Team engineering

Team engineering aims to develop the essential professional engineering skill of working with others. You’ll work as part of a small project team, formed at the first weekend residential school. Projects will encompass a broad sweep of engineering, requiring cooperative development of the knowledge and skills needed to analyse an engineering system and produce a revised specification for that system. You’ll work together in a team via email, telephone and online conferencing, under guidance from your tutor. Your team’s results will be presented and assessed at the second residential weekend school and through submission of a written report.

What you will study

This module provides an opportunity for you to explore an engineering ‘problem’ in depth, working as part of a small team. The problem could be developing a product, such as a bicycle, improving a manufacturing process, such as forming steel sheet, or working with a variety of other engineering systems. Whatever the problem, its investigation will cover technical, social/environmental and business aspects and may include a computing/software dimension.

You will attend two weekend residential schools that run over three days, from Friday to Sunday. At the first one, which takes place at the very start of the module, you will learn about functioning effectively as a team and get to know each other by confronting a variety of practical and intellectual challenges. You will join with fellow students to form a team of about five. Your team will select its engineering problem from those on offer and refine it into a ‘project’. 

After the first weekend, and working at a distance from the other team members, you will individually and jointly pursue agreed lines of enquiry on your engineering project. Your progress through the project is charted in your team wiki, in online video conference records of team meetings and in team and individual reports, submitted as tutor-marked assignments.

All the teams will report back at the second residential weekend some 20 weeks later. This will give you a chance to engage in discussions with other students and staff members before developing a plan for your final project report, which is your end-of-module assessment (EMA). This is submitted several weeks later.

This is a not a content-focused module. Instead, you and your team will be responsible for gathering together the information you need to pursue your project. You will be supplied with a project brief and with background material about group working and project management. You will have access to a full range of information resources through the internet and online or conventional libraries. You will keep in touch with your tutor and work collaboratively with your fellow team members through email, your team wiki, and online meetings and forums.

Vocational relevance

This module will be the culmination of work towards your MEng (M03) degree or Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22) – and is aimed at providing the academic base for professional recognition as a Chartered Engineer.

Residential school

Satisfactory attendance at the first residential school is required. Non-attendance at the first weekend will result in you being withdrawn from this module and losing a proportion of fees paid, the remainder of which can be used as a discount towards the cost of the same or another module if used within 18 months of the start of T885. 

Should you not be able to attend the second residential weekend, you will lose a proportion of the continuous assessment marks for this module. If a number of students from the same team are unable to attend the second residential weekend, this may affect the team’s score for the team presentation to be given at the second residential school (EMA03). 

Residential weekends for the module starting in September are usually in September and February. For the module starting in January, the residential weekends are usually in January and June. 

The cost of the residential weekends, including accommodation and meals but excluding travel, is included in the fee. 

Entry

Registration is restricted to those who have satisfactorily completed 90 credits of approved postgraduate study and who have otherwise completed the requirements for the MEng (M03) or the Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22). 

After you have reserved a place on this module, we will check that you fulfil the entry requirements and your reservation may be cancelled if you do not. We aim to confirm about your place on the module within two weeks.

You do need to have a reasonable standard of spoken and written English to study successfully with us. Poor language skills will make study more difficult, and it will take longer. The normal requirements for English language skills are explained on our website.

If you have any doubts about whether your level of English is good enough for you to study this module you may find it helpful to look at our Skills for OU Study website.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the module, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Outside the UK

The module is suitable for a European-wide audience, but you must attend the UK-based residential schools.

Qualifications

T885 is a compulsory module in our:

• Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22)
• MEng (M03)
• MSc in Engineering (F46)

Some postgraduate qualifications allow study to be chosen from other subject areas. These qualifications allow most postgraduate modules to count towards them. We advise you to refer to the relevant qualification descriptions for information on the circumstances in which this module can count towards these qualifications because from time to time the structure and requirements may change.

Regulations

As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the Module Regulations and the Student Regulations which are available on our Essential documents website.

If you have a disability

Written transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader. Alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future.

You may find Day 2 of the residential school tiring, when sessions begin at 09:00 and end at approximately 21:00. There is a 15-minute break in the morning and afternoon, 45 minutes for lunch and an hour for dinner.

Study materials

What's included

Printed materials and audio CD pack.

You will need

You will be using your computer regularly and extensively to maintain contact with your team, at times to be negotiated with your fellow team members. 

If you expect to use a computer from within a corporate network secured by a firewall, you should contact your IT department to make sure you will be able to use appropriate communications software. If you believe that this may be problem, you should get some more information from the module team before registering. 

For computing at home, it is strongly recommended that you have a broadband connection.

Computing requirements

You will need a computer with internet access to study this module as it includes online activities, which you can access using a web browser.

• If you have purchased a new desktop or laptop computer since 2008 you should have no problems completing the online activities.
• If you’ve got a netbook, tablet or other mobile device check our Technical requirements section.
• If you use an Apple Mac you will need OS X 10.7 or later.

You can also visit the Technical requirements section for further computing information (including details of the support we provide).

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

You will be allocated to your tutor at the first compulsory residential weekend. Your tutor will be responsible for monitoring your progress on the module, marking and commenting on your written work and you can contact them for advice and guidance. Your tutor will also mediate an online forum for your tutor group and oversee collaborative team-working tasks which are an essential feature of the module.

Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.

Assessment

The assessment details can be found in the facts box above.

You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.

Two of the assignments will be joint submissions from your team, and two are personal accounts of your achievements and your contribution to the work of your team. The end-of-module assignment, which must be submitted online, also consists of a group and individual project report.

Professional recognition

This is a compulsory module of the MEng (M03) and the Postgraduate Diploma in Engineering (E22) and provides the essential group-working skills required for graduates hoping to become Chartered Engineers.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Forensic engineering
• Problem solving and improvement: quality and other approaches

Future availability

The details given here are for the module that starts in September 2014 and January 2015. We expect it to be available twice a year.

How to register

To register a place on this course return to the top of the page and use the Click to register button.

Distance learning

The Open University is the world's leading provider of flexible, high quality distance learning. Unlike other universities we are not campus based. You will study in a flexible way that works for you whether you're at home, at work or on the move. As an OU student you'll be supported throughout your studies - your tutor or study adviser will guide and advise you, offer detailed feedback on your assignments, and help with any study issues. Tuition might be in face-to-face groups, via online tutorials, or by phone.

For more information about distance learning at the OU read Study explained.