The paper deals with sustainability aspects of design-implement courses in engineering education. Conclusions from a course at KTH that has proven to be sustainable are presented, based on experiences from seven years' course development. Design-implement courses are often assumed to be expensive but the presented paper illustrates that they can be united with sound economics. Enhanced student learning can be achieved but furthermore, the course can also contribute to increasing enrolment through good reputation and positive publicity among students.
Some aspects of examination are discussed where the focus is on demonstration of individual abilities although most of the course work is performed in a group setting. In the example course, peer assisted individual formative and summative feedback and grading is used in a way that deeply involves the students.
A very advantageous effect of this is that the students develop a thorough understanding of the rationale of the assessment scheme and thereby can place their own accomplishments in perspective. One important driver towards a sustainable design-implement course is to focus less on the details in the project work, in favor for the details in the course design and presentation.
Conceive
Design
Implement
Operate
