Capstone Project to Satisfy EAC Criteria

AbstractEngineering Accreditation Council (EAC) has introduced eleven outcomes for engineering programs in Malaysia. Some of these outcomes are easily achievable and some are difficult to achieve through the traditional curriculum based education. This paper proposed a capstone project to provide learning experiences which may develop students ability in many of the EAC criteria. The students are grouped into 5-member teams. These groups are given a relatively sophisticated design project where the students would have to apply most of their knowledge and skills they accumulated during their learning experiences at UKM engineering program in order to carry out the design project. A two-stage cooperative learning method was adopted where in the first stage the students are grouped to develop expert panels. In this stage, each group was asked to study the problem and to find the best solution in a particular domain such as geotechnique, drainage, structure, foundation, environmental, water supply, sewerage or transportation. In the second stage, the students are regrouped such that each group would consists of experts for all the domains. The final result is that the students were able to provide an integrated design solution and they were able to explain their decisions effectively and confidently. This is the manifestation of their ability to work in a team, ability to communicate effectively, having indepth technical competence in a specific domain, ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution, ability to utilise a systems approach to design, ability to function effectively as an individual and in a group with the capacity to be a leader or manager as well as an effective team member, having the understanding of the social, cultural, global and environmental responsibilities and the need for sustainable development and ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practice. In addition, their ability to find the necessary knowledge and to apply the knowledge in their design project is preparing the students to recognise of the importance of life long learning