IUCEE- EPICS Initiative: An Example of Doing Engineering at HIT AM

摘要

Many engineering institutions are working to transform the education systems which prepare students to become global engineers who can address 21^{stcentury challenges of the world. In this process of transformation they have taken many initiatives. IUCEE-EPICS is one such initiative done in collaboration with EPICS Program from Purdue University. This paper presents the first iteration of Engineering Projects in Community Services (EPICS) initiative implementation at Hyderabad Institute of Technology and Management (HITAM)] which is a non-autonomous institution (Tier - II) affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad. EPICS initiative at HITAM has been implemented as a student based chapter activity rather than a full credited course. EPICS helps the student to develop projects based on the need of the community partner(the underserved people) The first iteration involved 65 students from first, second and third years from multiple engineering disciplines. This resulted in 15 active projects out of which 5 projects were delivered by the students to their respective community partners. In the journey so far the major challenge has been the lack of resources like infrastructure, trained faculty, equipment, etc. For a better implementation of the EPICS initiative for the upcoming semester a team consisting of 8 faculties have been trained which is described in the paper. As EPICS was introduced as an initiative, assessment was not the focus and only preliminary data on student learning is available and presented.}