The CDIO Standards

Because more than one hundred universities worldwide have adopted the CDIO approach, it is becoming important to estabUsh processes that assure internal and external stakeholders that engineering programs are adhering to the CDIO Standards. The standards provide a vehicle for realizing the CDIO vision to transform the culture of engineering education. Five key program evaluation questions can be used to enhance quality assurance processes ... 

The key documents of the CDIO approach have been updated. The CDIO Syllabus v2.0 has added two new sections on leadership and entrepreneurship, and given more emphasis to certain topics that were previously subsumed under other headings, for example, ethics, social responsibility, and sustainability. The CDIO Standards v2.0 now includes distinct rubrics for each standard to facilitate self-evaluation. The general structure of the chapters remains the same in that they parallel the CDIO Standards. The chapters on implementation, history of engineering, and outlook have also been updated sinee the first edition. 

Describe the basics of the CDIO Syllabus and the CDIO Standards... 

The objective of this section is to elaborate the meaning, background and evidence of effectiveness of our belief that conceiving-designing-implementing-operating should be the context of engineering education. This belief is so foundational to the CDIO approach that it is captured as the first principle of effective practice, called CDIO Standard 1. 

We should make students aware of the new and evolving elanents of context, and incorporate than appropriately—sustainability, globalization, innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship. This is the idea that is captured in CDIO Standard 1. 

A clear set of principles of effective practice, that is, the CDIO Standards. Support for organizational and cultural change. 

The desired outcomes of the CDIO approach are to attract and interest students and to educate engineers who are ready to engineer. Each of these techniques is described briefly here and explained in more detail in subsequent chapters. The first two— the CDIO Syllabus and the CDIO Standards—constitute the what and how of educational reform, as suggested by Fig. 2.3. 

The second principle of effective practice, called CDIO Standard Two, emphasizes the importance of the Syllabus in engineering education reform. 

Because of their importance, design-implement experiences are the focus of CDIO Standard 5. 

The CDIO Standards Distinguish a CDIO program and its graduates, and guide adoption and implementation Twelve features that characterize a CDIO program, including description, rationale, and evidence that the feature is in place includes a rubric for each standard... 

CDIO website Provide information about the CDIO approach and the activities of collaborating universities Includes tools and resources, CDIO Standards, CDIO Syllabus, papers, information about meetings... 

These general questions of quality assurance are most appropriately answered by a process of program evaluation that is naturally set within the context of the 12 CDIO Standards. 

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