Are there curricular differences between biology-based and application-based "bio" engineering disciplines?

Abstract

Several authors have previously promoted the transformation of the application-based agricultural engineering discipline into a biology-based biological engineering discipline. A systematic analysis of titles for courses being taught by ASABE-umbrella programs across North America was undertaken to identify curricular differences between biology-based and application-based “bio” engineering disciplines. Based on 44 ASABE-umbrella programs analyzed, the four most commonly used program names were biological engineering (25%), biosystems engineering (20%), biological systems engineering (15.9%) and agricultural engineering (13.6%). Definitions of these four program names were reviewed; biosystems, biological systems and agricultural engineering are typically defined such that they are best described as application-based “bio” engineering disciplines while biological engineering is best described as a biology-based engineering discipline. Based on statistical analysis of the frequency of words in course titles, there was a significant increase in the usage of the word “food” and a lack of the word “project” in the course titles within biological engineering programs. Over half of the unique options were found in biological engineering programs suggesting that they do offer unique course content compared with biosystems, biological systems and agricultural engineering degree programs, however, it is noteworthy that four options appear across all four degrees. It is concluded that there are curricular differences between biology-based and application-based “bio” engineering disciplines, however, the curricular differences are not as substantive as one might conclude from the philosophical discussions in the literature. Alternatively, it may simply not be possible to detect curricular differences solely from an analysis of the course titles