A Novel Framework for Developing Digital Platforms for Engineering Students

Introduction

Universities and Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) across the world continue to design new range of learning mechanisms to support student learning processes. Particularly, post Covid-19 use of digital platforms has gained more prominence as due to the restrictions imposed in physical meetings and/or gatherings. Training requirements and standards to the students vary from faculty to faculty. Hands-on training is critical in the professional fields such as engineering and medicine. In other words, the core operations towards training future graduates involve using various methods of developing the content for learning, hands-on training, skills development, content delivery, formative and summative assessment etc.

Typically, teachers in engineering programs use various teaching methodologies in the traditional face-to-face classroom setting. Such approaches also include the regular classroom engagement followed by a well-structured laboratory training to provide hands-on training to the students. Due to technological advancements, restrictions imposed by pandemics such as Covid-19, demands of the contemporary operating conditions in reaching out to the students etc., digital life in the HEI operations is now occupying more space than before (Wang et.al, 2020). In the modern era, student learning is supported through several strategies and concepts such as using escape rooms, digital platforms and rapid e-learning etc. Several authors point to the need of adopting digital platforms in HEIs due to changing needs and times (Bo, 2011; Renée and Maria, 2022; Wang et.al, 2020; Lene et.al., 2020; Alice et.al 2021). Since these are relatively newer concepts, their definitions and usage patterns are not very well described yet. Though many distinct and/or combinational philosophies exist, the scope of discussion in this chapter is restricted to the treatment of digital platforms that can be developed using rapid e-learning tools for providing much required hands-on training to the engineering students. However, the benefits of escape rooms and rapid e-learning cannot be ignored, when they are used on a standalone basis. This warrants an appropriate treatment of these concepts to take advantage in developing digital platforms to the purpose. Literature is very clear about the ambiguity in defining these terms and their end-usage. Lene et.al.(2020) and Alice et.al (2020) have reviewed this aspect of ambiguity besides various aspects related to escape rooms based learning and assessment. The following paragraphs explain these three chosen concepts to provide proper background to this chapter.

Escape rooms are something that require students to participate in a game like environment on their own, without the teacher; and then understand a specific problem, resources, conditions and various possible paths to the solution – all entirely on their own (Alice et al, 2021). They are generally intended to remove the boredom in the learning; however modern day definitions and expectations of escape rooms vary widely (Lene et al., 2020).

The term digital platforms is generally used to describe a digital ecosystem that supports a few or several requirements such as content delivery, assessment of knowledge in both summative and formative modes, monitoring of learning activity etc. Typically, presence of the teacher is required to provide orientation about the platform and/or the content and/or overall process. This is the contrast between using a digital platform and an escape room. Sometimes, use of a standard or an in-house developed software application can also be considered as the use of a digital platform to train students on a specific topic or concept. Another term that used is digital laboratory, but a digital platform can be seen as a superset and a digital lab can be a subset in the wider teacher / learning spectrum (Fushshilat et. al., 2018). It is possible to design and develop a design laboratory with some or more attributes of a general digital platform also (Nepsha et. al, 2021). A well designed digital laboratory with its core functionality to impart the required training can be upgraded with a selected set of features of a digital platform such as content delivery, assessment and monitoring the user participation etc.