A Global Engineering Design Clinic Experience in Engineering Education: Lessons Learned

Though the establishment of clinics for students to participate in engineering activities with partners around the world has achieved a high profile recently, there are major difficulties to surmount in developing workable structures for such enterprises. As with many engineering education endeavors, the focus of initiating global engineering programs is often on the hard technology to enable students to work collaboratively across distances. Too often, the soft technology aspect, such as coordinated work practice, is overlooked during the process of set-up and initial operation. It is relatively straightforward (though not particularly easy) to acquire the necessary technology and apply it to a lab development scenario. But it is not ‘global engineering’ unless there are collaborative partners across the world, on the other end of the Internet cable. In this paper, we will discuss a case study involving the setup of hard technology, such as computers, telecommunications, and integration of video into the curriculum. Equally important, we will discuss the generation of partners with similar work practice, project management, and pedagogical styles, and ways to facilitate interaction between students in different programs in different international locations, while satisfying sponsoring institutions and corporations.