Overview

The Engineering Deaf Awareness Project (E-DAP) is a pioneering initiative dedicated to making deaf awareness a standard in engineering. E-DAP is a movement for meaningful, measurable change in the number of people who proactively use accessibility tech in their daily lives, supporting everyone around them. By embedding accessibility into the fabric of engineering, E-DAP is breaking down barriers, changing perceptions and creating a future where engineering truly works to make everyone’s lives more effective

Imagine a world where talented individuals and dynamic growth oriented companies are turbo charged by removing barriers in communication and understanding. In engineering—a field where communication is critical to innovation, being proactive and embedding accessibility at the norm is critical. At E-DAP, we believe technology for accessibility is the foundation for accessibility and increased performance and ground-breaking ideas. By fostering technology for accessibility and increased performance, we’re not just improving workplaces—we’re demonstrating how inclusivity fuels economic growth, creativity, collaboration and benefits everyone.

The EPC has published E-DAP resources in a toolkit in solidarity with the Project’s aims.

 

Mission and Strategic Aims

E-DAP’s mission is to embed deaf awareness into the core of engineering practices, ensuring that the profession is accessible and for all . Our strategic aims include:

 

Challenges

The engineering sector has historically faced challenges in creating inclusive environments for deaf individuals, including:

 

Initiatives and Activities

To address these challenges, E-DAP is implementing several key initiatives:

 

Toolkit Content

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

We’re pleased to announce that we have just published some much requested new materials focused on helping you to assess ethics learning within the classroom.

Assessing ethics: Guidance & rubric is designed in a way that encourages students to grapple with the numerous tensions involved in ethical decision making, with a focus on assessment of the decision-making process as opposed to the ‘answer’ given, the decision made, or the outcome of the scenario.

Assessing ethics: Case study example: Water wars demonstrates how the questions provided in the rubric can be used to assess the competencies stipulated at each level, with this example focusing on our Water Wars case study.

We would like to thank Dr. Natalie Wint (UCL) and Dr. William Bennett (Swansea University) for the time and effort they have put into creating these resources.

You can see all of our assessment content here.

If you would like to submit content to the Engineering Ethics Toolkit, you can do so here.

This post is also available here.

We are seeking academics and other engineering professionals to review the various case studies, enhancements, guidance articles and other resources that are submitted to us for publication within the Engineering Ethics Toolkit.

What you can expect as an Engineering Ethics Toolkit content reviewer:

What we expect from you:

You can read our current Guidance for Reviewers document here.

To become a volunteer reviewer for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit, please complete this application form.

 

This post is also available here.

We’re excited to share with you that we are starting work on a Complex Systems Toolkit, aimed at supporting educators in their teaching of the subject. Toolkit development will start in early 2025. The Complex Systems Toolkit is supported by Quanser. Read on to learn more and find out how you can get involved.

WHY is the EPC developing a Complex Systems Toolkit?

WHAT is a Complex Systems Toolkit?

HOW will the Toolkit be developed?

WHO is involved in Toolkit development?

 

This post is also available here. 

At the Engineering Professors Council (EPC), we believe that inclusivity should be embedded into the heart of engineering education. One of the key areas where this is essential is supporting individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. We are proud to be a supporter of the the Engineering Deaf Awareness Project (E-DAP), a pioneering initiative established by Dr. Emma Taylor, focused on making Deaf Awareness a standard practice within engineering, both in academia and industry.

Why This Matters in Engineering Education and Workplace Settings. 

A recent study by the University of Manchester and University of Nottingham, published in the International Journal of Audiology revealed that deafness and hearing loss affects 18 million people in the UK—around one-third of adults. Despite its prevalence, many educational institutions and industries, including engineering, face challenges in making environments fully accessible to deaf or hard of hearing individuals. The E-DAP project highlights a crucial issue: without deaf awareness, talented engineering students and professionals face significant barriers that limit their ability to contribute fully in all aspects of their daily personal, academic and professional lives.

Gaining Momentum

The E-DAP has gained significant momentum through increased collaboration and has expanded its reach, engaging a wider audience in conversations about accessibility in engineering. This growth culminated in a recent visit to Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC) in London, where next generation Engineering Leaders Scholarship (ELS) awardees from the Royal Academy of Engineering joined forces with a diverse community to explore how technology can drive meaningful change. 

Hackathon Innovating for Deaf Awareness at Google’s Accessibility Discovery Centre (ADC)

At the ADC, the team toured the latest tech and heard a keynote presentation by award-winning EDI lead Maria Grazia Zedda, followed by a hackathon focused on developing new ideas for accessible tech in engineering. 

The hackathon hosted by Ellie Hayward (leading in implementing deaf awareness in start-up environments) and judged by Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor Dr. Emma Taylor, brought together the best next generation engineering minds to tackle real-life deaf accessibility challenges.

Working in pairs, they focused on how they could develop technologies to break down barriers and develop integrated technology support for deaf individuals, in both academic and professional environments. The hackathon participants came from diverse engineering disciplines (biomedical, aerospace, software, manufacturing, mechanical, structural and spacecraft) and included;  

The team was supported by Stella Fowler and Professor Sarah Hitt of the Engineering Professors Council. Stella is also an Honorary Research Fellow at UCL and Sarah is Professor of Liberal Studies at NMITE, which focuses on a real-world, holistic and contextual approach to engineering. 

The team also benefited from valuable advice and sustained support provided by RNID, a Google ADC partner, whose expertise supported the accessibility focus of the hackathon. For further insights on fostering inclusive environments, RNID’s guidelines on accessible meetings are an essential resource.

The hackathon sparked a wide range of innovative ideas, inspired by the ADC visit and Maria’s keynote speech, and these will be further refined in a future hackathon later this year. 

Looking Forward

In the coming months, the E-DAP will collaborate on a series of outputs including hackathons, a webinar and the development of a manifesto for change outlining key recommendations for integrating deaf awareness into education and industry. It’s evident that the momentum of the E-DAP will continue to build, with a strong focus on two key areas;

A Shared Vision for Change

At the EPC, we recognise inclusivity benefits everyone. By supporting the E-DAP, we aim to create an environment where all can thrive and contribute to the future of engineering. Together, we can ensure that deaf awareness is not just an initiative but a standard practice in our field. We look forward to bringing more updates to the EPC community over the coming months.

Read our Engineering Ethics Toolkit blog Embedding ethics in engineering education through wide use of deaf awareness: a gateway to a more inclusive practice and see our Engineering Deaf Awareness Project (E-DAP) Toolkit.

This post is also available here.

Have YOU used the Engineering Ethics Toolkit? We’re trying to understand the impact that this educational resource has had since its launch in 2022. Understanding impact is key to our ability to further develop and expand the Toolkit’s reach. 

You can help us by answering a few questions (below) and by forwarding this questionnaire to anyone you know who might also have used the Ethics Toolkit. There is no deadline for submitting this form; we are interested in your ongoing experiences.

Select all that apply
Select all that apply

If you would like to submit a blog post on your experience of teaching ethics or using the Engineering Ethics Toolkit, you can do so here.

 

This post is also available here. 

Have YOU used the Sustainability Toolkit? We’re trying to understand the impact that this educational resource has had since its launch in March 2024. Understanding impact is key to our ability to further develop and expand the Toolkit’s reach. 

You can help us by answering a few quick questions (below) and by forwarding this questionnaire to anyone you know who might also have used the Sustainability Toolkit. There is no deadline for submitting this form; we are interested in your ongoing experiences.

If you would be interested in contributing a blog on teaching sustainability or your use of the Sustainability Toolkit, please contact Sarah Hitt for further discussion.

Thank you for your continued support! 

 

This post is also available here.

 

 

Elsevier’s James Harper has just written a valuable new guidance article for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit on Why information literacy is an ethical issue in engineering. We got together with him to discuss this further.

 

James, where did your passion for this issue originate and how can the resources available for information literacy be put to use both by faculty and students?  

We live in a time marked by an unprecedented deluge of information, where distinguishing reliable and valuable content has become increasingly difficult. My concern was to help engineering educators meet the critical challenge of fostering ethical behaviour in their students in this complex world. Students are in real need of an ethical compass to navigate this information overload, and the digital landscape in particular. They need to acquire what we call ‘information and digital literacy’, specifically, learning how to research, select and critically assess reliable data. This is both a skill and a practice.  

For students, how does this skill relate to the engineering workplace? 

From observing professional engineers, it’s clear they require comprehensive insights and data to resolve problems, complete projects, and foster innovation. This necessitates extensive research, encompassing case studies, standards, best practices, and examples to validate or refute their strategies. Engineering is a profession deeply rooted in the analysis of failures in order to prevent avoidable mistakes. As a result, critical and unbiased thinking is essential and all the more so in the current state of the information landscape. This is something Knovel specifically strives to improve for the communities we serve. 

Knovel – a reference platform I’ve significantly contributed to – was initially built for practising engineers. Our early realisation was that the biggest obstacle for engineers in accessing the best available information wasn’t a lack of resources, but barriers such as insufficient digitalisation, technological hurdles, and ambiguous usage rights. Nowadays, the challenge has evolved: there’s an overload of online information, emerging yet unreliable sources like certain chatbots, and a persistently fragmented information landscape.  

How is Knovel used in engineering education? Can you share some insights on how to make the most of it? 

Knovel is distinguished by its extensive network of over 165 content partners worldwide, offering a breadth of trusted perspectives to meet the needs of a range of engineering information challenges. It’s an invaluable tool for students, especially those in project-based learning programs during their Undergraduate and Master’s studies. These students are on the cusp of facing real-world engineering challenges, and Knovel exposes them to the information practices of professional engineers. 

The platform is adept at introducing students to the research methodologies and information sources that a practising engineer would utilise. It helps them understand how professionals in their field gather insights, evaluate information, and engage in the creative process of problem-solving. While Knovel includes accessible introductory content, it progressively delves into more advanced topics, helping students grasp the complexities of decision-making in engineering. This approach makes Knovel an ideal companion for students transitioning from academic study to professional engineering practice. 

How is the tool used by educators? 

For educators, the tool offers support starting in the foundational years of teaching, covering all aspects of project-based learning and beyond. It is also an efficient way for faculty to remain up-to-date with the latest information and data on key issues. Ultimately, it is educators who have the challenge of guiding students towards reputable, suitable, traceable information. In doing so, educators are helping students to understand that where they gather information, and how they use it, is in itself an ethical issue. 

To learn more about the competence of information literacy check out our guidance article, Why information literacy is an ethical issue in engineering.

Knovel for Higher Education is an Elsevier product. As a publisher-neutral platform, Knovel helps engineering students explore foundational literature with interactive tools and data. 

46% of EPC members already have access to Knovel. To brainstorm how you can make the best use of Knovel in your classroom, please contact: Susan Watson, susan.watson@elsevier.com.  

Faculty and students can check their access to Knovel using their university email address at the following link: Account Verification – Knovel

Get Knovel to accelerate R&D, validate designs and prepare technical professionals. Innovate in record time with multidisciplinary knowledge you can trust: Knovel: Engineering innovation in record time

 

This blog is also available here.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

What are the top ethical issues in engineering today, and how can you incorporate these in your teaching?

In our Engineering Ethics workshop at the 2023 SEFI Conference at TU Dublin, we asked participants what they felt were the top ethical issues in engineering today. This word cloud captured their responses, and the results reveal concerns ranging from AI and sustainability to business and policy and beyond.

When incorporating ethics into a lesson or module, educators might want to find teaching resources that address a topic that’s recently been in the news or something of particular relevance to a group of students or to a project brief. But how can this be done efficiently when there are now so many teaching materials available in our Toolkits?

Fortunately, sifting through available resources in the Ethics Toolkit is now easier than ever, with the release of the new Toolkit search function. The Toolkit search allows users to:

  • Choose from a list of suggested keyword tags;
  • Search by multiple keyword tags or their own search terms;
  • Refine the search results by one of more of the following filters: engineering discipline; educational level; type of content.

It even pulls resources from across different toolkits, if so desired.

Not only will this help you discover and find materials that are right for your educational context, but the search function could even become a teaching tool in itself. For instance, you could poll students with the same question we used in the SEFI Workshop, asking them what they think the top ethical issues are in engineering today, and then design (or co-design) a lesson or activity based on their responses and supported by resources in the Toolkit. If you don’t find resources for a particular issue, that could be a great learning opportunity to0 – why might these topics not be addressed? Of course, you can always create a resource that fills a gap and submit it to be a part of the Toolkit: we would love to see a student-developed case study or activity.

Let us know how you have used the Toolkit search function, and if there are ways we could improve it. Happy searching!

This post is also available here.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

Dr Emma A Taylor, founder of the Engineering Deaf Awareness Project (E-DAP), Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor, Cranfield University, and Professor Sarah Jayne Hitt, PhD SFHEA, NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University, discuss embedding ethics in engineering education through wide use of deaf awareness: a gateway to a more inclusive practice.

“An ethical society is an inclusive society”. This is a statement that most people would find it hard to disagree strongly with. As users of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit and readers of this blog we hope our message is being heard loud and clear.

But hearing is a problem:

One in five adults in the UK are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus. That is 12 million adults or 20% of the population. In the broader context of‘ ‘communication exclusion’ (practices that exclude or inhibit communication), this population figure may be even larger, when including comprehension issues experienced by non-native speakers and poor communication issues such as people talking over one another in group settings such as during meetings.

This ‘communication exclusion’ gap is also visible in an education context, where many educators have observed group discussion and group project dynamics develop around those who are the most dominant (read: loudest) communicators. This creates an imbalanced learning environment with the increased potential for unequal outcomes. Even though this ‘communication exclusion’ and lack of skills is such a huge problem, you could say it’s hidden in plain sight. Identification of this imbalance is an example of ethics in action in the classroom.

Across all spheres, we suggest that becoming deaf aware is one way to begin to address communication exclusion issues. Simple and practical effective tips are already widely disseminated by expert organisations with deep in the field experience (see list of resources below from RNID). Our collective pandemic experience took us all a great step forward in seeing the benefits of technology, but also in understanding the challenges of communicating through the barriers of technology. As engineering educators we can choose to become more proactive in using tools that are already available, an action that supports a wider range of learners beyond those who choose to disclose hearing or understanding related needs. This approach is inclusive; it is ethical.

And as educators we propose that there is an even greater pressing need to amplify the issue and promote practical techniques towards improving communication. Many surveys and reports from industry have indicated that preparing students for real world work environments needs improving. Although they often become proficient in technical skills, unless they get an internship, students may not develop the business skills needed for the workplace. Communication in all its forms is rightly embedded in professional qualifications for engineers, whether EngTech, IEng, CEng or other from organisations such as the UK’s Engineering Council.

And even when skills are explicitly articulated in the syllabus and the students are assessed, much of what is already being taught is not actually being embedded into transferable skills that are effectively deployed in the workplace. As education is a training ground for professional skills, a patchy implementation of effective and active practice of communication skills in the education arena leads to variable skill levels professionally.

As engineers we are problem solvers, so we seek clarification of issues and derivation of potential solutions through identification and optimisation of requirements. The problem-solving lens we apply to technology can also be applied to finding ways to educate better communicators. The “what” is spoken about in generic terms but the “how”, how to fix and examine root causes, is less often articulated.

So what can be done? What is the practical framework that can be applied by both academics and students and embedded in daily life? And how can deaf awareness help get us there?

Our proposal is to work to embed and deploy deaf awareness in all aspects of engineering education. Not only because it is just and ethical to do so, but because it can help us see (and resolve) other issues.  But this won’t, and can’t, be done in one step. Our experience in the field shows that even the simplest measures aren’t broadly used despite their clear potential for benefit. This is one reason why blogs and toolkits like this one exist: to help educators embed resources and processes into their teaching practice.

It’s important to note that this proposal goes beyond deaf awareness and is really about reducing or removing invisible barriers that exist in communication and education, and addressing the communication problem through an engineering lens. Only when one takes a step back with a deaf awareness filter and gets the relevant training, do your eyes (and ears) open and see how it helps others. It is about improving the effectiveness of teaching and communication.

This approach goes beyond EDI principles and is about breaking barriers and being part of a broader student development approach, such as intellectual, emotional, social, and personal growth. The aim is to get students present and to be in the room with you, during the process of knowledge transfer.

As we work on making our engineering classrooms better for everyone, we are focusing on understanding and supporting students with hearing impairments. We are taking a step back and getting re-trained to have a fresh perspective. This helps us see things we might have missed before. The goal is not just to be aware but to actually improve how we teach and communicate.

We want our classrooms to be inclusive, where everyone’s needs are considered and met. It is about creating an environment where all our students, including those with hearing impairments, feel supported and included in the learning process. And stepping back and taking a whole human (“humanist”) view, we can define education as an endeavour that develops human potential—not just an activity that produces nameless faceless quantifiable outcomes or products. As such, initiatives such as bringing forward deaf awareness to benefit broader communication and engagement provide a measurable step forward into bringing a more humanistic approach to Engineering Education.

So what can you do?

Through the EPC’s growing efforts on EDI, we welcome suggestions for case studies and other teaching materials and guidance that bring together ethics, sustainability and deaf awareness (or other issues of inclusivity).

We’re pleased to report that we are aiming to launch an EDI Toolkit project soon, building on the work that we’ve begun on neurodiversity. Soon we’ll be seeking  people to get involved and contribute resources, so stay tuned! (i.e. “If you have a process or resource that helped your teaching become more inclusive, please share it with us!”).

 

RNID resources list

 

Other resources

 

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

This article is also available here.

Let us know what you think of our website