About Engineer-it
Engineer-it an Online Information Resource (OIR) for those who operate in situations of complex uncertainty.
It is based on the MediaWiki software platform that is used by Wikipedia. It is intended that 'chapters' of Eit will be managed by different groups.
A major advantage of an OIR is that it allows information to be readily updated and extended. When publishing a book, decisions about length and scope need to be made. For an OIR such constraints are much reduced. The information in the resource can be subject to continuous amendment and extension where that is appropriate.
Timeline
July/August 2020
Sponsored by the Institution Engineers in Scotland (IES) and the Scottish Regional Group (SRG) of the Institution of Structural Engineers, undergraduate civil engineering students at Glasgow University, Amy Lillico and Ann-Cathirn Reismann worked with Iain MacLeod of IES on the development of a prototype information resource for structural mechanics. The outcome was Stempedia. The prototype was establishsed to test methods for presenting information for learners in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects and focuses on issues for early learners in structural mechanics. The project demonstrated the efficacy of hyperlinked documents for learning in technical contexts. A particular focus was on Applications Sheets that explain how the mechanics is used in decision-making in structural design. Such information is not readily available, but is important for motivating learners, leading to improved understanding
The software platform for Stempedia is a Wordpress template that was adequate for testing of ideas but was not suitable for a well structured information resource.
November 2020
Liam Guermache, an undergraduate student in Civil Engineering at Glasgow University tested the suitability of MediaWiki as the software platform. (MediaWiki is thesoftware platform used by Wikipedia). He set up a version of Stempedia using MediaWiki.
January 2021
A decision was made to adopt MediaWiki as the software platform and change the name of the resource to Engineer-it.
February 2021
The resource was transferred to eit.engineers.scot.
Summer 2021
A project sponsored by SRG and IES to develop information for structural design established information about structural engineering design. Students Jennifer McCotter of Glasgow University and Ryan Nugent of the University of West of Scotland (UWS) workied under the direction of Iain MacLeod (IES) and Andy Wrzesein (UWS). The module on stuctural engineering was developed.