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Innovative use of Computer tools in Teaching Structural Engineering Applications

Summary This paper reports on using Microsoft Excel coupled with Visual Basic for Application (VBA) in teaching two courses for the students in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department in United Arab Emirates University. The first course covers the use of the stiffness matrix method for the analysis of 2D trusses, beams and frames. The latter has a more advanced content by focusing on 2D solid elements, plates and shells. Throughout the offering of both courses, the authors, with the aid of hands-on sessions and multimedia, guide their students to develop different user-defined VBA functions in Excel, which are used to derive the solution of different structural and stress analysis problems. The paper also proposes a new method in Excel that may be used to eliminate possible cheating (e-cheating) when students exchange files using email, Bluetooth or any other means. The proposed method has been utilised by the authors to minimise potential e-cheating and copying among students.