The Collaborative Power Engineering Centres of Excellence program was established to provide an industry-relevant program of modules and resources designed for integration into university undergraduate and postgraduate curricula.
The development of shareable learning and teaching resources by key subject matter experts from each of the partner universities was unprecedented in the field of power engineering in Australia.
CURRICULUM
The API Power Engineering Curriculum consists of twenty-one undergraduate modules designed for use in third and fourth year and nineteen postgraduate modules.
These are highlighted in the table below:
Access and use principles
The materials have been developed for open sharing and use by academics at Australian universities.
If you are interested in accessing the materials, please contact the API team:
Kendall Klingaman, Industry & University Partnerships Manager Kendall.klingaman@api.edu.au
or our general contact at Info@api.edu.au
Underpinning the design of the modules are key principles to guide the learning and teaching approach, and the development of the resources.
Designed as a learning guide
Embedded learning prompts and triggers
Links with other course material
Complements the course content
Links with other course materials
Focus on learning outcomes
Detailed and step-by-step instructions
Videos, audio, and reference material/ publications
Module information
Each module consists of a suite of resources consisting of course notes, presentation slides, activity sheets for practicals, tutorials, and accompanying data files or videos.
Requirements for students to perform the activities are detailed in the activity sheets including access to simulation and modeling systems.
Strong industry relevance and highly contextualised approach to the content and development.
World’s best-practice and use of current Australian standards and data to support content.
Learning tasks, case studies and project work are based on what students are expected to be doing in the workplace with industry-relevant scenarios, outcomes and deliverables.
Focus on activating theory and concepts from a practical and problem-based learning (technical and real world issues).
Resources are modular and developed as discrete learning objects or assets in order to provide flexibility of integration into existing curricula.
BACKGROUND
In 2008, the API and a consortium of Australian universities worked together on “developing innovative strategies aimed at achieving increased quantity and quality of power engineering graduates to meet industry’s needs (estimated in excess of 1400 to 2000 new graduates are needed over the next 5 years) by drawing on the expertise and specialised skills from a rationalised group of universities that have a critical mass of power engineering capability”.
In order to accomplish this, the Collaborative Power Engineering Centres of Excellence Project was established with objectives of:
Provide access for 3rd and 4th year undergraduate students and post-graduate students across Australia to World Class power engineering education and learning, by utilising the expertise/specialised skills at a rationalised group of universities, working collaboratively to deliver this outcome.
Ensure effective Industry and University participation in defining the required competencies of students (for now and in the future) that will result in a close match between industry expectations and graduate attributes
Facilitate a collaborative approach to support the most efficient use of scarce power engineering academic resources (both people and laboratories/equipment) across the country, using the resources of API, its partner universities and CASR funding.
The program was a true collaborative program between the Australian Power Institute and its university partners (Curtin University, Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland, University of Sydney, University of New South Wales, University of Tasmania, University of Technology Sydney, Victoria University, and University of Adelaide) who were represented through a Strategy and Steering Committee.