Assessing Curriculum Agility in a CDIO Engineering Education

Change and individualization are two aspects that are important in innovative higher education. In this paper, we argue for how the concept of curriculum agility can be used as a framework for engineering education that is able to meet societal, environmental, and technological challenges. In order to both anticipate and meet the needs of the rapidly changing world, engineering education needs to have an organization that allows for innovation, change and adaptation, with the capacity to respond within a (much) shorter timeframe than traditionally seen in higher education. The structure and processes of such organizations should include the time needed to establish and decommission new educational programmes, and the flexibility within the programmes. The CDIO’s Curriculum Agility Working Group has defined seven principles for curriculum agility and has analysed how these relate to the CDIO Standards. This paper describes how the principles can provide guidance on both a curricular and institutional level. The principles are mapped against the CDIO Standards, relating to what is required for an agile curriculum, in order to indicate how the Standards can be utilized to assess the flexibility and agility of educational programmes.