Preface

There are certain theoretical concepts that power engineering students struggle with and there are limited number of textbooks or videos that address these concepts directly linked to the field of power engineering. When we present those challenging concepts in class we also want to make sure that our students develop safe working habits and environmental sensibilities related to sustainable operation of the power engineering equipment.

The primary purpose of this project was to design and develop simulator lab worksheets (SIM LABS) that would be used as ancillary resources for Thermodynamics and Thermal Power Plant Simulator (TPPS) courses. We have limited time to teach theory and we also have to offer practical skills to our students, so having as many SIM LABS as possible can bring those challenging concepts closer to our students and enhance their hands-on skills.

We consider this project as a first step to writing a comprehensive open textbook in the future. Through this project we aimed to

• Involve our students in the creation of learning materials and increase their awareness of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Education in general,
• Create opportunities for collaboration: BCIT Marine Campus uses several simulators supplied by the same manufacturer as ours and the identical TPPS is utilized at Linnaeus University in Sweden. We hope this OER project will induce our colleagues here in Vancouver, B.C. and abroad to collaboration and consideration of OER in their teaching.

A final note to instructors who teach similar courses: We will be glad to share the “Instructor Guides and Solutions” to all SIM LABS included in this booklet. Please email us at
Sanja_Boskovic@bcit.ca or Serhat_Beyenir@bcit.ca