Strategies for improving technical communication effectiveness skills in a middle east engineering program

An important ABET outcome is that engineering students should communicate effectively. Today engineers need be able to work and communicate in multicultural, international teams and be able to influence and cooperate with colleagues in discussion and negotiation. Communicating technical information effectively with others is critical and needs to be developed in academic technical subjects with students who study engineering. In this paper the authors discuss technical and professional communication competencies taught at The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi. Teaching effective technical communication is challenging in this context as most of the students are non-native English speakers. The paper will describe different communication courses that students have to go through in their freshman year, followed by sophomore engineering design courses and preparing students for a capstone design course. The goal of the communication faculty and freshmen engineering design faculty is to have the students develop skills in technical design and writing, and in effective communication. The paper will also discuss activities and strategies that are used in these technical communication courses. As a result of the various strategies used at the Petroleum Institute, the quality of writing in the final senior design projects have improved significantly.