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Unit of study_

CIVL9310: Humanitarian Engineering

2025 unit information

Humanitarian Engineering is the application of Engineering design and organisation to improve quality of life, in circumstances where severe conditions of life are preventing the community from achieving those outcomes themselves. It can be anything from large scale infrastructure which benefits provinces to small scale innovations which benefit single families. It can be regarded as developmental aid or as disaster relief. In this unit students will study the world humanitarian sphere and its major and minor players. Students will be expected to critically analyse many of the notions which underpin humanitarian aid by use of various case studies and with reference to scholarly research. The subject will include both historical and contemporary study of engineering application in developmental aid delivered through governments, organisations and individuals. Various humanitarian theories will be studied and applied to specific cases, as well as methods of measuring success. This unit will be first offered in 2017. As well as being a requirement for the Humanitarian major, it is also available to all Civil students as a 3rd year Civil elective and to students from other disciplines as a free elective.

Unit details and rules

Managing faculty or University school:

Engineering

Study level Postgraduate
Academic unit Civil Engineering
Credit points 6
Prerequisites:
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None
Corequisites:
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None
Prohibitions:
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None
Assumed knowledge:
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None

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

  • LO1. explain the professional roles and ethical considerations of engineers working in the context of humanitarian engineering (developing countries, disasters and remote areas)
  • LO2. work in a small team with different engineering disciplines to solve an engineering challenge while displaying effective team membership and team leadership.
  • LO3. use analytical and evaluation skills to present the theoretical and practical considerations for project success and failure in humanitarian engineering.
  • LO4. Understanding the scope, principles, norms, accountabilities and bounds of contemporary humanitarian engineering practice
  • LO5. Develop oral presentation and written skills to professionally and accurately communicate humanitarian engineering principles

Unit availability

This section lists the session, attendance modes and locations the unit is available in. There is a unit outline for each of the unit availabilities, which gives you information about the unit including assessment details and a schedule of weekly activities.

The outline is published 2 weeks before the first day of teaching. You can look at previous outlines for a guide to the details of a unit.

Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 1 2024
Normal day Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 1 2025
Normal day Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Outline unavailable
Session MoA ?  Location Outline ? 
Semester 1 2020
Normal day Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2021
Normal day Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2021
Normal day Remote
Semester 1 2022
Normal day Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2022
Normal day Remote
Semester 1 2023
Normal day Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney
Semester 1 2023
Normal day Remote

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Modes of attendance (MoA)

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