ACE095 lp1 HT20 (7.5 hp)

Master Programme Infrastructure and Environmental Engineering 2020

Water Environment Technology, Architecture and Civil Engineering

Chalmers University of Technology

Course details

• Leonardo Rosado – Associate Professor, Course leader & Examiner rosado@chalmers.se

• Sébastien Rauch - Professor, Co-examiner sebastien.rauch@chalmers.se

• Divia Jiménez - PhD candidate, Course Administrator, Supervisor diviaj@chalmers.se

Course description

Link to course description document: ACE095 Course description

Link to the syllabus on Studieportalen: Study plan

Schedule

Link to course schedule document: ACE095 Course schedule

Link to course schedule in TimeEdit:TimeEdit

Course aim

The course will provide advanced knowledge on the role of engineers on planning, design and construction, operation and maintenance and decommissioning of infrastructure with a systems perspective and with focus on urban systems. The students will learn about the challenges and needs of complex interdisciplinary infrastructure planning and management, where different stakeholders will have different objectives and needs. 

Students will also learn stakeholders’ relationships in terms of flows of communication, type of information needed and what impact they have on the technical work being developed by infrastructure and environmental engineering students. Additionally, students will learn about trends in infrastructure development, e.g., to be resilient, sustainable and efficient and how they affect complementary infrastructures and urban systems.  

Special focus will be given to the main tracks of the MPIEE programme (infrastructure related to water and environment and transportation engineering).

Course content and organisation

The course is designed around: lectures on key aspects of Infrastructure and Urban Systems, mainly Transportation and Water; a group project; and an individual assignment. This combination of activities is planned to provide the students with information and to help them develop an understanding of critical issues in the areas of infrastructure planning and management processes.

The course is planned around 5 modules:

Module 1 includes a set of lectures where students will learn about background information on infrastructure

Module 2 reflects on the challenges faced today in cities and how they affect infrastructure planning and management.

Module 3 covers the engineering infrastructure sectors, focusing on concrete aspects of planning and management within the waste, transportation and water sectors. This part includes exercises done in class and a lecture to clarify doubts.

Module 4 aims at providing concepts, tools and methods to understand how to describe and analyse infrastructure decision making processes throughout the phases of planning and management. This part includes exercises done in class and a lecture to clarify doubts.

Module 5 is the assignments module and puts into practice the concepts learned through a case study performed in groups and individually. This part includes a group project and an individual assignment.

Physical and online moments

The ACE095 course will be mostly done with the Zoom online conference system. The success of the course will depend on the same commitment we all bring to the physical classroom. Everyone should adopt the same rules and norms (take notes; participate by asking and answering questions). For everyone’s benefit, join the course in a quiet place whenever possible. Turn on your video whenever possible. Mute your microphone unless you are speaking. Close browser tabs not required for participating in the lectures. If you are not familiar with Zoom let us know and we can share information about it.

Students who can and want will have the option to join some physical sessions at Chalmers. Individual and group supervision meetings will be planned in regular classrooms/meeting rooms following the guidelines for social distancing defined at Chalmers. When registering for group work you will have the possibility to decide if you want to have the sessions online or in a room at Chalmers.

The lectures consist of 45 minute slots (i.e. 2 hour lecture will consist of two 45 minute slots). Each slot will have the following structure:

• a pre-recorded 20 minute lecture, which will be made available, at the latest, the day before.
• a 25 minute zoom session open for discussions around in-lecture exercises and questions posed in the pre-recorded lectures. Students will have access to breakout rooms for 5 to 10 minutes to discuss in groups the topics of the lectures and the remaining time will be used for a general discussion where everyone is welcome to share their findings.
• whenever a new teacher presents a lecture a welcome video of the teacher will be presented for students to familiarize with the staff. We welcome also the use of video whenever students actively participate in the discussions.

Assignments

Group Project (3,5 credits)

The aim of the project is to understand the complexity of implementing infrastructural solutions related to an urban challenge.  You will work in groups, and study a real example case study.

Individual assignment (4 credits)

The aim of the individual assignment is to analyze the decision-making process through planning and management stages. Each student will be studying an existing solution of their choice, from those presented in the group work.

In-lecture exercises (Pass/Fail)

Exercises in class for the lectures on Urban Water Management, Transportation planning and management, Waste planning and management, Qualitative analysis, Multi-stakeholder theories and methods and Social Network analysis have to be handed in. 

Assessment and grading

Continuous assessment is the central examination form in this course. Grading is based on the individual assignments and the group work, as described below. All assignments are graded on a scale of 0.0-5.0. The final grade is F (fail), 3, 4, 5 with 5 being the highest grade.