interdisciplinary design class , each decision is made by multiple lead faculties , which have their own perspective , methodology , assessment type , teaching and learning styles . Thus , the decisionmaking becomes more complex and requires significantly longer time .
At the early stage of a project , instructors from each discipline gather to discuss and set the scope of the problem that students will be solving . This is a crucial part of any selected project which includes different faculties that are relevant to the learning outcomes .
However , the efforts to collaborate with other faculties in an interdisciplinary capstone project are continuing and appear to be increasing in number . Although these project types often require heavy faculty commitment . Todd et al . [ 36 ] agreed that an interdisciplinary capstone design project is very valuable in helping students to be prepared for their chosen profession . In order to reduce workloads for educators involved in the project , a list of job descriptions for each represented faculty can be done to make the process and decisionmaking more efficient .
Conclusion
An interview session with Ir . Assoc . Prof . Abdul Aziz Omar , Director of Engineering Accreditation Department , BEM concluded that there are positive feedback to an interdisciplinary capstone design project as it reflects real working experiences and environments for engineering students . Hopefully , the issues and challenges discussed here would give some general ideas for implementing an interdisciplinary capstone design project in engineering faculties in Malaysia . We regret any oversight or omission of relevant articles throughout the article .
Acknowledgement The authors would like to thank the Director of Engineering Accreditation Department , Board of Engineers , Ir . Assoc . Prof . Abdul Aziz Omar for providing his opinions , ideas and experiences during the interview session . The authors also would like to thank Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia for the financial support through Grant AP-2015-015 .
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