Seakeeping evaluations are important in the early design stages in order to ensure that vessels can sail the seas and execute their missions safely in the intended conditions. Such evaluations require a set of criteria that translate seakeeping design requirements into tangible measures for decision-making. Despite the availability of seakeeping criteria, certain unsuitable considerations and specifications currently in use result in challenges to crew and operations that do not become apparent until later in a vessel’s service. Though not claimed to be exhaustive, this paper catalogues and reviews the seakeeping criteria commonly used to date, guided by findings from focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews.  The paper unearths the original sources whilst discussing the scientific basis for these criteria and standards. Particular attention is given to the early design stages and opportunities for improvement and further development are highlighted. Findings from this study indicate that it is necessary to develop seakeeping criteria for certain vessel types and that there are opportunities to improve seakeeping criteria addressing crew well-being, performance and safety.

When the optional CDIO Standard for Sustainable Development was introduced in 2020, the CDIO community was encouraged “to document the work and share their experiences, in particular reflecting on the usefulness of the new standards for future refinement and development”. This paper is a response to that call, providing insights in how this optional Standard has been used for evaluating and enhancing the status of sustainability in the Civil Engineering and Urban Management program and Electrical Engineering program at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Details are shared on how sustainability is integrated in the programs, and opportunities and barriers for enhancing the status of sustainability in the two programs, and in engineering education in general, are discussed. The paper concludes that the CDIO Standard for Sustainable Development provides a framework and terminology for dialogue and collaboration, within as well as between programs, that can be used for driving change, from an add-on approach, through integration approaches, towards transformative approaches to sustainability in engineering education.

General description on research questions, objectives and theoretical framework

Education is widely perceived as having great potential for the transformation towards sustainability (eg. Unesco 2014). It is , however, also seen to be complicit in reproducing historic and systemic violence and our unsustainable status quo (Stein et al 2022). Education needs to be fundamentally rethought and reimagined. Contemporary dominant approaches to educational development that are based on standardisation and curricula have been challenged (Holfelder 2019, Osberg and Biesta 2020). Transformative and transgressive learning have been proposed as generative for higher education (Lotz-Sisitka et al 2015, Ojala 2016). 

We, the authors of this paper, have recently been employed to lead educational development and research for sustainability at a technical university. The university is known for their engineering programmes but it also provides education in other fields including science (e.g. physics), architecture, and education. Our activities as educational developers include teaching in different courses on higher education pedagogy, facilitation of workshops, coordination of collegial networks, supporting course and programme development collaborating with teachers, programme directors and university leadership. We also coordinate a new research group on sustainability and education, in which we explore educational development and research for sustainability in a bigger group. 

With the aim to inform and inspire other educational developers and researchers and invite a dialogue on how to promote and support transformation for sustainability at universities, we are in this paper exploring and shaping our new roles as educational developers and researchers, learning and becoming in affective relationship with each other, sharing and learning from the pains and pleasures of working with sustainability education at a technical university.

The pleasures and pain comes from working within an influential social context. Technology, the way it is applied today, is seen to be driving social and environmental exploitation (e.g. Barca 2020). At the same time, science and technology is being highly valued in society today and young people are being attracted to education in those fields, e.g. in recruitment programmes reaching out to students from under-represented groups (e.g. women). Decades of research suggest engineering and technology is socially produced in ways associated with masculinity (Ottemo et al. 2020). Engineering is positioned as technical and mathematical, objective, rational, and reductionist, which implies that aspects central to sustainability are neglected or have low status. The pain comes from working within disciplinary structures in which the ill-defined and complex concept of sustainability can be rejected as “fuzzy”. Both of us have a background in engineering, which may help in understanding teachers and students' situations. However, as has been described by Machado de Oliveira (2021), our expertise within social science such as our knowledge in education can be met with arrogance, silencing us and limiting our possibilities of working for change. 

In this paper we explore our roles and work as educational developers and researchers supporting and promoting change of university education for sustainability in collaboration with various actors at university. We engage with the following research questions:

What emerges in shared learning and affective relationships, among us educational developers and researchers and those we engage with for transformative change in education? What strategies for the work as educational developers for transformative change can be drawn from that which emerges (see 1.)?How can our research approach be used and further evolved for educational development?Methods / methodology

The approach we are using in this study is inspired by bricolage (Rogers 2012), as well as diffraction and reflection (Bozalek and Zembylas 2017, Serra Undurraga 2021). Bricolage allows to engage with research as an emergent and creative process, drawing on a plurality of methodologies, and theoretical perspectives. Bricolage was developed as an alternative to dominant research aiming for universal, abstract or objective knowledge. Diffraction has been proposed as a complement to reflection, to recognise entanglements and relationships through which subjects and objects are continuously interacting and in the making. Further, diffraction provides a theoretical basis for learning from difference, bringing together our different experiences and positions. Bricolage and diffraction together enables engagement with affective relationship and differences as a source of learning and insight rather than as a threat to be eliminated in research and education. 

We use the similarities in our current positions, mandates, activities, and shared devotion to work for sustainability transformations in and through education, and our differences in backgrounds and ideas as research subjects and objects. We set up a safe and open space for us to learn with and through each other. In three hours of weekly meetings starting in the beginning of February 2023, we share, reflect and diffract on our experiences, observations, and ideas. Those meetings will include sharing how the previous week’s conversations have shaped our thinking and feelings and artefacts we found useful or inspiring during the weeks (images, papers, etc.). 

We capture our reflections and diffractions on a large paper roll, which will be the main source of data that will be analysed in this study. We also use a digital slack-channel to communicate and each of us takes notes individually between the meetings. The data analysis will be specified as the learning unfolds but we start with identifying themes and creating a web of meaning.

To start with, we focus on learning among the two of us. This will make it easier for us to explore our roles in a trustful relationship and build on a shared concern for the state of the world and the need for transformation of education and society. At a later stage we consider inviting further persons into this learning process.

Expected outcomes / results

We have already started a joint learning process, though less structured, and in this process we have seen that we have joint and also different views on how to promote change, which are provoking and fruitful for this work. We have identified tensions and synergies that we will explore further.

One such tension lies in different focuses on sustainability and equality. Previous work suggests that issues of climate justice, racial justice and gender equality have until recently too rarely been considered together, at times even been seen as competing (Stoddard et al 2021). Also at our university, these are two separate areas of work. There are attempts to integrate efforts and there are also forces to separate initiatives and learning for change.

Another tension we are exploring together is between instrumental vs emancipatory or emergentist approaches to change (Barrineau, Mendy, Peters 2022). We are asking whether or not, and if so how, instrumental approaches in education can be combined with emergentist approaches to changes. We have felt frustration in how educational development is being approached from university leadership and have been struggling to navigate more strategic and relational engagement as opposed to more confronting approaches to change. We have also been asking about the role of activism at universities. One question is what place emotional and affective ties have in academia, education, among professionals, i.e. educators, and those engaged with educational development.

We learn to recognise and work through tensions and hierarchies, and develop strategies to do so together. This might contribute to bringing peace in culture wars, mitigate polarisation and promote transformations at our university and beyond. Developing the research method to conceptually guide and support this process further, we hope to inspire future learning and collaboration for transformation in and through education among other teachers and researchers.

Intent of publication

This paper is intended to be published in a journal in engineering education.

References

Barca, S. (2020). Forces of Reproduction: Notes for a Counter-Hegemonic Anthropocene (1st ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Barrineau, S., Mendy, L., & Peters, A.-K. (2022). Emergentist education and the opportunities of radical futurity. Futures, 144

Bozalek, V., & Zembylas, M. (2018). Practicing Reflection or Diffraction? Implications for Research Methodologies in Education. In R. Braidotti, V. Bozalek, T. Shefer, & M. Zembylas (Eds.), Socially Just Pedagogies: Posthumanist, Feminist and Materialist Perspectives in Higher Education. Bloomsbury Academic. 

Holfelder, A. K. (2019). Towards a sustainable future with education? Sustainability Science, 14(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-019-00682-z

Lotz-Sisitka, H., Wals, A. E., Kronlid, D., & McGarry, D. (2015). Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 16, 73–80. 

Machado de Oliveira, V. (2021). Hospicing Modernity. Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism. North Atlantic Books.

Ojala, M. (2016). Facing Anxiety in Climate Change Education: From Therapeutic Practice to Hopeful Transgressive Learning. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (CJEE), 21(0), Article 0.

Osberg, D., & Biesta, G. (2020). Beyond curriculum: Groundwork for a non-instrumental theory of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(1), 57–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1750362

Sharon Stein, Vanessa Andreotti, Rene Suša, Cash Ahenakew & Tereza Čajková (2022) From “education for sustainable development” to “education for the end of the world as we know it”, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 54:3, 274-287

Stoddard, I., Anderson, K., Capstick, S., Carton, W., Depledge, J., Facer, K., Gough, C., Hache, F., Hoolohan, C., Hultman, M., Hällström, N., Kartha, S., Klinsky, S., Kuchler, M., Lövbrand, E., Nasiritousi, N., Newell, P., Peters, G. P., Sokona, Y., … Williams, M. (2021). Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve? 37.

Unesco (2014). UNESCO roadmap for implementing the Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development, Paris: UNESCO Paris.

Undervisning är en process som inbegriper lärande och utveckling. Inom professionsutbildningar är undervisning den kontext där akademi möter profession. Det betyder att studenterna förväntas lära sig ett innehåll för att klara sina studier och ta examen, men också kunna förstå och tillämpa innehållet i relation till sin framtida profession. I det avseendet är undervisningens utformning en aspekt som har stor påverkan på individen.  

Ämnesintegrerad undervisning är studentcentrerad i det avseendet att den engagerar studenterna och förutsätter deras deltagande, medan universitets- eller högskolelärarens roll blir att stödja lärandet. Det innebär att individen blir mer delaktig i sitt eget lärande och sin utveckling. 

Den här boken belyser den ämnesintegrerade undervisningens betydelse och möjligheter för lärande och utveckling inom professionsutbildningar. Författarna ger exempel på flera typer av ämnesintegrerad undervisning: problembaserat lärande, team-based learning, casemetodik och projektbaserad undervisning. Modellerna ger en struktur för lärandet och kan användas i olika former av undervisning, såväl fysisk som hybrid och helt digital. 

This pilot study explores engineering students’ motivation for learning and studying through the lens of Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Five postgraduate students from a research-intensive Swedish university participated in semi-structured qualitative interviews about their study experiences from different Challenge-Driven Education (CDE) courses. It adds to the limited, existing literature on CDE and is the first to study it from a purely motivational perspective. As this is a pilot study, the primary intent of the data analysis concerns the first two phases of Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis approach - familiarisation and immersion in the data and generating initial codes. A combination of inductive and deductive approaches to analysing the data were used, and preliminary motivational factors emerged from the interviews are illustrated according to the SDT concepts. A variety of motivations for learning and studying, such as innovation, real-world problem solving, contribution to the society, and trial for following master thesis projects, emerged from the data and positioned on the self-determination continuum in which different types of regulations are guiding students’ behaviours simultaneously. Furthermore, autonomy in the choice of a project, feedback and assignmentdeadlines, and relationships within group work, enhanced or/and undermined the three psychological needs defined by SDT; autonomy, competence and relatedness. Preliminary findings are discussed in relation to the SDT literature, and practical applications are suggested for supporting the motivational needs of engineering students. Finally plans for a continuation of the study are discussed in light of this initial phase.

In engineering education, as well as in the society at large, there is an increasing focus on sustainability and sustainable development. The CDIO Standards and the CDIO Syllabus has been substantially updated to meet and drive these changes. Progressive engineering programs have by now made substantial progress in integrating environmental aspects of sustainability and sustainable development into the curriculum. However, the integration of social aspects is generally considered to be more difficult and is therefore lagging behind. This explorative research paper provides insights in efforts to integrate elements of gender equality, diversity and equal conditions (GDE) in three courses on bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral level. The focus is on the development and implementation of reflective assignments, where a theoretical framework is used for characterizing different levels of reflection. The work has been performed by use of an action research approach that has involved close dialogue and collaboration between researchers, pedagogic developers, teachers, students, and education leaders. The paper hereby contributes with multiple perspectives on GDE integration, and significant challenges are discussed. The paper also contributes with concrete examples of reflective assignments, learning activities, and literature that can be useful also in other contexts.

Determining the operability of a vessel is a critical task for the naval architect since it provides valuable information for vessel owners and operators on the vessel’s performance. This task requires a seakeeping analysis and a set of seakeeping criteria to evaluate predicted vessel motions. These seakeeping criteria link the performance and safety of the crew and vessel to operability. Existing seakeeping criteria (e.g., NORDFORSK, NATO STANAG 4154) are specified for certain vessel types and not applicable to different tasks and operational activities aboard work vessels such as pilot boats, ocean research vessels, dredgers, pipe laying crane vessels. Being relatively small in size, these work vessels are susceptible to the perils of waves, yielding motion responses that can degrade crew performance. This paper proposes a framework for specifying seakeeping criteria for efficient task performance, focusing primarily on the effects of motions on the crew and system performance. Findings from preliminary interviews with some crew at the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Swedish Sea Rescue Society align with the literature on the effects of motions on crew performance, including motion-induced interruptions, motion-induced fatigue, motion sickness, and effects on motor skills and perception. These findings from the interviews are used in a case study to demonstrate the approach of the proposed framework. The proposed framework refines further and adds to the established structure of the traditional seakeeping assessment since it captures, in addition, the effect of motions on crew performance.

The CDIO Initiative is going through a process of reconsidering and updating the CDIOapproach for engineering education development. Previous work resulted in substantialupdates of the twelve CDIO standards and the introduction of “optional” CDIO standards. Thispaper reports on a similar review and update of the CDIO Syllabus to version 3.0. It has beendeveloped by a working group consisting of four sub-groups and iterated and refined guidedby feedback from the whole CDIO community. There are mainly three external drivers that motivate the changes: sustainability, digitalization, and acceleration. There is also an internaldriver in the form of lessons learned within the CDIO community, from using the Syllabus incurriculum and course development. Approximately 70 updates are proposed, amongst themthree additions on the X.X level, namely 1.4 Knowledge of Social Sciences and Humanities,3.1 Teamwork and Collaboration, and 5.3 Research.

The CDIO Initiative is going through a process of reconsidering and updating the CDIO approach for engineering education development. Previous work resulted in substantial updates of the twelve CDIO standards and the introduction of "optional" CDIO standards. This paper reports on a similar review and update of the CDIO Syllabus to version 3.0. It has been developed by a working group consisting of four sub-groups and iterated and refined guided by feedback from the whole CDIO community. There are mainly three external drivers that motivate the changes: sustainability, digitalization, and acceleration. There is also an internal driver in the form of lessons learned within the CDIO community, from using the Syllabus in curriculum and course development. Approximately 70 updates are proposed, amongst them three additions on the X.X level, namely 1.4 Knowledge of Social Sciences and Humanities, 3.1 Teamwork and Collaboration, and 5.3 Research.

This Research Full Paper explores different implementations of and teachers’ experiences from challenge-driven education and similar learning approaches in engineering education and other higher education contexts. Through an action research approach key concerns among the teachers and similarities and differences between the studied courses can be identified. The study highlights the potential in these learning approaches, as means for breaking and going beyond the traditional boundaries of higher education, enhancing and cross-fertilizing engineering education with other disciplines, and empowering students both as professionals and humans. It also indicates potential barriers and in-built tensions that are crucial to handle for successful implementation. The study further shows on great opportunities for mutual learning and collaboration between teachers from diverse contexts and backgrounds. The findings are discussed in relation to research within domains such as sustainability education, transformative learning, and futures studies, and opportunities for further research and development are outlined.