Department of Building Service Engineering

Undergraduate Prog.

BEng (UGC)

BEng (SF/PT)

Post-graduate Prog.

Research Areas

Alternative & Renewable Energy

Building Acoustics & Vibration

Building Automation & Diagnosis

Building Environmental Performance

Building Operation & Maintenance

Electrical Installations & Systems

Facility Management

Fire & Safety Engineering

HVAC & R System and Technology

Research Centres

Learning and Teaching

BSE curriculum and PolyU's strategic plan

This department is always determined to provide excellent education via quality learning and teaching. PolyU's vision is to become a "preferred university" offering "preferred programmes" and producing "preferred graduates", and its mission is to help students to achieve "academic excellence in a professional context". To achieve this, the university has developed its philosophy on learning and teaching which is reflected in its Strategic Plan for 2001 to 2007. In summary, the Strategic Plan embraces the following values of education:

1. The all-round development of students beyond the professional context
2. Student-centred learning and a caring and supportive learning environment
3. The importance of good teaching
4. Technology as a tool for the enhancement of learning and teaching
5. Partnership with professionals and the community

The BSE department provides full support to the above in the design of its programme curricula. The BSE programme curricula include not only technical subjects developing students' skills towards a professional engineer but also general education and language enhancement subjects. The programme curricula include also technical visits, placements and summer study tours to provide all-round development of students. Overseas students exchange is now a regularly organized in the undergraduate programmes. Regular student-staff meetings and the student feedback questionnaires provide useful feedback to the department in order to maintain a caring and supportive learning environment. WebCT and SMILE are used by academic staff in different forms of web-based learning. BSE has appointed experienced professionals as Adjunct Professors who are invited to give talks to students and provide guidance in their learning. Work integrated education is also an important component in the undergraduate programme. Every student has an opportunity to follow a structured work experience in the industry for a short period. Students can also select to work for a complete year between their second and final year of undergraduate study.

Outcome based curriculum

PolyU has taken a major, strategic initiative to revise the curricula of its academic programmes for the triennium 2005-08. This curriculum revision was conducted in response to the recent directives from UGC and in accordance with PolyU's mission to achieve excellence in professional education. The first objective of the curriculum revision was to reduce the credit requirement of undergraduate programmes to 90 credits. The second objective was to develop a stronger alignment between methods of student assessment and intended learning outcomes. In addition, given the recent role statement of PolyU as defined by UGC, it is clear that we should strive to provide high value-added education leading to the development of all-round students with professional competence. This is in fact a mission that we have long held and have explicitly committed to with the formulation of Strategic Objective 1 in our Strategic Plan. BSE's undergraduate programmes have been revised to adopt an outcome-oriented model with the following specific requirements:

Clear articulation of intended learning outcomes and designing teaching and assessment methods which align with intended outcomes
Integration of Strategic Objective 1 into the formal curriculum
Formalization of work-integration education (WIE) requirements

Learning and Teaching Development Projects

The following e-learning projects are being funded by BSE and FCLU:

1. Visualisation of principles and theories in building and environmental engineering. Mr. Daniel To, Dr. M.L. Chen, Dr. C.M. Mak and Dr. Horace Mui
2. Development of an information centre for HVAC systems design Dr. W.L. Lee, Dr. M.Y. Chan and Prof. Francis Yik
3. Development of a web-based teaching package for the Design Project of Building Services Engineering Systems Prof. Daniel Chan, Prof. S.K. Tang, Dr. T.M. Chung and Dr. Horace Mui