Galway now teach such topics. Taking an example of applying for planning
permission to build a septic tank, the lecturer and the class interrogate digital maps
and databases available from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA;
www.epa.ie) and the Geological Survey of Ireland (www.gsi.ie) websites (Figure 4) to
determine whether the characteristics of an area, such as soil type or groundwater
vulnerability, are appropriate for the location of such a treatment system. These online resources aid the teaching process, as they encourage the students to critically
and independently evaluate the suitability of an area for a particular engineering
activity; these are skills that contribute directly to PO(c) and PO(d) of the
accreditation criteria.
Figure 4: The General Soil Map of Ireland, which is used to determine suitable
locations for septic tanks and percolation areas.
3.3 Learning Technologies
The Blackboard learning technology (www.blackboard.com) is in widespread use on
engineering courses at NUI Galway and its “quiz” feature (Figure 5) is sometimes
used as a form of marked or unmarked assessment. There is flexibility in the type of
quiz question posed, to include multiple choice and multiple answer, fill in the blank,