Automotive Systems Engineering

Learning and assessment

Our teaching strategy begins with the end in mind. We want students to become great engineers; that means great problem solvers, great team-workers with an inquisitive and curious mind. This should mean that by the end of your study with us you can move seamlessly into the world of work, academic research or become an entrepreneur.

Study with us will include formal lectures (including those from Visiting Lecturers), but these will always be interactive and two way. We want to develop your understanding of the vast array of opportunities open to today’s professional engineer and therefore we look to incorporate aspects of real world engineering problems and solutions where possible. To this end we make use of case studies, practical demonstrations, and provide lots of opportunities for you to design your own solutions.

As part of our focus on building a learning experience which will prepare you for the world of work, our curriculum has been developed using the CDIO framework. This means that our learning strategy will be to encourage students to work in teams to Conceive potential solutions, Design new products processes or services, Implement (or model) and test those designs, and Operate the product or solution. In line with the CDIO philosophy, you will have numerous opportunities to be an active learner, to work as an engineer on real-world projects.

There are two forms of assessment. Formative assessment provides an opportunity for our staff to give you feedback to help and guide learning. All the modules will have some formative assessment and this may take various forms including discussions or questioning from the supervisor, tests, practical activities etc.

Summative assessment is how we grade the work on a module and the details of this assessment will be available from the beginning of the module so that you understand how the grade will be determined. A main method of assessment (as is common on all professional engineering degree programmes) is by formal written examinations. Project work will often be assessed on the basis of the quality of the product produced as part of the project. We use practical tests to assess practical skills and written reports to show the depth of understanding of concepts and ideas. Practical skills are often assessed via individual and group technical reports with the laboratory work linked with the taught modules. The methods of assessment of transferable skills are built in to the structure of the examinations, case studies, laboratory demonstrations and project work.