An Integrated CDIO-EQF Framework for Europe

Paper in proceeding, 2010

The paper describes the results of a recent project entitled “DOCET - EQF CDIO Correspondence Model for the Recognition and Enhancement of Engineering Degrees”. In Europe, the recent changes in the educational systems, as well as in the international macroeconomic contexts, bring about the need of enhancing engineering curricula as well as increasing their transparency. In this scenario, any tool able to help Universities revise “in real time” their programs and transfer innovation into courses will be an important support. A first prerequisite of such a tool is to be based on a “common language”, shared by the higher education national systems and stakeholders (both within Europe and globally). The new European Qualifications Framework (EQF) aims to provide a common reference system to build qualifications readable across Europe, and not linked to any specific disciplinary areas of engineering. The CDIO Syllabus already represents a world-wide reference for the design of engineering programs and for their evaluation. Its development involved stakeholders from industry and so it could speed up the mutual transfer of innovation between Universities and businesses. Both the EQF and CDIO Syllabus are based on the same learning outcomes (objectives) based approach. Accordingly, the DOCET project aimed to build a correspondence model between CDIO syllabus and the EQF, mapping the CDIO outcomes onto the 8 EQF levels. The learning outcome - based descriptors the EQF provides for Knowledge, Skills and Competence at different levels (and its other qualifiers such as autonomy and responsibility, context, action verbs) have been combined with the engineering content provided by a set of tools that can help the negotiation and definition of shared and transparent goals for engineering education.