ENGR 100
Engineering Design and Communications 1

Course Description

ENGR 100 Engineering Design and Communications 1 is the first of two compulsory engineering courses for first year students, introducing students to the engineering design process, and using this as an opportunity for developing skills essential to the practice of engineering. The core areas covered by the course are team dynamics, problem solving, independent thinking, systems thinking and professional communication and conduct in the context of engineering design.

ENGR100 introduces you to the design process through a team design project. In your assigned team, you will design an engineering solution for a fictitious client. In the first half of the course, you will be introduced to relevant topics that would help you in solving this design challenge. In the second half of the course, you will participate in two panel discussions, and learn about engineering drawings. During the course, you will grapple with the challenges of an engineering design problem while working efficiently in a team. Writing and reading, as engineering activities, are introduced. You will learn how to identify and take into account frontline design factors such as economics, environment, society, and human factors. These abilities will make you a better engineer.

The end deliverable of the course will be a conceptual design for your team project, and several individual and team assignments relating to the design process, engineering drawings and the panel discussion.

ENGR 100 is a requirement for all students completing the First Year Engineering Transfer Program. It is a pre-requisite for ENGR 101 – Engineering Design and Communication II -- offered in the Winter term.

Learning Resource

• Designing Engineers: An Introductory Textbook (S. McCahan, P. Anderson, M. Kortschot, P. Weiss, and K.Woodhouse )

Number of Weeks: 15

• Lectures: 3.5 hours per week

• Tutorials: 1.5 hours per week

• Credits: 3

Instructor: Ali Nasseri

• Room:

• E-mail: anasseri@selkirk.ca

Schedule

• Tutorials: Thursdays, 16-18, SEN 221/BON 15

• Lectures: Fridays, 11-14, SEN 220

• You are expected to attend all lectures and labs. If you cannot attend a class for any reason, he/she SHOULD inform the instructor in advance.

• You are expected to attend the lectures on time. Learners are not allowed to come to class later than 15 minutes after lecture starts.

• You are expected to behave in a professional manner at all times and to contribute to class discussions. Cell phones, MP3 players or other distracting devices must be turned off.

• Laptops can be used depending on the learning activities in the class, otherwise learners are not allowed to use their laptop during the lecture.

• The public course website will include all relevant course materials you need access to.

• Submission of assignments and other materials will be through Moodle.

• You are expected to contribute to discussions in Moodle/teams.

• Questions about course content should be posted to Moodle/teams so other students can help clarify and answer questions.

• If you do send an email to the instructor, consider it a professional email. Failure to do so may result in no response to your email.

• Reminders about course activities will be sent to your Selkirk email. Make sure to keep an eye on your Selkirk student mail (note that at times some providers might filter messages forwarded from your selkirk email). A missed email will not be considered sufficient justification for the granting of petitions. Be sure you are getting all the course notices.

• During the course, we will be using Socrative for live quizzes. Information on this tool will be shared on the first day of the course.

• During the course, we will be using Peerwise for peer evaluations. Additional instructions will be sent to you at the time of peer evaluation through email.

• For group assignments, you should perform all the work in a shared document which tracks changes. As all of you have access to Office 365 through Selkirk, please make sure to use this resource.

Cheating and Plagiarism

This course has both team and individual assignments. When working collaboratively with other members of the class, as with all professional communication, reports must bear all of the names of all the people who contributed to them, and acknowledge their contribution. It is considered plagiarism to submit a paper solely under your own name (i.e. take credit for it) if the content was written all or in part by someone else. While it is acceptable to re-use your own material in the iterative process within a given project, it is considered plagiarism to re-use your own material for another project. If you are ever in doubt whether something constitutes plagiarism ask a member of the teaching team.

When submitting assignments that are to be written individually, you must never copy even a portion of another student’s paper, or let another student copy yours. Failure to adhere to this rule is considered to be plagiarism – by both parties involved. Do not allow another student to borrow a draft of your assignment and do not leave a copy of your assignment where others may use it.

Selkirk College takes cheating of any kind very seriously. Possible penalties for cheating include a negative mark on an assignment, zero in the course, annotations on your transcript, or even expulsion from the College. It is simply not a risk worth taking, no matter how desperate you may feel. It is far better to submit a substandard assignment than take the chance of incurring the kinds of academic penalties that the College will impose.

For more information on the definition of academic and non-academic offences, procedures and penalties, please review the Selkirk College Academic Regulations.

If your workload is such that you are feeling totally overwhelmed, please talk to the Instructor or look at support available through the Learning Resource Centre, Writing Centre, Counselling Services, Selkirk Trauma Assistance Team, or Early Alert.

Sharing Work outside Your Team

Giving another team access to documents that you or your team has created constitutes academic offence (cheating):

• Because you are enabling plagiarism to occur;

• Because for team written documents you, individually, do not have sole ownership of the intellectual property (ideas and words) contained in the team document. It is unethical and illegal to give away intellectual property that does not belong to you without the permission of the owner, in this case the whole team.

Sharing Work within Your Team

Assignment feedback belongs to the entire team. It is not acceptable for a member of the team to refuse to share this feedback. Also, it is the responsibility of each team member to make available to their team-mates the written work they have prepared for the shared project. This includes meeting minutes, notes from client interviews, drafts of reports, etc. Withholding work that pertains to the team project, or feedback, from your team-mates is considered academic dishonesty and demonstrates poor team skills.

If you are frustrated by the dynamics within your team, and/or your team-mates’ behavior, it is important to address this in an appropriate and effective way. Your Instructor can help you resolve these issues and help you, as a team, develop strategies for working successfully with each other. Remember: most projects do NOT fail for technical reasons they fail because of planning and team problems.

Late Assignments, Missed Activities and Requests for Re-Marks

Deadlines for course assignments are strictly enforced. Extra time to work on an assignment is not fair to others in the class who have not had the same opportunity.

For each portion of 24 hour period past the deadline there is a 10-mark (out of 100) penalty on that assignment. Late assignments will not be accepted beyond 72 hours past the deadline. After that point, a grade of “zero” will be assigned and the assignment will not be evaluated. The weekend counts toward these penalties.

Example: If the deadline is Wed Sep 18 at 12:10pm and you submit your assignment on Fri Sep 20 at 12:11pm, your assignment will be accepted but with a 30-mark penalty. If you try to submit your assignment on Sat Sep 21 at 12:11pm, it will NOT be accepted and you will receive zero on the assignment.

An assignment is only considered submitted once ALL components, as per the assignment instructions, of the assignment are submitted. An assignment with an incomplete submission will continue to accrue late penalties until the additional components are submitted or the 72 hour maximum late period passes.

Late penalties for team assignments apply to the entire team regardless of who was responsible for submitting the document. You are expected to have a team process in place so that all members of the team can verify that the assignment has been submitted.

If you have a reason for a late assignment, missed midterm exam or missed seminar, etc. (other than a missed final exam), you must submit a Petition for Consideration in Course Work with supporting documentation to the Instructor within a week of returning to class from illness, or a week from the assignment deadline.

If you know in advance that you will miss a deadline for a mandatory course activity, such as an assignment, midterm exam or seminar, you must submit the petition before the date of the activity. In addition, you must apply before the deadline or activity to determine if there is a possibility for you to make up the work, or if an extension can be granted.

Note: a petition does not excuse you from work.

If you are missing mandatory course activity due to religious observances, you must submit a petition to the Instructor at least three weeks before the date of the activity. .

Course work petitions for ESP are submitted as follows:

• Submit an email from your selkirk email to the instructor including your name, student number, and describing the situation.

• Include supporting documentation as applicable including but not limited to:

  • Absence due to Illness: Include a signed by a registered medical physician on letterhead.

  • Participation in athletic or other types of competition: An official letter from the coach on letterhead.

Re-marking of Assignments

Requests for a remark due to an error in the grading will be heard within one week of the return of an assignment. Students may request a meeting in person to give evidence of the error and to explain the problem. Potential errors could include:

• Misinterpretation of a course concept

• Disagreement between the rubric and the comments on the document

The results of the meeting will be provided to you by email. The results are final. Your grade may be raised OR lowered as a result of the remark request. For team assignments only one member of the team must attend, but all team members must have signed a letter indicating their desire to have a remark done.