design document for the system;
• design the hardware and/or software system;
• take account of reliability, quality assurance, and
ergonomics in the system design;
• write a test plan and specification for the system;
• perform testing to evaluate the performance of
the system;
• keep bound records of all investigations,
calculations, meetings and testing;
• work as part of a team and interact effectively
with project sponsors and supervisors;
• communicate effectively the project outcomes
through a seminar on the project and the
preparation of project documentation; - and, in
the case of Honours projects – also a research
paper.
Needless to say, achievement of such a list of
objectives is critically important since they provide
the skill base for successful engineering practice.
However, more can be – and ought to be – gained
from the final year design project as illustrated in [5],
[9], [10], [12], [13].
Assessment is geared to the objectives listed, and
involves structured, progressive and continuous
feedback. Students are also involved in the assessment
process and contribute to it significantly. This process
leads to the development of teamwork capabilities in
the context of effectively communicating with peers
and supervisors.
The SE structured approach to final year projects
seems to work as expected. As stated in [13]: “A
comprehensive array of courseware and student work
was provided for inspection, and was of good
standard. Final-year projects in particular were of
excellent standard. Assessment and moderation
arrangements for individual and team projects were
well-developed, including peer assessment within
project teams.”
6. SOME EXAMPLES
In the year 2002, to commemorate the 100th
anniversary of the Australian Federation and the
commencement of the new millennium, the first
Australian scientific satellite mission will be launched.
The Federation Satellite One (FedSat-1) mission will
give Australian scientists and engineers invaluable
insight into space technology and access to carefully
collected Earth data. FedSat-1 is being built and
operated by a consortium of research, commercial and
educational institutions comprising the Cooperative
Research Centre for Satellite Systems (CRCSS). The
leading partner in the Consortium is the Institute for
Telecommunications Research, the largest
telecommunications research institute attached to any
Australian university. The Institute emerged from the
School of Electronic Engineering - the predecessor of
the current School of Electrical and Information
Engineering.
FedSat-1 is a low cost micro-satellite weighing 50 kg
that will be conducting communications, space
science, remote sensing, navigation, magnetic field
measurement and engineering experiments as well as
profiling the Earth's atmosphere and testing advanced
computers for space use.
FedSat-1 has been a continuing inspiration for several
cohorts of final year projects. The project in 2000
aimed to design, build and test 4 antennas for the
ground station in Adelaide. The motivational aspect of
the project contributed significantly to the project
success and the development of a range of graduate
attributes. The two students involved have mastered in
a self-directed way a broad-ranging body of
knowledge [14], required for the project but not
present in the curriculum. They have become
information literate, creative and innovative. They had
to develop effective communication with external
partners in international context. They have graduated
with Honours and were immediately employed in
defence and consulting companies. Their superiors
highly praise their graduate attributes.
Similar observations apply in the case of another final
year project undertaken by a team of 3 students. The
task was to develop and verify software for microstrip
antennae for use by a reputable international company
in the design of cutting edge devices for security
identification. These students had not had any formal
exposure to principles of telecommunications nor
antenna design, nor electromagnetic testing, since they
all were from the Electrical and Mechatronic
Engineering stream. Yet they successfully completed
the project to satisfaction. In the course of the project,
they were able to acquire the necessary knowledge
and skills, negotiate with company officials, academic
staff, software suppliers and commercial operators.
They had to face the departure from the initial project
specification, which seems typical of industry
sponsored projects. They were also able to cope with
circumstances of crisis proportions due to the
unexpected departure of the industry supervisor who
had critical input to the project.
The above cases provide the basis for confidence that
the approach adopted by the School, which is firmly
based on the framework of graduate attributes actually
produces results as outcomes expected from an
enlightened engineering education program.
7. CONCLUSIONS
The holistic approach to curriculum design and
delivery of engineering programs in the School of
Electrical and Information Engineering has led to a
process of developing graduate attributes that
culminates in final year projects. The projects involve
complete cycles of engineering design from
conceptualisation to realisation, thus giving ample
scope for the exercise of the full spectrum of such
attributes in the context of systems thinking. The
attributes are sought by the university, by potential
employers, and professional organisations; both
domestically and overseas.
8. REFERENCES
[1] Accreditation Board for Engineering and
Technology, “Accreditation Policy and Procedure
Manual”, 2001-2002 Accreditation Cycle,
Baltimore, 29 December 2000.
[2] The Institution of Engineers, Australia, “Manual
for the Accreditation of Professional Engineering
Programs”, Canberra, October 1999.
[3] Hambley, A. R., “Electrical Engineering –
Principles and Applications”, 2nd ed., Prentice
Hall, New Jersey, 2002.
[4] Cho, P., “A Great Plan for Innovative
Engineering Curriculum”, Proceedings of
AEESEAP Midterm Conference, Seoul,
November 2001, pp 1-15.
[5] Göl, Ö., Nafalski, A., Schultz, A., Varcoe, T. and
Hudson, T., “The Final Year Engineering Design
Project - Beyond the Specification”, Proceedings
of UICEE 3rd Annual Conference on Engineering
Education, Hobart, 2000, pp.206-210.
[6] Nafalski, A., Göl, Ö. and. McDermott, K.,
“Professional Accreditation Toward Outcome-
driven Curricula”, Proceedings of 31sth
ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference,
Reno, USA, 2001, pp.T4A21-T4A24.
[7] The University of South Australia, “Graduate
Qualities”, Flexible Learning Center, 2000.
[8] Sage, A. P., “Systems Engineering”, John Wiley
& Sons, NY, 1992.
[9] K. McDermott, K., Göl, Ö. and Nafalski, A.,
“Considerations on Experience-based Learning”,
Proceedings of UICEE 4th Annual Conference on
Engineering Education, Bangkok, 2001, pp.219-
222.
[10] Göl, Ö., Nafalski, A. and McDermott, K., “The
Role of Industry-inspired Projects in Engineering
Education”, Proceedings of 31sth ASEE/IEEE
Frontiers in Education Conference, Reno, 2001,
pp.F3E-1-F3E-4.
[11] McLaughlin, D, Göl, Ö. and. Nafalski, A.,
“Increasing Student Motivation - Robotic Final
Year Design Projects”, Proceedings of Pacific
Region Conference on Electrical Engineering
Education PRCEEE’99, Victoria, 1999, pp.28-31.
[12] Nafalski, A., Göl, Ö. and McDermott, K.,
“Innovation in Engineering Education at the
University of South Australia”, Global Journal of
Engineering Education, vol.5, No.1, 2001, pp. 87-
98.
[13] The Institution of Engineers Australia, “Report of
Accreditation Visit in the University of South
Australia on 7-8 August 2000”, June 2002.
[14] Verringer, J. and Nafalski, A., “Fractal Antenna
Application To Satellite Communications”,
JSAEM Studies in Applied Electromagnetics and
Mechanics, vol.9, Tokyo, JSAEM, 2001, pp.121-
122.
Appendix 1

The University of South Australia

Graduate Qualities and their Generic Indicators

1 A graduate of the University of South Australia operates effectively with and upon a body of knowledge of sufficient depth to begin
professional practice.
A graduate will:
• demonstrate an understanding in broad outline of a whole discipline or professional area (concepts, theories, proponents)
including a knowledge of the boundaries;
• apply knowledge (demonstrate application of theory to practice in real situations, appreciate limitations of theory, use
materials, devices, safety codes and practices, specific equipment and techniques appropriately);
• identify the methodological and substantive limitations of the field and apply the discipline or professional area’s mode of
inquiry;
• recognise the social and historical context of knowledge;
• demonstrate appropriate understanding of current research areas in the discipline or professional area.

2 A graduate is prepared for lifelong learning in pursuit of personal development and excellence in professional practice.
A graduate will:
• locate, evaluate, manage, and use information in a range of contexts – ie be information literate
• understand the limitations of, and have the capacity to evaluate, their current knowledge
• understand and accept personal weaknesses, strengths and preferred learning styles, have knowledge of a range of learning
strategies, and take responsibility for their learning and development
• maintain a positive concept of self as capable and autonomous
• sustain intellectual interest and critical thinking as a mature professional.
3 A graduate is an effective problem solver, capable of applying logical, critical and creative thinking to a range of problems.
A graduate will:
• gather, evaluate and deploy relevant information to assist problem solving – ie analysis and synthesis;
• define researchable questions in the discipline or professional area;
• apply strategies to conceptualise problems and formulate a range of solutions.
4 A graduate can work both autonomously and collaboratively as a professional.
A graduate will:
• work in a self directed way;
• use logical and rational argument to persuade others, to negotiate with others;
• work collaboratively with different groups, identify the needs of others and build positive relationships;
• work in a team (cooperate with all team members, share ideas, forgo personal recognition, negotiate solutions when opinions
differ, resolve conflict, recognise strengths of other team members, share responsibility, convey a shared vision for the team,
display a commitment to make the team function effectively).
5 A graduate is committed to ethical action and social responsibility as a professional and citizen.
A graduate will:
• demonstrate a commitment to personal ethical actions within professional contexts;
• define social aspects of a particular technology (political, economic, legislative, sociological, environmental etc);
• appreciate the impact of social change, the political decision-making process and economic imperatives of business and
industry;
• recognise social justice issues relevant to the discipline and professional area;
• appreciate the importance of sustainable development;
• demonstrate responsibility to the community – be aware of safety, efficiency, innovation, cost-effectiveness.
6 A graduate communicates effectively in professional practice and as a member of the community.
A graduate will:
• demonstrate oral, written, mathematical and visual literacies as appropriate to the discipline or professional area;
• display sensitivity to their audience in organising and presenting ideas;
• communicate appropriately with professional colleagues and the public.

7 A graduate demonstrates international perspectives as a professional and as a citizen.

A graduate will:
• display an ability to think globally and consider issues from a variety of perspectives;
• demonstrate an awareness of their own culture and its perspectives and other cultures and their perspectives;
• appreciate the relation between their field of study locally and professional traditions elsewhere;
• recognise intercultural issues relevant to their professional practice;
• appreciate the importance of multicultural diversity to professional practice and citizenship;
• appreciate the complex and interacting factors that contribute to notions of culture and cultural relationships;
• value diversity of language and culture;
• appreciate and demonstrate the capacity to apply international standards and practices within the discipline or professional area;
• demonstrate awareness of the implications of local decisions and actions for international communities and of international
decisions and actions for local communities.
http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/gradquals/whatr/index.htm