An online intelligent system for teaching design technologies to engineering students

Engineering design is a knowledge intensive process which encompasses detailed conceptual analysis and evaluation, involving various areas of knowledge and experience. The sharing between these tasks is critical if the capacity for new product development is to be increased whilst its quality is maintained. Design technologies describe the use of a wide range of computer-based tools designed to assist engineers in their activities. The rapid growth of such technologies in engineering design industry is considerable and it is important that education moves into this area of work without delay. As the industry evolves, students in higher education seek to learn technologies that can best serve their future careers. Teaching design technologies in the traditional way may involve presenting in front of an audience and explaining instructions step-by-step. One of the main tasks of competent teaching is to provide a wide diversity of problems and supporting activities. This paper presents the design, development, implementation and evaluation of an online system for teaching design technologies to engineering students. The system was designed to guide students according to their abilities, offering progression through an individual learning plan that contained various educational methods. The fully developed system was evaluated as an educational tool for year one engineering students at the University of Derby.