Practical placement

The goal of the course is to teach students how to, on an individual level use acquired knowledge, and how to autonomously approach the gathering of new knowledge in a manner uncharacteristic for a conventional study process. Students thus become acquainted with the methods which they will have to use in their future professional careers or during their further studies on the higher levels.

Students obtain knowledge through autonomous work carried out under the supervision of the assigned mentors through undertaking practical placement. Students use the professional and methodological knowledge obtained during their studies in practice and thus learns to solve practical problems in their professional field.

The knowledge obtained and the newly acquired competences contribute to the increase of the number of employment opportunities for the future graduates of the School of Engineering and Management. At the same time, the companies offering students practical placements thus gain a possibility to find and select their prospective human resources.

The competences acquired are:

• the ability to use the obtained knowledge in practice,
• developing analytical thinking skills, which enable students to successfully study and solve actual problems in practice,
• the ability to individually solve professional problems by searching for the sources (including those in foreign languages) and using the research methods in the field of engineering and management,
• the ability to provide a critical evaluation of the results obtained,
• the ability to work in a team,
• the ability to work under supervision of a mentor,
• developing communication skills using professional language.

There are no additional requirements for students with fulfilled conditions for enrollment to the 3rd year.

Students undertake a mandatory practical placement in the duraction of 480 hours in a selected company. The practical placement is planned as a project, and its main part includes solving a relevant concrete problem from the engineering and management field.

Selection of topic of practical placement:
The school proposes a list of selected contemporary topics, mentors and the adjoining list of companies, with which the school has signed agreements about practical placement. With the help of the school's coordinator for practical placements, who establishes links with companies and manages the list of topics, each student selects a topic of practical placement. Upon prior agreement with the School, the student can select the topic and place of the practical placement on the basis of his/her own choice, followed by the coordinator's confirmation. The coordinator has individual meetings with each student, offering them advice in all open matters. This support is offered also in later steps, if needed. Some topics in the proposed list are specified at the level which allows further details to be agreed with the student, mentor and the company, so as to match student's professional preferences and interests of the company. Before the students starts the placement, a form is filled in with tasks and goals specified, and confirmed with signatures of the students and both mentors, one from the school and one from the company. The topic relates to the study program, it should be in line with the interests of the company and should represent a practical value for it. The topic of practical training is chosen so that the student can upgrade it in the diploma work.

The course is designed to require individual student work under the supervision of both mentors. Apart from practical work, the course also requires the search and study of various sources related to the studied issues, which in the continuation of the study serves as a basis for the preparation of the diploma work.

The course is designed in a manner requiring the students to work autonomously under the supervision of both mentors. Besides practical tasks, the course also requires students to search for and study various sources of literature related to the task, which later serves as a basis for writing their diploma thesis.

Knowledge and understanding:
After undertaking practical placement, students are able to:
• use their knowledge of the selected topic, acquired during their studies, in problem-solving in practice,
• analyse a problem in practice from a professional point of view and by performing practical tasks and using the theory to suggest appropriate solutions,
• find relevant literature sources in the Slovene and English languages and perform a critical selection of relevant information, as well as to establish links between pieces of information to contribute to finding a solution of the problem faced in practice,
• to work autonomously in the selected working environment for the whole period of the practical placement (480 hours) and thus gain appropriate work habits in their professional field,
• present the results or findings to their co-workers, mentor and others.

Due to the contemporary nature of the selected topics and the fact that the selected topics are linked to an actual study case of an ongoing practice problem within the selected company, the literature does not only consist of a single textbook or scientific publication. It is rather based on data obtained from scientific and technical papers, internet releases, from reports etc., that is, through gathering and linking the information from various sources under the guidance provided by the mentors.

Descriptive grades »pass« and »fail« are used. A common grade is assigned to a student on the basis of the written report and oral presentation with discussion. 100%

Dr. Imre Cikajlo, is a full professor of electrical enginiring received his PhD degree in robotics and electrical engineering from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia in 2003. From 2003 until 2004 he was a post-doc fellow at the Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan and in 2007 a visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo, Japan. Currently he is a Senior Research Associate at the University rehabilitation institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia and an Associate Professor at the University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia. Prof.Cikajlo took part in several EU-FP7 projects (GENTLE/S, MIMICS, CORBYS), H2020 (PD_manager) and startup (MindMyths Ltd.) and company supported projects (Gorenje). He published more than 100 journal papers, book chapters and books and holds a patent in EU and USA. In 2000 he received the Prešeren Award from Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Ljubljana. His research interests include human motion analysis and synthesis, biomechanics, integration of sensory information, control of machine and human movements and rehabilitation robotics. Currently he is involved in the development of rehabilitation devices and procedures that may be used in clinical and/or home environment through application of telerehabilitation techniques and introduction of virtual reality in rehabilitation. He is also a member of ISVR, IFMBE and IEEE.

Selected bibliography

1. CIKAJLO, Imre, HUKIĆ, Alma, ZAJC, Dejana. Exergaming as part of the telerehabilitation can be adequate to the outpatient training : preliminary findings of a non-randomized pilot study in Parkinson's disease. Frontiers in Neurology, ISSN 1664-2295. [Online ed.], March 2021
2. TIMOTIJEVIĆ, Lada, CIKAJLO, Imre, et al. Designing a mHealth clinical decision support system for Parkinson's disease : a theoretically grounded user needs approach. BMC medical informatics and decision making, ISSN 1472-6947, Feb. 2020, vol. 20, iss. 1, str. 1-21,
3. GORŠIČ, Maja, CIKAJLO, Imre, NOVAK, Domen. Competitive and cooperative arm rehabilitation games played by a patient and unimpaired person : effects on motivation and exercise intensity. Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, ISSN 1743-0003, 2017, vol.
4. POTOČNIK, Božidar, DIVJAK, Matjaž, URH, Filip, FRANČIČ, Aljaž, KRANJEC, Jernej, ŠAVC, Martin, CIKAJLO, Imre, MATJAČIĆ, Zlatko, ZADRAVEC, Matjaž, HOLOBAR, Aleš. Estimation of muscle co-activations in wrist rehabilitation after stroke is sensitive to motor unit distribution and action potential shapes. IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering, ISSN 1534-4320. [Print ed.], May 2020, vol. 28, iss. 5, str. 1208 - 1215
5. CIKAJLO, Imre, PETERLIN-POTISK, Karmen. Advantages of using 3D virtual reality based training in persons with Parkinson's disease : a parallel study. Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation, ISSN 1743-0003, 2019, vol. 16, str. 1-14, ilustr