Development of a Systems Engineering Education Module for Undergraduates

摘要

Professional capacity building (PCB) throughout the transportation profession iscritical to the success of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) nationwide. The purpose of this study was to develop a systems engineering educational module that could easily fit within any existing transportation undergraduate course or appropriate technical course in other engineering disciplines. Based on a previous case study analysis of specific job roles and tasks of staff from the various agencies that work at Houston TranStar, the project team determined that the educational module would have three objectives. These objectives are to provide a definition of systems engineering; discuss its importance with respect to ITS; and provide basic exercises that introduce the concept of systems engineering and begin to development skills in that arena. The visual aids, lecture notes, and exercise developed for this module were created from a variety of sources including textbooks, reports, workshops, transportation course materials, Internet sites, and other sources containing related information that was pertinent to the objectives of the module. Visual aids were developed, modified, and updated to target an undergraduate engineering audience. The results presented in this report address an educational need of the transportation profession.