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New challenging approaches toengineering education: enhancinguniversity–industry co-operationKati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki a , Taina Tukiainen b & Minna Takala ca The Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers TEK,Ratavartijankatu 2, 00520, Helsinki, Finlandb Institute of Industrial Management, Helsinki Polytechnic, StadiaBulevardi 31, 00180, Helsinki, Finlandc Nokia Corporation, Keilalahdentie 4, 02150, Espoo, FinlandPublished online: 24 Apr 2007.

To cite this article: Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki , Taina Tukiainen & Minna Takala (2007) Newchallenging approaches to engineering education: enhancing university–industry co-operation,European Journal of Engineering Education, 32:2, 167-179, DOI: 10.1080/03043790601118697

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European Journal of Engineering EducationVol. 32, No. 2, May 2007, 167–179

New challenging approaches to engineering education:enhancing university–industry co-operation

KATI KORHONEN-YRJÄNHEIKKI†, TAINA TUKIAINEN‡ and MINNA TAKALA*§

†The Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers TEK, Ratavartijankatu 2, 00520 Helsinki, Finland‡Institute of Industrial Management, Helsinki Polytechnic, Stadia Bulevardi 31,

00180 Helsinki, Finland§Nokia Corporation, Keilalahdentie 4, 02150 Espoo, Finland

(Received 15 May 2006; in final form 4 September 2006)

Globalization, accelerated time-based competition, qualitative dynamics, rapid development oftechnology and especially Information and Communications Technology (ICT) developmentschallenge engineering education and capability development of each engineer. The success and thecompetitiveness of companies are increasingly based on their employees. Thus, the question becomes:what kind of future engineering education should be, and should it be radically different than today?Seeking viable and rapid answers to this question poses serious challenges to current educationalsystems.

This paper describes two on-going projects: development of Finnish engineering education policyand development of Industrial Management programs together with ICT-industry. These projectsaimed at restructuring engineering education in Finland. Both projects are unique in emphasizing theimportance of crossing organizational borders within and outside of traditional engineering educationsystem. The paper also introduces recent initiatives of global ICT industry (IBM, Cisco, Nokia andApple) that challenge the traditional practices and content of engineering education. Experiencesfrom examples confirm that a dynamic and interactive approach is essential for the success of futureengineering education.

Keywords: Engineering education; Stakeholders; University–industry co-operation; Interdiscip-linarity; Curricula design; Innovation; Industrial management

1. Introduction

The Information Society is a learning society where the core is networking and creativity(Castells 1996, Castells and Himanen 2002). First, the Information Society and networkingcan be characterized by rapid development of the information and communication technology(ICT) (Castells and Himanen 2002, Himanen 2004). Second, the development of ICT stillcontinues and the main focus changes to the new applications that utilize ICT effectively. In thatway, the change becomes broader, changing the way of living and working in the whole society.Globalization, accelerated time-based competition, qualitative dynamics, rapid developmentof technology and especially ICT developments are bringing significant change to society,

*Corresponding author. Email: minna.takala@kolumbus.fi

European Journal of Engineering EducationISSN 0304-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online © 2007 SEFI

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journalsDOI: 10.1080/03043790601118697

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business and organizational structures and our ways of working and learning (see e.g. Ackoff1999 and Senge et al. 2005).

The key question is how we create that kind of learning society, in which there is widespreadlove of learning, in which large numbers of people continue the learning process long afterformal education, in which they raise questions and use encyclopedias, read books, formdiscussion groups, question authority, are active, and in which formal education is seen just aspart of a much larger learning process (Boulding 1998, Ackoff 2002). The aim of this researchpaper is to discuss on the development of the engineering education in the 21st century focusingon the university–industry collaboration in the development of the engineering education.

2. Innovativeness and university–industry co-operation

The key question is what is the core of engineering education, and is there a need to changethe core because of the changing environment?

Diversification of the engineering profession implies that the engineering curriculum needsto be individualized. Possibilities for individual choices in the curriculum need to be increasedin engineering programs. An engineering student may decide whether to choose a multi-disciplinary and wide engineering education or a very deep disciplinary-specific engineeringeducation aiming at research education and career. The multidimensional engineering profes-sion can be seen as an opportunity to combine technological and social intelligence (Layton1986 in Michelsen 1999, p. 222; Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2004). See figure 1.

The learning environment in engineering education is not limited to the university. Practicalindustrial experience has in Finland always been an integral part of engineering education.In Finland the co-operation between universities and industry is resulting in well-functioningknowledge-transfer to be among the best in the world (IMD 2004). The close co-operationbetween universities and industry is part of engineering education tradition in Finland andone of the fundamental strengths of the Finnish engineering education (Korhonen 1997, Allt2002, Keso 2003, Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2004, Naukkarinen 2004).

The co-operation in education seems to function well concerning the practical training ofengineering students. Finnish engineering students have on average 23 months of workingexperience, when they finish the Master’s program (TEK 2004). Universities are using visitinglecturers from industry, and in some courses project topics are rising from real developmentneeds from industry. However, staff exchange between university and industry is not so fre-quent, as would be desirable (Korhonen 1997, p. 74). For the Finnish universities offeringengineering education this means a need to attract more foreign staff and students. In partic-ular, Master’s programs are also designed to attract foreign students (Korhonen-Yrjänheikki2004, Michelsen 2004). In Finland in 2004 there were a total of 37,969 undergraduate and

Figure 1. The development of engineering profession in Finland and the nature of power attached to the profession(Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2005).

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postgraduate engineering students at research-oriented universities. Only 1212 of them wereforeign, which is 3% of all students (Finnish Ministry of Education KOTA database).

3. Trends and their impact on engineering education system: case Finland

3.1 Methodology

One of the authors of this paper carried out an Argument Delphi panel consisting of21 key decision-makers on he Finnish engineering education aiming to use the empiri-cal research results in order to frame a futures map on the Finnish engineering up to theyear 2015 (Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2005). The Argument Delphi panel was carried out in theengineering education anticipation and development project FuturEng (www.tek.fi/futureng)during 2000–2004 at the Finnish Association of Graduate Engineers TEK.

The FuturEng project consisted of several engineering education-related sub-projects. Theobjectives of the project were to anticipate the development of the societal and businessenvironment of the Finnish engineering education and its impact on education, to anticipatefuture development of Finnish engineering education and to make concrete action proposals inorder to develop Finnish engineering education to face the challenges of the global knowledge-based society during the coming 10–15 years. FuturEng is a good example of an initiative wherestakeholders of engineering education join forces in order to benefit the whole engineeringeducation community in Finland. During 2006–2008, the stakeholder co-operation continueswith a national strategy project on the Finnish engineering education system.

The primary stakeholders are those who have direct economic and/or legal stake in theissue, in this case the Finnish engineering education system. Participants represented thefollowing stakeholders: rectors of universities and polytechnics, industry leaders, Parliamen-tarists and top-level civil servants in the Finnish ministry of education and leaders of researchorganizations.

The first round of the Argument Delphi was conducted by interviews (Kuusi 1999, 2003).Interviews lasted for 1.5–2.5 hours and were divided in two parts “Finland year 2015” and“Finnish engineering education year 2015”. The second round was a questionnaire, in two partslike the interview. The engineering education system was discussed as a whole, meaning botheducation in universities and polytechnics (referred in some countries as application-orienteduniversities).

Part one of the questionnaire in the second round consisted of arguments, wild cards andscenarios on Finland year 2015. The panel assessed four scenarios on Finland year 2015, mini-scenarios on higher education volume and funding, funding of R&D, image and appreciationof technology, as well as sectorial technology scenarios.

Part two of the questionnaire in the second round consisted of 97 arguments divided in10 parts: educational system, degree system and student selection, regional offering andprofile building, the EU and international competitiveness, educational planning and develop-ment, number of students, content of studies, learning environment, continuing education andlifelong learning, administration, funding and steering system and stakeholders. Moreover,panelists assessed four scenarios on the Finnish engineering education system structure.

3.2 The societal and business environment of the Finnish engineering education

The Delphi panel had a shared vision on the future of Finland: The competitiveness of Finland isbased on the widely networked top-quality higher education and research, where technological

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excellence plays a key role. The strength of Finland is the ability to combine welfare state andinformation society. The cornerstones of the Finnish society are good quality and high levelof general education that is available to all Finns not depending on wealth but talent. Tertiarylevel education is available to 60–70% of each age group.

The Delphi panel was of the opinion that learning industry offers in the future a lot ofopportunities and that legislation needs to be changed so that universities are able to offerdegree-oriented programs with studying fees. However, at the same time the panelists saw itimportant that higher education is also in the future for students either free of charge or almostfree of charge, meaning that fees are compensated with some kind of voucher system or othernew study allowance system.

The most desirable scenario of the Finnish society according to the Delphi panel is “Learningsociety and global welfare” with the core items balance between individuality and community,emergence of spiritual values alongside material things, plurality, global welfare and socialinnovations utilizing technology. However, the most probable scenario seems to be “A globalknowledge-based society of materialistic values”: individuality and seeking one’s own identityemphasized, materialistic values rule, global and local aspects compete, information net-works are highly important to social interaction and the urbanization is heavy. Scenarios“Slowing down the development of the knowledge-based society” and “Chaos, terrorism andenvironmental catastrophes” are seen to be improbable and undesirable.

The 15 key societal trends identified by the decision-makers of the Finnish engineeringeducation in the Delphi panel affecting on the engineering education were as follows.

1. The globalization goes further: sharpening of global competition, and division ofeconomic activity. Transnational global decision-making systems emerge.

2. Aging population and settlement concentrates in Helsinki metropolitan area and regionalcenters.

3. The importance of science and technology in the society increases.4. Multidisciplinarity between technologies and other fields of science – also humanities – is

a key source for new innovations.5. The networking of people and business increases. Information and communication

technology is a tool that integrates to all sectors.6. Network economy has brought new services and ways of doing business. Operating under

big brands has become more common.7. Expertise-intensive services have proved a central business branch.8. Learning industry provides business opportunities.9. Because of increasing dependence on ICT, the vulnerability of infrastructure has increased.

ICT security technology has a lot of business opportunities.10. Development of energy technology provides remarkable business opportunities.11. Importance of environmental technology has grown considerably.12. Well-being and health technology provides remarkable business opportunities.13. There is a lot of potential in biotechnology, but there are a lot of uncertainty factors as

well. Engineering sciences play a remarkable role in the development of biotechnology.14. Nanotechnology has proved a promising technology sector.15. Materials technology has proved a promising technology sector.

Representatives of the decision-makers on the Finnish engineering education are of theopinion that engineering education and research plays an important role in the development of(Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2004). Finnish decision-makers on engineering education (Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2004) believe that interdisciplinarity between the fields of technology and other

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disciplines as well as interdisciplinarity within the technology will increase significantly ineducation as well as in research by the year 2015.

3.3 Key trends of the Finnish engineering education and some factors of uncertainty

The 15 key trends of the Finnish engineering education according to the Delphi panel are:

1. Of all academic fields, deepening globalization has an impact especially on the labormarket of engineering professionals and engineering education. This is because engineersare mainly employed by the private sector (in Finland 80%).

2. Sharpening competition in the global educational market together with the fast-spreade-learning forces universities and polytechnics to specialize and increase networking.

3. The division of engineering education into small units is a probable threat scenario.4. The structures of education in the European Union are harmonized and comparability

of degrees is increased: a Bachelor of Engineering degree obtained at a polytechnic willbe comparable to a Bachelor of Science in technology obtained at a university and theLicentiate of Science in technology degree will disappear.

5. Despite increasing harmonization of educational structures and comparability of degreesthe authority to decide on educational politics remains on national and institutional(university/polytechnics) level.

6. Competition on engineering students sharpens.7. Universities and polytechnics get more and new responsibilities in anticipation of

education, quality assurance and follow-up and feedback systems.8. Universities and polytechnics’co-operation with stakeholders intensifies substantially and

there are more co-operation partners.9. The value of expertise—no matter how it is obtained—is increased at the expense of the

value of degrees. From the viewpoint of appreciation, it becomes more important in whichuniversity or polytechnics the degree has been taken.

10. The intakes for Bachelor and Master education in engineering will not rise.11. The number of PhD students in engineering will increase. 15–20% of engineers with the

Master’s degree will later accomplish the PhD degree. In general the need for continuingeducation of engineers will rise remarkably.

12. Poor appreciation of teaching and scarcity of women in engineering are remarkableproblems. The study counseling system will be improved.

13. Engineering studies are closely connected with working life. Sandwich studying† iscommon in engineering.

14. Multi- and interdisciplinarity between different technologies and other scientific fieldsincreases.

15. The flexibility in engineering studies increases. Curriculum offers more opportunities forindividual choices and ways of learning.

The Delphi panel sees it desirable that in the future there will be also private universitiesoffering engineering education in Finland. The reasoning presented for private universities isthat private universities could offer new standard for the quality of teaching, globalized Finnishcompanies need private universities and that they are faster in meeting labor market demand.However, the probability of private universities offering engineering education to enter themarket is somewhat unclear. The majority of Rectors of Universities and Polytechnics as wellas industrial leaders think that it is probable, whereas the opinions of political decision-makersand leaders of research organizations split up.

†Working and studying simultaneously.

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4. The project-based curriculum in industrial management at Helsinki Polytechnic

As described above, there is a need to change engineering education in Finland. The globali-zation and sharpening competition of the ICT industry need to have effect on engineeringcurriculum and how the programs are executed. We use here as an example the project-based Master’s program curriculum development for business-to-business (B2B) servicemanagement at Helsinki Polytechnic.

The role of service management has become more important for companies and societies.The success and the competitiveness of companies are increasingly based on their employeesand new skills to address business and technology in service business environment. Thishas created a challenge for current engineering and management education transformation.Service management challenges both educational institution and business to create new multi-disciplinary curricula. This paper describes current results of a new Master’s degree programfocusing on service management at the Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, which is designed andimplemented in active collaboration with practitioners. The curriculum structures, themes,selection process, student profiles, and selected pedagogic approach activity based learning isdiscussed in detail in this paper. Contribution of practitioners has made the program successful.

4.1 Master program for service management

The Institute of Industrial Management at Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia has a radically differ-ent approach to engineering and management education. Since the early 1990s the educationmodel has been developed around real-life development projects carried out in collaborationwith industry. Students learn real business issues and contemporary solutions as a part of theproject work. The themes and contents of the projects are selected, formulated and coordi-nated to meet the competence requirements of ICT industry. The paradigm fosters learning ofpractical social skills like networking, project management, collaboration, team working andresponsibility, which are relevant in a global, dynamic environment. Experiences gained inindustry–university collaboration among Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, high technology firmsand High-Technology Association of Finland in bachelor education level has been successful.

Initial planning for a Master’s-level program started with theAdvisory Board of the Institutein 2005. The several members of the Advisory Board raised up a need for a Master’s programfocusing on service business management. In the end of 2005 decision was made to start anew kind of program: a Master’s degree in Industrial Management focusing in internationaltelecom and service business management.

The program aims at developing competencies for international business management inICT industry. The program is conducted in English. Due to the flexibility of the program thestudies can be carried out along with regular work. It is a one-year program with 60 ECTS(European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits for Bachelor’s of Engineering,which have a four-year program before 240 ECTS and couple of years’ working experience.There is no tuition for participants since the program is funded by Finnish national educationsystem.

4.2 Pedagogic approach

The program uses Total Project Learning (TPL) as the pedagogic approach. This meansthat studies are integrated into real business and projects are carried out in teams. The TPLmethod incorporates real-life learning projects (often with the students’employers), combined

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with a class schedule accommodating near-full-time work, which is innovative for graduateeducation.

The program content is delivered mainly by project work, which is supported with lectures,selected readings, examples from industry, group work, and special workshop sessions. Virtuallearning environment with applied wiki pages and blogs provides possibility for co-creationand peer-to-peer sharing during the program. Participants are encouraged to suggest topics forproject work and act as real customers for project work. Some project work will be carried outwith School of Management in New Jersey Institute of Technology. Faculty is multidisciplinaryfrom several institutions and practitioners with many years of practical experience and PhDdegrees.

The participants’ own experience in business world will be actively used during the pro-gram. Continuous feedback, evaluation and reflection are conducted together with participants.Coaching and mentoring provide the possibility of developing leadership skills during theprogram.

4.3 Selection process and students

The first group of students will start in September 2006. The application process was organizedduring spring 2006. The initial selection criteria were the following: a BSc Tech/Eng Degree inIndustrial Engineering and Management, work experience of at least three years and excellentconduct in English.

The new program attracted applicants with both commercial and technical interests. Most ofthe applicants are working in large enterprises. Also some entrepreneurs were seeking admit-tance. There were 115 applicants from 20 countries. Based on pre-selection by applicationdocuments 84 candidates were invited to exams and interviews in May 2006. Thirty candidateswere accepted to the program and are expected to start their studies in September 2006.

4.4 Systematic practitioner participation

Systematic and active co-operation with practitioners in the different phases of program cre-ation and implementation is very important for the program. The Advisory Board initiated theprogram, the curriculum was conducted in active co-operation with practitioners and part ofthe teaching faculty comes from the business world. The participants of the program workin the business world, and the project topics during the program are based on contemporaryissues and challenges in reality. The program is concluded with a thesis project, which is alsolooking solutions for challenging yet practical problems. Close co-operation with companieshas long traditions in engineering education in Finland. This dimension has been emphasizedin the program design.

4.5 Program curriculum and themes

The high-level program curriculum is described in figure 2. The curriculum covers both busi-ness management and technical aspects related to services. The structure of the programcurriculum is flexible, and it provides the possibility for participants to focus in differentservice areas based on their own interests and their future career aspirations.

The program consists of several themes. The main themes related to services are thefollowing:

• Principles: business in a services economy, and business research methods.

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Figure 2. The high-level program curriculum.

• Customers, business models and innovation.• Services in an international context.• Service leadership, organizational development and teamwork.• Service delivery and technology architectures.• Strategic management, intra /entrepreneurship, alliances and venturing.

4.5.1 Principles: business in a services economy, and business research methods.Advanced societies globally have shifted from industrial, product-oriented economies tobecome services economies. Managing service-based businesses requires a different mindsetand perspective than managing product-based businesses. This shift represents the primarymotivation and foundation for an integrated curriculum on service business management. Insupport of a TPL approach, program research methods (e.g. action research) are establishedas ways for managers to support fact-based decision-making and strategies.

4.5.2 Customers, business models and innovation. The management of a services busi-ness should have intensive focus on customer requirements and needs. Active listeningand development of offerings and/or customer responses are important in both business-to-consumer and business-to-business relationships. The relevance of the services businessto customers is maintained through business model and operational innovation. Scalability,reuse and efficiency may be continuously improved by monitoring and innovating businessprocesses.

4.5.3 Services in an international context. The dawn of the 21st century has been char-acterized by the rise of globalization, and the struggles of businesses in advanced societieshaving to compete with businesses in emerging economies. Globalization is, however, a resultof blending business styles from a variety of cultures. While the culture within a service busi-ness is not necessarily bound to geographic region, common business practices often havefoundations in local predispositions. One way to deepen an understanding of varying philo-sophies on services is to focus on cases where a business supports its local and/or regionalsociety well. These discussions are paired with concepts complementary to the prevailingbusiness practices.

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4.5.4 Service leadership, organizational development and teamwork. Although manyorganizational and leadership skills from managing product-oriented businesses are trans-ferable, the impact of services businesses as people businesses is more immediate. A widerange of behaviors—from sharing expertise across knowledge professionals, to encouragingempathy on customer-facing roles—can be coached and influenced by managers. In addition,service workers may be encouraged to be self-organized, increasing productivity through theexchange of experiences and/or contributions to organizational learning.

4.5.5 Service delivery and technology architectures. Maintaining consistent and high-quality service delivery requires establishing standards for performance. These are enabled byinformation and communications technologies, which themselves continue to advance. Thepersistent delivery of excellence in service and high customer satisfaction requires establishingprocedures and infrastructure that enable and improve productivity.

4.5.6 Strategic management, intra/entrepreneurship, alliances and venturing. Servicebusinesses may not directly follow the economies of scale common in industrial businesses.Modularity and interdependence in cooperative arrangements may provide better service toend-customers, as well as higher profitability to services organizations. Service providers mayestablish relationships with peers, with upstream and/or downstream partners, with univer-sities, and/or with governmental agencies. These may enable greater immediate or futurecompetitiveness for an independent service business, or an ecosystem of complementaryservice providers.

4.6 Summary of Master’s program for service management development

The service management Master’s program at the Institute of Industrial Management inHelsinki Polytechnic Stadia is renewing service management education curricula and peda-gogic approach by cooperating with practitioners systematically and intensively. The programprovides an exciting opportunity for developing a new kind of service management curric-ula and for renewing the engineering and management education to meet the challenges ofthe ICT industry. The program provides practical framework to develop service managementeducation internationally.

5. Initiatives from the industry to the engineering education development

Industrial companies have been actively influencing into transformation of engineeringeducation. Already during 1940–1960 IBM was challenging universities to establish com-puter science departments. Around the year 2000, IBM was inviting university professors tocollaborate in e-commerce curricula development. At first they developed a training programfor their own employees and later the content was transferred to universities and clients aswell. With IBM Global Services being the largest IT services organization in the world, IBMhas taken the lead in recognizing that college graduates need new skills to address businessand technical issues in a service business environment During the past two years IBM hasbeen actively inviting universities around the world to participate in the development of ser-vice sciences. This multidisciplinary application area requires a combination of scientific,management, and engineering disciplines. Service innovation often requires an integrationof technology, business, organizational–social, and demand innovations. The collaboration

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is elementary important in service delivery as well. IBM has invested well over $1 millionin faculty and university awards to service innovation pioneers over the last two years. Manyuniversities around the world are developing new services-oriented courses and curricula;others are expanding their existing focus on services. However, a significant effort is stillneeded to develop a truly cross-disciplinary approach to SSME. In October 2006 IBM is host-ing a conference on Services Sciences, Management and Engineering (SSME) – Education forthe 21st Century. It will be very interesting to follow how education of service science willevolve in the following years. This time the development might be accelerated due to ICT. Thefollowing example of Cisco Systems Inc. demonstrates a potential of a faster development ofengineering education.

Since its establishment in year 1984 Cisco Systems Inc. has extensively influenced inengineering education development in Internet Protocol (IP)-based network technologies.As a pioneer of its industry Cisco has been actively invested in education. They are offer-ing IT-related content, new approaches for both instruction and learning. In addition totheir own employees Cisco is currently globally offering learning possibilities for univer-sity students, instructors and IT professionals. The Cisco Networking Academy® Program isbased on a partnership between businesses, government, education and community organiza-tions to form a new kind of global educational ecosystem. The Academy program is open foreducational organizations such as high schools, community colleges, and universities. Onlyorganizations with non-profit status are eligible to become Academies. This global partner-ship alliance, includes approximately 10,000 educational institutions in over 160 countries.Globally there are over 420,000 students attending the Academy. The curricula consists of16 courses covering a broad range of topics from basics on how to build and maintain a net-work, to creating a website, object-oriented programming, and more complex IT conceptssuch as applying advanced troubleshooting tools. CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)curriculum is available in nine different languages. A number of the Academy courses arealigned to national and/or state standards in science, math and language arts. In addition,soft skills such as career planning, project planning and teamwork are integrated into eachcurriculum.

The Networking Academy program utilizes a blended learning model, integrating face-to-face teaching with a challenging web-based curriculum, hands-on exercises, and Internet-basedcontent and assessment.Academy graduates are prepared for networking and IT-related careersin the public and private sectors, as well as for higher education in engineering, computerscience and related field. Cisco’s approach is challenging the traditional engineering educationin several dimensions. They have established an unique and extensive global education system,they are providing guidelines and training for instructors and students and they have beencreating new learning technologies for instructing and new ways of learning.

Nokia Corporation has been facing similar situation as Cisco related to mobile systemsin software engineering. Mobile systems have become an important and widely expand-ing area of software engineering. At the same time, there is a severe shortage of expertsin the field, especially in mobile software engineering. Nokia people are working in thearea to further enhance engineering education in collaboration with engineering educationinstitutions. In order to accelerate the development in the area Nokia is running a ForumNokia University Program with academic institutions to enhance R&D cooperation, innova-tion creation and mobile application education development. There are over 70 universitiesglobally participating in the program. The intention is to create an environment for openinnovation in mobile entertainment and communication area to advance mobile multimediaapplication development. The current content covers for example mobile web services, Sym-bian, Flash Lite, Linux and Python programming and user interface development. The first

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international programming and mobile curriculum conference was held in Tampere, Finlandin May 2006.

Companies are not only creating new content and partnerships, they are also changingmethods for learning and teaching. Apple is co-operating with several universities in its AppleDigital Campus Collaboration program. In the Duke University’s Fundamentals of DigitalSignal Processing course, students have been using their iPods to record environmental soundsand collect pulse rate data during physical activity. These recordings have been brought tothe laboratory to be visualized, manipulated and analyzed. Using iPods as recording storagedevices has both provided a real-world component to the course and facilitated data trans-fer and student collaboration, introducing a hands-on laboratory to provide real applicationsfor theoretical concepts presented in class. Duke’s Center for Instructional Technology hasdeveloped metrics by which to measure the success or failure of the various academic uses ofiPods in this pilot program (http://www.duke.edu/ddi/).

In the emerging engineering areas the role of certifications and accreditation varies. Ciscohas been actively been creating certification system for its learning programs. All parts ofthe system are certified or authorized. The students are taking certified exams (written examsand practical lab tests) in authorized testing centers worldwide and they are given diplomasfor their accomplishments. There are also general career certifications for technology areas(e.g. routing and switching) and for different levels (associate, professional and expert). Inaddition to general career certifications, there is also specialist certification in technologiessuch as IP telephony. The certifications expire in two to three years and recertification examsare required. The network technology is evolving continuously and certification system aimsto guarantee that certifications holders have kept up with the current trends. Certificationsystem is implemented globally. It emphasizes the importance of the engineering expertise andcontinuous capability development at individual level. Cisco and also Microsoft certificationsare recognized and trusted globally among the IT industry.

6. Conclusions

Industry–university collaboration seems to be actively increasing in the engineering educationdevelopment in several areas. In the future both research and education will be multidisci-plinary requiring knowledge from a broad range of fields. Crossing boundaries of disciplinesare important source of new innovations (Science and Engineering Indicators 2002, 2006;Castells and Himanen 2002; Korhonen-Yrjänheikki 2004). Probably the most important chal-lenge of the whole university system is to get science and technology to serve better the needsof the society (Boulding 1998, Rhodes 2004).

The service management Master’s program at the Institute of Industrial Management inHelsinki Polytechnic Stadia provides an exciting opportunity for developing new kind ofservice management curricula and for renewing the engineering and management educationto meet the challenges of the ICT industry. The program provides practical framework todevelop service management education internationally.

Industrial companies are working together with educational institutions for renewal and redi-rection of engineering education. The companies are establishing global network structures,education eco-systems, that are crossing borders between disciplines, nations and differentlevels of educational institutions. The networked world of learning seems to be emerging.This challenges current national educational institutions, certifications and accreting systemsto rethink their traditional practices.

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About the authors

Kati Korhonen-Yrjänheikki works as Futurist of engineering education at the FinnishAssociation of Graduate Engineers TEK. During 2000–2004 she headed an anticipationand development project on engineering education, FuturEng (www.tek.fi/futureng) that iscontinued by a national strategy project on the Finnish engineering education years 2006–2008. Her research interests are related to futures research of higher education, especiallyengineering education. The researcher holds several positions of trust related to the develop-ment of the Finnish engineering education and higher education in general. In SEFI she is amember of the board since 2004. Besides her work as Futurist, the researcher is a PhD studentat the Helsinki University of Technology TKK, where is she received the Master’s degreein 1997 and the Licentiate degree in 2004 (degree between Masters and PhD in the Finnishdegree system).

Taina Tukiainen, Head of Industrial Management in Stadia. Previously she has worked for 18years within the industry, the last 10 years at Nokia Corporation as senior manager. She hasworked for several years as a researcher and senior lecturer in various educational institutions.She has Dsc(Tech) degree from Helsinki University of Technology.

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Enhancing university–industry co-operation 179

Minna Takala is a Senior Development Manager at Nokia Corporation. She has been withNokia since 2002. Before that she has worked as a Special Lecturer of the School of Man-agement at New Jersey Institute of Technology (2000–2002) and at Helsinki Universityof Technology for 8 years being a Project Manager, Planning Officer and Researcher(1992–2000). Being both researcher and practitioner, Minna has participated in a numberof development and research projects related to engineering education development, develop-ment of industrial services and innovation management. Minna graduated from the Departmentof Industrial Engineering and Management of Helsinki University of Technology with themajor in industrial management. There, she also got her Master and Licentiate degrees and iscurrently studying for a PhD degree.

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