PDP Study Guide 1

T276 Engineering: professions, practice and skills 2
PDP Study Guide 1

Contents
Introduction 3
1 How far can we go in our engineering careers? 5
2 Personal Development Planning 10
2.1 Recap of PDP study 10
2.2 PDP study and the use of the Learning Log in T276 10
2.3 How to deal with a difficult document 11
2.4 Summary 18
3 Becoming professional 19
3.1 Introduction 19
3.2 Taking stock 19
3.3 Linking employability, competence and professionalism 22
3.4 Investigating the importance of competences 23
3.5 Summary 31
References 32
2 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Introduction
Introduction
Engineering: professions, practice and skills 2 is about preparing you to become a
professional engineer. We will be looking to build directly on your previous personal
development planning whether as part of your work in T176 or in other study. See the
T176 OpenLearn materials, which are linked to from Section 2 of the Module Guide, for
some revision on PDP at Stage 1. In the earlier stages of your study, you will have looked
at your aspirations and how to plan your study. Now, T276 will develop you and your
range of engineering skills. We will be using the history of the engineering profession as
well as the diversity of contemporary engineering as our context. For some, as in the
quote below (Lyon Sprague de Camp (1907–2000), US aeronautical engineer, writer on
science and technology, and science fiction author), engineering is the untold success
story of the modern world.
The story of civilization is, in a sense, the story of engineering – that long and
arduous struggle to make the forces of nature work for man’s good.
Sprague de Camp, L (1963)
Figure 1: The 19th-century Old Operating Theatre Museum.

Introduction
Figure 2: A modern operating theatre.

For others, it is engineering’s capacity to impress that matters. We will all have our own
stories about what attracted us to engineering but often a common theme is when we
realised how engineering has transformed our lives and shaped the way we live. I
remember very clearly witnessing the launching of a Very Large Crude Carrier (dubbed a
super tanker), the Esso Northumbria, on the River Tyne in the north-east of England in
1969 at the age of nine. The sense of occasion and feeling of local pride was evident in
the crowd not to mention the newspapers, radio and television broadcasters that were
present. For me though, it was the sheer size of what people had created that stayed with
me. This module is looking to harness your stories about engineering as well as your
curiosity to motivate you.
Figure 3: Esso Northumbria supertanker being manoeuvred on the River Tyne after her
launch.
To watch a video of the launch of the Esso Northumbria, click here.
But the history of engineering has not always been without its setbacks. One of the
lessons I learned from the fate of the Esso Northumbria is that the engineering has to be
effective. The ship was plagued with problems in its structure. It suffered cracks in its hull
and was broken up after only 12 years of service. This structural weakness was one of the
reasons why the shipbuilding industry in the north-east in particular – and in the UK in
general – lost ground in the world market.

1 How far can we go in our engineering careers?
Obviously we know that life would be better without setbacks but they are not without their
value. We will be investigating one such major setback to help us understand what makes
the modern engineer. We often use the term formation to describe that combination of
education, training and experience that make up a professional. It is this concept of a
profession that will be central to this module. We believe that gaining professional status
is the main aspiration of our students; it underpins our career and earning capacity. But
more than that, it’s what inspires us and for good reason. Below is a quote from Herbert
Hoover, the 31st president of the USA, whose name graces one of the great expressions
of technology in the 20th century, The Hoover Dam in the United States. He was an
engineer and, judging by the number of quotes attributed to him, given to talking
knowledgeably about engineering.
[Engineering] is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a

figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on
paper. Then it moves to realisation in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings
jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standards of living and adds to the
comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.
Herbert Clark Hoover (1874–1964)
Think of your earliest significant memory of engineering, something you can remember
which, looking back, you believe influenced your decision to study engineering. Try to find
some pictures or video (much like I have done for my experience) which represent this
memory and, using your tutor group forum, upload them for your colleagues to see. This is
as much a social exercise as it is educational, but it should help you add to your
understanding of what motivates and interests you.
1 How far can we go in our engineering

careers?
Obviously quoting a US president who was an engineer suggests that engineers have the
capacity to go on to occupy the most powerful positions in the world. Although that was
some time ago, there are enough examples in contemporary life to say that engineers
play significant roles in modern life. In fact, the 39th US president, Jimmy Carter, was also
an engineer. From the heads of large organisations to company chief executives,
engineers have succeeded. What this module is about is not propelling you to the top but
encouraging you to think of what is possible and what would suit you as an individual.

Figure 4: Reaching for the moon can seem easier sometimes than others.
To understand in more practical terms how far we can go then we need to spend some
time looking at the structure of the profession and how we can plan our careers. An
obvious place to start is with the designation of professional engineer.
The UK’s Engineering Council is the licensing body granting the use of titles of Chartered
Engineer, Incorporated Engineer and Engineering Technician with the associated
abbreviations of CEng, IEng and EngTech respectively. We are placing our sights on
these. This is because as a largely UK-based institution they are the most relevant to you,
our students. Fortunately they are also widely recognised globally, as the UK’s
Engineering Council has worked with all the major engineering organisations around the
world on the mutual recognition of engineering titles. So with agreements such as the
Washington Accord (1989), the Sydney Accord (2001) and the Dublin Accord (2002) there
is now widespread recognition throughout the world of Chartered Engineers, Incorporated
Engineers and Engineering Technicians and their qualifications. While the main English-
speaking countries in the developed world were the original signatories, the agreements
have been expanded so that now Japan, South Korea and Singapore among others are
included.
These agreements have laid the foundations for international mobility for professional
engineers and technicians which can be seen in the changing requirements in job adverts.

Head of Engineering
Technip-Aberdeen
Posted 19 days ago
Apply on company website Save
Job description
Job purpose:
The Head of Engineering will have responsibility for all engineering disciplines required to deliver best
practice designs and procedures that will form the basis of project work. It is a function of the posiotion to
ensure technical integrity across all activities. The head of Engineering will be required to plan and
forecast the resource demands for the business and represent the company at industry/networking events.
It is also a core function to keep abreast of technological developments within the industry. It is the
responsibility of the Head of Engineering to develop and manage a central engineering team in
support of projects run by Technip’s Offshore Wind Limited business unit.
Reporting lines and interactions:

Line Manager: Senior Vice President Technip Offshore Wind
Other functional reporting lines:
Figure 5: Technip job advertisement.
Head of Engineering
Technip-Aberdeen
Posted 19 days ago
Apply on company website Save
Person specification
Typical background and experience required:

Must have:
• An Engineering Manager will be degree qualified and have a proven track record in the delivery of energy-
related products,
• The candidate will have a minimum of 12 years’ industry experience, including 5 years in a senior position.
• Degree in Engineering possibly Mechanical, Civil or Electrical
• Chartered Engineer Status
• Previous experience of managing personnel preferably in the renewables industry
• Intimate knowledge of Technip’s assets and technologies
• Must have experience in management of a growing technical team
• Change Leadership • Develop Capability • Planning and resource control • Customer Focus
• Able communicator • Work under tight time constraints • Clear decision making • Leadership skills
Figure 6: Technip person specification.
Activity 1
Aim of activity: Investigate the internal mobility of engineering qualifications.
Although international mobility is possible it isn’t often free of obstacles. For the
purposes of becoming familiar with the types of obstacles that could be present
consider the following scenario:
A colleague has been discussing her plans to get a BEng(Hons) with the OU and then
move to Canada to pursue her engineering career. However, another colleague says

that the Association of Professional Engineers and Geologists of Alberta (APEGA)

doesn’t recognise distance learning for undergraduate studies.
In your learning log, draft an email to the colleague detailing possible methods to
resolve the issue. Include evidence cited from the following three websites.
Engineers Canada with its list of constituent associations
APEGA the association for engineers’ registration in Alberta
International Engineering Alliance.
Discussion
It is clear that as APEGA is part of Engineers Canada, which is a signatory to the
Washington Accord, it is required to recognise the OU’s accredited BEng(Hons).
Recognition within Europe is covered by a separate process with the European
Federation of National Engineering Institutions (FEANI) of which the UK’s Engineering
Council is a member.
As we believe that the role of engineering education is to prepare students to become
fully fledged professional engineers in as short a time as possible, T276 will
concentrate on the theoretical and practical attributes required in a professional
engineer. While training and education are often used interchangeably, they are
different and we find it more useful in this context to talk about the development of
competences. T276 will spend time presenting the competency framework so that you
can recognise your own development. Some of you will have met these through your
own employment but it is essential that you all become familiar so that your route to
professional recognition is as smooth as possible. Unfortunately, this does not mean
that it will be easy!

“How did one find one’s train before

loudspeakers were invented?
One just asked a porter, my dear–
very much as one does now.”
Figure 7: Technology isn’t always progress.

One important attribute that successful professions often have is seeing the common
ground between different parties as well as their differences. This occurs when two
parties, for example students and academics, are talking about superficially different
things but are actually similar. So when you talk about jobs, I could be describing
careers. There is also the likelihood that as we often believe things change with time
we assume that what happened in the past is no longer applicable. But so often, they
are not as different as we might initially imagine. This cartoon, although published over
60 years ago, still has real value today.
There is a French phrase that sums this phenomenon up perfectly: Plus ça change,
plus c’est la même chose, which translates as: the more things change, the more they
stay the same.

2 Personal Development Planning
2.1 Recap of PDP study

At this point it is worth refreshing your mind with regard to what PDP study covers. One
nice way to think of it is as the study that makes you a better student or professional. In the
context of engineering, PDP study is key for gaining professional status by:
● reflecting on your study, experiences and career then setting goals to improve them
● recording your strengths, experiences and achievements to produce a portfolio of
evidence
● periodically reviewing and reflecting on your career aspirations then setting out
realistic and achievable career progression plans.
As mentioned earlier, T276 should not be your first experience of PDP study and therefore
T276 will not only focus on building on previous study but also reflecting on past
experiences.
2.2 PDP study and the use of the Learning Log in

T276
During the study of this module, you will be doing a number of activities which will form the
basis of PDP assessment in this module, therefore it is important that you treat them
seriously. Doing the activities should mean that the TMAs will be much more
straightforward. However, it is equally important that you don’t ignore them believing them
not to have an effect on your longer term development.
The ability to reflect on performance is one of the key skills in learning and working
environments. That’s one reason why you should be keeping your learning log up to date.
This is standard practice in all personal development. It will serve two functions: to jog
your memory when it comes to later in the module, and a place to store any documents as
evidence. The material in it is neither for public consumption nor for direct assessment.
However, your tutor does have access to it and you will be asked to reference the
outcome of activities that you are asked to create posts in. You are free to use other tools
for your learning log, but you are strongly advised to use the learning log because of the
ease with which you can reference material in TMAs.
Other than activities, you can record your thoughts, feelings, opinions and ideas as they
happen. It can be used for immediate reactions to the work in hand, rough work and
preparation for assignments. If you write it spontaneously, it may at first be confused and
not totally coherent; but this may be its greatest strength. You’ll have recorded first
reactions that you can subsequently look back over, hopefully to make sense of and
extract patterns from. Writing your learning log may need perseverance, but it will prove
worth your while. Try to do it ‘little and often’. Again, the electronic log provides you with an
easy way of doing this.
To create a useful learning log you can place tags in your posts. These could be the
activity number, or the type of post you are posting (for example ideas or reaction to TMA

score). The more you use it the more you will develop your own useful ways of using the
tool.
2.3 How to deal with a difficult document

By this point in your qualification you should be quite well developed as a learner with your
own reasonably well established methods of studying and procedures for absorbing
learning material. One key skill that you might not yet have too much experience of is
dealing with ‘difficult’ documents. The next section will take you through some of the
aspects of dealing with difficult documents that might help in your study of T276 and in
future modules.
It may seem both patronising and surprising that we should be doing this at the second
level of undergraduate study, but the complexity of some of the documents that you will be
dealing with in the second half of your qualification will only increase. This will be
particularly so when you do your project. Some of the techniques you may either be
familiar with already or don’t feel that they will be useful. However, I would encourage you
to go through these next few activities. You will be asked to apply these methods to
particular documents in this module and they should also be useful in other parts of your
study. They are based on work done by Mirabelle Walker (2005) on a previous suite of OU
modules, TM421–TM427, The IT & Computing Project.

The photograph shows the highly elaborate illuminated frontispiece to the

Lindisfarne Gospels from the medieval period.
Figure 8: Documents come with differing levels of difficulty.
Introduction
Reading is something that as students we do a great deal of and mostly we don’t worry
too much about it. However we all know that some things are more enjoyable to read than
others. Similarly, if we are honest there are some documents that are simply both not
enjoyable and difficult to read. Well, since there will be times when enjoyment has to be
ignored, i.e. you will have to read it, we are going to try to present ways of reducing the
difficulty of reading some documents.
One key type of document where the author has not been able to present the text in a
friendly and open style is where the document is for a specialist audience. This will
happen with increased regularity in your professional life. It may be that you are not very
familiar with the subject matter but you are interested or alternatively you are familiar but
some of the content challenges your knowledge. Or it could be that the item is not well
written but it could still be important in the work you are doing.
We are now going to work through the document by undertaking these activities:

● getting an overview
● uncovering the ideas
● using verbal signals.
This is just an introduction to dealing with a difficult document and we will revisit these
ideas later in this section.
Getting an overview
This is where you are forming a general view of the document. We are going to use the
PROMPT acronym as this is a broad approach to any document.
PROMPT stands for
Presentation; Relevance; Objectivity; Method; Provenance and Timeliness.
Activity 2
Aim of the activity: Start critically looking at the presentation and structure of a
document.
Look at the presentation of this document. In your learning log make some
notes about things you notice. What kind of structure does it have – is it a
newspaper article for instance? Look at the start of the article below. What
do you notice?
RICHARD M. FELDER
Department of Chemical Engineering
North Carolina State University
REBECCA BRENT
Education Designs, Inc.
ABSTRACT
Students have different levels of motivation, different attitudes about
teaching and learning, and different responses to specific classroom
environments and instructional practices. The more thoroughly instructors
understand the differences, the better chance they have of meeting the
diverse learning needs of all of their students. Three categories of diversity
that have been shown to have important implications for teaching and
learning are differences in students’ learning styles (characteristic ways of
taking in and processing information), approaches to learning (surface,
deep, and strategic), and intellectual development levels (attitudes about
the nature of knowledge and how it should be acquired and evaluated). This
article reviews models that have been developed for each of these
categories, outlines their pedagogical implications, and suggests areas for
further study.
Felder and Brent (2005)
Now read the rest of Understanding Student Differences and answer the above
questions with reference to the following keywords.

Keywords: learning styles, approaches to learning, intellectual Development.

Discussion
From the information that is given the most you can really say is it appears to be a
scientific article (presentation), it has an abstract and keywords list and has two
authors.
If you look at the abstract then you can see that all three phrases in the keywords list
appear in the abstract. This is common. Using the keywords as search terms in a
literature search can reduce the number of documents that you will find and so make it
easier to retrieve the ones of use. It may be that the keywords are chosen to fit in with a
specific discipline or sub discipline.
Another academic style which you will regularly come across is text books. These will
fit a broadly similar format. They may be part of a series but they will generally adopt
titles which appeal specifically to their intended audience. They are chosen to be
exclusive. Inside, the format is easily recognisable: contents and numbered sections,
introduction, references, tasks and exercises. There is likely to be generous use of
graphics as well as paragraphs with indentation and different font. You are unlikely to
mistake it for a novel!
In the same way, you are unlikely to mix up an academic journal article with a
newspaper article – even one which is from a more serious publication. Whereas an
academic journal article will give the authors and their institutions including their
department, a newspaper article, if it does name the author, is more likely to give the
name of a book that they have written and possibly their institution. A journal article will
normally give a correspondence address which is highly unlikely with a newspaper.
Once we have identified the presentation then we can skim read it to get a sense of its
relevance. This is where you look at the title and headings of the sections (generally
distinguished by the font and indentation). Do they fit with the sort of information you
are looking for?
Another approach is to scan the text for points of interest, all the time looking out for
key words. This can be particularly relevant if you are looking for different methods
such as equations, which you may have in your project.
It is essential that you try to assess the objectivity of the writer. This doesn’t mean that
a passionately argued polemic isn’t useful but you need to be aware of its partisan
nature. You should be looking for influential phrases such as ‘on the other hand’ or
‘however’ as these will indicate differing views being presented. Similarly, look for
clues as to how opinions are expressed. ‘I think’ can be an indicator of opinion rather
than conclusions drawn from the evidence presented. Another aspect that will
influence objectivity is any evidence of vested interest or sponsorship by the writer.
The method that is used in the production of the information in the document is an
indicator of quality and reliability so it is important to look for clues about it. Seeing any
reference to research projects or reports can give a sense of confidence. We often talk
about the documents being ‘peer-reviewed’. This means that before publication the
document has been critically read by people with a suitable perspective. All text books
will have gone through this process and most academic journal articles too. Magazines
and newspaper journalists will take advice and will check their sources but generally
will not have their articles reviewed by critical peers.
Allied to the reliability of a document is its provenance. This slightly awkward term
simply means ‘where has it come from?’ You can form an opinion of this by looking at
the author’s organisation, whether the author has a clear reputation and whether they
have published other articles and books?

Finally, it is important to consider the timeliness of the document. This is to do with

when it was published. The first date you come across may not be the most relevant as
books can be updated; look at the editions and any explanation the author may supply
to the newer editions. Similarly, journal articles will have a timeline when the
manuscript was first submitted to when it was published.
By going through the document using these headings, you should get a good picture of
the document without reading every word. In the pressurised environment of modern
work, every little extra time earned can be valuable.
Uncovering the ideas

The approach that can be highly useful but stops short of having to read the text in detail is
to look at particular paragraphs. Normally each paragraph contains one topic and the
topic is described in the first sentence. By looking at these first sentences then some of
the key ideas can be quickly identified.
Try looking at this paragraph and see if you can quickly see the key ideas being
presented.
An implication of these observations is that to reduce enrolment attrition and

improve the thinking and problem-solving skills of engineering graduates,
engineering schools should attempt to improve the quality of their teaching,
which in turn requires understanding the learning needs of today’s engineering
students and designing instruction to meet those needs. The problem is that no
two students are alike. They have different backgrounds, strengths and
weaknesses, interests, ambitions, senses of responsibility, levels of motivation,
and approaches to studying. Teaching methods also vary. Some instructors
mainly lecture, while others spend more time on demonstrations or activities;
some focus on principles and others on applications; some emphasize memory
and others understanding. How much a given student learns in a class is
governed in part by that student’s native ability and prior preparation but also by
the compatibility of the student’s attributes as a learner and the instructor’s
teaching style.
Felder and Brent (2005), p. 57
The first thing to notice is the length of the first sentence! However, it is clear that the
authors are looking to explain that understanding the student cohort is essential to
improving the quality of teaching. If this is of interest to you (as it is to me!) then you would
want to continue reading.
Another approach is to look at the diagrams, pictures and other graphical features.
Identifying ones that are interesting and then finding where they are discussed can be an
efficient way of uncovering the meaning in the text. But beware that it is tempting for
authors to put in graphics which look interesting but are not actually relevant. This is a
common ploy in newspapers and magazines not to mention websites!

Using verbal signals

This is a much more involved technique which can allow you to skip some sentences to
get to the heart of the text. Writers will often use verbal clues to signify what they are doing
in the text and to keep readers interested. Stanton (2009) suggests three phases: ‘slow
down’, ‘keep going’ and ‘here it comes’.
Looking at another paragraph of the journal article we have been considering can reveal
instances of these verbal signals.
Assessing the learning style profile of a class with an instrument such as the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Kolb Learning Style Inventory, or the Index of
Learning Styles – without being overly concerned about which students have
which preferences – can provide additional support for effective instructional
design. For example, knowing that a large majority of students in a class are
sensing and visual learners can – and should – motivate the instructor to find
concrete and usual ways to supplement the presentation of material that might
normally be presented entirely abstractly and verbally. Many specific sugges-
tions for designing instruction to address the full spectrum of learning styles are
given by Felder and Silverman [13] and Lawrence [15].
Felder and Brent (2005), p. 62
The use of ‘Assessing’ in the first line is a good signal that you should pay attention, so
slow down. It suggests movement and action.
The words ‘For example’ are to maintain your interest – that is, keep going. Finally, the last
line demonstrates the clear essence of the paragraph: ‘full spectrum of learning styles’.
This is the vital point. Here it comes and you can find it in the references.
Activity 3
Aim of activity: Put into practice what you have learnt regarding difficult documents.
Using your tutor group wiki, pick one of the example abstracts below and suggest three
key words. Just read the abstracts, not the whole articles. Look at what other members
of your group have suggested and, if you think something else could be used, feel free
to comment on their post and suggest your keyword.
As college students experience the challenges of their classes and

extracurricular activities, most undergo a developmental progression in
which they gradually relinquish their belief in the certainty of knowledge and
the omniscience of authorities and take increasing responsibility for their
own learning. At a high developmental level (which few reach before
graduation), they recognize that all knowledge is contextual, gather and
interpret evidence to support their judgments from a wide range of sources,
and willingly reconsider those judgments in the light of new evidence. This
paper reviews several models of intellectual development, discusses their
applicability to science and engineering education, and defines the
difficulties that confront instructors seeking to promote the development of
their students. A companion paper formulates an instructional model for
promoting development that addresses those difficulties.
Felder and Brent (2004a)

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and

extracurricular activities, they undergo a developmental progression in
which they gradually relinquish their belief in the certainty of knowledge and
the omniscience of authorities and take increasing responsibility for their
own learning. At the highest developmental level normally seen in college
students (which few attain before graduation), they display attitudes and
thinking patterns resembling those of expert scientists and engineers,
including habitually and skillfully gathering and analyzing evidence to
support their judgments. This paper proposes an instructional model
designed to provide a suitable balance of challenge and support to advance
students to that level. The model components are (1) variety and choice of
learning tasks; (2) explicit communication and explanation of expectations;
(3) modeling, practice, and constructive feedback on high-level tasks; (4) a
student-centered instructional environment; and (5) respect for students at
all levels of development.
Felder and Brent (2004b)
Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and

progressing to the applications of those theories. Alternative teaching
approaches are more inductive. Topics are introduced by presenting specific
observations, case studies or problems, and theories are taught or the
students are helped to discover them only after the need to know them has
been established. This study reviews several of the most commonly used
inductive teaching methods, including inquiry learning, problem-based
learning, project-based learning, case-based teaching, discovery learning,
and just-in-time teaching. The paper defines each method, highlights
commonalities and specific differences, and reviews research on the
effectiveness of the methods. While the strength of the evidence varies from
one method to another, inductive methods are consistently found to be at
least equal to, and in general more effective than, traditional deductive
methods for achieving a broad range of learning outcomes.
Prince and Felder (2006)
Discussion
If you look at the links below, you will see the key words. While these are interesting
and carry weight because they have been defined by the authors, they are not
necessarily the ones you need to use. The keywords should be the ones that interest
you and how you summarise what the article is about. It is also thinking about what
your colleagues on the module proposed. I imagine there were some curious ones!
Felder and Brent, The Intellectual Development of Science and Engineering Students.
Part 1: Models and Challenges.
Felder and Brent, The Intellectual Development of Science and Engineering Students.
Part 2: Teaching to Promote Growth.
Prince and Felder: Inductive Teaching and Learning Methods: Definitions, Compar-
isons, and Research Bases.

Conclusion
You are not expected to absorb this guidance instantly so don’t worry about it. You will
have time to practise it throughout this module. There are some important documents to
work through; ones that could have a real effect on your professional development.
Getting the most out of them is essential.
Using a highlighter can help break down a piece of text, allowing you to fillet it in a
valuable and efficient way.
2.4 Summary
In this module, as in previous PDP work either in the module, T176 or in other study, you,
as an individual, are central to the activities and the content. This is because your
motivation is essential to your development. Although you are aware that you are part of a
cohort of students and that comparisons are inevitable, we want you to compare yourself
to the person you are looking to become. It is said the real contest in any area of human
activity is between what you have done and what you are capable of doing.
We are also looking for you to make sense of your experience as you gain it. Regrets are
often worst when they have years to develop. If you can recognise and understand events
more quickly then the easier it should be to respond effectively. Also engineering is never
perfect! It will inevitably be a compromise. It is said that there are three parameters in any
engineering project; Quality, Cost and Delivery and that you can only really attain the best
in two of them.
Now we will begin to look at what makes a professional engineer and why it is necessary
to know how.

3 Becoming professional
3.1 Introduction
You might remember from the module guide it was recommended that, if you haven’t
studied T176 in your journey to T276, you should study some preparatory material. I will
again recommend this, as it will form a good foundation for the rest of the PDP study in
T276. See the T176 OpenLearn materials, which are linked to from Section 2 of the
Module Guide, for some revision on PDP at Stage 1. If, after quickly reading the material,
you think you can supply evidence that you have studied most of the topics covered, then
it might be worth having a quick chat with your tutor to get their opinion on if you need to
complete the material or not. Obviously, we don’t want you using your precious time to
study material you have covered elsewhere.
3.2 Taking stock

In keeping with most sequels, T276 adopts the style of its predecessor module, T176
(also this approach is standard within the wider discipline of PDP so should be familiar to
those who haven’t studied T176). This means that we will adopt a similar style with the
Taking stock; Looking back and Looking ahead sections to each study guide. This will give
you an opportunity to view your study from a personal perspective.
In T176 we looked at more immediate issues about studying and assessing your personal
learning styles and preferences as well as your first look at the professional engineering
competences in the UK Engineering Council’s Standard of Professional Engineering
Competence (UK-SPEC). We also spent some time looking at the process of learning and
introducing terms such as metacognition.

Figure 9: Signposts giving directions aren’t always helpful.
3.1.1 Looking back

Firstly, in order to look back we need to have the information/documentation from past
PDP experiences close to hand. Use Activity 4 to collect past PDP work together.
Activity 4
Aim of activity: To collect together what you have done in the past with regard to PDP.
In your learning log collect together any past PDP work. This might be the export of
your T176 learning log, TMAs that you submitted during your study of T176 or, if you
didn’t study T176, work submitted for a PDP section of other study you have
completed. It might be an action plan you have created at work or some career plans
you have made yourself. Once you have collected all this information, create a fresh
post in your learning log listing the documents you have uploaded, detailing what each
document is and when it was completed etc. This activity could take a few hours
depending on the amount of PDP you have done.
It is worth going back to the work you did in previous personal development planning (in
T176 if you took it) as you will build on it in this module, but also it is often revealing to see
what you thought in the recent past and see how much you have changed. It may be that
you have refined your thoughts rather than changed them. It is this process of reflecting
on previous work that helps us adjust our current approach. The physical analogue is with

a construction task like the tightening of a bolt. We need to make sure the two sets of
threads are aligned. You can’t simply increase the torque if the threads of the nut and bolt
are not matched. Conversely, the alignment may be correct but some dirt or stickiness is
preventing easy progress. So much is in the feel of the task. When fitting a bolted joint, we
rely on our senses, particularly tactility, to assess the situation before making a decision to
increase the torque or rate of tightening. So with PDP, we need to ensure alignment,
recognise where there are unexpected hindrances and be aware of the overall aim. To do
this then our PDP has to have regular review otherwise we would press on without
realising that our aims and our work are not aligned.
Please look back particularly at the mission statement you put together as part of your
study. Also go back to the action plans you have developed in the recent past. If you have
undertaken T176 then you would have done this in Activity 15.
3.1.2 Looking ahead

This study guide will take you back to UK-SPEC to consider what the profession of
engineering is looking for in graduate engineers, but before that we will look at a more
fundamental aspiration: how the profession assures that we don’t get incompetent.
We will then consider some of the ‘softer’ skills defined in UK-SPEC.
3.1.3 Summary
The PDP focused study in this module is targeting employability. As we will see in the
following section, this can be interpreted narrowly as how to become employed but it
should also be seen as a way of getting the most out of life. As one OU student said:
Being made redundant once, I realise the job market is so dynamic, so what is
here today is gone tomorrow. So I need to be an agile worker and move around.
Personally I have been very interested in the science part of my OU degree ...
but the biggest asset working in corporate organisations, is the skills you learn,
analytical thinking, organisation skills, workload planning ... employability skills.
OU student

Figure 10: Getting the right combination is critical.
3.3 Linking employability, competence and

professionalism
In the Introduction we briefly mentioned competences as these are seen as the building
blocks in the professional formation of an engineer. However, while it is helpful to break
down this development process into more manageable steps, we need to remember what
the bigger picture is. There is a popular distinction used to explain an individual’s
preferred learning style. This is where styles are divided between global and sequential
(Felder and Silverman, 1988). So learners who prefer to know what the end result will be
are described as global whereas those who are happy to take each stage at a time are
known as sequential. An everyday example would be when you are hiking up a hill. To
some the peak is so far away that they concentrate on the upcoming ridge whereas the
more global hikers think about the final destination and the pleasure at achieving it. So for
the more global among you Personal and Professional Development Planning is part of
our commitment to your employability and career development. Now, we have already
met this definition but it is always worth repeating it. Employability is described in a variety
of ways but in the OU we use:
A set of capabilities and achievements that support students in developing their

careers, raising their aspirations and enhancing their contribution to society.
(The Open University, 2011)
In Engineering, we can see that many of these capabilities and achievements are well
defined by engineering competences so we can concentrate on making sure that there
are opportunities to achieve them. But there is also a requirement to decide which of the
rich range of opportunities are the most important for you as an individual. This is the role

of personal and professional development planning. You are clearly individuals who have
unique aspirations and experiences so it is important for you to feel able and confident to
choose your own path and priorities. Taking the standard definition of PDP.
PDP is a structured and supported process undertaken by a learner to reflect

upon their own learning, performance and/or achievement and to plan for their
personal, educational and career development.
(QAA, 2009)
We can take a more global view of it and say that by thinking about where you see
yourself in the future you can define the route you need to take. This will require you to
identify the context you will be operating in, what constraints you will experience and what
skills you need to get there.
And if you need any encouragement about the importance of the process, then in a survey
of 1622 US engineering employers, ‘barely half ... found the understanding (by graduate
engineers) of organizational, cultural, and environmental contexts and constraints to be
adequate’ (Lattuca et al., 2006).
3.4 Investigating the importance of competences

As we have already seen, competences are the building blocks of an engineer’s
expertise, and later on in the module you will have the opportunity to assess your own
against UK-SPEC. As a way of appreciating how the profession developed these
frameworks then, a review of one of the most serious accidents in the North Sea oilfield is
a good place to start.
The Capsizing of the Alexander L. Kielland rig

This catastrophic event took place in the early evening of March 27th 1980 in the
Norwegian sector of the North Sea continental shelf. It was a floating hotel module and
was accommodating 212 staff working in the Ekofisk oilfield when it capsized. Only 89
people were rescued.
Activity 5
Aim of activity: assess the background.
Look at this YouTube clip.
Do you think that the animation gives a good sense of what happened?
As to be expected, this disaster led to a significant investigation undertaken by the
Norwegian Government. Its results were awaited across the energy sector around the
world. Here was a well-resourced industry with a commitment to safety. The oil and
gas industry was central to Norway’s prosperity and so the loss of access to the oilfield
would have serious consequences.
The inquiry dismissed the more dramatic explanations including one which apparently
still produces some supporters: that of sabotage. They did identify several distinct
areas of concern which were connected. The extract below is a good way of

summarising the main points so please read through. As practice of dealing with a
difficult document spend some time making notes using the PROMPT method.
Extract from Understanding Systems Failures (Bignell and

Fortune, 1984)
5.3 The Fracture
As will emerge in what follows, the break in the bracing tube did not occur at the spot
engineers would normally regard as critical, such as a welded joint at a junction with a
column. Indeed the fracture location was more reminiscent of instances where pieces of
domestic equipment have broken prematurely at the exact spot where a proud
manufacturer had embossed a name, the part number or the phrase ‘pat pending’. Like
many of these failures the fatal break in the rig was, for the most part, what engineers call a
‘fatigue’ failure; that is a progressive weakening of metal due to repetitions of comparatively
modest loadings. As a result of fatigue the strength of the metal is reduced to such an
extent that it falls below that needed to sustain even normal working loads and the material
begins to crack. Fatigue failure then proceeds by progressive advances of the crack with
each application of load until the uncracked portion is so small that it cannot withstand even
one more loading and it breaks right through. A pre-existing split hastens the onset of
fatigue failure and this was the case on the Alexander L. Kielland. Next we shall see how
the rig’s bracing bar D-6 came to contain such a split.
It was mentioned earlier that this rig was moored by cables attached to anchors in the sea
bed; reeling these cables in and out provided fine adjustment of the rig’s position. This
would have been particularly important when drilling for oil, and although the rig had not yet
been used in this way it had originally been built for it and was equipped to take many of the
fittings that would be necessary for drilling, such as the devices called ‘hydrophones’, which
would be housed in the horizontal bracing bars to face downwards. Each hydrophone
would pick up sound waves sent out by a device placed on the sea bed below the rig’s
intended site. By comparing the times at which signals arrived at each hydrophone the
precise position of a rig could be found. The hydrophones were not fitted directly to each
brace; instead, a hole was cut in the brace and special tubes made up and welded in as a
lining around the edge of the hole (Figure 11). The lining stood proud of the surface of the
brace, and next a ring-shaped plate was welded to the lining’s projecting outer end so that
the hydrophone could later be placed in the lining tube and fastened to the plate.
Metallurgical examination after the disaster revealed several faults in and around the tube.
Its steel was of inferior quality for the job and liable to split and peel away in layers; in fact
there had been no requirement that the strength of the metal be considered with ‘de-
lamination’ in mind. The welding deposit that fastened the lining to the brace was thin and
badly shaped which resulted in low strength and poor ‘give’ here so that during
manufacture or shortly afterwards the welding had given way and the plates had split. The
finding of paint on the crack surfaces exposed by the final fracture confirmed the early date
of these breaks because the paint colour was one only used during manufacture of the rig.

Column C
Platform
Column
D
Column
E
Drainhole
Hydrophone
Figure 11: Location of welding flaw at the hydrophone attachment.

The mechanism by which it is possible for steel structures to fracture so early in their life,
indeed almost before that life has begun, can best be explained by following the
manufacturing process stage by stage.
First, the basic tube for the bracing bar would be made by welding shorter tubes together,
and then later the hole for the hydrophone and its support would be cut out with a flame
torch. This heats the metal to melting point along the desired line of cut and virtually blows
and burns it away. However, the metal on each side of the cut would also become hot and
expand. The heat in the cut edges would dissipate to the surroundings but thermal
contraction of the cooling metal would be restrained by the much cooler and more massive
parts further away. Thus when the cut edges cool down, their contraction is restrained,
leaving them in a permanently stretched state. Also when the lining tube comes to be
welded in place both it and the main tube are reheated, and start life with a built-in tension.
The existence of these locked-in effects is hard to predict. Other features such as complex
shapes of the steelwork and the sub-zero temperatures of the North Sea environment could
help to cause cracks. Much can be done to help prevent cracking, by careful design of the
shapes and sizes of the plates, selection of suitable material and by careful attention to the
welding, but in the construction of the Alexander L. Kielland scant attention was paid to
these considerations. The welding used here was the lowest of the three quality classes

used on the rig, the run of weld metal was too narrow and it did not extend into the
surrounding steel in the way it ought.
It is not known at which precise stage of manufacture these defects caused the first crack; it
might have been during the welding itself, or during transport of this sub-assembly to the
shoreside yard where final assembly took place. Perhaps the cracking began when the
structure was still incomplete and temporary supports were in use. It is known that the rig
was put together in stages by first setting out two pontoons and the lower parts of their
columns afloat on the water of the assembly area. Next, a bracing tube was floated out on a
barge and the barge ballasted to bring the tube to the right height for welding. This was
repeated for the other pontoons and bracing tubes, each barge and pontoon having its
ballasting changed repeatedly to suit the ever-growing assembly (figure 12). To give some
idea of the sizes involved, a typical brace weighed thirty to forty tonnes. Finally the upper
works were completed.
Side elevation Cross-section

c
(c-c)
The stern
column
top 1 4 7
a a
column
35.6 m
b b 5 6 D-6
pontoon
A-E B D C B C D A E
22 m brace
c
77 m 50 m
81 m
Cross-section at Cross-section at
column tops column feet
(a-a) (b-b)
B
B
A
1 A
2
5
5
7 C C
6
6
E 4 3 E
D-6
D D
Figure 12: Layout of the Alexander L. Kielland

This manhandling would produce stresses in the bracing tube D-6 whose continuity had
been interrupted by the hole for the hydrophone, and the effect of these stresses would be
unpredictable. As we have described, the designer dealing with the hydrophones added the
lining plate as reinforcement, but this became cracked in the very process of its attachment
due to the poor quality of its metal, and this crack was liable to split even further. Design
checks ensured that the bracing tube was strong enough in itself but much less attention
was paid to local strength at the hydrophone fittings. One reason for this was probably a
difference in how these tasks were perceived by the designers and builders. Checking the

original strength of the virgin bracing was a main structural matter: dealing with the
hydrophone device was a matter of outfitting, and thus secondary and peripheral to the
structural engineering.
It has been explained that during manufacture and assembly there would be several loads
acting on the bracing tubes. Similarly, in service, they would be affected by various loads
that included the weight of the structure, buoyancy pressures and anchor cable forces. The
first two would be predictable for an intact rig and fairly easy to calculate, and the anchored
forces were monitored, controlled and limited by the cable winches. Certain other loads and
effects could really only be guessed at, such as the operating loads if the rig were to be
used for drilling, impacts from vessels moored against the rig for supply or other working
purposes, and the effect of the waves and the general movement or surge of the sea. The
movement of the surface of the ocean would strain the bracing tubes in several ways.
Waves would slam them directly, and also strike the various pontoons and columns at
different instants and in different directions, throwing even more load onto the structure.
One of the aims of the submerged pontoon design used for the Alexander L. Kielland was
to keep down the wave impacts by putting most of the buoyancy well below the sea’s
surface, elevating the decks high above it, and reducing the lattice structure at wave level to
a minimum. However, each wave would lift one or more of the buoyant pontoons and
columns whilst others lay in wave troughs. Thus there was uneven loading, so the bracings
were needed in order to hold the structure rigid. In addition, the water in the body of a wave
does not advance as one mass; it varies in speed, so again there are uneven loads,
continually changing in nature and size. Then, of course, when a wave tries to move the rig
bodily the anchor cables resist so the cable forces vary in time with the waves too, giving
another rhythmic effect. In this fashion waves produce the repeated loading that causes
fatigue fracture and yet the design of the rig involved no explicit calculations as to the effect
of repeated loads and the damage they might cause by cracking the structure. Rather, it
was believed that the strength incorporated against general loading also gave security
against fatigue. One reason for this view was the tendency to look to ship practice for
guidelines on the special checks that should be made. Ships in fact provide a poor guide to
rigs, as the kind of steel used in ships and the way ships are put together give much
automatic protection against fatigue. However, the Norwegian inquiry commission found
that if a fatigue calculation had been performed, using reasonable assumptions for the
effect of wave loading, there would have been cause for concern because even if the rig
had not been cracked in manufacture it would still have cracked in service and possibly
have failed even sooner than it did. The commission went still further and expressed its
view that many other things had been wrong all along, including deficiencies in other
features of the design, dimensions and material quality of the hydrophone holder and its
attachment to the bracing tube. Yet these aspects were all supposed to be covered by rules
and regulations, so it is necessary to look next at these and how they were applied to rigs at
that time.
Notes on the use of the Dealing with a difficult document section.
The overview
● Presentation. The introduction to the document called it an extract and from the
reference it is clearly a book. The naming and numbering of the section indicates that
it is from chapter 5, section 3.

● Relevance. This is not that obvious but as it was a serious incident of failure then
understanding the causes should help with future practice.
● Objectivity. The style is academic and measured with attention to detail. It quotes
different sources such as the Norwegian Government Inquiry.
● Method. The information presented relies on two methods. The first is a summarising
of the key facts from the case. The second is more descriptive and the section is, in
effect, a narrative with commentary.
● Provenance. The best indicator is the publisher. This is given in the reference as
Manchester University Press. This raises our confidence in the document as it has
been published in an academic publishing house and can be assumed to have had a
number of peer reviews.
● Timeliness. This is of particular interest in this case as the failure took place in 1980
with the book published in 1984. Does it matter that it is over 30 years old? Generally
I don’t think it does as it is being used to explain the development of professional
engineers. The work was done in good time after the capsizing when a great deal of
information had been assembled. The Inquiry was well funded and had broad
political support.
Uncovering the ideas

This extract deals with the origins of the fracture of the bracing which led directly to the
capsizing of the rig. A number of references to the metallurgical examination provide
evidence for the conclusions presented. It does however, present a number of
contributory factors such as poor manufacture, in particular, the welding, possible
damaging handling and installation as well as poor design practice with a limited
understanding of the problems with modifications. Toward the end of the section, the
authors start to question the overall regulatory framework.
Using verbal signals

I have already mentioned the measured tone of the article and part of this is down to the
verbal signals. The authors are deft at these so, for example, when they start their
sentence
It is not known at which precise stage of manufacture ...
They are preparing us to receive key evidence while acknowledging that they are
investigating. The sense of uncertainty is making us slow down. Using the word stage
conveys a sense of things building up, a series of events. Further down the paragraph,
different points are made linked to that sense of not being entirely sure, e.g. it might have
been or Perhaps. This is designed to keep us interested, i.e. keep going. Finally, a full
description of the manufacturing process is given and it’s signalled to us as in here it
comes with the phrase It is known. There is an interesting asymmetry with not known at
beginning and It is known at the end.
Here is the full quote:
It is not known at which precise stage of manufacture these defects caused the
first crack; it might have been during the welding itself, or during transport of
this sub-assembly to the shoreside yard where final assembly took place.
Perhaps the cracking began when the structure was still incomplete and

temporary supports were in use. It is known that the rig was put together in
stages by first setting out two pontoons and the lower parts of their columns
afloat on the water of the assembly area.
Activity 6
Aim of the activity: Re-evaluate the article from a further perspective.
Read the extract again. This time concentrate on the type of engineering professionals
who were involved who might have been implicated in poor practice. Again, put any
thoughts you have in your learning log.
Discussion
From the extract we can see the following which were central to the fracture:
● Modification of brace to accommodate the hydrophone

● Welding of hydrophone lining to the brace
● Transport and assembly of rig
● Consideration of fatigue loads.
From these activities then the type of roles involved would be the project engineers,
the welding engineers and stress/structural engineers. I think the final one is probably
the responsibility of the Chief Engineer with input from the structural engineers.
However serious the collapse of the D-6 Brace was, what followed is why it became a
disaster.
The timing of the catastrophic fracture was reported to be early evening with survivors
hearing what they later described as an explosion. The rupture of the D-6 brace led
directly to the overloading of the other braces connecting the D column to the rig. Soon
after, column D was completely detached from the rig. Fatally unbalanced, the rig
began to list which exacerbated its buoyancy. This led to water flooding the rig so that it
started to capsize and finally to sink. It took about 20 minutes (Lees,1996).
The inquiry into the disaster recognised that there was a short period of time between
the initial fracture and the final sinking where it was feasibly possible to evacuate the
rig. This did not happen successfully.
While an alarm bell sounded as the rig began to list, no one was in any doubt that the
rig was in trouble. The lights went out and soon even the emergency generators
stopped working. The extent of the chaos was well described by Bignell and Fortune
(1984) as they referred to bulky items of furniture such as lockers and tables sliding
about; they were not normally secured. As staff attempted to evacuate, few managed
to get into the limited number of survival suits. These should have helped anyone in
the water survive the cold of the North Sea. However, it was reported that only four of
the survivors were wearing them and that even those were difficult to rescue as the
suits were smooth and without loops to grab. The suits also had two further
disadvantages with no friction pads on the gloves making the holding of ropes near to
impossible and they were not self-righting. This meant they did not have buoyancy so
as to hold an unconscious person facing upwards.
While there were more than sufficient life-jackets, they were either inaccessible or
there wasn’t time to put them on, as only 59 of the 89 survivors were wearing one. The
key issue was the drop that most people who made it to the water had to endure. The
minimum appears to have been around three metres. The traditional life-jackets would

have given a sharp blow to the neck of the wearer as they rode up upon entry into the
water (Bignell and Fortune,1984).
The ill-prepared nature of the evacuation and rescue are well captured by the
subsequent inquiry (cited by Bignell and Fortune, 1984). The rafts and their launching
were inadequate; some of the seven lifeboats were deployed but with very mixed
success. One was crushed as the rig capsized with no survivors; two others had great
difficulties in releasing the hooks on the lowering wires. Around two-thirds of those who
survived escaped using the lifeboats. Similarly the speed of the capsize and poor
weather left the rescue services struggling. Staff on the neighbouring rig of the Edda 2/
7C were able to rescue a number of people from the Kielland by using the cranes and
emergency rafts.
What the inquiry concluded was that the structural catastrophe turned into a disaster
because of the inadequacy of the evacuation procedures. However, we can get a
sense of a chain of events where a number of decisions contributed to the overall
outcome. What I want you to do now is consider the roles of personnel in those
decisions.
The Cascade – chronology of failure
● Failure to set sufficient quality standards for manufacture

● Failure to build in redundancy
● Failure to weld to the expected standard
● Failure to detect crack in weld
● Failure to detect growing crack
● Failure to implement evacuation procedures
● Failure to recover staff.
Activity 7
Aim of activity: Analyse the links between failures and personnel.
Look at each of the failures and make an educated guess about which personnel
would be implicated in each of these failures.
Failure to set sufficient quality standards for manufacture
Failure to build in redundancy
Failure to weld to the expected standard
Failure to detect crack in weld
Failure to detect growing crack
Failure to implement evacuation procedures
Failure to recover staff
Match each of the items above to an item below.
Failure of welding engineers
Failure of structural engineers
Failure of manufacturing engineers

Failure of commissioning engineers

Failure of maintenance and inspection engineers
Failure of safety staff
Failure of search and rescue emergency staff
Answer
● Failure of welding engineers to set sufficient quality standards for manufacture
● Failure of structural engineers to build in redundancy
● Failure of manufacturing engineers to weld to the expected standard
● Failure of commissioning engineers to detect crack in weld
● Failure of maintenance and inspection engineers to detect growing crack
● Failure of safety staff to implement evacuation procedures
● Failure of search and rescue emergency personnel to recover staff
3.5 Summary
What we have seen is that the scale of the disaster came about through a multiplier effect.
If, for example, the fracture of the bracing member had taken place before the
commissioning of the rig, e.g. in transit or installation, then it would have been unlikely to
have caused loss of life. There would still have been significant financial, reputation and
time loss. Had the evacuation and rescue procedures been more effective then it would
still have been a catastrophe but nothing like so many staff would have died.
What we can say is that the failure of one process presents a major risk to many other
processes. A state of affairs summed up by the phrase ‘it’s fine when it works’ – but if one
thing fails, the whole system can fail.
In the next section, we will investigate the concept of competences and how the
engineering profession seeks to establish standards.

References
References
Bignell, V. and Fortune, J. (1984) Understanding System Failures, Manchester University
Press.
Dublin Accord (2002) International Engineering Alliance [Online]. Available at http://www.
ieagreements.com/dublin/ (Accessed 13 March 2014).
Felder, R.M. and Brent, R. (2004a) ‘The intellectual development of science and
engineering students: part 1, models and challenges’, Journal of Engineering Education,
October, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 269–77.
Felder, R.M. and Brent, R. (2004b) ‘The intellectual development of science and
engineering students: part 2, teaching to promote growth’, Journal of Engineering
Education, October, vol. 93, no. 4, pp. 279–91.
Felder, R.M. and Brent, R. (2005) ‘Understanding student differences’, Journal of
Engineering Education, Jan 2005, vol. 94, no. 1, pp 57–72.
Felder, R.M. and Silverman, L.K. (1988) ‘Learning and teaching styles in engineering
education’, Engineering Education, vol. 78, no. 7, pp. 674–81.
Hoover, H. (1951) ‘The Profession of Engineering’ in The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover:
Years of Adventure, 1874–1920, New York, Macmillan.
Lattuca, L.R. et al., (2006) ‘The changing face of engineering education: an industry
perspective’, The Bridge, vol. 36, no. 2, pp. 5–13.
Lees, F.P. (1996). Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2nd edn, Oxford, Elsevier.
Open University (2011) The Open University Student Employability Policy Statement
[Online]. Available at http://www.open.ac.uk/students/charter/sites/www.open.ac.uk.stu-
dents.charter/files/files/ecms/web-content/student-employability.pdf (Accessed 27 Feb-
ruary 2014).
Prince, M.J. and Felder, R.M. (2006) ‘Inductive teaching and learning methods:
definitions, comparisons, and research bases’, Journal of Engineering Education, vol. 95,
no. 2, April, pp. 123–38.
QAA (2009) Personal development planning: guidance for institutional policy and practice
in higher education [Online]. Available at http://www.recordingachievement.org/images/
pdfs/pdpguide2009.pdf (Accessed 28 February 2014).
Sprague de Camp, L. (1963) The Ancient Engineers, New York, Doubleday.
Stanton, N. (2009) Mastering Communication, 5th edn, London, Macmillan.
Sydney Accord (2001) International Engineering Alliance [Online]. Available at http://www.
ieagreements.com/sydney/ (Accessed 13 March 2014).
Walker, M. (2002) TM420-TM426 The IT and Computing project, Milton Keynes, The
Open University.
Washington Accord (1989) International Engineering Alliance [Online]. Available at http://
www.ieagreements.com/washington-accord/ (Accessed 13 March 2014).
All rights including copyright in these materials are owned or controlled by The Open
University and are protected by copyright in the United Kingdom and by international
treaties worldwide.
In accessing these materials, you agree that you may only use the materials for your
own personal non-commercial use.
You are not permitted to copy, broadcast, download, store (in any medium), transmit,

References
show or play in public, adapt or change in any way these materials, in whole or in part,
for any purpose whatsoever without the prior written permission of The Open
University.

PDP Study Guide 1

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

PDP Study Guide 1

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

T276 Engineering: professions, practice and skills 2

PDP Study Guide 1

2 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Figure 1: The 19th-century Old Operating Theatre Museum.

3 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Figure 2: A modern operating theatre.

4 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

[Engineering] is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a

1 How far can we go in our engineering

5 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

6 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Apply on company website Save

Reporting lines and interactions:

Figure 5: Technip job advertisement.

Apply on company website Save

Typical background and experience required:

Figure 6: Technip person specification.

7 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

that the Association of Professional Engineers and Geologists of Alberta (APEGA)

8 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

“How did one find one’s train before

Figure 7: Technology isn’t always progress.

9 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

2 Personal Development Planning

2.1 Recap of PDP study

2.2 PDP study and the use of the Learning Log in

10 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

2.3 How to deal with a difficult document

11 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

The photograph shows the highly elaborate illuminated frontispiece to the

12 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

13 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Keywords: learning styles, approaches to learning, intellectual Development.

14 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Finally, it is important to consider the timeliness of the document. This is to do with

Uncovering the ideas

An implication of these observations is that to reduce enrolment attrition and

15 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Using verbal signals

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and

16 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

As college students experience the challenges of their classes and

Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and

17 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

18 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

3.2 Taking stock

19 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Figure 9: Signposts giving directions aren’t always helpful.

3.1.1 Looking back

20 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

3.1.2 Looking ahead

21 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Figure 10: Getting the right combination is critical.

3.3 Linking employability, competence and

A set of capabilities and achievements that support students in developing their

22 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

PDP is a structured and supported process undertaken by a learner to reflect

3.4 Investigating the importance of competences

The Capsizing of the Alexander L. Kielland rig

23 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019

Extract from Understanding Systems Failures (Bignell and

24 of 33 Monday 25 February 2019