Ethics, engineering, and sustainable development

The author attempts to provide the rationale for a philosophy of engineering ethics grounded in the notion of sustainable development. It is central to his thesis that this new philosophy can be best inculcated into the culture of engineering through engineering education-experience and intuition are not enough. Engineering ethicists must work more closely with engineering scientists to ensure that all facets of sustainable technology become a practical reality. While professors of engineering science can increase awareness by stimulating engineering students to build sustainable ideas into their designs, professors of engineering ethics might work to complement this by helping to transform the attitudes, values, and philosophies of the new engineer. If the engineering profession can accomplish this grand challenge through engineering ethics education, and train future engineers to become leaders in business and social policy, as well as counselors to corporate executives and citizens alike, they can finally fulfill their professional ideal as benefactor of humankind, and no longer be cast as obedient servants to corporatism.     

Evaluation Variables in Personalized Teaching and the Sharing of Records with Students

A university student is treated as an entrepreneur in his pursuit of education. In spite of this, he is not furnished with the entrepreneurial type of information on the state of his enterprise. Objective and subjective kinds of information about students and their progress are reviewed. Two functions of time called Relative Accomplishment and Relative Standing are defined; they characterize the learning progress of each student in relation to the respective progress of his colleagues. Values of these two functions can be periodically passed to students. Each student so informed can review his learning performance and manage his efforts at the school in an intelligent and more efficient way.     

Hello! Mr. Sage

Mr. Sage, an ideal Professor, can motivate, evoke involvement, and supply rewards and reinforcement, for each individual student all within the same class period. Although his minimum standards require mastery of concepts at all levels of learning, from simple memory to creativity, he does not expect the same performance of all students. His grades are directly related to the breadth of subject matter and depth of mastery. He personalizes his instruction within the classroom and in homework assignments by a range in the difficulty of illustration, thereby challenging each student to his capacity. He uses tests and examinations as learning experiences. To achieve this he combines the excellent feature of the conventional system and the current views on personalized system of instruction.     

Programmed Instruction: An Application of the Engineering Method

Programmed instruction is developed in a manner analogous to an engineering design problem, hence engineers can apply many of their skills to the design of such instructional materials. Like the engineer, the programmer first sets up his objectives and specifications before beginning to lay out his detailed design. The design work is followed by prototype testing and revision and then by field testing before production. The power of the program is based on the student's active response to a carefully designed sequence of elements. The combination of detailed specification of requirements, active response, and objective testing will produce reliable results.     

A cost-effective approach for the development of an integratedPC-PLC-robot system for industrial engineering education

Advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) instruction is and is likely to remain an important component of the industrial engineering education curriculum. As new manufacturing technologies become available and as existing manufacturing technologies become more integrated, industrial engineering departments must continuously develop their laboratory resources in order to provide their students with effective instruction. While financially limited departments cannot acquire state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, they can provide improved hands-on AMT integration instruction without major capital investment. By developing an interface box between existing LabVolt PLC trainers and Microbot TeachMover robots, the industrial engineering department at a major Northeastern US university was able to provide its students with improved AMT integration instruction     

Implementing Guided Design in a Medical Instrumentation Course

I converted a medical instrumentation course to an experiential system called Guided Design. This is a teaching-learning system that is based on a set of open-ended problems. These establish the basis for both the student's study of subject matter, which is done outside of class, and decision-making work which is done in class. The classroom work is organized around printed "Instruction-Feedback" material which guides the students, who work in small groups of 4 to 7, in their decision-making efforts. Each instruction asks the students to make a decision about one step in the solution of an open-ended problem. The students agree on an answer before they compare their thinking with the ideas provided in the Feedback, which models the way an experienced decision-maker would have done the work. I include my experiences in taking Guided Design, which was developed at another institution, and transferring it to my situation. The characteristics of this transfer should be of interest to other developers of educational innovations, who desire to promote successful transfer.     

Flexibility and adaptability in engineering education: an academicinstitution perspective

To survive in the highly competitive environment, an engineering education institution must offer its students an attractive system of study. Essential features of such a system are flexibility and adaptability. Flexibility means that the system provides a large number of diverse opportunities and allows the students to take advantage of the existing diversity. A flexible system of study should provide for multiple entry and exit points, and for several areas of concentration within one or more fields of study. Student's freedom in design of his/her individual program of study should not be restricted by an excessive number of compulsory courses. The student should also be allowed to adjust the course load in each term to his/her background and speed of learning. Adaptability of a system of study means that adjustments in curricula, reflecting advances in science and technology, trends on the labor market, and evolution of international standards of engineering education, can easily be performed. In this paper, the authors discuss how to restructure a system of study to make it more flexible and adaptable. The general ideas are illustrated with an example of a recently restructured system of engineering education at their institution-the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. They demonstrate that flexibility and adaptability of the system of study contribute to the overall quality of education     

Java applets for microelectronics education

This work describes a library of online courseware utilizing Java applets developed for microelectronics education. The objective is to provide an online learning environment that supplements resident instruction. Java applets are utilized to interactively demonstrate principles, provide design tools, and allow students to test their knowledge via online quizzes. The course material and Java applets are included on the CD-ROM     

炼就高职教育的“精、气、神“

示范性高职院校建设,关键在于炼就高职教育的“精、气、神”。精——突出一个“高”字,就是牢牢把握高等教育的定位,办出高等教育的特色。气——突出一个“职”字,着力培养“下得去、用得上、留得住”,具有高级技术应用能力的职业人才。努力体现“职”字,是建设过程中重中之重的任务。要进一步领会职业教育的内涵和精神,防止将职业教育等同于职业技术训练的倾向。神——突出一个“校”字,“以学校为本”,创建具有自身特色的个性化高职院校,展示各校自己独特的风采。示范性高职院校建设是一个过程,要做的事情很多,必须把握好建设的关键节点。     

Playing It Straight

The author shares his personal experiences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute relating to all aspects of the campus life of black students both at the graduate and undergraduate level. There are certain clear-cut guidelines that must be developed if any program is going to work and not only increase the number of minority students entering engineering programs, but also improve the probability of their completing their programs and graduating. A basic element of the successful program is openness and frankness-"lay out all cards on the table."     

The Status of the Humanities in Engineering Education

It is more important that the courses in humanities taken by students of engineering stimulate their further curiosity and interest than it is to inform them concerning specific facts and ideas. On the other hand the approach in such courses must be intellectually challenging and rigorous. The effects of such education in the humanities are likely to depend far more on the quality of instruction than on the quantity of course work that is required.     

The Responsibilities of the Engineering Instructor

Recent technological developments have intensified the problems of educating young people for the engineering profession. Even though these developments have given birth to many areas of study in engineering, the increasing demand for engineers has in many cases forced engineering schools to abridge, rather than lengthen, their curriculum. The responsibility of providing a lasting and meaningful engineering education to students who are on campus for the short period of four years rests solely with the instructor. Consistently distributing lecture notes, working hard and closely with his students, and displaying a clear concern for the welfare of his students are suggested as possible ways the instructor can fulfill his responsibilities.     

Are required courses meeting industry demands?

In electrical engineering, the undergraduate curriculum is well defined but the course layout can cause students to lack the skills industry expects of interns and new full time employees. With their specific expectations, industry influences the choices that students make concerning internships, co-ops or even entering the workforce before finishing school. Does the university course layout enhance skills and knowledge or hinder students' preparation for industry? Most engineering programs recommend an internship to gain the soft skills needed to 'make it out there'. Most internships or co-ops in the United States are with individual companies. Students work on projects that maintain and develop products. While at the companies, students learn what to expect from that industry and tend to re-evaluate their engineering program on its design and information procedures. Some students then expect more from their university or leave for proffered jobs before getting their degrees. Still others do not have either opportunity. The author describes some of the experiences of internship students     

BET's in Industry: Feedback from Technologists concerning Licensing and Continuing Education

The engineering technologist has in the past been surveyed concerning his academic background, the number of students in his graduating class, and what his employers think of him. Unfortunately, all of this information has come, "second-hand"-the technologists themselves have not been interviewed as to their feelings on these as well as other questions of interest. Some of the "other questions of interest" concern licensing, continuing education, changes in curriculum, and job satisfaction. Professional licensing has become a "hot" item lately with virtually every state having different regulations concerning the Professional Engineer (PE) licensing of technologists. How do the technologists themselves feel about professional licensing? Continuing education for the engineer is a legitimate concern that is vital to the engineer's professional growth; the same can be said for the technologist and his professional growth. Again, how does the individual technologist feel about it? These two items are the subjects for this paper.     

An innovative industry-university partnership to enhance university training and industry recruiting in power engineering

Many universities have in the late 1990s reduced the number of courses in power engineering, preferring to devote their resources to other areas such as information technologies. This comes at a time when it is predicted that a significant number of engineers will be retiring in the next decade, in some utilities, more than a third. A leading utility in generation, transmission, and distribution, has therefore taken the initiative, with the help of six local universities and the support of local industry, to create and finance an Institute of Electrical Power Engineering to train and recruit students, and allow universities to offer comprehensive programs in this discipline. Innovative aspects include the development of a specialized program of courses and laboratories common to participating universities, the active involvement of industry in program development, and instruction and the introduction of incentives such as scholarships, industrial projects, and internships.     

Project-oriented adjustable speed motor drive course for undergraduate curricula

Adjustable speed motor drive design requires knowledge of various electrical and mechanical fundamentals. The theories of these fundamental topics are very well addressed in different courses during the undergraduate level of a typical electrical engineering education. Furthermore, related laboratory courses help students to improve their practical skills to some extent. Since they find experimental equipment ready to use, product development skills with group work cannot be improved in laboratories. Also, these separate courses and their associated laboratories regarding fundamentals, such as power electronics, electric machines, electric circuits, electronics, dynamics, and thermal analysis, are independent courses, and students usually cannot find a chance to apply all these fundamentals to a single problem before starting their professional career. This paper summarizes a project-oriented adjustable speed drive design course suitable for senior electrical engineering undergraduate students. The project was divided into several subsystems, and each subsystem was assigned to a group of students among 28 enrolled students. The paper gives enough details for each subsystem to develop an induction motor drive system.     

Enhancing E-Learning Through Teacher Support: Two Experiences

Teachers in e-learning play a crucial role as facilitators of the students' learning experiences. To this end, a teacher needs to monitor, understand and evaluate the activity of the students in the course. What is more, e-learning can be enhanced if tools for supporting teachers in this task are provided. In this paper, two experiences are presented to show the convenience of providing teachers with such tools. These experiences proved that providing support to teachers allowed them to assess the students more closely. As a result, the students' dropout rate in a postgraduate course was reduced and the number of students who passed a physics course in secondary education was increased.      

Superscalar and superpipelined microprocessor design, andsimulation: a senior project

An undergraduate senior project to design and simulate a modern central processing unit (CPU) with a mix of simple and complex instruction sets using a systematic design method is presented. The main objectives of the project are to accustom students to modern design methods as well as to help them gain practical experience in designing digital computers. Findings and suggestions on the use of modern work and design concepts in a group profit environment are discussed     

Experience Management Wikis for Reflective Practice in Software Capstone Projects

Software engineering curriculum guidelines state that students should practice methods, techniques, and tools. A capstone project is one possibility to address this aim. A capstone project helps the students to increase their problem solving competencies, improve their social skills (e.g., communication skills), and gather practical experience. A crux of such projects is that students perform ldquoreflectiverdquo practice in order to learn from their experiences. The authors believe that experience gathering and reuse are effective techniques to stimulate reflective activities. An adapted free- and open-source Wiki-based system called software organization platform (SOP) is used to support students in managing their observations and experiences. The system can be used for experience exchange within the team and for experience reuse in forthcoming projects. The results of a case study show that standard Wiki functions improve communication and information sharing by means of explicit observation and experience documentation. A total of 183 documented observations and experiences at the end of the project provide a measure for the amount of reflection students have had during the capstone project. Still, the advantages of using Wikis will decrease when no technical adaptations of the Wiki to the learning objectives and to the software engineering tasks are made. Limitations of the case study, future evaluation steps, and planned developments of SOP will be provided in this paper.