DA5081 - Civil Engineering Design

Most of your learning on this degree apprenticeship module will be in your workplace. Your involvement in civil engineering tasks will enable you to put into context the theoretical material that you will study at University, thereby cementing your understanding. You will do this in conjunction with your workplace mentor/Supervising Civil Engineer, appropriate members of your team, and with the assistance of your University workplace coach.

The module will include a range of learning materials and opportunities, such as online presentations, notes, seminar/tutorial questions, video links and digital reading materials. All these resources will be arranged in a convenient learning journey, giving you a clear expectation of the content to be studied and tasks you will complete on a weekly basis.

During your normal working day, your industrial mentor/Supervising Civil Engineer will support your learning through the allocation of appropriate work tasks relevant to the theoretical content of the module, allowing you to contextualise and cement your knowledge. The University will monitor this educational process.

University academic staff will support you in formally-scheduled teaching. This arrangement will give you ample opportunity to ask questions to clarify and deepen your understanding of the module content, as well as to seek specific help, for example, with your preparation for assessment. At other times, you will have access to University academic staff via telephone, email, and the University’s virtual learning environment (VLE). These media will allow you to access and make full use of the support and guidance available to you.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

MLO1: Demonstrate effective communication using specifications and design models.

MLO2: Apply relevant tools, including data gathering, to scope a civil engineering problem and identify relevant constraints and issues throughout project life.

MLO3: Apply relevant codes of practice, regulations and guidelines in the design of civil engineering solutions and the selection of construction methods.

MLO4: Quantify and assess the effect of incomplete and uncertain data on the outcome of a civil engineering design.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

MLO5: Evaluate the impact of an example of civil engineering infrastructure on society using appropriate tools

Summative assessment will be by coursework. It will be worth 100% of the module marks and will cover all the module learning outcomes.

Formative assessment (sometimes from occasional homework tasks) will be by verbal or written (digital) support from University academic staff. In line with the workplace approach of a degree apprenticeship, you will take on-board verbal feedback from your workplace mentor/Supervising Civil Engineer, which is the case generally with employee performance.

Assessment feedback will be mapped between summative assessments from different modules, so that you receive clear guidance on improving work, based on performance in assessments in different modules. This will be made explicit to you via digital pro-forma as well as verbally.

Successful completion of Level 4 of the BEng (hons) Civil Engineering Degree Apprenticeship

This module can only be taken as part of Level 5 of the BEng (hons) Civil Engineering Degree Apprenticeship

In this module, you will apply civil engineering knowledge gained earlier in your apprenticeship or independently researched at the time to make an individual contribution to design work being carried out in the workplace. You will work as part of a team and will be involved in scoping and designing a civil engineering project. Part of this will involve detailed design of environmental, geotechnical or hydraulic engineering components, using Eurocodes or equivalent relevant standards. You will also apply relevant modelling and calculation methods and will consider appropriate construction methods for your designs. You will evaluate the data on which your design is based and account for the uncertainties in it, considering design risks as appropriate. You will learn ‘on the job’ in your workplace, and will be assessed by coursework.