Developing merged CDIO based curricula for diploma (B.Eng.) IT study programs at DTU

On 1 January 2013, the Danish Technical University in Lyngby merged with the Engineering College in Ballerup. The two institutions represented before the merger well 3500 BSc students. The goal of the merger is to educate even more and more innovative diploma engineers to business. This will be achieved by strengthening education rooted in both a practice-oriented development environment and a world-class research environment. At the same time, the aim is that the merger contributes to support the national innovation strategy. Since 2008, IT diploma programs at DTU in Lyngby have been CDIO-based and a lot of experience with this has been obtained. IT diploma programs in Ballerup has not as such been CDIO based prior to the merger, but uses many of the same elements, such as multi-disciplinary projects The old study programs in Lyngby and Ballerup both consist of seven semesters in which the first four contain compulsory activities. 5th semester contain elective activities, 6th semester contain an internship in a company, and the final project is carried out on the 7th semester. All compulsory semesters contain an interdisciplinary project. Study line development groups were set up for the development of the new study programs consisting of the following key stakeholders: teachers, students on current courses, graduates and employers. Based on relevance and expected intake a total of three merged programs within the IT field were proposed : Software technology (SWT), IT and economics (ITOE) and IT and electronics (ITEL). SWT is a pure software-oriented study program, while the last two are combined programs. The content of the new study programs are based on previous study programs from the two campuses as well as input from stake holders. Especially should be mentioned that there in the SWT and ITOE programs are greater focus on testing and test methods, that have not been properly treated in the former programs. To strengthen collaborative skills, i.e. CDIO competence categories 2-4, we have defined a common stand alone 10 ECTS CDIO course at the 4th semester, where students from several IT directions are given the opportunity to work together on a common project. The common CDIO course on 4th. semester leads to a new 10 ECTS course in innovation on 5th semester. This course is compulsory for all diploma study lines at DTU. The idea is that IT students have the opportunity to collaborate with students from other diploma directions outside the IT area. This course is thus a great opportunity to strengthen not only innovation skills but also further strengthening of personal in interpersonal skills. In this paper we will describe the process we used in order to develop the merged curriculum structures for the three study programs. Particular attention will be given to the following subjects: - the design process used to develop the new merged study programs - involvement of stakeholder in designing the new curricula - introduction of a common interdisciplinary innovation course in the programs - experience with merging a non mature CDIO organization with a mature organization

Proceedings of the 11th International CDIO Conference, Chengdu, China, June 8-11 2015