School: Engineering

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

  • Unit Title

    Introduction to Engineering
  • Unit Code

    ENS1154
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    5
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
  • Unit Coordinator

    Dr Themelina PARASKEVA

Description

This unit introduces students to the discipline and practice of professional engineering. The role of engineers and some of the important concepts that characterise the engineering approach to solving technical problems are described. In addition, the importance of appropriate communication, teamwork and the management aspects of engineering are introduced. The unit includes a group design project that takes the student through the engineering design process from client specification, around an iterative design loop, to a fully documented final solution.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Demonstrate effective team work to plan and implement an engineering project.
  2. Apply effective oral and written communications skills in order to gather information, identify solutions and present an engineering project to key stakeholders.
  3. Discuss Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and the ways they influence interactions that professionals may have when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
  4. Describe the roles and responsibilities of professionals in engineering, including consideration of ethics, safety, sustainability and cultural appropriateness in the completion of engineering projects.
  5. Identify the stages in a design cycle and prepare a design strategy that incorporates the components of this cycle.

Unit Content

  1. Communications preparing engineering documents: technical reports, manuals, procedures and proposals; project presentation.
  2. Design Projects - teamwork and the engineering design process.
  3. Engineering management - fundamentals of project management, engineering economics, entrepreneurship.
  4. Responsibilities of an engineer - ethics, safety in design, sustainable design.
  5. Professional cultural competence - cross-cultural responsiveness, Indigenous Australian history, legislation and social context as it relates to engineering practice.
  6. Systems engineering a systematic approach to the description, analysis and design of complex systems; design cycle specifications, functional description, synthesis and evaluation; simulation and prototypes; problem solving skills and tools.
  7. Generic attributes of an engineering graduate and those practising in a technical field.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 113 x 2 hour lectureNot OfferedNot Offered
Semester 113 x 3 hour tutorialNot OfferedNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Additional Learning Experience Information

Lectures are used to introduce the central concepts of the unit. Tutorials and computer lab sessions provide opportunities to develop engineering project and design skills in teams and participate in a real-world engineering challenge. There is a strong focus in this unit on academic and professional skills development. Weekly activities for learning and developing skills are completed and serve both a diagnostic and developmental purpose. Feedback on the performance of these activities is supplemented with in-class discussion.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
ProjectGroup practical project10%
ProjectMajor group design project50%
ExerciseTutorial exercises and online activities20%
PortfolioPortfolio of completed work and competencies demonstrated20%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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