Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference

This paper presents an outline for an upper-level human-computer interaction (HCI) course. This work is being carried out in the context of an NSF-sponsored effort by 26 CS educators to incorporate HCI into the undergraduate CS curriculum. This paper presents an overview of existing approaches for incorporating HCI in the undergraduate curriculum, including several "standard" textbooks. It briefly discusses the perceived gap between the interests of the HCI community and the needs of CS educators. It then proceeds to address this issue by presenting one possible implementation of the CC'01 HCI curricular guidelines. This implementation includes a semester-long course outline, project ideas and considerations, and, most importantly, measurable course objectives based on Bloom's taxonomy. Finally, it includes pointers for additional, forthcoming implementations of the CC'01 HCI curricular guidelines.

Teaching freshmen students, particularly in engineering, has and continues to be the subject of numerous papers. This paper describes another approach to introduce freshmen students to electrical engineering (EE). This is done through the freshman course-ELEG 1003: Introduction to EE-which has been taught since Fall 1995 in the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, USA. The main goals of this course are: (1) teaching problem-solving skills; (2) teaching the required knowledge in complex numbers and matrix operations; (3) introducing PSpice and Matlab(R); (4) starting to develop communication skills; (5) engaging freshmen in group work; (6) illustrating the different areas of EE; (7) increasing freshman motivations for a career in EE; (8) imparting to the freshmen a sense of belonging to the Department; and finally (9) improving student retention rates (if possible). The paper addresses how these ambitious goals are accomplished throughout this one-semester freshman course

In August 2000 the North Carolina State University College of Engineering (USA) with partial sponsorship from the SUCCEED Coalition organized and presented a one-week orientation workshop for new faculty members. The workshop goal was to equip new faculty members to become what Robert Boice calls "quick starters", who meet or exceed their institution's expectations for both research productivity and teaching effectiveness in their first one to two years. Two days were devoted to research program startup and management, two to effective teaching, and the final morning to managing time, integrating into campus culture, and earning tenure and promotion. The participants were unanimously and overwhelmingly positive in their responses following the workshop, and their enthusiasm has continued at gatherings and in surveys in the months that followed. This paper describes the workshop content and activities, summarizes follow-up support and assessment plans, and offers suggestions for planning and implementing similar programs

It is suggested that, to achieve the imperative of a 120-credit degree with more relevance, two broad changes need to be made to the engineering undergraduate curriculum: exploit a major instructional paradigm shift now possible with the computer and organize the curriculum along three major instructional stems. The paradigm shift is from problem solving to problem definition. The second change leading to fewer courses is a curriculum structured around distinct instructional stems which are readily understood by students and instructional staff. These stems are: (1) design (for synthesis skills), (2) math/science/engineering (for analysis skills), and social/business (for societal relevance)

This is a new approach for teaching and demonstrating the principles of designing testable digital circuits by using mini-projects. A mini-project in this context is a rather simple digital circuit which is utilized as a vehicle to transfer methods and knowledge to the students. Each mini-project has a practical application which can be understood easily and is implemented as an experiment on a special educational circuit board, GALEX, with an in-system programmable logic device, ispGAL22V10. The tool for design, synthesis and simulation is the evaluation version of the design environment, LOG/iC2. All lectures are held preferably in the laboratory with one PC and one GALEX board for each student. After presentation of the relevant theory in the lecture, each student has to design his own circuit for the lecture related mini-project. Hardware implementation is verified by external measurement. It is obvious that the systematic approach requires a design for testability from the very beginning. As a consequence, validation of all results is necessary and possible. Test vectors stored in a file must be used or even enhanced at every step of the design process. Students learn how to use all necessary hardware and software tools during the first mini-project in the very first lecture. This approach has already been in use for 3 semesters at the University of Heilbronn, Department of Manufacturing Engineering. The majority of the students say that they have a better motivation to study the course material because of the obvious commercial applications

The purpose of this paper is to describe the emerging results of a collaboration between education and engineering using science activities and instructional devices produced in a specially-designed undergraduate course, Introduction to Engineering and Technology (ENGR 101). These materials were used and evaluated by senior-level education students who then provided feedback regarding the clarity of the manual, the appropriateness of the activities, and the user-friendliness of the activities and devices. The process wherein education students used and assessed the instructional activities is described. In addition, preliminary findings are provided and future work outlined.

This paper discusses the cultivation and growth of one successful engineering service learning partnership and how these types of K-16 relationships may influence interest, motivation, and learning in the fields of engineering, science, mathematics, technology, and education. Recommendations for sustaining long term relationships are offered and the mutually beneficial academic and professional benefits of this type of educational methodology are explored by the authors who serve as joint instructional leaders for the Happy Hollow Elementary School and Engineering Projects in Community Service partnership

This paper briefly explores an historical period in the development of technical writing and documentation in the years immediately preceding World War II. German writers were meticulous in recording efforts to eradicate politically undesirable groups and used the most modern technology of the times for record-keeping. Students in engineering and writing classes can benefit from examining these documents by learning how apparent ethically neutral material does indeed have social and ethical implications

In 1971, about 100 engineering educators from industry, and academia gathered in Atlanta for the first Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference. Its leaders had a vision, and moved creatively to implement the vision. The journey through the conferences, which we call FIE, is worth documenting, as the conference has become a premier and often imitated conference. Some educators have been involved right from the beginning and continue. Others have disembarked, but many new contributors have joined. The paper documents some data. The paper is also an attempt to study the impact of the conference on engineering education over the last 30 years. What issues have been resolved? What new issues have emerged? What issues continue? What might emerge in the future? Of necessity, it contains some personal observations.

In 1971, about 100 engineering educators from industry and academia gathered in Atlanta for the first Frontiers in Education (FIE) conference. Its leaders had a vision, and moved creatively to implement the vision. The journey through the conferences, which we call FIE, is worth documenting, as the conference has become a premier and often-imitated conference. Some educators have been involved right from the beginning and continue. Others have disembarked, but many new contributors have joined. This paper documented some data and attempts to study the impact of the conference on engineering and computing education over the last 35 years. What issues have been resolved? What new issues have emerged? What issues continue? What might emerge in the future? Of necessity it will contain personal observations. The paper is an update of a similarly named paper published at the 2000 FIE

Researchers have long been interested in understanding the “climate” in undergraduate engineering programs. These themes are particularly important for underrepresented groups in engineering such as women. We examine how students perceive climate and how these attitudes vary by gender. Using a repeated cross-sectional design, we compare populations at three institutions from 1995 (N=2279) to 2009 (N=1590) to understand how students' perceptions have changed. Overall, the climate seems to have improved from 1995 to 2009. However, women and men differ in some perceptions of climate. We analyzed student responses from a framework of considering structural factors, faculty factors, and factors related to student agency. Women and men respond similarly on items measuring quality of teaching, perceptions of being taken seriously by faculty, and perceptions of cooperative relationships between male and female students. However, women score differently from men on items measuring perceptions of fairness, participation in study groups, and issues of diversity. Improving recruitment and persistence of women requires a nuanced understanding of the climactic conditions that promote their success.

There has been a great deal of recent activity in integrating algorithm visualization courseware into the first year computer science course (CS1 and CS2). At the University of the District of Columbia, the authors became interested in this area as a means of improving student performance in their first year course. The authors have developed visualization courseware to both add more structure to the lab and to enhance lectures. In the lab, students interact with the module individually. The student may explore the module or may be responding to a written set of directions. Sometimes the lab is used by the instructor to specify a problem. In other cases the module takes students through the steps needed to solve a problem. One result of this effort has been the development and use of a PC-based simulated robot environment to introduce students to programming

Web 2.0 technologies and social media have become pervasive elements of modern life, especially for the college-age population. Recent substantial advances in media authoring tools provide powerful platforms for academic content creation-by faculty and students alike. Leveraging these technologies in the service of education presents great promise, but also many challenges. In this workshop, we present hands-on training in the tools and strategies we have developed through the HigherEd 2.0 initiative. A four-university collaboration, HigherEd 2.0 encompasses digital content creation, digital library management, course deployment, and intervention evaluation. This workshop will address each of these elements, and include specific, hand-on training in multimedia development, course blog creation and management, and student creation of sharable digital course content.

The educational technology landscape is changing with Web-based tools emerging for collaborative learning. This paper describes a technology workshop session conducted for public school teachers. The session presented Web 2.0 tools and focused on blogs to enhance classroom learning. The workshop was developed using a course blueprint and Bloom's revised taxonomy to align content, instruction, and assessments by identifying desired cognitive processes and knowledge dimensions. The workshop demonstrated how to transfer in-class instruction into Web 2.0 contexts for enhanced student engagement. The key goals of the workshop were to teach about blogs, demonstrate pedagogy potential, and engage teachers in a lesson that they could use in their classrooms.

In May, 1994, more than 100 participants from industry, government, and universities met in Denver, Colorado to discuss and debate the challenge of maintaining engineering vitality during times marked by rapid technology changes, corporate downsizing, defense spending cuts, and globalization. Recommendations from this workshop, named Industry 2000, have spawned a series of workshops and educational products. The paper reports on those workshops and products. A new tool, the Career Asset Manager (CAM), to support the continuing education of engineering professionals is described. Also, recommendations from two workshops held during the first half of 1996 are presented

This study is using web-based surveys to obtain information about instructional material for the EC 2000 a-k competencies from institutions with ABET accredited programs. The first survey involves 105 institutions selected to provide a balanced distribution of engineering schools with large, medium, and small research expenditures and large, medium, and small graduating classes. The second survey involves the remaining 226 institutions with ABET accredited programs and is intended to add to the database. All survey responses are being collected online and automatically incorporated into the database.

With the establishment of the challenging Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC-2000) accreditation guidelines, institutions must obtain a more informed understanding of students' underlying knowledge, skills, and attitudes as they begin, matriculate, and eventually complete their engineering studies. As engineering educators collect information about how students demonstrate achievement in the “a-k” outcomes, questions arise as to whether differences exist between student groups, specifically gender and ethnicity differences. Such differences may potentially affect a student's performance and persistence in engineering. Prior research indicates that engineering students' initial attitudes, along with gender and ethnicity, are linked to first term probation and retention in the freshman year. How they are linked to achievement of the EC-2000 outcomes is still an open question. At the University of Pittsburgh, we are investigating how confidence in the outcomes changes throughout a student's undergraduate engineering career and how these self-assessed outcomes correlate with other `a-k' outcome metrics. As part of the larger study, the paper explores the issue of how confidence in the outcomes is influenced by gender and ethnicity factors at the freshman level. Using the Pittsburgh Freshman Engineering Attitude Post-Survey^TM and data from 16 US engineering schools, who took the questionnaire during the 1998-99 academic year, we have found a number of significant and consistent differences in the 11 outcomes with respect to student gender and ethnicity

This paper explains how the Delft University of Technology civil engineering faculty utilized the ABET 2000 criteria in a major curriculum revision process. The ABET 2000 criteria have been interpreted as three seemingly simple steps to be carried out by each engineering faculty: (1) define your product and thus its standard; (2) produce your product; and (3) assure the quality of your product. The product here is a graduate, not a curriculum! The author believes that much faculty insecurity with the third step above stems from a poor product definition in step 1; quality control is impossible without a good standard. This paper concentrates first, therefore, on defining the product or standard. It continues to describe how this better definition and the lessons learned while formulating it have been utilized in a major overhaul of the civil engineering B.Sc. curriculum at the Delft University of Technology. It concludes by reflecting on the overhaul process.

Gathering employer feedback for EC 2000 review is required and will give engineering education departments needed information for improving their degree programs. SUCCEED thinks the process can be simplified so that neither faculty nor employers are overwhelmed with the volume of possible data and paperwork. SUCCEED has a team comprised of assessment experts and engineering faculty and administrators from the eight SUCCEED campuses who have been working on identifying, developing, and testing best practices in outcomes assessment for the purpose of curriculum innovation and renewal. This team of 15 people represents experienced assessment directors who have served as national officers of assessment professional organizations, ABET visitors, department chairs, professors, and an assistant dean

Engineering Criteria 2000 require open and clear exchange between ABET evaluators and the administrators and program facility seeking evaluation. The Criteria encourage innovations in both programs and leadership by providing the opportunity and responsibility for defining unique program objectives. Under Engineering Criteria 2000, evaluators are charged to accept these program-specific objectives and to determine whether programs meet their stated goals, a process quite different from the application of pre-determined criteria. This new accreditation process necessitates enhanced communication between program representatives and evaluators. This paper provides a view of the evaluation process from several perspectives. A new Electromechanical Engineering program, evaluated in the fall of 1998, is the focus of several points of view; the chairperson of the program, program faculty, program students, and an EAC evaluator. The effect of Criteria 2000 on program processes, the steps required for visit preparation and for the visit itself; and the post-visit effects of constructive feedback from ABET evaluators are detailed. The ways in which novel programs are fostered and encouraged by Criteria 2000 receives particular emphasis. Program administrator evaluator faculty and student perspectives of the accreditation process experience are illustrated. While new program evaluations are especially challenging for all concerned, evaluator and program participants alike can find Criteria 2000 evaluations opportunities for discovering ways to improve engineering education

The paper addresses the outcome assessment process at the University of Denver, how it was received by the ABET visiting team and what changes were and are continually being made. The Engineering Department at the University of Denver was selected as one of 12 to be visited in autumn 1998 and evaluated under Criteria 2000. The department has undergraduate programs in computer, electrical, general and mechanical engineering. These BS degrees are also combined with a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) resulting in two degrees in 5 years. All 8 programs were evaluated under Criteria 2000 and all received accreditation

Engineering Criteria 2000 contains two kinds of items: (1) requirements which must be satisfied, as well as (2) other evidence mentioned that may be used but is not required. Since the new criteria include a number of items of both kinds not considered directly in the present Topics Criteria a longer lead time is needed for the initial preparation. These items are grouped in this paper and a common-sense time schedule suggested for implementation in preparing for an accreditation visit under Engineering Criteria 2000 for programs in electrical engineering and computer engineering at the University of Kansas in the Fall of 2000. A particular emphasis is placed on the program outcomes and assessment criterion. Comparisons with the Topics Criteria are presented and recommendations made on avoiding some common problems. Selected information from a working symposium in April 1997 at Rose-Hulman on best assessment practices in engineering education is also included

This paper reports some observations on previsit communications from the points of view of both the visitor and program, resulting from a C2k visit to the Electrical Engineering program at the University of Arizona. A summary of the types of information exchanged in advance of this visit is provided and analyzed. Also, suggestions for future enhancements in communications are made. It is important that requests for information to the institution not become overwhelming, and that the requests be made in a form and with sufficient lead time that permits effective response. The authors believe that the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the review process can be significantly enhanced by enhancement of pre-visit communications

This paper presents a summary of the status of implementation of ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 from the points of view of two program evaluators, drawing from personal experiences. The following aspects are addressed: the evaluators' approach to the review, content and organization of pre-visit materials, suggestions for changes to the present self-study format, means of evaluation of the various EC 2000 components (goal-setting and improvement process, assessment plan, accomplishment of the EC 2000 criteria, program criteria, etc.), communications between the evaluator and the program faculty before, during, and after the visit. This is more necessary than in the past because EC 2000 represents an interwoven set of educational activities and outcomes, compared to the previous criteria. More challenging is the need to assess and document a broad range of types of student outcomes with some degree of quantification, where this has not been attempted (or even considered) in the past. Also, in the authors' experience, there is a need to assure a more consistent level of documentation of all of the aspects of EC 2000, rather than focusing on a particular portion

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Criterion 2, Program Educational Objectives, of the Basic Level Accreditation Criteria for Engineering Criteria 2000 states: "Each engineering program for which an institution seeks accreditation or reaccreditation must have in place (a) detailed published educational objectives that are consistent with the mission of the institution and these criteria, (b) a process based on the needs of the program's various constituencies in which the objectives are determined and periodically evaluated, (c) a curriculum and process that ensures the achievement of these objectives, and (d) a system of ongoing evaluation that demonstrates achievement of these objectives and uses the results to improve the effectiveness of the program." Briefly, part (a) states know where your educational institution is going. Part (b) requires a documented process for determining your direction. Part (c) states that your must be able to determine whether or not you are heading in the direction in which you indicated. Finally, part (d) says you must use the feedback from part (c) to improve the effectiveness of your program. The author considers part (d) discussing the learning process model, adaptive goal-seeking process, change process and interactive process.

Computing curricula 2001 (CC-2001) presents a set of curricular recommendations for undergraduate computer science programs. CC-2001 presents a computer science body of knowledge and identifies a list of core topics/units within each component body of knowledge that a computer science program should require. While some of these core units span hours that warrant or are equivalent to a full course, the core units for other areas are significantly less. This paper presents our experiences with integrating intelligent systems (IS) core units of CC-2001 into the undergraduate curriculum through the more traditional core courses such as discrete mathematics, data structures, and algorithms, thus eliminating the need to require a full course in the area in departments with various constraints that prevent this from being possible.

The IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery will complete their initial volumes in the Computing Curriculum 2001 project in 2001 and the IEEE Computer Society will continue to work on the volume on computer engineering. The purpose of the paper is to present an overview of the current status of the work in computer engineering curriculum development and to invite suggestions, comments and feedback

Summary form only given, as follows. In 2001 the IEEE Computer Society and the Association for computing Machinery will complete their initial volumes in the Computing Curriculum 2001 project. The project is a continuation of the joint effort that had resulted in the earlier Curriculum 91 project. At the 2001 Frontiers in Education Conference, the background and the philosophy of the project is reviewed, and the details of the recommended programs are discussed. Additionally, time will be provided to receive feedback regarding the report as well as suggestions for future curriculum projects of the, two societies

SCORM is one of the most important specifications in e-learning. Its content aggregation model and run-time environment has been implemented in a large number of learning management systems (LMS). SCORM 2004 has defined a Sequencing specification which facilitates the instructional design of a subject. Faculty can define what contents should be studied and what questions should have been answered correctly before the study of a new content.But this sequencing specification presents some limitations, as the processing speed, which could be slow if the number of students is large, and the reading of the results, which is difficult if the teacher has not any SCORM knowledge. In this paper, a new open source tool, with a new organization of the data which minimizes the calls between modules is presented, increasing the processing speed. In addition, the results reports are shown in an easy way, in order any teacher can use them without any previous knowledge. These improvements do not affect the compatibility with SCORM 2004 content packages build over other systems.

The objective of this study was the creation of a BS degree program which is ideally matched to the needs of industry in 2005. In 1992, the Faculty of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of UAB requested that an in-depth study of major employers of graduates of the Electrical Engineering Program be accomplished for use in curriculum development. The Industry Survey consisted of the results of 47 interviews in five major companies in the Birmingham Metro Area and three major firms in Huntsville. Three specific recommendations were made as a result of the survey: (1) software selected for use in academic courses should be current industry-used software to ensure maximum transfer from student life to professional life; (2) the curriculum should contain English/Personal Communication/Teamwork course material; and (3) engineering economy and corporate finance should be incorporated into the curriculum

This work further details a survey of engineering capstone design courses nationwide conducted in 2005. The survey is a follow-up to one conducted in 1994 by Todd et al., reprising the questions of its predecessor plus requesting additional information. We implemented the 2005 survey online, with requests sent via email to representatives of all ABET-accredited engineering programs (1724 programs at 350 institutions, as of 2004). The online survey yielded a strong response, with 444 programs from 232 institutions submitting responses. This corresponds to a 26% response rate from engineering programs and a 66% response rate from institutions. This paper focuses on the additional questions in the 2005 survey that provide further insight about the current state of engineering capstone education. In particular, the paper discusses results relating to course management, student deliverables and evaluation, program funding, and perceived capstone course success

The purpose of this special session is to continue the conversation began at FIE 2007 that asked the question “Can philosophy of engineering education improve the practice of engineering education? The session is summarised on http://www.ws. binghamton. edu/PhilEngEd/ It has become clear that this debate fits in with a broader and international debate on philosophy of engineering that although not directed at the philosophy of education has outcomes that bear on the curriculum and instruction. Some one hundred papers on engineering philosophy have been published in the last three years. A paper summarizing some of the features of these studies accompanies this discussion in the Proceedings. During the year Smith has revisited his suggested reading on the philosophy of education and that is also in the Proceedings. Together this work has enabled us to refocus the issues in order that as a group we can develop our thinking.

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In the context of a large, multi-section, interdisciplinary design course, we have designed measures to integrate the instruction and assessment of moral decision making into the core curriculum. This paper provides an overview of our work currently in progress on one of these measures, our assessment instrument. We will describe the foundational pedagogical frameworks we explored, the existing instruments we considered, and the processes we used to design the instrument as it is currently. We will share lessons learned from the process of our work, including the mistakes we made and the path we took to arrive at our current direction. We will share what preliminary data we have, our experiences with initial pilots, and our thoughts on how this will influence our direction going forward. Finally, since this work is ongoing and dependent on our interaction with students, we will share our plans for the future, both short and long term.

This Special Session addresses a fundamental question: What changes must we make to ensure that engineering students will become what the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has referred to as "the engineer of 2020"? These graduates will compete in Friedman's "flat world," a world in which workers from China, India, and the former Soviet Block countries now possess the education and connectivity required to compete in a global economy with America's engineers at much lower salaries. The session seeks to generate discussion of the meaning of attributes central to conceptions of the Engineer of 2020 and to provide guidance from the engineering education community for an NSF-funded national survey of engineering education's readiness and capacity to produce the engineers of 2020. The session involves small-group discussions focusing on three attributes of the Engineer of 2020 (design and problem-solving skills, interdisciplinary competence, and contextual competence), and closes with brief group reports and extended discussion of these attributes.

This work-in-progress paper presents initial findings from Prototype to Production, an NSF-funded, national benchmarking study of engineering education. The sample included 86 program chairs and 1,119 faculty members from six fields on 32 campuses. Surveys asked chairs and faculty how much curricular emphasis their programs and courses place on 25 topics and skills advocated in The Engineer of 2020 report from the National Academy of Engineering. The paper explores the extent to which faculty members' and chairs' responses are congruent and whether their reports vary by discipline, type of institution, and type of course. Results suggest that most programs and courses continue to stress technical engineering content. Some programs and faculty, however, are addressing professional topics such as globalization, contextual awareness, leadership, and diversity. Analyses indicate few discrepancies between faculty and chairs' reports, or among different institutions or engineering disciplines. However, certain topics tend to be emphasized more in first-year and capstone design courses than in required and elective engineering courses.

Highlighting two higher education institutions that have been identified as exemplary in preparing engineering undergraduates for 2020, this work in progress paper focuses on what these institutions are doing to prepare their students. Using case study approaches, findings suggest that engineering undergraduate students gain contextual competence, design and problem solving, and interdisciplinary competence skills through curriculum redesign efforts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Howard University. These design efforts include innovative teaching strategies, year-long undergraduate research opportunities, and extracurricular activities.

Engineering curricula in modern universities are mostly designed toward solving the problems of the one billion rich but do not address the needs of the five billion poor on our planet. This is unfortunate as the demand of the developing world for engineering solutions is likely to increase in the forthcoming years due to population growth. There is a need for training a new generation of engineers who could better meet the challenges and needs of the developing world. In the College of Engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, we are developing a new

The Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Drexel University (USA) has revised and completely restructured the 5-year coop degree in electrical engineering. The new curriculum, called ECE 21, provides depth and breadth in subject area with significant flexibility in course choices and concentrations. Concentrations, or tracks, have been defined in the subject areas of Computers, Controls and Robotics, Electric power and Energy, Electronics, and Telecommunications. Their curriculum delivers design and laboratory experiences throughout the five years and enhances teamwork and communications skills. Assessment instruments are in place to insure that the ECE 21 curriculum will improve on a continuous basis

The grades assigned at quarterly intervals to 10 projects in a project-based mechatronics systems design class named ME210 were plotted alongside the number of distinct noun phrases (NPs) in the project reports. It was found that the grades were strongly associated (gamma>0.7) with the number of distinct NPs, while they were weakly associated with other variables, like readability and the number of words. These initial results open up a new set of ways for assessing design work and, as a consequence, improving the performance of students doing design tasks

While assessment is a 'buzz-word' at many- universities, the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) has actively applied assessment techniques over the past two decades. This paper addresses the assessment approach, techniques and outcomes that have evolved the required electrical engineering core course for all non-engineering majors, Electrical Engineering 215 (EE 215), The statistical data is derived from 8354 cadets, who were enrolled in EE 215 from its initial Spring 1991 offering through Spring 2000. The emphasis is the Spring 2000 semester. The USAFA's automated assessment tool is a macro-driven, excel-spreadsheet that records all graded events and produces objective statistical assessment data. The assessment challenge, facing any academic institution, is to establish cost-effective procedures that provide the necessary assessment outcomes without requiring excessive academic-staff efforts. This case study illustrates example procedures, tools, benefits, and problems in collecting multi- section, core-course assessment data. In summary, the USAFA assessment procedures and developed course material has general academic community application.

The communication revolution that began in the latter portion of the 20^th century has brought a new focus on communication to 21^st century students both in and out of the classroom. In the classroom, student communication is rapidly increasing through the application of active learning strategies and cooperative learning. No longer are students expected to learn in isolation. Outside the classroom, technology has brought the classroom to the student in a variety of ways now centered on the World Wide Web. Students have access to e-mail and information 24-hours a day and are often expected to collaborate and communicate with classmates in design teams and on homework. This paper explores the nearly all-encompassing focus on communication as a cornerstone in the education of today's engineering students

The authors describe how, using National Science Foundation guidelines, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Department at Queensborough Community College (USA) has designed a pilot project intended to: maximize student mastery of engineering technology so they can grow professionally with advances in technology; create a model instructional environment that provides a learning experience for students that will prepare them for the contemporary work place; heighten student interest and academic commitment to the electrical and computer engineering technology curriculum; and share courseware, applications of technology, teaching methodologies, and outcomes of the project for enrichment of the science, engineering, and technology curricula at the college level

A number of disciplines, including computer science (CS), information systems, software engineering (SE) and computer engineering, in a variety of academic units, are concerned with the education of software professionals. However, these programs vary widely in addressing the fundamentals of software education in their respective curricula. In response to this, the Working Group on Software Engineering Education and Training (WGSEET) is developing Guidelines for Software Education. These guidelines can be used for software education in all computer-related programs, while providing a foundation for its integration into their respective curricula. The Guidelines assume that SE is essential to all software education courses, and identify 12 "components" of SE that should be, to one degree or another, in all computer-related curricula. The first task of the Guidelines development team has been to develop an undergraduate SE curriculum model using those components.

The complexity inherent in the newest technologies as well as the complexity inherent in the multiplicity and diversity of societal needs and perspectives in relation to those technologies calls for a new approach to undergraduate engineering education. We believe this new approach requires a paradigmatic shift from a linear reductionist mindset to a nonlinear holistic mindset. To accomplish such a shift in undergraduate engineering education we propose a new context, new content and new pedagogy to reinforce the context and content. The latter includes the concept of praxis, a set of personal, group and professional practices, which have the goals of internalizing knowledge, enhancing self-awareness and embodying the values of a new integrated culture of engineering. We believe that the program advocated in this paper can be implemented within the constraints of the normal 4 year curriculum by utilizing the ABET humanities and ethics requirements more effectively

Engineering Managers in the 21^st Century will be operating in a very different environment compared to 2008. The major change is that it will be a more globalized world. The professional and educational requirements of senior engineering managers will need to noticeably evolve to meet these changes. Thus, there are implications for relevant education providers such as engineering faculties. This paper provides results of a 2007 investigation into the perspectives of CEOs on career progression of engineers from new graduates to CEOs in Australia, and determining the skills and qualities engineers need as CEOs of large companies. The paper also investigates the implication of predicted changes in operating environments in the year 2020 via an environmental scan, and recommends strategies for career development for the potential senior engineering managers of the 21^st century. This paper also proposes potential implications for educators. Some unique findings are that it will be desirable to have an ability to deal with the increasingly globalized nature of engineering projects and an ability to lead multi-disciplinary multi-cultural teams but to also possess deep technical knowledge, as opposed to a generalist background.

This work constitutes of a brief presentation about the manufacturing graduation program that attends the new demands of a challenging global world. It is about the COPEC Institute of Education and Research New Graduation Program: The Manufacturing Engineering (ME) Program. It has been specially designed in order to fulfill the lack of formation of dedicated professionals to work hard with the goal of promoting the development of Manufacturing (and Management) researches. The main objective of this program is to empower manufacturing engineers to operate at a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness. Manufacturing is still a big employer and it tends to be a very visible one in many places.

Expansion in the semiconductor industry is creating a large demand for technicians. Community colleges are hard-pressed to meet this demand through existing programs and courses. This paper presents a new curriculum model for associate of applied science degree programs in semiconductor manufacturing and suggests a model for precursor programs at the high school level. Implementations of new curricula in semiconductor manufacturing are presented

This paper describes the need, source, structure, and role of competencies in the Greenfield coalition for new manufacturing education. The need for competencies both as design specifications and as a common vision for all parties involved in the project is presented. The competency development process leverages industrial experience by describing the career path of a manufacturing engineer in industry. An evolutionary organizing strategy is used to define four core competencies that build upon each other. Competencies developed by Greenfield's curriculum committee are organized in a hierarchical fashion with each level being explained more fully by succeeding level sub-competencies. The resulting competencies and their organization have provided a platform for a meaningful arrangement of knowledge areas; furthermore, faculty are now using the competencies as the high-level goals of their curriculum development project proposals