To prepare students for the future workforce, it is important to provide them with knowledge and guidance about professional software engineering practices. One critical element of workplace practices is learning on the job. There are few studies of how software engineers learn on the job and little focus within the literature on how this understanding can help train students. In this paper, we present a qualitative interview-based field study of workplace learning among professional software engineers. We conducted in-depth interviews with ten software engineers and analyzed the data using thematic analysis based on the learning ecologies framework. In our findings, we identify and discuss professionals’ motivation and reasons for learning, the different resources they use to learn, the challenges they face in their learning, and their views on the relationship between formal education and on the job learning. We draw implications of the findings for teaching and learning, and future research.

This research paper explores the experiences of engineering students and professionals in multicultural teams, aiming to understand successful strategies for working in such environments. With the engineering field diversifying rapidly due to globalization, there is a growing need for engineers to possess cross-cultural communication and collaboration skills alongside technical knowledge. This study aims to improve the effectiveness of engineering education and addresses the evolving needs for engineering education and the role of educators in preparing future engineers for multicultural teamwork. The following research questions guided our study: (i). What strategies do engineering students and professionals hold and employ in navigating multicultural teamwork?, and (ii) How do these specific strategies mentioned by engineering students and professionals align with the developmental orientations on the Intercultural Developmental Continuum (IDC)? The study employed a qualitative approach, with interviews and focus groups conducted with 41 engineering students and 17 professionals who reported prior experience working on multicultural teams. Participants discussed their experiences and strategies, which were categorized into social behavioral, cognitive, and affective attitudinal themes. A total of 17 strategy types were identified in the student data and 16 types in the professional data. Strategies were in turn mapped to different developmental orientations on the IDC, showing a relationship between strategies described by participants and associated stages of intercultural development. Our findings reveal likely gaps in multicultural teamwork abilities among both students and professionals. More specifically, engineering students and professionals may benefit from expanded intercultural development training to foster more ethnorelative approaches to teamwork. Future research could involve participants completing the IDI survey before interviews to better understand their individual levels of intercultural development, followed by efforts to design and pilot training and educational materials aligned with particular intercultural development levels. This research contributes to understanding successful strategies for working in multicultural teams, benefiting educators, practitioners, and engineering students alike.

This full research paper explores how academics and engineering professionals view the incorporation of DEI into engineering ethics codes. Engineering professional societies have integrated DEI explicitly or implicitly into their codes of ethics. Yet, DEI is contested and even banned in many institutions of higher education in the US. Thus, there is a need to understand the relationship between ethics and DEI in engineering, including how engineering practitioners and scholars view DEI should be canonized in the profession. In this study, we addressed two research questions: (1) “To what extent and in what ways did participants view it to be important to incorporate DEI into an engineering ethics code?” and (2) “How do participants view the incorporation of DEI into the IEEE code of ethics?” The research methodology included a qualitative analysis of interview responses from engineering academics and practicing engineers regarding the integration of DEI into engineering codes of ethics, as well as their perceptions of IEEE's current code of ethics. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 engineering faculty members and 25 engineering practitioners between June 2022 and April 2023. During interviews, we shared the IEEE code of ethics and asked participants to share their perspectives of the code. Participants felt that embedding DEI principles into engineering ethics codes was important to ensure equitable treatment, access, and representation across all levels of the profession. Many participants felt that ethics codes should have a more concerted focus on DEI and DEI principles, whereas some participants questioned whether DEI should be within an engineering ethics code at all. Findings from this study can inform future innovations at the nexus of ethics and DEI. We specifically hope this work will encourage professional societies to continue integrating DEI within engineering codes of ethics with the undergirding confidence that many stakeholders across both engineering and academic communities are supportive of such integration.

This research-to-practice full paper presents a series of brief engineering ethics case studies, all inspired by actual incidents recounted during interviews with early career engineers. Current ABET accreditation requirements include ethics-related outcomes for engineering graduates, and most engineering professional societies and employers maintain their own ethics codes. Yet we have limited knowledge about what kinds of ethical situations and issues are faced by practicing engineers, both in general and during early career phases. More nuanced understandings about the ethical dimensions of engineering work could inform training interventions designed to better prepare engineering graduates for workplace realities. This paper aims to bridge research and practice by presenting a series of brief case studies covering a variety of ethical situations encountered by early career engineers. The case studies are adapted from interviews conducted with a stratified sample of 29 technical professionals, all with at least one degree in engineering and 1–3 years of full-time work experience. The interviews were carried out as part of a larger mixed-methods research study investigating how engineering students and early career professionals perceive and experience ethics, social responsibility, and related concerns. The case studies presented in this paper were intentionally selected and developed to reflect different job roles and industry settings, as well as diverse ethical issues encountered by our participants. We present cases that reflect more commonplace or everyday situations that are “microethical” in nature, i.e., involving localized interactions among individual professionals. We also include some suggested scaffolds and resources for instructors seeking to use such cases in their teaching. We intend that this paper will be relevant and useful for instructors who want to bring early career ethics cases into their courses, as well as for those wishing to write short ethics case studies.

This paper uses the critical incident technique to analyze how early career engineers experience ethics in the workplace. Our results build off a previously developed framework that categorizes critical incidents related to professional engineering ethics, but we expand the framework to address its gaps. Though there was significant overlap between our findings and the existing framework in the types of critical incidents reported by participants, in some cases the severity of a negative ethical experience was not captured by existing categories, especially when describing sexual harassment in the workplace. Many incidents also required multiple categories to accurately describe them as opposed to a single overarching descriptor. Additionally, we observed a connection between personal morality and professional ethics that was present in some critical incidents. Our observations suggest that similar types of critical incidents related to ethics may often be experienced by engineers, but more work needs to be done to expand the classification of these situations and better understand how engineers develop ethics-related competencies, especially early in their careers and in a workplace context.

Full Paper: Digital transformations are reshaping engineering practices with implications for conducting engineering education research. Given the paucity of discussion of digital methods within engineering education research, we believe it is important to examine and present to the community an overview of how digital technology is changing research practices. In this paper we focus on digital ethnography as it has implications for studies of technical education and work, which necessarily involve using, and observing how others employ digital data sources, tools, systems, methods, etc. In this paper we report preliminary results from an in-depth literature search and review. To select the papers for the review, we first examined prior meta-review papers that identified new ethnographic methods appropriate for digital contexts (e.g., network ethnography, trace ethnography, rapid ethnography, connective ethnography, focused ethnography, etc.). We then used these as keywords to search for papers that were representative of these methods and selected the 100 most cited papers from this corpus, with further screening resulting in a final collection of 91 papers. We then conducted free/open coding of the articles followed by thematic coding to identify six categories and dived deeper into one of the categories, focused on different approaches to ethnography, to further explore the various types of ethnographic methods mentioned in the collected literature. We close by discussing how emerging techniques in ethnographic field research can be applied to engineering education research with engineering work practices as an exemplar.

In this work-in-progress (WIP) study, we begin to identify explicit links between ethics and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in engineering education and closely related fields. We use systematic literature review procedures coupled with a qualitative content analytic approach to identify these explicit links within engineering education journals and conference papers. Through this WIP, we identify preliminary themes that represent explicit discourses connecting ethics and DEI and we cite associated literature. We unpack four themes that have a prominent presence in the abstracts that we have reviewed: cultural, global, social, and sustainable. These explicit connections will support future systematic review procedures wherein we will aim to identify implicit DEI and ethics connections via an analysis of whole manuscripts. While preliminary, we hope that these four themes can prompt strategies to connect ethics and DEI more purposefully when teaching towards these and related topics.

This work-in-progress research paper reports on an ongoing research study which addresses two research questions: RQ1) What are the moral narratives of engineering practitioners across industry sectors? RQ2) How are the engineers' moral narratives influenced by the organizational cultures of their workplaces? As stories that support and sustain one's moral life, moral narratives influence one's ethical decision-making. While it is expected that a better understanding of engineers' moral narratives can be helpful for improving engineering ethics education, little is known about engineers' moral narratives. This paper explains the methodological approach we are taking to answer the research questions. This paper also describes potential implications of this study by introducing a new pedagogical approach called Scaffolded Ethics Autobiography for engineering ethics education.

This highly interactive special session has two goals: developing a deeper understanding of current research on engineering practice, and connecting and growing a diverse and vibrant scholarly community interested in this topic. There has arguably never been a more exciting time to examine engineering practice. In addition to a strong employment outlook for most engineering specialties, engineering careers are being reshaped and reimagined by rapid technological change, intensified globalization trends, new cross-disciplinary interactions, demographic shifts, and changing organizational structures. Colleges, universities, and organizations such as ABET, Inc., the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are leading the charge to improve the alignment of engineering education with the demands of professional practice in response to these trends, potentially revolutionizing how current and future engineers are prepared as innovators, leaders, and change agents. Yet, not much is known about the diverse and multi-faceted realities of modern engineering practice and how this knowledge can be used to improve the education and training of engineers across career stages. Through presentations, networking opportunities, and group discussions, the special session will focus on using research on engineering practice to transform engineering education and the workforce.

In this Research Full Paper, we investigate moral disengagement among first-year engineering students. Current engineering ethics education typically assumes that providing information about what is ethical (i.e., as explicated in ethical codes) and developing ethical reasoning skills will lead to ethical behaviors in the classroom and on the job. However, we know that people, including students and practicing engineers, sometimes engage in unethical conduct. Bandura's theory of moral disengagement explains how people disengage from their ethical principles and behave unethically. In this paper, we investigate and characterize moral disengagement among first-year engineering students. This study is based on survey and interview data collected from first-year engineering students at four U.S. universities as part of a larger longitudinal, mixed-methods research project. Our survey sample showed similar or lower moral disengagement scores as compared to other studies, while our interview data revealed how different students applied different ethical frames when evaluating moral situations and/or making moral decisions. Moreover, seven of the eight types of moral disengagement measured by the survey instrument were evident in our interview data, and we propose another mechanism called unreflective disengagement. We expect our study will be of interest to researchers and engineering educators who wish to better understand moral disengagement among students, including as a potentially relevant factor in ongoing efforts to enhance engineering ethics training.

In this work in progress paper, we discuss how engineers make sense of their experiences in transitioning to managerial/leadership roles. Developing engineering talent in organizations has long been an issue for industries. Notably, with rapidly changing business models and flattened organizational structures, engineers are required to transition into managerial and leadership roles more quickly than ever before. Yet engineers and employers alike often characterize this as a difficult transition. Further, there remains a lack of empirical research on the nature of engineering managerial work practices. The research project described in this study will address the broader research topic: to holistically uncover the experiences of recently transitioned engineering managers. Specifically, this paper describes the motivation, relevant literature, and methodological approaches to address the primary research question: How do recently transitioned engineering managers make sense of their managerial work experiences? Complimentary and secondary research questions include: 1) What are the challenges faced by engineers as they transitioned into their new roles as engineering managers or leaders?, and 2) What specific competencies and/or strategies did the subjects view as essential for their survival and success at work? This paper presents an overview of the study design, including justifications for the use of relevant methodological frameworks and methods for the research. The paper concludes with a discussion of future work, as well as potential implications such as related to creating training content for professional development of engineers.

How to adequately prepare engineering graduates for careers in industry has long been a concern for academics, policymakers, and employers. However, the realities of engineering practice remain somewhat mysterious to many students and instructors, often leaving engineering graduates underprepared for the workplace, and employers dissatisfied with new employees. In this work, we seek to better understand the job expectations and realities of working life as experienced by early career engineers. In this paper, we more specifically focus on three engineering practice scenarios drawn from three interviews to demonstrate the complex, sociotechnical nature of engineering work in large corporations. Our analysis of workplace boundaries, boundary spanning activities, and personal attributes revealed an inextricably linked set of concepts that we present in a new conceptual framework. We conclude with a discussion of implications for both how we understand engineering practice and approach the teaching of engineering. It is expected that this paper can help students, faculty, and industry affiliates reflect on the realities of engineering work.

What images come to mind when you encounter the word “professor”? In many cases, our notions of a professor lead us to think of someone conducting research and teaching classes. However, our understanding of professors is in part limited by the professors we have been in contact with through our own educational experiences. Most people with PhD degrees attended a Doctoral University with Highest Research Activity, and therefore possess schema of professors in line with the professor at this type of institution. In this session, participants will be introduced to the narratives of twelve professors affiliated with institutions other than a Doctoral University with Highest Research Activity. These institution types include Baccalaureate Colleges, Master's Institutions, Doctoral Universities with Moderate Research Activity, and Doctoral Universities with Higher Research Activity. Through the use of personal narratives, the experiences of twelve assistant engineering professors will be considered. Session attendees will gain a broader understanding of what it means to be a professor by studying the experiences of professors at universities with varying focus on research and teaching.

In recent years, many universities have started working on development projects in developing and underdeveloped countries and have started to manage their own programs such as, EPICS. There are also several engineering organizations dedicated towards the needs in developed and developing countries such as, Engineering without Boarders, and Engineering for Sustainable World. In these programs, engineering students, young professionals, and faculty members are directly involved in international development initiatives and projects in developing and underdeveloped countries. Traditionally, in the Service-learning literature, most of the studies have focused on the learning outcomes, perspectives and experiences of the students. Although research focusing on understanding the perspectives of community partners about Service-learning outcomes, is gaining momentum and continuously increasing, most of them focus on domestic Service-learning projects. Although, community partners' perspectives (in domestic service learning program) research grounds in theory and the implications and results are valuable and useful, but because of the complexities of cross-cultural differences associated with ISL programs, these findings may not be suitable and applicable for international service learning (ISL) programs. In a recent study Reynolds, calls for more informed and community centered research on the impacts of ISL programs and partnerships not only from students' perspectives but also on the host communities. This work-in-progress paper is the part of a larger project in which we intend to look into the community partners' perspectives on the outcomes of an international Service-learning program. Our major objective is to understand the community partner's motivations, benefits and challenges of partnerships with an international Service-learning program and develop recommendations to enhance partnership relationship in ISL programs. Through this work-in-progress paper we present a background literature review and description of project scope and methods.

Mixed methods study designs can improve understanding of many research questions in ways not possible with only qualitative or quantitative methods. Yet despite its potential advantages, mixed methods research carries challenges related to added time and resources, research skill requirements, and justification hurdles. In recent years, scholars have started using mixed methods research to understand problems related to engineering education such as student retention, active learning, diversity, and classroom-based research. In this paper we report on an in-depth examination of mixed methods research articles published 2010-2015 in the Journal of Engineering Education (JEE). We found 12 qualifying articles that explicitly mentioned mixed methods in the abstract. To evaluate the identified studies we used a research process oriented framework that offers guidance for Good Reporting on a Mixed Methods Study (GRAMMS). The results from this in-depth examination of the selected JEE articles using the GRAMMS framework suggests that authors needed to be more explicit about the rationale behind using a mixed methods approach. It also suggests a need for more explicit focus on reporting the integration of qualitative and quantitative components. We expect our findings will be useful for researchers who are involved with carrying out and/or reviewing mixed methods studies, including by providing a view on the current state of the field and associated considerations for evaluating the quality of mixed methods research.

Graduate school is most commonly viewed as the entryway and the main site for socialization in the academic career of a faculty member. While faculty positions can vary widely by institution type, most graduate students are prepared for future academic positions during time spent at doctoral universities with very high research activity. However, the experiences of engineering faculty beginning their careers at institutions with varying teaching and research activity, i.e. institutions other than doctoral universities with very high research activity, remain understudied. The research project described in this work-in-progress paper details the plans to accomplish the following research objective: to document and describe the narrative accounts of the academic pathways and the teaching conceptions and methods of engineering assistant professors at institutions with varying teaching and research activity. This paper details the motivation, relevant literature, and methodological approach to a narrative research study that will specifically address two overarching research questions: 1) how do faculty experience the transition from graduate school and other previous educational and/or work experiences to their current faculty position?, and 2) how do faculty describe their current teaching conceptions and methods? In this paper, I summarize key decisions made while crafting my research proposal, including rationale for choosing narrative analysis and various validity considerations. I conclude with a discussion about potential implications of my work, including the creation of “inanimate more competent others” to assist graduate students making decisions about their academic pathways.

The Survey of Earned Doctorates indicates that almost three fourths of all doctoral degree recipients in engineering fields found employment in industry or business, and less than one eighth of them found employment in academia. Although these observations provide insight into the employment patterns, job opportunities, and realized career transitions of recent doctorate recipients, very few systematic studies have been conducted concerning potential mismatches between the career preferences and actual employment pathways among doctoral students in engineering. This issue is of particular importance given growing concern that these career patterns reflect fundamental imbalances between the supply of doctoral students seeking academic positions and the availability of such positions. Differences in job expectations and availability can also generate considerable dissatisfaction among students and may negatively impact relationships between students and advisors. In this preliminary study, the authors are investigating career preferences among doctoral students in engineering. The more specific focus of this paper centers on level and changes in preferred career choices during Ph.D. studies, as well as the role faculty advisors play in engineering doctoral students' career decision-making processes. For the purpose of this study, the research participants will be Ph.D. students in a specific level of their graduate study. The method for collecting and analyzing data will be quantitative survey method. The findings from this study have implications for higher education policymakers, faculty advisors, and other stakeholders (e.g., representatives of industry) related to better understanding engineering doctoral students' preferred career choices and changes in those choices during the course of their Ph.D. studies. More specifically, it is expected that the results will help policymakers, administrative staff, and faculty advisors encourage doctoral students to explore multiple career paths so these students can explore and be trained for the full range of likely job opportunities they will face upon graduation. In this work-in-progress paper, the authors will be discussing the relevant literature review and the research design of this preliminary study.

This special session invites academic researchers to temporarily adopt the commitments of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) in order to gain insight into psychological experiences in engineering education research. In this session, we will introduce participants to IPA as a methodology that is committed to understanding the lived experience of particular phenomenon while also recognizing that the researcher plays an interpretive role in generating such understanding. The participants will gain an introduction to doing IPA to systematically interpret a transcript through multiple iterations of understanding a text. This experiential learning session will be vibrant with focused activities of conducting qualitative analysis and reflecting on the process. Additionally, we will connect the intentional, analytic processes that are practiced to more holistic principles related to quality in interpretive engineering education research. The expected outcome of this session is that participants will have a robust foundation to begin or advance their inquiries using IPA or other forms of qualitative research.

Engineers are increasingly acting as “boundary spanners” who coordinate, collaborate, and communicate across many different kinds of boundaries. The research project described in this work-in-progress paper is shedding additional light on this trend by responding to two main research questions: 1) What specific boundary spanning roles, activities, and competencies are most important and prevalent for early career engineers, and 2) How do early career engineers experience boundary spanning challenges? One major goal of this project is to generate a typology of boundary spanning roles, activities, and competencies for multiple engineering fields. This paper more specifically describes methods and reports preliminary findings for the initial phases of our research. The first phase involves a systematic review of more than 80 journal articles and book chapters on boundary spanning and related concepts using established procedures for literature meta-analysis. In this paper we summarize the major themes and categories emerging from this process. The second phase of the project involves semi-structured interviews with engineering students and early career engineers. In this paper we focus on our interview methods, including development and use of a “primer” document to familiarize subjects with boundary spanning. We conclude by discussing the implications of our work, especially in relation to leading-edge approaches for instruction and assessment.

Engineering education researchers have been trying to improve the quality of engineering education. Related to these efforts, it is important to revisit and better understand the definition of engineering education. As part of our PhD coursework, we were required to create a short video depicting our understanding of the definition of engineering education. For this purpose, we created “a letter to the future engineer” that presented a holistic view of the challenges and opportunities involved in the professional practice of engineering. To write our letter, we collected real letters of advice from practicing engineers with varying demographic characteristics and experiences. Thematic analysis of the letters uncovered some country-level differences in terms of priorities, perceptions, and the professional life of the contributing engineers. The aim of this work-in-progress paper is to describe our experience of generating this letter of advice and to comment on the patterns we identified during this process. This idea calls for more in-depth studies to reveal the influence of culture and geographic regions on the engineers' perceptions of their profession.

This paper details the transition of one researcher in his journey from attending to the methods of research to identifying and enacting the methodology of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). In the backdrop of this paper is a larger qualitative study that is employing IPA to understand a rich picture of how engineering student become engineers, particularly by attending to the fuzzy boundaries between technical and social features of this identity. To ground the discussion of the paper, we draw on a transcript from a single interview in this study conducted with Kevin, a graduating mechanical engineer. We transparently share a reflexive account of conducting IPA research in order to introduce IPA as an excellent research tool for open areas of engineering education research. Further, our goals are to instill confidence in novice qualitative researchers as they embark on the arduous but rewarding path of conducting engineering education research using qualitative methods.

Prior research has demonstrated that traditional academic pathways tend to provide engineering students with a predominantly technical sense of professional identity. We respond to this research by investigating how a non-traditional pathway, marked by a large service-learning program, engenders a sense of engineering identity. We approach this investigation using a thematic analysis and are currently developing themes related to how alumni/ae of this program construct their engineering selves. We are currently in the early stages of analysis and will present the elaborated themes at the conference.

An ability to apply philosophical inquiry to both create and critique arguments about the current and future state of engineering education is a critical capability for future engineering educators to develop. However, there are few, if any, examples of how to do this. In this paper we describe a course that we have been offering for four years at Purdue University, History and Philosophy of Engineering Education, as an example of how to address this gap. We describe the learning objectives, conceptual frameworks used, learning and assessment activities, and examples of course assessments that illustrate learning outcomes.

Engineering education remains a relatively new and rapidly developing research field. As a result, there are significant variations in the quantity and kinds of engineering education research being conducted and published in different engineering disciplines and local/national contexts. Responding to a lack of systematic attempts to study such dynamics, this paper describes our ongoing efforts to investigate the quantity and nature of engineering education scholarship in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and allied fields over the last ten years. More specifically, we report preliminary results of an in-depth quantitative and qualitative analysis of journal articles (n=664) published in IEEE Transactions on Education from 2002 to 2011, including co-authorship patterns, geographic distribution of authors, and research funding reported. To help contextualize the study, the authors also discuss other studies of publication trends in engineering education research.

Over the last decade, a growing number of initiatives have emerged to provide engineering students, faculty, and professionals with opportunities to work on service-oriented projects in developing contexts. And while these courses and programs provide needed resources and services to communities in far-flung locations, they also pose unique challenges and difficulties. For example, projects of this type often require knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are not typically covered in traditional engineering courses nor possessed by many faculty. Additionally, there is growing recognition regarding the need to predict and evaluate the full range of impacts that student projects have on partner communities - both positive and negative. This panel engages these kinds of challenges by bringing together a group of individuals with extensive experience preparing engineering students for project work in developing contexts. In addition to representing programs at four institutions (Colorado School of Mines, Michigan Technological University, Purdue University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute), the presenters are involved with a host of related national and international initiatives. Each panelist will give an overview of their efforts, with particular emphasis on observed successes and failures, conceptual hurdles faced by students and professionals, pedagogical approaches employed, and most useful resources. The primary audience for this panel includes faculty, staff, and students who lead, support, and/or study global service learning. To enable a more engaging, interactive, and productive session, ample time will be provided to allow attendees to describe their own experiences, share resources, and pose questions. The primary intent of the panel is to help university students, faculty, and staff be more effective when undertaking engineering work in developing contexts. including by promoting scholarly community and collaboration, sharing resources, and seeding new research initiatives.

Textbooks play an integral role in teaching and learning across disciplines and levels of undergraduate engineering education. In this paper we present an empirically derived framework for evaluating engineering textbooks, based on prior findings from the field of engineering education research. Our more specific focus is content related to DC resistive circuits. We begin with a review of prior literature on textbook analysis in engineering education and other fields, and then provide a detailed description of our analytic framework, which includes three different categories of analysis: presentation features, conceptual content, and use of analogies. To demonstrate the utility of the proposed framework, we apply it to the content of a first-year engineering textbook. Our analysis reveals significant gaps between the textbook's coverage of electric circuit theory and recent advances in engineering education research, which provide many insights about effective teaching and learning techniques based on a conceptual understanding approach. Our analysis is relevant for textbook authors, who can use the framework presented in this paper to guide textbook development and revision. Instructors can also benefit by using our criteria to evaluate and select textbooks, and incorporating supplemental materials to address common conceptual gaps.

Project-Based Service Learning (PBSL) is increasingly popular in engineering programs as a way to develop key student skills and address community needs. Since most PBSL projects have the intention of providing a service to a community, it is critical that partner voices are heard. However, there has been little research examining the roles and motivations of project clients. To address the community perspective, the authors have identified six organizations with longstanding (over five years) partnerships with Purdue University's Engineering Projects In Community Service (EPICS) program, and will interview 1-3 individuals associated with each. These partners have been involved with numerous EPICS projects over multiple years. Our major objectives are to investigate why organizations maintain long-term partnerships with EPICS, and develop recommendations for enhancing benefits to all stakeholders. Here we present a background literature review and description of the project scope and methods.