Implementation of Industry Inputs in Higher Education Courses

Higher education courses must be continuously updated to catch up with the ever-changing industrial advancements. An up-to-date course benefits all parties of interest including students, employers and the education institution. This paper discusses the process of identifying industry expectations from graduates and implementing industry inputs based on two engineering courses offered at the Engineering Institute of Technology. A generic, but detailed implementation procedure is developed. The procedure mainly involves an industry panel and a course advisory committee. The purpose of an industry panel is to make recommendations on course content, so that any gap identified between the course learning outcomes and the current industry needs is closed. The objective of a course advisory committee is to assess the industry panel proposals and implement them appropriately. Both engineering courses discussed in the paper are coursework-based master programs. The uniqueness of both courses is analyzed through comparisons. Surveys were conducted amongst the industry panels and the course advisory committees involved in the two courses. The survey results verified the effectiveness of the implementation procedure and provided additional insights. Furthermore, other factors that could affect the efficiency of the procedure are identified.