E-business applications in engineering education

Contemporary engineers need to become more cognizant and more responsive to the emerging needs of the market for engineering and technology services. Engineering education has the potential to contribute decisively to the sustainable development of e-business applications or enterprise 2.0, which penetrate our society more thoroughly with the availability of broadband services. However, the success of e-business applications in engineering education requires needs analysis to be considered. Aim of the following paper is to analyze the student engineers´ needs in e-business applications of Web 2.0 technologies within engineering education on the pedagogical discourse. The meaning of the key concepts of e-business applications, engineering education and needs analysis is studied. The study shows a potential model for development, indicating how the steps of the process are related following a logical chain: determining e-business applications → revealing e-business applications in engineering education → defining needs analysis → empirical study within a multicultural environment. The results reveal that needs analysis of e-business applications in engineering education contributes to the incorporation of business-driven topics in the curriculum of engineering science.