ABET requires engineering students use design standards produced by professional societies during their senior year to prepare for life after graduation. However, no standard approach for educational content development on the use of standards is available and an information deficit exists on how application of these standards differs between industry and academia. To address this need, the first part of our analysis focuses on the use of standards in a capstone mechanical engineering senior design course, a class that is ubiquitous in engineering programs in the United States. The capstone senior design course partners with industry sponsors to produce a product for implementation at the end of a sixteen week semester. An early stage in the design process is the identification of standards applicable to the project. Students are given instruction on finding and locating standards at the library and also through outside sources. Students are asked to seek out standards "at will" rather than being required by the project narrative and record the standards utilized in the final design report. The second part of our analysis surveys the use and organization of standards by the industry sponsors of the design course irrespective of the sponsored projects. The data collected includes how company sponsors acquire standards, utilization rate, and of particular interest is the organization of standards that are purchased for future use. After identifying synergies between the academic and industrial approaches, we propose a foundation of engineering standards education based in the contextual learning curriculum. Finally, we provided recommendations for engineering standards literacy to reinforce the need for life-long learning skills.
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