Comparison of class hours taught in six Metallurgical Engineering courses

A tree structure with three different levels of categories was created for the hierarchical classification of subjects of Metallurgical Engineering courses: ten very broad ones, called “families”, 32 intermediate ones, called”groups”, and 96 more specific ones, called “themes”. Most themes were directly linked to Metallurgical Engineering and were really very specific. Themes linked to other engineering materials or techniques were usually less specific. Polymers, for instance, appear mainly in elective subjects and are classified in a single theme. 741 subjects of a Chinese, an USA and four Brazilian Metallurgical Engineering courses were classified in those categories, taking their titles as reference. A list of 160 keywords was created, each one linked to one theme. For each subject, the selected themes were validated or not by our team. The class hours of each subject were then added to their themes and corresponding groups and families.