Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Advanced multimedia engineering education in energy, process integration

and optimisation
Jiří Jaromír Klemeš a, Zdravko Kravanja b,⇑, Petar Sabev Varbanov a, Hon Loong Lam c
a
Centre for Process Integration and Intensification – CPI2, Research Institute of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology, University of Pannonia,
8200 Veszprém, Hungary
b
Laboratory for Process Systems Engineering and Sustainable Development, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, University of Maribor, Smetanova ulica 17,
2000 Maribor, Slovenia
c
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, 43500 Semenyth, Selangor, Malaysia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the new education and technology era, there are many challenges for Engineering education in the field
Received 13 December 2011 of energy especially to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning process via structured multi-
Received in revised form 7 January 2012 media. The universities across Europe are currently adopting the new Bologna three-cycle study system
Accepted 14 January 2012
and most of engineering related departments have already developed new study programs accordingly.
Available online 10 February 2012
Several issues have to be addressed in order to provide high-quality education with improved efficiency
and minimal cost. These are related to the foundation skills and knowledge for engineers. They should be
Keywords:
supplemented by new engineer curricula empowering energy engineers to manage solving their prob-
Multimedia education
Process integration
lems in a sustainable way. The current contribution is based on years of practical teaching and involve-
Optimisation ment in the formation of the policy for engineering education in Europe. It discusses how the application
Energy engineering education of the Bologna system, appropriate and wise use of multimedia, and innovative introduction of novel
communication means into the education can help in achieving the above goals. The discussion includes
the development of methods and tools, multimedia internet-based teaching and learning programs, and
cyberinfrastrucure-based virtual libraries.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Over recent decades many important achievements have been
accomplished in engineering disciplines in general, as well as sys-
tem engineering, process integration, and optimisation in particu-
lar, with regards to their applications for improved energy and
other resources use in industry. The methods for system design,
synthesis, and optimisation offer a number of concepts: intuition
and engineering experience (heuristics), physical insight (thermo-
dynamics) and/or mathematical programming. Using heuristics is
becoming more and more redundant for problem modelling, but
is still invaluable in forecasting economic and behavioural trends.
Efficient optimisation techniques, solution algorithms, and strate-
gies enable one to solve a wide range of problems arising within
energy and system engineering, process integration and optimisa-
tion. The capabilities of systems engineering methods and tools are
becoming more and more sophisticated and the scope is now
expanding to cover whole supply-chains – see e.g. [1,2] for energy
and energy related chemical supply-chains. On the other hand, it is
apparent that the scope of engineering disciplines has been wid-
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +386 2229 4481; fax: +386 2252 7774.
E-mail address: zdravko.kravanja@uni-mb.si (Z. Kravanja).
ened over recent decades and that the disciplines have been
increasingly linked with other fields, especially with energy and
environmental engineering and interlinked through system
engineering.
For example, process system engineering with process integra-
tion and synthesis based on renewable resources is becoming a
central part of advances in chemical engineering due to a very high
consumption of energy in chemical and process industries where
only separation processes alone represent about 15% [3,4] or even
25% [5] of total world energy consumption. The issues of energy
efficiency and the corresponding environmental concern are
becoming of the utmost importance for the fruitful development
to provide sustainable engineering solutions. Computer aided engi-
neering education, including structured multimedia, has an impor-
tant role to equip new generations of engineers in the Bologna
study system and professionals in Further Professional Develop-
ment (FPD) with advanced systems concepts, methods and tools
in order to upgrade their capabilities to shape the sustainable
development. For ensuring sustainability and sufficient economic
development through especially savings of energy and other re-
sources, process and other engineers need to be trained to ever
higher standards. This includes multidisciplinarity of the training
and improved skills for interaction with industrial representatives

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2012.01.039
34 J.J. Klemeš et al. / Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40
and managers. Another equally important aspect is the develop-
ment and stimulation of creativity of both professional individuals
and teams. An important part of efficient engineering education is
also distance learning and especially the continuous retraining and
life-long learning of practicing engineers. The state-of-the-art prac-
tice in this field involves travelling of the trainees or the trainers
for delivering face-to-face training. This is related to substantial
organisational and financial cost, which many employers are
unwilling or unable to accept.
This paper discusses the following issues for the development of
the engineering education in general, and education in energy opti-
misation and process integration, in particular:
 Advanced Engineering Education in Bologna Study System.
 Holistic Systems Engineering education.
 Process Integration and Computer Aided Chemical Engineering
education.
 Potential tools for improving the quality and minimising the
cost of distance learning and retraining.
 Stimulation of comprehension and creativity.
The authors are capitalising on their both long term and recent
experience gained from several leading European universities and
initiatives under the auspices of EURECHA [6]. This European Com-
mittee for the Use of Computers in Chemical Engineering Educa-
tion was formed in 1983 to enable software for teaching and
methods of computer aided teaching to be exchanged between
universities in Europe.
2. Advanced Engineering Education in Bologna three-cycle
study system
Since the approval of the joint Declaration [7] of the European
Ministers of Education in Bologna on the 19th of June 1999 most
of universities around Europe have adopted new Bologna three-cy-
cle study system. It happened despite well-known criticism from
many academics that the Bologna process is merely a political pro-
ject in which universities ran short of initiatives and enthusiasm.
The most important objectives of the Bologna process are the
establishment of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) [8],
and the adoption of the three-cycle study system, undergraduate,
graduate and postgraduate. It targeted the development of study
systems of comparable degrees, promotion mobility of students,
teachers, researchers and even administrative staff, promotion of
transnational cooperation in higher education and quality assur-
ance while still encouraging a high degree of diversity among the
universities.
Energy related engineering disciplines were not an exception in
this respect. Based on the richness of past experiences and wealthy
tradition, engineering education has been adapted too and up-
graded to the new study system architecture. Harmonisation of
these activities at the European level in the areas of different engi-
neering disciplines has given rise to the EUR-ACE Framework Stan-
dards [9] according to the categories:
(i) Knowledge and understanding.
(ii) Engineering analysis.
(iii) Engineering design.
(iv) Investigations.
(v) Engineering practice and
(vi) Transferable skills.
The framework has been developed by The European Network
for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE) [10] which is
together with The European Society for Engineering Education
(SEFI) [11] also a member of The International Federation of
Engineering Education Societies (IFEES) [12] being established to
promote high quality engineering education around the world.
Fig. 1 shows a typical structure of the Bologna three-cycle
3 + 2 + 3 study system in engineering education, where in principle
the role of the 1st cycle is to give the students basic knowledge in
engineering, the objective of the 2nd cycle is to acquire advanced
knowledge, and the aim of the 3rd cycle is to gain capabilities for
developing new knowledge.
Having in mind that the role of universities is more creating
new knowledge than merely passing it to students, research and
investigations at the doctorate study level is of the highest impor-
tance in the process of discovering reality as it is vital for personal
individualisation and prosperity of our society in general, and cru-
cial for the development of the engineering fields in particular.
The embedding of sophisticated and holistic computer aided
techniques, methods and tools in the study process directly affects
the quality of education and research, and the attained rank of an
education institution at the world scale.
Fig. 2 depicts a core block diagram of a typical engineering
study program and its principle distribution across the Bologna
three-cycle study system. As it can be seen, natural phenomena
like heat and mass transfer, chemical kinetics, form the necessary
link between fundamentals of science and natural sciences (math-
ematics, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology) on one
hand, and engineering science (specific engineering topics related
to a given engineering discipline) on the other.
Since in this lower part of the engineering study program scheme
mostly deals with the understanding of the phenomena taking place
in process operations, the application of analytical approach to the
process of discovery is conducted. As constitutive elements, e.g. unit
operation in process engineering, are further combined into complex
systems with many interactions, the intention is to exploit these
interactions in order to adjust individual operations from the system
overall performance view. It is then obvious that a system synthesis
approach, based on Systems Engineering, is needed to accomplish
the task. Thus, topics like system design, synthesis, integration,
dynamics, and optimisation are regarded as typical synthesis topics
in the upper part of the engineering scheme. Engineering is then a
reasonable combination of analytical and synthesis approaches in
the process of developing engineering solutions.
3. Holistic System Engineering education
Systems Engineering and its specialisations, e.g. Energy Systems
Engineering and Process Systems Engineering, are relatively new
Fig. 1. Typical structure of the Bologna three-cycle study system.
 J.J. Klemeš et al. / Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40
Engineering Solutions
3rd Cycle Specialisation for
different applications
Synthesis
Integrated approach
competences
System Engineering
nd
2 Cycle
Engineering Science
1st Cycle
Natural Phenomena
Partial
competences Fundamentals of Science Analytical
& approach
Natural Sciences
Fig. 2. Core block diagram of engineering study programs and its distribution
across the Bologna three-cycle study system.
fields, which emerged due to the breakthrough of computer sci-
ence in the 1960s. Systems Engineering has been traditionally con-
cerned more with its core process system applications isolated
from the rest of their supply-chains. Recently, the scope of Systems
Engineering has been expanding to complex networks comprising
different interlinked supply-chains. Supply-chains can be repre-
sented by several layers, either by temporal vs. spatial representa-
tion or supply-demand-oriented superstructures. A typical
example is an energy supply-chain representation comprising the
capture of electromagnetic waves, chemical and nuclear reactions
at the basic layer, production at the second, and transmission lay-
ers to transmit energy to customers [13] see Fig. 3.
Another typical example of supply-chains is the chemical sup-
ply-chain [14]. In a simplified form it can be represented by molec-
ular, reaction-path, and process network layers [15], Fig. 4.
Another example gaining increasingly more attention is a
superstructure for regional renewable supply and demand net-
works, consisting of supply, pre-processing, processing, and con-
sumption layers [2] see Fig. 5.
As was highlighted, e.g. in the MIT document about frontiers in
engineering education [16], engineers are facing very complex
problems. Because of the increased complexity, they can only be
solved efficiently by using a holistic system analysis and synthesis
approach, with a multi-scale description of the different layers of
Fig. 3. Integrated energy supply-chain [13].
35
Fig. 4. Simplified chemical and biochemical supply-chain (after[15]).
supply-chains. Different computer tools should be applied in order
to address the multidimensionalities and complexities of prob-
lems, including dynamics, uncertainty, and external factors, at all
layers.
In this respect Energy Systems Engineering and Process Systems
Engineering, have become very important, whilst study outcomes
addressing computer methods, concepts, and tools have thus be-
come essential for students to obtain the necessary qualifications
for solving complex engineering problems. From general docu-
ment, e.g. the mentioned EUR-ACE Framework Standards [9], and
disciplines’ specific documents, e.g. EFCE Bologna Recommenda-
tions [17], is apparent that subject and topics that belong to Sys-
tem Engineering, i.e. process design, modelling, simulation,
synthesis, integration, optimisation, and dynamics, are inevitable
for gaining the required outcomes.
4. Process Integration and computer aided engineering
education
Embedding the aspects of Process Systems Engineering within
Energy Engineering Education is crucial for achieving adequate
educational results. Having in mind the overall importance of com-
puter-aided education, there are several prerequisites for the suc-
cessful implementation of computer-aided methods and tools. A
very important aspect is also the development of new advanced
tools, both within professional computer development companies
and academic institutions. There are many excellent examples of
new software applications developed within academia. Software
for Process Network Synthesis (PNS) based on the P-graph, named
‘‘PNS Studio’’, by Friedler et al. [18], SuperTarget [19], HEXTRAN
[20], Integrated Computer-Aided System (ICAS) by Gani et al.
[21], general purpose software (DICOPT, LOGMIP), and interactive
web-based models for different mixed-integer applications (e.g.
SYNHEAT, WATER, GREENPLAN, BATCHSPC) by Grossmann et al.
[22], the PROSYN [23] and MipSyn [13] process synthesisers, gPR-
OMS developed earlier at Imperial College London [24], and many
others are such examples. For more details see an overview by Lam
et al. [25].
Besides academic institutions, important initiatives for com-
puter-aided education have come from the mentioned Working
Party of Education, the Working Party of Computer Aided Process
Engineering, both at the European Federation of Chemical Engi-
neering, and even more importantly also from EURECHA [6].
36 J.J. Klemeš et al. / Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40
Fig. 5. Regional renewable supply and demand network [2].
The use of computer-based methods and tools for teaching is
especially important for the development of those new courses re-
lated to non-traditional topics, e.g. sustainability. Very recent tech-
niques in multimedia internet-based teaching and learning [26]
combining text, still images, video, animation, and interactivity
to enhance both visual and verbal communications, and the devel-
opment of different cyber-applications, e.g. hub cyber infrastruc-
ture for collaboration in research and education [27], a virtual
library for process systems engineering as a Pan-American initia-
tive [28], an initiated virtual library at EURECHA [6], and a virtual
environment for problem formulations and algorithmic develop-
ments (Cyber-MINLP) by Grossmann and co-workers [29], are
some of the recent examples of how methods and tools for teach-
ing can be successfully implemented and applied to chemical engi-
neering education.
5. Education for Process Integration
As a response to these industrial and societal requirements sev-
eral novel methodologies emerged by 1977. Two of them have
been ‘‘Process System Engineering’’ by Sargent [30,31] with inter-
esting recent applications, e.g. [32,33], and ‘‘Process Integration
for Energy Saving’’ by Linnhoff et al. [34,35] followed by a number
of works from the UMIST Group: HEN synthesis [36], Synthesis of
Utility Systems [37] and Extended Total Sites [38]. Both disciplines
are involved in dedicated conferences as ESCAPE - European Sym-
posium on Computer Aided Process Engineering facilitated by
European Federation of Chemical Engineering Working Party on
Computer Aided Process Engineering [39] and PRES – Conference
on Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Sav-
ing and Pollution Reduction [40] which is being annually sup-
ported by Chemical and Chemical Engineering Societies
(Hungarian Chemical Society, Czech Society of Chemical Engineer-
ing, Italian Association of Chemical Engineering, The Canadian
Society for Chemical Engineering). Gradually it has become appar-
ent that resource inputs and effluents of industrial processes are
often connected to each other. Hand in hand with Process Systems
Engineering developed Process Integration.
There are several aspects of preparation and delivery of teach-
ing materials in Process Integration: pedagogical, semantic and
technical [41]. In Process Integration colourful, picture-rich pre-
sentations have an important role. Generally, multimedia is effi-
cient when teaching in many engineering fields, including
modelling and simulation. In Process Integration, the number of ef-
fects and colours to be used can be limited to a few and still can
result in a very easy structure for the students to follow.
Although some of the research on this topic has not been di-
rectly related to the Process Integration field, there are contribu-
tions to the effectiveness of multimedia in teaching and
presentations. The researchers emphasise the need for multimedia
instruction and learning materials to be designed accounting for
individual cognitive limitations. This requires an understanding
of how people react to various multimedia materials when per-
forming a given task. Several researchers have conducted extensive
empirical research [42,43] to explain how learning from multiple
representations in computer-based environments works.
5.1. Using colours and analogies
Process systems involve many operating units and interconnec-
tions and some of the dependencies and trade-offs are not straight-
forward to see or understand. There is a variety of modelling
contexts and scopes and various levels of detail. Examples of the
latter are models and design tasks concerning heat exchangers
vs. those concerning Heat Exchanger Networks.
In choosing optimal designs and operating policies the global
optima are usually sought, which are difficult to obtain, and even
to build adequate models is usually a challenge requiring ultimate
understanding. This observation reveals the need to make the lec-
ture presentations more colourful and lively – for capturing and
retaining students’ attention as well as for emphasising the inter-
nal semantics of the problem. An example diagram from a course
on Heat Integration (Fig. 6) illustrates the appropriate use of col-
ours for the context of hot and cold streams and the heat recovery
among them. Here it is seen that colours help making the teaching
easier via making the diagrams more meaningful and easier to map
in the human mind.
Red
Yellow
Blue
Blue
Fig. 6. Using colours for teaching Heat Integration [41].
 J.J. Klemeš et al. / Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40 37

When the context is changed, different colours should be used – teaching impact – interactivity. Typical examples are forms, online
preferably combinations which have already some widespread automated calculations in real-time for testing etc.
semantic mappings. An example can be given from the targeting
of regional biomass supply chains [44], where bioenergy surplus 5.3. Technical and Process Engineering aspects
is designated by green while deficit – by red (Fig. 7).
One important limitation is that each diagram should not con- As already mentioned, multimedia features – especially colour
tain too many colours. This usually hinders comprehension instead or animations, have to be used within a systematic convention
of enhancing it. serving the semantics of the taught material. As the application
Adding analogies to the colours may frequently help deepening of multimedia presentations strongly depends on the subject, spe-
the understanding. An example is shown in Fig. 8 illustrating the cific features of process engineering should be taken into account.
concept of the various activity or process footprints. The notation should be consistent and not diverting the attention
by excessive variations.
5.2. Pedagogical features If colours are used in a constant semantic scheme, they are very
easy to follow, e.g. cold streams to warm up drawn in blue and hot
Psychological as well as pedagogical methods should be applied streams to cool down denoted by red. In certain cases, further
to catch the attention of students and improve their understand- notations can be used for differentiating purposes. Deeper shading,
ing. The applications depend on many aspects. The profiles and for example, might denote a hotter stream. Colour gradients may
the needs of the various target groups should be differentiated. have their own meaning.
The multimedia presentations could be delivered to undergraduate Static drawings are widely used – e.g. HEN (Heat Exchanger
or postgraduate students or to trainees in Further Professional Network) structure. However, adding multimedia features can
Development (FPD) courses. For each of these groups, different le- widen the opportunities. Here are some typical examples the dif-
vel of details and types of content should be considered. ferent multimedia presentation elements in process integration
Especially the need for reflecting recent achievements varies. can be used for:
For instance, a lecture for undergraduates should emphasise the
main principles and basics – e.g. thermodynamics, the construction  Animation: One of the most useful multimedia elements. Exam-
of Composite Curves, the Pinch Principle, optimisation methods. ple applications are shifting Composite Curves; building a heat
On the other hand, lectures for postgraduates or FPD courses cascade, a Grand Composite Curve, or Total Site Profiles; denot-
should rather emphasise recent achievements, methodology ing the Pinch location, Pinch design principle, HEN design in
extensions and practical applications – e.g. extension of the Total action (e.g. altering temperatures, interaction between heat
Site methodology to handle renewables [45], or process-specific exchangers), comparison of designs, animated streams, stream
DTMIN values [46]. However following this strategy requires extra population, process modifications, retrofit etc.
time to make different versions and subversions.  Video: Examples from real life applications, e.g. a HEN from the
Even though standard multimedia presentations are quite effi- industry – however should not be too excessive to divert stu-
cient, one feature can be applied for further improvement of the dents’ attention.
 Photo: Unlike printouts, presentations have no additional cost
when including colour photographs. However, their application
should be limited to making specific points – e.g. showing plant
Cumulative area (km 2)

Zone N
Red
layout, designs of actual heat exchangers, effects of fouling etc.
 Interactivity: A learning part of a multimedia slideshow to acti-
Cumulative area (km2)

Zone 5
vate the audience. E.g. Problem Table Algorithm, Pinch location
Export Green
Zone 4 etc.
Red  Audio/voiceover: Typically used for static comments, but it can
Zone 3 provide a kind of feedback to the lecturer to check slides. Record-
Green ing the voice over has got very strong positive impact on the lec-
Zone 2 Red turers – by checking and listening their recordings. Additionally,
audio files can be parts of web-based course materials shared for
Zone 1
Green individual learning and preparation for examinations.
Energy Flow 0 1 2 3
Cumulative energy balance (PJ/y) Regardless of whether multimedia is used or not, some basic
rules should be followed to minimise development effort and time,
Fig. 7. Targeting regional biomass supply chains [44]. as well as to enhance comprehension:

 A unified template of presentation slides. It significantly reduces

Footprints of different types: the time required for creating new slides or to modify existing
ones. It is very easy to be consistent by applying templates.
− Carbon footprint The template shall be uniform for a team/laboratory/school
− Water footprint and perhaps even a university expressing a real or virtual trade
mark.
− Energy footprint  Unified and large enough fonts. A presentation using several dif-
− Emission footprint
ferent font types and too many font sizes looks untidy and is
distractive. A slide which has got considerable part empty and
− Work environment footprint fonts are not large enough to be easily readable lowers consid-
erably the efficiency of the presentation.
− Cost
 Fool proof presentations via applying standards. Presentations
can be delivered on various PCs around the world without
Fig. 8. Ecological footprints. inconveniences. Furthermore, additional alternative versions
38 J.J. Klemeš et al. / Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40
can avoid the problems of embedding and linking and should
not be sensitive to various screen/projector set-ups.
 Modular structure gives additional freedom to both the devel-
opers and the lecturers.
6. Improving quality and minimising cost of distance learning
via structured multimedia
When trainees are present in person in the lecture room, a num-
ber of interactions are enabled and this is the traditional way of
educating people. In many cases, however, this may be inconve-
nient for either the trainees or their employers. This is mostly
the case for distance learning students and for trainees in FPD
courses. For many of them attending the training in person may
be impossible for some occasions or altogether, which either is lim-
ited to decreasing the training quality or prevents it completely. A
possible answer to this is to develop and offer continuously an e-
learning hub, where live lectures are also combined with web-pub-
lished ones, and eventually with web conferencing features (Fig. 9).
A good example implementing this strategy is the HUBZero
concept by Purdue University [47]. However, such a platform has
some advantages and shortcomings. There are some significant
potential benefits:
 The hub offers the opportunity for self-paced learning using the
published lectures and the interactive learning objects.
 Using the web conferencing facility would allow the students to
attend lectures remotely.
 Such a facility may make many more potential students and
employers willing to take part in the education process or to
organise it for their employees.
 Finally, it may lower the cost of obtaining knowledge by
trainees.
The disadvantages of the scheme have several dimensions:
 In terms of initial investment and organisational complexity
this can be a difficult undertaking – depending on the target
scale.
 Psychologically using the hub can be challenging for both lec-
turers and students. The main reason for this risk is that getting
used to the remote presence is difficult for both parties. Lectur-
ers may be prone to ignore the audience sitting at the remote
terminals when they also have live audience in the lecture hall,
thus paying insufficient attention to them and leading to poor
knowledge transfer. Similarly, students from remote locations
Fig. 9. E-learning hub architecture for integrated education and training.
may have the feeling of being left out of the lecture or discus-
sion, leading to a similar effect.
In order to mitigate and minimise the disadvantages and extract
maximum benefit from the hub advantages, further discussion and
also experimentation with pilot projects is necessary.
7. E-assessment and other education tools
The structured multimedia education techniques and methods
discussed above will be very much enhanced by proper assessment
and other education tools. Many of these teaching methodologies
are based on Virtual Learning Environments (VLE’s) [48]. Dillen-
bourg [49] describes 6 main features of a VLE as: (i) information
Space, (ii) turning spaces into places, (iii) representing vary from
text to 3D immersive worlds, (iv) co-constructing the virtual space,
(v) enriching classroom activities, (vi) integrating heterogeneous
technologies and multiple pedagogical approaches. Perry and Bula-
tov [48] presented some examples of most popular VLEs, Black-
board [50] and Moodle [51], and Krajnc [52] reported some
experiences with e-learning portal of the University of Maribor
(ELEUM) and Moodle indicating that e-assessment could be an
attractive and beneficial learning support as 80–90% of undergrad-
uate students were interested to participate in it.
Perry and Bulatov [48] demonstrated how to create and deliver
an e-assessment in an undergraduate chemical engineering course.
This work builds on further Blackboard eAssessment features by
developing an e-assessment for coursework in an Energy Systems
unit. Full time and part-time distance learning students were re-
quired to provide engineering solutions to the problems in the
courseworks, to write and submit a report via Blackboard, and to
undergo an e-assessment test related to work undertaken. The e-
assessment was compiled so that an instant feedback is given to
students to provide them with an objective evaluation of their
knowledge and correctness of the solution to the problem stated
in the coursework.
To enhance the e-assessment as an effective education tool,
there are still the spaces of improvement. For example, (i) provid-
ing interactive answers which include more detailed feedback on
both correct and incorrect solutions, and (ii) directing the student
to relevant problem solving sources such as Glossary and links to a
Discussion Board, which provides another channel for learner–tu-
tor and learner–student communication, and a complete solution
on request to the tutor [48].
8. Stimulation of comprehension and creativity
The education with structured multimedia can be extended by
additional features, including interactivity, which is one of the
most effective types of studying. Some whiteboards have interac-
tivity features as well and thus can be used as an additional device
to support this feature. In this new style of teaching using e-learn-
ing and e-teaching the proper balance of specific multimedia fea-
tures is even more important [53,54].
As widely known since the times of Komenský (also known as
Comenius) [55], the level of understanding rises starting from lis-
tening to a lecture, then reading, interacting with the problem
and other people and finally teaching others provides highest level
of understanding (Fig. 10). Creation of new ideas, models or algo-
rithms can be viewed as deepening, or clarification of the knowl-
edge and understanding of the studied phenomenon and in this
sense creativity can be defined as an explosively enhanced form
of learning.
There are two important levels of stimulating human thinking
and creativity:
 J.J. Klemeš et al. / Applied Energy 101 (2013) 33–40
TEACH OTHERS-90%
PRACTICE BY DOING-75% Interactivity
DISCUSSION-50%
DEMONSTRATION-30% Effective
Teaching in
AUDIO-VISUAL 20%
Process
READING-10% Integration
LECTURE 5%
COMENIUS –
Jan Amos Komenský
(1592 - 1670)
Fig. 10. Learning and understanding.
 Creation of effective mental models of the considered problem
via appropriate and meaningful visualisations – including static
diagrams and multimedia. This helps mostly at the when learn-
ing in a classroom or at the initial stages of researching a new
area.
 Adding interactivity to the visualisations, thus making the men-
tal models dynamic and allowing them to evolve. This helps in
creating new models and tools.
Effective mental models for learning are created by a combina-
tion of tools.
 In the first place, there have to be appropriate diagrams reflect-
ing the considered problems in a balanced way (possibly within
a single view, but not too complicated)
 Illustration of the main trade-offs and process features using the
diagram
 Using appropriate analogies from everyday life and even
humour also helps enormously.
 Semantically consistent and appropriate use of colours, as dis-
cussed above.
A potentially very effective and engaging way of teaching is
using interactive tools. They are sometimes referred to as ‘‘educa-
tional games’’ [56,57] where the concept has been currently devel-
oped mostly for teaching children to basic subjects using games
using various plots or storylines. Another development is also to-
wards macroeconomic simulation games [58]. From the field of
chemical engineering education, an effective set of interactive
web applications have been demonstrated by Josceanu et al. [59]
where they present virtual experiments on titration curves. The
development of such interactive web-based applications for Pro-
cess Integration for energy and water savings would enable the
better understanding of the material.
9. Conclusions
This paper has analysed several important aspects of education
and teaching in engineering especially in the scope of energy, Pro-
cess Integration and optimisation for educational purposes – the
education according to the Bologna Process, the efficient use of
multimedia for teaching, stimulation of understanding and creativ-
ity, and e-learning hubs for improving the quality and availability
of distance training.
The use of computer-aided concepts, methods, and tools is re-
quired for the efficient solution of engineering problems. The stea-
dy development of newly-emerging computer-aided methods and
tools, and their use during problem solving and teaching, signifi-
cantly enhances the quality of chemical engineering education.
The role of computer-aided education is thus very important, espe-
39
cially when it is applied to new courses and study programs. In the
EFCE Bologna Recommendations for three-cycle study systems
many sophisticated and holistic study outcomes have been ad-
dressed, which relate to important aspects of Process Systems
Engineering, thus providing a fresh perspective into the develop-
ment of advanced chemical engineering curricula.
It has been shown that within the framework of the Bologna
process, further actions should be performed to maximise the qual-
ity and the benefit of the educational process. To summarise –
these are judicious use of colours and various multimedia features,
underlining the lecture semantics. Properly used colours and mod-
erate use of animation can improve understanding. It has also been
emphasised that interactivity is essential at advanced stages of
learning and for stimulation of creativity at both stages of learning
and new research.
Finally, a novel concept for integrated delivery of teaching con-
tent has been discussed, based on the hub architecture, aimed at
minimising the disruptions and increasing the benefit of distance
learning and e-learning. Several key issues for further investigation
have been outlined, related to the perceptions of lecturers and
students.
Acknowledgments
The financial support from the Program P2-0032 ‘‘Process Sys-
tems Engineering and Sustainable Development’’, the Hungarian
project Társadalmi Megújulás Operatív Program ‘‘Tudományos
képzés mu } helyeinek támogatása’’ TÁMOP-4.2.2/B-10/1-2010-
0025, and the Bilateral SI-HU Project TET SI-11/2008 ‘Process sys-
tems engineering and sustainable development’ are gratefully
acknowledged.
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