Solutions for Unified Communication Competences for Engineering Students and Specialists

"<< Background >>Modern society is experiencing a high demand for engineering graduates, as employers are increasingly connected to rapidly advancing fields such as IT, mechanics, telecommunications, and electronics. This creates a call to action for all higher education institutions (HEIs) to focus on meeting labor market needs for highly skilled future employees. HEIs worldwide are tasked with preparing engineers in the best possible way to ensure they can successfully integrate into companies and contribute meaningfully to achieving organizational goals. The partners involved in this project have spent years working to increase its international recognition and presence, as well as developing frameworks that connect HEIs with global academic and non-academic partners, including representatives from the labor market. We firmly believe that communication competencies of engineering students and professionals should be enhanced by fostering open dialogue and integrating new methods into existing study programs. By promoting creative learning and teaching practices, the project contributes to various sectoral and horizontal objectives, enhancing the exchange of expertise and best practices across the EU. << Objectives >>The project SUCCESS aimed to give a realistic description of the current situation in the post-pandemic period. Besides, the project identifies effective strategies to improve engineering students' awareness of communication and digital communication skills and shows examples of training them to advance these essential skills to adapt to a continuously fluctuating job market. Finally, the project suggests that integrating communication training into engineering curricula and providing opportunities for applied practical App, feedback, and clear patterns can help students to feel more confident and increase their overall performance in communicating technical knowledge and information to others. To ensure effective communication and prepare high-quality specialists whose academic skillset is accompanied by various essential soft skills required by employers, it is crucial to integrate a balanced proportion of multiple soft skills into curricula and/or the content of each separate subject or organize on the annual basis the cross-disciplinary international hackathons/forums. << Implementation >>During the active phase of the project, a variety of training programs were implemented, aligning with the objectives outlined in the project application. As outlined in the project application, a total of five distinct face-to-face training cycles were planned: Digital Communication, Specialized English for Engineering Students, Career Panel, Communication Laboratory, and Communication Hackathon.1. The ""Digital Communication""- activity took place in April 2022 in Cartagena, Spain, with the Polytechnic University of Cartagena overseeing the event. The aim was to enhance students’ digital skills and etiquette, as well as to develop digital communication proficiency, and presentation abilities in digital platforms and tools, emphasizing effective communication strategies in online environments and are crucial in today’s digital era. This activity supported students and professionals in improving both their written and oral communication skills while strengthening their critical thinking, analysis, debate, argumentation, and case study abilities.2. The second activity, “English for Engineers,” was held in February 2023 in Dresden, Germany, organized by the Dresden University of Technology. This activity focused on introducing participants to the Specialized English Language used in the engineering industry. This program aimed at assessing students’ technical vocabulary and communication skills pertinent to the field, academic writing, speaking skills, and overall scientific competence, with feedback, ratings, and recommendations provided by the lecturers at the end of the program. The month of the project activity was changed from January due to different study periods of German students.3. Concurrently, the “Career Panel” activity took place, hosted by the project partner, the Pyramid Group and Dresden University of Technology. This activity served as an interaction between students and employers, helping students develop oral presentation, body language, negotiation, and argumentation skills that are essential for success in the industry and labour market. The “Career Panel” also aimed to enhance participants’ competencies in analytical and strategic thinking, decision-making, stress management, adaptability, teamwork, and openness to feedback. Industry training professionals shared insights and experiences, providing participants with valuable guidance on career pathways and professional development.4. In November 2023, the ""Communication Lab"" was organized in Riga, Latvia, by Riga Technical University. This innovative activity provided a hands-on approach to practising communication skills in various scenarios, allowing participants to refine their abilities in a supportive environment. Besides, during this event, students tested a newly developed application demo on training communication skills and provided feedback. This application was designed to foster and develop communication skills, while also analyzing users’ speech rate, fluency, pauses, and use of interjections. This activity represents a significant initial step toward establishing a more innovative communication training laboratory environment and the development of subsequent projects.5. The final activity, the “Communication Hackathon,” took place in February 2024 in Paris, France, at Leonardo da Vinci Consolidated University. The event was rescheduled due to the general hackathon held in Leonardo de Vinci to disseminate information to more participants. The number of participants in the general hackathon was more than 1200 students from different majors. This event aimed to consolidate all the knowledge and topics covered in the previous activities, offering engineering students and professionals the chance to participate in an international forum with more than one thousand participants. The “Communication Hackathon” allowed participants to encourage collaborative problem-solving and creative thinking, bringing participants together to tackle communication challenges in real-time, thereby fostering teamwork and innovation in the field of AI.Each of these activities was designed to equip participants with essential skill sets that are increasingly relevant in today’s interconnected and rapidly evolving professional environment. The combination of theoretical knowledge and practical application aimed to enhance the overall effectiveness of communication within diverse contexts. << Results >>The project developed a comprehensive framework for communication skills tailored to engineering contexts. It defined key competencies needed for effective communication in both academic and professional settings. For all the activities training programs and comprehensive scenarios for training were worked out. The thorough activity reports and feedback were provided as the results. However, several initiatives were established as well. For example, the research carried out by the SUCCESS team to implement a comprehensive training program to cover 21st-century skills for engineers has set a benchmark for ESP courses in Higher Education. The series of teaching modules were conspicuously designed to prepare students for competent performance in the workplace and previous academic settings. Consequently, the SUCCESS project’s outcomes have shed light on the updating of two courses on technical English for Telecommunication Engineering at UPCT, Spain. There is no doubt of the adequacy of the SUCCESS project to the curricular competencies and learning outcomes established by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for graduates in Telecommunication Engineering. On the one hand, at a higher order, the corresponding general curricular competencies related to the course of technical English demand the “ability to work in a multidisciplinary group and in a multilingual environment and to communicate, both orally and in writing, knowledge, procedures, results and ideas related to telecommunications and electronics” (BOE-A-2009-2894)[1]. On the other hand, the UPCT, as the institution which determines its own academic and teaching model, defines the following learning outcomes for the technical English course. The course of technical English for Telematics Engineering and the course of technical English for Telecommunication Systems Engineering share the same structural characteristics and both of them have been updated according to SUCCESS’ results.SUCCESS project contributed to the development of modular, cross-cultural communication courses and resources that can be integrated into engineering curricula across participating institutions and not only. For example, the principles of hackathons were found to be very effective in the soft skills training process and are planned to be incorporated into existing curricula as one of the teaching methods.Materials were created to help students evolve their digital skills and etiquette, master their digital communication, and presentation skills, and develop collaborative communication in multicultural teams. A Public Speaking Handbook for Engineers on new teaching methodologies has been published to help students and professionals understand the public speaking training approach and the implementation of new presentation techniques.In Communication Lab we managed to create an application that monitors users' speech during presentations, providing real-time feedback on various aspects such as speech tempo, use of filler words, vocabulary richness, and emotional tone. The Communication Lab Application was created as a platform that combines technology with the principles of effective communication. The demo version of the application was tested during a 5-day program with participants from all partner institutions (5 from each university). Together they reviewed the application, collected feedback, and worked on recommendations and improvements. This can be a great learning tool that helps develop a person's speech and helps to boost overall performance. This application was developed as a demo version, and we plan to continue working on the development of an interactive communication platform with integrated AI analysis functions in our future projects. SUCCESS results include all the materials, handbooks, guidelines, methodologies, and application analyses developed during the project lifecycle, and a part of it is made publicly available on the project website.The project Hackathon fostered strong multidisciplinary partnerships between universities, industry stakeholders, and professional organizations, facilitating the exchange of knowledge on how communication skills can be effectively taught and assessed. Besides, further participation in hackathons is planned even outside the project, e.g. as a result of the new summer school program Soft Skills for Deep Tech. Hackathon is developed in the RTU for summer 2025, where all the partner universities’ students will participate."