­§¡¡Utilization of the case study method

­§¡¡Utilization of the case study method

Management of structural engineering study program and utilization of the case study method

The case study method, while it has been practiced in the MBA courses, has no similar cases in the field of engineering, especially in the practical education for working people in Japan, except for our study meetings. In our study meetings, we have been practicing the case study method, (1) by having participants perform both fatigue destruction experiments of welded structures and practical training of measuring methods / numeric analyses and compare the two, and (2) by having participants read literatures on structures and electric equipment published on the Internet and discuss the matters among themselves. The outline of our meetings is occasionally made open in our official website or in blogs on the Internet, and starting with the second gathering, we are also utilizing SNS¡¡(Social Network Service).

In this way, we have been aiming at establishing the case study method in the field of structural engineering in Japan, by actively performing the studies of actual cases and basic theories, and the comparison between the results of experiments and numeric analyses by simulations.
Furthermore, by making open various cases on the Internet and publishing enlightening papers, we intend to offer database on the structural engineering, which not only the direct participants in our forum but also general engineers and researchers can widely use.