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Introduction to communication skills required by practicing professional engineers.
This course was developed to aid engineering students develop and improve their overall communication ability. The ability to write and speak clearly and concisely is an important factor in the effective communication of ideas. Professional engineers need to be able to communicate their concepts and research to a wide audience. Professional engineers might need to express their technical knowledge to conference audiences, co-workers, supervisors, clients, architects, designers, lawyers, councils, public forums, and lay persons. Having a high level of technical and mechanical skill is not enough to achieve success in the modern engineering environment. It is essential that ideas can be conveyed within and between industries and disciplines. Each error you leave in a draft report means extra time and money for your employer, and so attention to detail and proofreading are key skills you will need to develop now to be a valuable employee later. Effective communication can save time, money and even lives. It is with these aims in mind that students taking this course are asked to follow precise guidelines in preparing material for submission and to pay particular attention to fine details.
At the conclusion of this course you should be able to:- Apply the skills learnt from reading the CPG and attending tutorials to course work.- Apply skills learnt in ENCN201 to ENCN301 and beyond.- Improve on communication skills, with an emphasis on clear and concise writing.- Gain a better appreciation of the role of writing in the engineering profession.- Give effective oral presentations
Entry to first professional year of CNRE.
Mark Milke
1. All assignments must be submitted in 2016 before a student will be eligible to pass and move into 301 in 2017. All reports must have a signed coversheet.2. All assignments must be submitted by the due date. Late submissions will not be accepted. If a student is unable to complete and submit an assignment by the deadline due to personal circumstances beyond their control they should discuss this with the lecturer involved as soon as possible.3. All submissions must be submitted to Learn in the appropriate drop boxes. No submissions will be accepted via email or on paper.4. There are only two chances to submit reports for ENCN201 in 2016. If a report fails in the first submission students may resubmit in October. The October resubmission is the last for 1st Pro, 2016. If a student fails this resubmission (but passes 201 in 2016) then the student is able to resubmit this report in 2017, as part of ENCN3011. Students who do not submit a report for the first submission, without prior arrangement with the course co-ordinator, will not be eligible to submit in October.5. The October submissions are for resubmissions only. There is no resubmission in 2016 for the Oral Presentation.6. Students must meet Portfolio standard on two of the three items (excluding the oral presentation) and attain an overall communications assessment of at least 5 out of 10 in order to pass ENCN201. For each required tutorial that a student misses, one point out of 10 will be deducted from their overall communications score. A student who otherwise might pass ENCN201 could fail because of missing the required tutorials. The reasoning for this is that students with strong communication skills can miss the tutorials, but students with marginal skills must attend for us to assess their skills levels and to ensure that they improve. To be safe, be sure to attend both required tutorials.7. Changes to due dates: Students will be notified prior to the submission date if due dates are changed. It is at times unavoidable that dates need to be changed due to conflicts with other courses, or the submission date is changed in one of the supporting courses. Changes will be posted on Learn in the Forums section and students notified via email. It is the student’s responsibility to check and read all course emails.8. Important: Students who do not meet portfolio standard in the reasoning report due to serious issues with fatal errors and writing ability must attend the April extra support programme to pass ENCN201. There is a fee of $100 for the one week programme.
Upton, Creon; Communications Portfolio Guide ; Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, 2013 (Can be purchased from University Bookshop).
Required Text: The core text for ENCN 201 course is the Communications Portfolio Guide (CPG) (2nd edition can be purchased from the University Bookshop for approx. $30). Students are expected to read this text and adhere to its guidelines for all submissions.Other supplementary material can be found on Learn. It is the student’s responsibility to check Learn regularly for up-dated course material.
Students in ENCN 201 have three compulsory reports and one oral presentation (the oral presentation is part of the Eng. Materials paper and can be credited towards 201). Students must submit all of these reports in order to have a chance at passing 201 in 2016. There are only two chances to submit a report for 1st Pro. If a student fails a report in the first submission there are two options for resubmission:Option 1 – Resubmission on Presentation Only Sessions: Students who do not meet portfolio standard on presentation (and/or spelling) only may resubmit to the TAC during the scheduled resubmission office hour. Office hours will run from Term 2 until the second to last week of Term 4. There will be no resubmissions the final week of the year. Students must bring to the session printed copies of their marking sheet, their corrected report, and the CPG. If the report meets portfolio standard, the student will sign a resubmission log book and their grade will be changed to a ‘pass’. A new marking sheet will be uploaded onto Learn. No fee is charged for Option 1. Note, as the sketch/drawing has no formal written component it can be submitted through this option without a fee.Option 2 – Resubmission due to Writing Ability, Fatal Errors (with or without presentation issues): Students who do not meet portfolio standard due to fatal errors (except spelling only) or writing ability must resubmit in October. No resubmissions due to writing ability and/or fatal errors will be accepted during the resubmission sessions (Option 1).There is a fee of $50 for each resubmission via Option 2: Students who resubmit due to fatal errors and/or writing ability must pay $50 to have their reports remarked. This fee is to cover the additional cost of remarking reports (remember this course is a zero fees course). The procedure for payment is set out below.All payments must be made in-person to student services on or before Friday 14 October, 5 pm. Students must then show their receipt of payment to Catherine O’Shaughnessy (Civil-Mechanical Eng. Level 4). Payment will be recorded. Failure to pay the resubmission fee will result in the final grade not being released for that report. Therefore, the report will remain as a ‘fail’.
For further information see Civil and Natural Resources Engineering .