This presentation reports on the development of a transdisciplinary online asynchronous professional development course on engineering safety in an English Medium Instruction (EMI) university in the Arabian Gulf. The course was developed to help students enhance their professional skills while joining and completing their engineering internship journey and involved faculty from both the English and Engineering faculty. Safety is needed for all categories of engineering students to work in engineering plants and laboratories. This is also valid for science students. Also, the interns interested in modeling, simulation and computation should acquire the skills required to manage risks associated with their interface with computer hardware and software. The course, delivered online to a multicultural student base focused on self-development with regards to language and cross-cultural communication skills, safety awareness, professional skills aimed at ensuring a safe work culture, safe project management, ethical decision-making and design and delivery of safe solutions in the workplace.
The project adopted an asynchronous online module format which: (1) expanded the efficiency of the course by providing content to more participants, (2) provided more flexibility to learners to fit in with schedules in multiple departments and (3) allowed students to study at their own speed and reinforce their learning. The project also contributed to high impact practices, equity and retention at the EMI university as it distributed knowledge to large groups of learners, increased student engagement and improved student retention. The increased engagement among students about engineering safety also reinforced learning communities because the students who used this asynchronous approach tended to earn higher grades by retaining, integrating, and transferring information at higher rates.
