The CDIO Syllabus v2.0. An Updated Statement of Goals for Engineering Education

Paper in proceeding, 2011

Modern engineering education programs seek to impart to the students a broad base of knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to become successful young engineers. This array of abilities is represented in the CDIO Syllabus, an attempt to create a rational, complete, consistent, and generalizable set of goals for undergraduate engineering education. This paper examines the content and structure of the Syllabus, as well as the roles played by the Syllabus in the design and operation of educational programs. The paper begins by examining the content and structure of the Syllabus, and then contrasts the Syllabus with other important taxonomies of educational outcomes. The CDIO Syllabus is first compared with the UNESCO Four Pillars of Learning, with which if is aligned at a high level. The Syllabus is then compared with national accreditation and evaluation standards of several nations. The finding is that the CDIO Syllabus is consistent and more detailed and comprehensive than any of the individual standards. Based on these comparisons, as well as other input received over the last decade since the Syllabus was originally written in 2001, a revised and updated Syllabus is presented, in part to add missing skills and in part to clarify nomenclature and make the Syllabus more explicit and more consistent with national standards. The result is called the CDIO Syllabus version 2.0. In modern society, engineers are increasingly expected to move to positions of leadership, and often take on an additional role as an entrepreneur. This paper also explores the degree to which the CDIO Syllabus already covers these topics, and the optional extension to the CDIO Syllabus that more adequately covers these two important roles of engineers.