Embedding Digital Engineering into the Classroom

Abstract

The digital thread concerns the integration of engineering data across a system's lifecycle and has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital engineering. One promising application is in engineering education, where it can expose students to authentic, connected workflows across multiple domains. The digital engineering factory (DEF), developed at the University of Arizona, is a web-based platform designed to support systems and software engineering students by providing integrated access to tools for project management, requirements, modeling, analysis, verification, and test planning. These tools are linked through Violet, a central hub that aggregates data into a comprehensive, semantically structured database. Using the ontological modeling language (OML) and the University of Arizona ontology stack (UAOS), the DEF supports reasoning, validation, and querying. These capabilities enable dynamic dashboards to guide students and assist instructors with assessment. In a classroom deployment, students worked in role-defined teams using the DEF to manage their project data and participate in model-based design and review. The DEF provided students with a clear view of the full engineering lifecycle and enabled automated grading based on traceable, semantically validated data. Ongoing development is focused on improving automated workflows and enhancing the student and instructor experience.