Engineering Cultures® Online 2.0 consists of multimedia modules that explore what it means to be an engineer in different countries. These interesting modules include essential contents from the highly popular course that Gary Downey and Juan Lucena developed at Virginia Tech and Colorado School of Mines.

Viewing one or more of these modules can help you take the first step toward the achievement of global competency. Downey, Lucena, and colleagues define global competency as "having the knowledge, ability, and predisposition to work effectively with people who define problems differently than you do" ("The Globally Competent Engineer," Journal of Engineering Education).

Each country-based module addresses four questions:

1. How did the nation state emerge and what has counted as 'progress' or 'advancement'?
2. How have engineers emerged, what has it meant to be an engineer, and what sorts of knowledge have engineers valued?
3. What counts as a typical career trajectory, including education and worklife?
4. What trends are emerging in response to the new emphasis on industrial competitiveness?

Virginia Tech awarded Engineering Cultures Online its prestigious XCaliber Award for innovative scholarship in teaching with technology.

Learning Objectives

• Develop global competency by preparing yourself to work in a world of different perspectives
• Learn how what it means to be an engineering varies from country to country
• Gain concrete strategies for understanding cultural differences on the job and engaging in shared problem solving with engineers from different countries

Wo should participate

• Engineers planning to work in another country
• Engineers working on international projects
• Engineers working with colleagues in other countries

Beta Statement

Version 2 is a beta version of Engineering Cultures™ Online. Positive assessments from hundreds of undergraduate student users and many continuing education users have persuaded us to make this material available to you in its current format. The scholarly findings and interpretations in Version 2 are in the process of undergoing peer review, which may lead to revisions in the scripts and outlines used to produce these presentations. Note also that some of the historical interpretations offered here include contestable interpretations of the available evidence. We invite discussion and welcome learning of any errors or misrepresentations in the collection and presentation of evidence, which we will then report as errata. Version 3 modules will be updated and, where appropriate, expanded to take account of peer assessments. We are finding the world of multimedia presentation to be a new world indeed, mixing the informality of oral presentation with the formality of written publication.

For more information about the course content, contact Gary Downey (downeyg@vt.edu) or Juan Lucena (jlucena@mines.edu).

• Gary Lee Downey, Juan C. Lucena, Barbara Moskal, Thomas Bigley, Chris Hays, Brent Jesiek, Liam Kelly, Jane Lehr, Jonson Miller, Amy Nichols-Belo, Sharon Ruff, and Rosamond Parkhurst “The Globally Competent Engineer: Working Effectively with People Who Define Problems Differently,” Journal of Engineering Education 95 (April 2006). Online Copy, PDF download
• Downey, Gary Lee, 2008, "The Engineering Cultures Syllabus as Formation Narrative: Conceptualizing and Scaling Up Problem Definition in Engineering Education," University of St. Thomas Law Journal (special issue on the formation of ethical professional identities; forthcoming).

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Gary Downey; Juan Lucena (2008), "Engineering Cultures® Online 2.0," http://globalhub.org/resources/11.

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