Open Education Stimulation Fund 2023

Stuart Pearson, Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Judith Bosboom, Senior Lecturer, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Floris Calkoen, PhD Candidate/Teaching Assistant, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty

Our goal is to expand the Coastal Dynamics Open Education Resources with interim assessments that adhere to best practices in Open Education and Pedagogy. We propose to fill these needs via the Coastal Dynamics Open Quizbook (CDoq), which will consist of Python-based Jupyter notebooks, with interim assessments for each chapter of the textbook. In order to ensure high completion rates and deep-level learning, the CDoq will provide ample quality feedback in a two-stage approach. Students have unlimited access to the first, formative stage that comes with abundant feedback, but timed, score-dependent access to the mock-summative stage that helps them to self-assess their learning process. We will reinforce these stages by implementing suitable assessment policies for access, randomization, feedback, and scoring/grading.  These notebooks will be bundled as a Jupyter book that can be hosted on TU Delft hosting infrastructure. The book and quizzes will be written as a modular piece of software that can be run on most personal computers as well as on TU Delft hosting infrastructure.

Rebecca Price, Assistant Professor, Industrial Design engineering faculty
Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer, Associate Professor, Industrial Design engineering faculty
Katie Barry, Educational Psychologist (UTQ trainer), Teaching and Learning Services
Daniella Maiullari, Assistant Professor, Architecture and the Built Environment faculty

How do we cultivate resilience so that TU Delft students become alumni, continuously create solutions for society - but not to the detriment of their own well-being?

At TU Delft, we proudly provide education to thousands of engineers, designers, architects, policy makers and more, all under the banner of “impact for a better society”.  Key to our technical legacy, culture and pedagogical approach is emphasising methods, tools, technology, theories that can be applied to solve problems. This places the student as the solver of problems – and technology as a key enabler. 

Yet, just how resilient are students in their problem solving process? Changing the world requires them to first challenge the status quo – a process that opens them up to critique and potential hostility.  

IDE researchers, Rebecca Price and Mieke van der Bijl Brouwer, together with the Faculty of the Built Environment and Architecture’s Daniella Maiullari and Teacher and Learning Service’s Katie Barry, will explore how TU Delft education can help all students become more resilient in the solving problem process. Building on earlier work on resilient designers, this team plans include “teaching the teacher” sessions and the development of an accessible ten part podcast series.

Bas Flipsen, Associate professor, Industrial Design engineering faculty
Stefan Persaud, Senior teacher, Industrial Design engineering faculty
Willemijn Elkhuizen, Assistant professor, Industrial Design engineering faculty
Sepideh Ghorat, Assistant professor, Industrial Design engineering faculty
Ernest van Breemen, Industrial Design engineering faculty

With the introduction of the new IDE bachelor in 2021 all courses underwent a revision to promote, amongst other, an autonomous learning attitude. The conventional approach of teaching engineering relied on direct instructions and problem-based learning and proved to be inadequate, as students struggled to apply their engineering knowledge in capstone design projects.

To align with autonomous learning and to increase the application of engineering in capstone design projects, “productive failure” was introduced as a new didactical approach within our first-year course, Understanding Product Engineering (IOB1-2). Productive failure flips the traditional learning process and starts with an explorative problem which students cannot solve followed by an instruction explaining the missing concept. The approach engages students in active problem-solving, with the goal to increase the retention time of the theoretical concepts. 

In this project we want to improve our educational materials to fit better to productive failure didactics. We will start developing a text- and workbook to replace disparate materials currently available. To enhance the workshop, we will renew our instruction videos and develop low-fi experiential test setups. To test our didactics and improve our education on the long run, we will develop aptitude tests to test retention in later stages of the IDE bachelor.

Bahareh Abdi, Project Leader, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Alle-Jan van der Veen, Project Co-leader, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Mahdi Izadkhast, Advisor, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Ilke Ercan, Advisor, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Serdar Asut, External Advisor, Architecture and the Built Environment faculty

Our accepted project, "Enhancing Electrical Engineering Education," responds to challenges within TU Delft's BSc Electrical Engineering (EE) program. Emphasizing collaborative hands-on projects, the curriculum's four Integrated Projects (IPs) aim to deepen students' understanding and critical thinking. However, limitations in lab space, staff availability, and traditional settings pose obstacles for optimal student engagement, especially for those with unique learning needs.

Innovatively addressing these challenges, our project proposes the development of a digital twin – a simulator replicating physical lab hardware within an interactive Jupyter textbook. This solution provides students with a supplementary learning tool to refine algorithms and programs, offering performance scores and feedback. Subsequently, students can implement refined algorithms in the physical lab, saving time and ensuring scalability.

Divided into three working packages, our project's feasibility lies in the development of the digital twin (WP1), an interactive Jupyter textbook (WP2), and a toolkit for broader replication (WP3). By leveraging technology, our approach not only enhances hands-on learning for all students but also aligns with open education principles, fostering inclusivity, accessibility, and scalability in engineering education.

Gosia Migut, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering Mathematics & Computer Science faculty

I propose to introduce The Research Methods Bootcamp (RMB) in the undergraduate engineering curricula as part of the Academic Skills without the need of creating a dedicated course in a specific curriculum.
The primary learning objective is to prepare students for their final Research Project at the end of the BSc curriculum and for their further academic path. A secondary objective is to help students develop the mindset and skills to keep up to date with research developments within industry.

The RMB will introduce a short briefing and introduction bootcamp with hands-on exercise and supplementary information in a personalised training method.

I will focus on the BSc Computer Science and Engineering as a use case for the RMB.
However, the problem and the solution are universal to engineering education and can be integrated into Academic Skill learning paths of different curricula within TU Delft. Other faculties of the TU Delft and other universities in the Netherlands that collaborate with EEMCS on the interdisciplinary graduation projects involving Citizen Science and AI already expressed their interest in collaboration.

Milos Cvetkovic, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Aihui Fu, Postdoc, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Peter Palensky, Professor, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Abhigyan Singh, Assistant Professor, Industrial Design Engineering faculty
Natalia Romero, Associate Professor, Industrial Design Engineering faculty

In this project the educators from EWI and IDE will develop the teaching materials, lecture units, assessment criteria, etc. for education using the Illuminator toolkit. The versatility of the kit provides plenty of opportunities to teach the energy transition challenges and solutions. We can decarbonize the energy system or change the rules under which it is governed. We can digitalize it, make it more or less self-organizing. Although these concepts are already possible to investigate with the kit, they must yet be shaped into coherent educational units. Most of the development will be done with the energy students of TU Delft in several EWI and IDE MSc programmes. While the kit is already open source, the educational materials will be made public as well.

Martin Klomp, Project Manager, Mechanical Engineering faculty
Chris Pek, Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering faculty
Martijn Wisse, Professor, Mechanical Engineering faculty
Gillian Saunders, Senior Lecturer, Mechanical Engineering faculty

At the Cognitive Robotics department at ME, we have developed a highly successful open-source robotics educational program,  revolving around mobile robots. We have a low cost, modular, open-source platform consisting of hardware, software, and education materials, called MIRTE. Currently this robot is being used in multiple of our Bachelor courses, as well as on HBO, MBO and high-school level.

With this project, we intend to expand the MIRTE project to MSc-level in the MSc Robotics Program, and to be made available for other educational programs (inside and outside TU Delft) as well. For ourselves, this project will solve the problem of standardization. By having several courses use the same platform, each course needs to spend less time on practicalities and can focus more on the course’s own learning goals. For collaborators or users (inside or outside TU Delft) of our materials, we solve the problems of cost and development effort. We expect that this will increase the number and quality of robotics education programs. From the student’s perspective we can have a more active learning environment, but moving to a physical standardized robot platform, rather than using different kinds of simulations.

Joost Groot Kormelink, Manager Open & Online Education, Technology, Policy and Management faculty

Many donor organizations (Nuffic, EU, WB,  Hewlett Foundation, etc.) support capacity building programs for Higher Education in Developing countries. Such programs focus on, for example,  staff training,  building labs, research networks  and course/curriculum development.   
However, Open Education and/or Open Educational Resources (OE/OER) is  often not a part of ongoing projects or explicitly included in the assessment criteria for new initiatives. This despite the fact that OER and Open education (OER/OE) could in principle be of great added value within the framework of for such capacity building programs.   

In this project we will look at:

• What the reasons hereto are from the perspective of the donors and universities in the South (i.e. Africa).
• How open education and OER (re-use and development) could be better embedded in capacity building programs.
• The potential - but also risks (think about a strong bias in favour of Western knowledge and visibility at the expense of local sources). 

The final result will be conference papers with a focus on awareness and a contribution to agenda setting from a policy perspective.

Sander Renes, Assistant Professor, Technology, Policy and Management faculty
Tom Vroegrijk, PRIME Programme Manager and Lecturer, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Rutger van Bergem, Assistant Professor, Technology, Policy and Management faculty

In economics education, a substantial portion of tools and concepts relies on mathematical foundations, particularly drawn from the domains Differential Equations, Linear Algebra and Multivariate Analysis. These mathematical techniques are well-established and form a stable basis. Recognizing the pivotal role of mathematics in enhancing the comprehension and application of economic principles, this proposal also aims to establish a collaborative initiative with the Delft Institute of Mathematics and the PRogramme of Innovation for Mathematics Education (PRIME), which seeks to integrate mathematical concepts across various faculties at TU Delft.

The goal of this collaboration is to develop a comprehensive set of digital exercises that bridge the gap between theoretical mathematical concepts and their practical application in economic contexts. By engaging students in solving mathematical problems within an economic framework, we aim to enhance their understanding of the intricate relationship between mathematics and economics in our own mathematics and economics education.

These open source exercises are directly available on an open platform, so that they can form the basis for a community of economic teachers and students to create, expand, and improve the exercises over time.

Ron Haaksman, Lecturer, Applied Science faculty
Freek Pols, Assistant professor, Applied Science faculty

Classroom demonstration experiments (demos) are often key elements in theoretical lectures as these make the concepts at hand more tangible. However, teachers are not always aware of the available demos that fit their needs, or know/understand the most effective way to use them. Moreover, the materials are not always available, affordable or accessible. To enable all teachers to make use of this effective teaching method, we will develop an open access repository where the demos are described in such detail (including pictures, recordings, list of materials, theoretical background, didactical approach, coding for data analysis), that these can ‘replace’ the live demos. Note! Replacing live demos is not our aim, it merely highlights the quality and level of detail we pursue. The ultimate goal is collaboratively compile an open and dynamic archive, enhance the quality of the demos in an iterative process by allowing collaborators to edit the materials, and expand the archive by uploading their materials. This way the materials become available and relevant to many faculties of our university and other educational institutes.

Roel Schipper, Lecturer - researcher - MSc Track coordinator Structural Engineering, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Sander Pasterkamp, Lecturer - researcher, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Ate Snijder, Lecturer - researcher, Architecture and the Built Environment faculty
Marco Schuurman, Part-time lecturer, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Geert Ravenshorst, Lecturer – researcher, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Guus Meinema, Student-assistant, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Niels van Vliet, Student-assistant, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty

The Quick Reference Project will result in a major update of two works of reference that have shown their usefulness in daily education activities in the field of structural design. The Quick Reference has been in use for more than a decade in the BSc and MSc programmes Civil Engineering, while the Vademecum, that is partially based on the same content, is used in the BSc programme Architecture and uses a slightly different approach, as it is aiming at different group of students. The project consists of 4 main parts:

1. Make Open - Deploy the existing material as Open Educational Resource, using a suitable platform or technology
2. Make Interactive - Screening of existing Quick Reference and Vademecum for opportunities to make interactive materials and development of interactive graphs
3. Make Fresh - The present content of both volumes will be updated
4. Make Sustainable - We will better include themes such as low carbon footprint, embodied energy and sustainability, and place more emphasis on circular design and material scarcity.

The project team is a group of staff and students from two faculties. We plan to commence the work this February and finalise it ultimately by the end of 2024.

Shirley de Wit, PhD student, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Jorge Martinez Castaneda, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Sanne Alblas, Graduate School Officer, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Efthimia Aivaloglou, Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science faculty
Hanno van Keulen, Director of Studies MSc Science Education & Communication, Applied Sciences faculty
Ajay Jagadeesh, Lecturer, Civil Engineering and Geosciences faculty
Anandini Jayanthi, PhD student, Aerospace Engineering faculty
Isabelle El-Hajj, PhD student, Aerospace Engineering faculty

Women are underrepresented in many Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. This is reflected at TU Delft, with 31% of the BSc and MSc students being women. These percentages vary per faculty, ranging from 57% to 15% female students, with EEMCS and AE having the lowest percentages. Increasing these numbers would benefit both the economy and society.  

Education and teachers play an important role in the lack of women in STEM fields. With our project, we want to support and educate teachers on the meaning of inclusive education, provide them with the tools to implement this knowledge, and collect open education resources and examples that they can reuse in their own education. Although initially motivated by a lack of women in STEM, we aim to include other minorities and diversity aspects were possible.

With this project, we want to make the barrier to creating and using inclusive education as low as possible and show that, even with small adjustments, you can work towards more inclusive education.

If you are or know someone who is putting diversity, equity and inclusion on the agenda and/or into practice, then please feel free to connect and share your experiences.

Pieter Vandekerckhove, Assistant Professor, Delft Centrre for Entrepreneurship, Technology, Policy & Management faculty
Frido Smulders, Full Professor, Industrial Design Engineering faculty
Technology, Policy and Management, Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship
Sam Harris, SmashMedicine, Director, health entrepreneurship education expert

To respond to complex healthcare challenges, universities need to be more entrepreneurial with open education about healthcare entrepreneurship. Delft Centre for Entrepreneurship (DCE) aims to help students to make an impact with new health solutions in a sustainable way within a multidisciplinary context. We want to develop open education resources consisting of panel discussions and crowdsourced questions and answers with support from the award-winning SmashMedicine platform. In addition, we want to provide more material to students and coaches to go through the project learning process more effectively. We want to teach students how to deal with multi-disciplinary challenges in their projects and we want to teach coaches how to manage this multi-disciplinary process. Ultimately, we hope to start building a library of OER about healthcare innovation like the established healthcare entrepreneurship program called Biodesign from Stanford University.