Chapter 2: Objectives of the IQP

The 1972 Zwiebel Report

In 1972, a group of seven faculty under the leadership of Imre Zwiebel, Head of the Chemical Engineering Department from 1976 to 1980, formed a committee to define the requirements to be met by the Interactive Qualifying Project. They proposed, and the faculty subsequently approved, that this project must deal with interactions among technology, society and human needs. They supported their recommendation with the following rationale:

"The engineering curricula of the past were primarily concerned with the conveyance of technological skills and scientific concepts. Their primary purpose was to train the personnel needed to design and operate the machinery of a rapidly evolving technological era. Graduates often emerged ill-equipped to assist society in evaluating the overall effects of technology on the quality of life. At this point in the technological revolution, however, it has become increasingly evident that the institutions and value systems of society are strongly related to its rapidly changing technological base. Significant educational reform is urgently needed. That is why the architects of the WPI Plan have established the concept of the Interactive Qualifying Project as a degree requirement. This degree requirement is intended to effect a broader and more integrative education for engineers and scientists."

The Zwiebel Committee expected that "as a result of completing the Interactive Qualifying Project students [would] be

sensitive to general social problems
able to question, criticize or reinforce prevailing ethics and value concepts
aware of societal-humanistic-technological interactions
able to analyze these interactions
able to make better judgments and policy recommendations on issues that affect society."

"In the future a graduate will be prepared to stand back, momentarily detach himself from the details of the everyday activities, and observe and assess the ways in which technology and society impact upon each other. It is hoped that he will also develop a sense of balance and self-confidence, so that he can view the course of events in a context of controllable change and not solely as a threatening, inevitable, and irreversible phenomenon. By understanding the nature of social needs and human interactions he will be able to apply his efforts and energies to effect changes of benefit to mankind. (Zwiebel Report, pp. 5-6)"

Original Objectives of the Interactive Qualifying Project

In their 1972 report the Zwiebel Committee defined the specific educational objectives of the IQP as follows:

To create an awareness of socially related technological interactions
To enable the identification of socio-technological systems, subsystems, and the linkages between them
To cultivate the habit of questioning social values and structures
To develop and integrate the skills of evaluation and analysis in the societal, humanistic, and technological disciplines
To provide methods for assessing the impact of technology on society and human welfare, and the impact of social systems on technological developments
To encourage the recommendation of policy.

The Committee noted that "it is unlikely that every Interactive Qualifying Project will meet all of these objectives.... Working toward these objectives, however, will aid the student in gaining a more mature understanding of himself as a professional whose decisions have human and social consequences. Engineers are being held increasingly accountable for these consequences of their decisions. The Interactive Qualifying Project is the vehicle by which WPI seeks to prepare its graduates to meet this challenge. (Zwiebel Report, pp. 8-9)"

Relevance of the Original IQP Objectives Today

These original objectives have withstood the test of time. If anything, they are even more relevant and appropriate today than when they were originally set out in 1972. The new proposed ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 at last explicitly recognize the importance of the relationship between technology and society, and the need for a global outlook. In Criterion 3, Program Outcomes and Assessment, requirement (h) calls, as noted above, for "the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global/societal context." It is certainly the case, as ABET clearly recognizes, that the issues surrounding the relationship between society and technology transcend international boundaries and are typically very international in character. Consequently, the IQP provides a logical vehicle for globalizing undergraduate engineering education.

Maintained by webmaster@wpi.edu
Last modified: October 17, 2006 14:44:46