Integrating standardization into engineering education: the case of forerunner Korea

Abstract

The Republic of Korea is a forerunner in integrating the topic of standardization into engineering education at the academic level. This study investigates developments and evolutions in the planning and operating of the University Education Promotion on Standardization (UEPS) in Korea. This paper examines why the Korean government initiated the UEPS, how the UEPS has operated, and what the educational content of the UEPS program is. This study of the UEPS may serve as a benchmark of how to incorporate technical standards into science and technology education at both the national and individual university levels. Some implications and considerations for the future introduction of similar courses in other countries are discussed.

Stimulating Education about Standardization – Activities and perspectives of National Standards Bodies

“…Based on our interviews, the survey and the literature (e.g., Choi & de Vries, 2013;Mijatovic, 2020;, we can conclude that NSBs should be involved in:…”

“…Literature shows hardly any in-depth case descriptions of NSB EaS activities. An exception is the study by Choi and de Vries (2013) who mapped the developments and evolution of the University Education Promotion on Standardization (UEPS) in South Korea. UEPS aimed to incorporate EaS into science and technology education at the national level.…”

“…A second example is that South Korea and other Asian countries were demonstrated as being active and advanced in EaS and several authors (e.g., Choi & de Vries, 2013;de Vries & Egyedi, 2007) had the expectation that the rest of the world would follow, to some extent, a similar model to foster EaS. Thus far, over a decade later, this has not happened (e.g., standardization courses are not systematically present at all educational levels).…”

“…EaS is needed, as mentioned in the literature, to improve the employability of the workforce (CEN & CENELEC, 2011), foster technological development (D. G. Choi & de Vries, 2013), and for helping to address the SDGs from a long-term perspective (H. J. de Vries, 2020a;Wright et al, 2020).…”

“…de Vries, 2020a;Wright et al, 2020). However, the main systematic challenges for teaching EaS are the lack of academic centers (Kurokawa, 2015), standards courses (D. G. Choi & de Vries, 2013;Kurokawa, 2015), research in standardization (Mijatovic, 2020), financial support (D. G. Choi & de Vries, 2013), and adequate educational materials (Calderón et al, 2018;Fomin, 2020;García et al, 2020). This is compounded by difficulties related to institutional structures, students' academic backgrounds, and low overall public awareness (Fomin, 2020;Kurokawa, 2015).…”