INTEGRATING DIGITISATION, MONITORING AND SELF-ORGANISATION SKILLS INTO INTEGRATED DESIGN ENGINEERING EDUCATION

Mechanical engineering curriculums at German universities have mostly theoretical approaches to design theory. Several institutes and chairs have specialized courses regarding this topic, but these are seldomly integrated. The approach IDEE – Integrated Design Engineering Education – brings the specialized fields on design theory together in one course with a highly practical focus at the beginning of the mechanical engineering studies. This is realized by a mixture of theoretical lectures and a group project. For students, this includes their first experience of a complex group project with peers and also the first oral presentation in an engineering context. With a lack of professional and soft skills, there is often friction inside groups. There is also a need for appropriate tools to work collaboratively. Due to the Corona pandemic, lectures and the group project must be held completely online. This paper describes our approach in helping the students improve their professional and personal skills by integrating new courses within the project, monitor their group dynamics, and also use digitization to provide an online-only solution. This paper presents the challenges regarding soft skills and collaborative work as well as the chosen approach on how to integrate digitization, monitoring, and self-organization skills into the lecture to face the challenges.