ABSTRACT

International engineering education accreditation standards require engineering graduates to demonstrate competence in assessing societal, health, safety, legal and cultural issues and the consequent responsibilities that result from the engineering activity. However, these competencies are arguably amongst the most difficult to achieve within an engineering undergraduate curriculum. This chapter shows how socio-technical systems, such as those embodied through community engagement projects, are ideal platforms for achieving these outcomes. This chapter further demonstrates how community engagement projects can be adopted into accredited engineering curricula, for the fulfilment of the specific exit-level outcomes related to sustainability and impact assessment of engineering activity. An overview, defining the scope of engineering activity, is first presented, before community engagement projects are discussed as examples of socio-technical systems. The chapter concludes with examples of how community engagement projects enable the optimal assessment of the accreditation requirement for impact assessment of engineering activity in undergraduate engineering programmes.