Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Owe Petersen, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Stephen Williams, Milwaukee School of Engineering; Eric Durant, Milwaukee School of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

accreditation processwithout a clear sense of the meaning and implementation of these items.This paper traces the development of the current definitions associated with ABET criteria 2 and3 and provides insights into the resulting impact on program and curriculum development,specifically, the assessment process.A useful understanding of objectives and outcomes can be achieved with a top-down approach.The process starts with the expected niche of the engineering world in which the graduates of anengineering program expect to pursue their intended/possible careers. The descriptors of therange of career paths and accomplishments expected of the graduates form the programobjectives. The academic input and contribution that would foster and enhance the

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Susan Lord, University of San Diego

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

AC 2007-541: EFFECTIVE “WRITING TO COMMUNICATE” EXPERIENCES INELECTRICAL ENGINEERING COURSESSusan Lord, University of San Diego Susan M. Lord received a B.S. from Cornell University and the M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. She is currently Associate Professor and Coordinator of Electrical Engineering at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests include electronics, optoelectronics, materials science, first year engineering courses, as well as feminist and liberative pedagogies. Dr. Lord served as General Co-Chair of the 2006 Frontiers in Education Conference. She has been awarded an NSF CAREER and ILI grants. Dr. Lord’s industrial experience includes AT&T

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Alka Harriger, Purdue University; Kyle Lutes, Purdue University; Jack Purdum, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

averagestarting salaries earned by university BS graduates. During the period of decline, CIT placementdipped to 83%; however, over the past two years, the program has returned to over 90%placement with impressive average starting salaries ($54,998 for 2005-06).Purdue has several computer-related departments and degrees. For example, the CIT departmentto some extent competes with Purdue’s Computer Science (CS) and Electrical and ComputerEngineering (ECE) departments for students who are interested in a career as a softwaredeveloper. However, the teaching emphasis of these departments is quite different. For example,CS offers traditional programming courses in data structures, compiler theory, and operatingsystems. ECE offers courses in C language

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Timothy Bigelow, University of North Dakota

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

toolsthey need to continue learning throughout their professional careers. Therefore, learning thebasics of electrical engineering and medicine will provide them with the tools they need to besuccessful innovators in biomedical engineering as well as allow them to collaborate withmedical professionals in the future. We hope that other electrical engineering programs will beable to implement a similar focus area in biomedical engineering broadening the trainingavailable at their institution. Page 12.476.5

Conference Session

Design in the ECE Curriculum

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Douglas Williams, Georgia Institute of Technology; Robert Butera, Georgia Institute of Technology; Selcuk Uluagac, Georgia Institute of Technology; Matthew Clark, Georgia Institute of Technology; Andy Deck, National Instruments; Michael Torba, National Instruments; Steven Trahan, National Instruments

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

-evaluation assisted students to learn andimprove their skills in evaluating other team members’ performances in highly collaborativeworking environments – something, that they will need in their future engineering careers –while giving course instructors some indication of a student’s actual performance from theperspective of his/her classmates.Laboratory ModulesMost of the laboratory assignments were developed at National Instruments and modifiedslightly by the course instructors. Modifications were primarily necessary to facilitate grading,both of student groups and individuals, and to provide a better fit to the lecture material in termsof notation and assumed background knowledge. In order to allow first semester students toenroll, the course

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Doug Sterk, Virginia Tech; Tim Thacker, Virginia Tech; Elizabeth Tranter, Virginia Tech; Richard Goff, Virginia Tech; Janis Terpenny, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

introductory power electronics class, and more importantly the programgave the student confidence that they could pursue a graduate degree and influenced many of thestudents to pursue a career or graduate degree in power electronics.Due to the fact that the lecture portion is unique portion to the CPES REU experience, severalquestions in the survey were directed at assessing the effectiveness of the lecture portion of theREU program. A generalization can be made from the responses that the lecture portion of theprogram helped the participants understand their research quicker. It was also indicated thatwithout the lecture, much time and effort would have to be spent between the student and mentorlearning and teaching the fundamentals.Having the

Conference Session

Optical and Wireless Communication Systems

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert Caverly, Villanova University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

circuit design that provides a smooth entry point either to a career path or future graduate work in this area; and • details of a development effort into the creation of an extensive integrated series of concept modules in RF circuit design that will be made available to the general academic community in support of curriculum development areas at other universities.Undergraduate Curriculum Track in RF and Microwave Engineering The overall curriculum track (Figure 1) begins with the required EngineeringElectromagnetics course in the junior year. This course builds upon the static electromagneticscourse the students take in the freshman/sophomore year and emphasizes dynamicelectromagnetics and wave theory and

Conference Session

ECE Poster Session

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jimmy Linn, East Carolina University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

AC 2007-2047: INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOMJimmy Linn, East Carolina University Jimmy Linn is a Teaching Instructor at East Carolina University. He received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics from Rose Hulman Institute of Technology and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. He completed a 23 year career with the U.S. Navy as an Electrical Engineer, 11 of which were in research engineering, before getting into academia as an Instructor. Page 12.899.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 Innovative Technology in the Classroom

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ian Papautsky, University of Cincinnati; Ali Asgar Bhagat, University of Cincinnati

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

complimented thelaboratory sessions and included discussions of the microfluidics theory, microfabrication, andthe practical issues encountered in the lab. This course provided students with the skill set theywill need to pursue graduate work or a career in industry.Results of Course EvaluationThe first offering of the course in the spring of 2006 was a considerable success. All studentsenrolled in the course participated in the course evaluation and responded to anonymousquestionnaires at the end of each module. Questionnaires used a five-point Likert scale (5 beinga Strong Yes and 1 being a Strong No). The means and standard deviations of the questionnaireresponses are summarized in Table 3. The means range from 4.0 to 4.8, with relatively

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education I

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christopher Greene, University of Saint Thomas

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

AC 2007-1429: STUDIO-BASED INSTRUCTION IN SIGNALS AND SYSTEMSChristopher Greene, University of Saint Thomas After a 24 year career in industry, Dr. Greene joined the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering where he teaches in both the Electrical and Mechanical engineering programs. He principally teaches Signals and Systems, Digital Electronics and Control Systems. Page 12.1326.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2007 Studio-Based Signals and SystemsAbstractOne of the more challenging aspects of most undergraduate electrical engineering programs isthe Signals and Systems

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education II

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Thomas Richter, Technische Universitat Berlin; Sven Grottke, Technische Universitat Berlin

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

know how JPEG1and its related standards work. But we believe that just knowing and managing the technology isnot sufficient to prepare them for their further careers. One of the skills one needs in industry isthe ability to plan and manage large projects. And the team has to be organized as well: Studentshave to learn how to cooperate with their colleagues, an often surprisingly complex task in alarge team, and a skill usually not taught at university level. Last but not least, as we are workingat the institute of mathematics of the TU Berlin, we also considered it important to make ourstudents understand the scientific foundations of the field.Our idea was to simulate the work-flow of industrial software development as close as auniversity

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education III

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Brian Otis, University of Washington; Linda Whang, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

., & Pinelli, T. (2001). An investigation of factors affecting how engineers and scientists seek information. Journal of Engineering and Technology Managemen, 18(2), 131-155.7. Kerins, G., Madden. R, & Fulton, C. (2004, October). Information seeking and students studying for professional careers: the cases of engineering and law students in Ireland. Information Research, 10(1), paper 208. Retrieved March 5, 2007, from http://InformationR.net/ir/10-1/paper208.html8. Ackerson, L.G., & Young, V.E. (1994). Evaluating the impact of library instruction methods on the quality of student research. Research Strategies, 12(3), 132-144.9. Rodrigues, R.J. (2001). Industry Expectations of the New Engineer. Science &

Conference Session

Design in the ECE Curriculum

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Wagdy Mahmoud, University of the District of Columbia

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

projects and their evaluation comments reflected their appreciation of the opportunitygiven to them to gain such a valuable design experience. On the other hand other students feltoverwhelmed by the sheer volume of documents that they may need to consult in order toexperiment of options available in these tools. Detailed tutorials, extensive coaching, and clearly-defined objectives have helped reduce the effort needed for the successful implementation ofthese projects. However, some students felt uncomfortable about having to spend too much timeworking to meet the demands of one of their courses.Student mixed comments and feedback were as expected. It is a fact that not every engineeringstudent would like to have a career as a professional system

Conference Session

New Trends in ECE Education II

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Min-Sung Koh, Eastern Washington University; Esteban Rodriguez-Marek, Eastern Washington University; Claudio Talarico, Eastern Washington University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

relevant courses, suchas Signals and Systems, Computer Architecture, Electronics, etc. Microcontroller Systemsembeds into its 4 credits a significant portion of assembly language as a mandatory class. Oneof the electives in the program is an advanced HDL class. Under this setup, students would takebetween 15–19 credits with large programming components. With the ever enlarging scope ofinformation students have to obtain in their limited 4-year college career, the large number ofcredits dedicated to programming was limiting the space for core or elective EE courses. Due tothis limitation the 11 credits of Java programming were changed into a more directly related 4-credit C for Engineers course. One of the concerns that arose with this modification

Conference Session

Innovations in ECE Education III

Collection

2007 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Don Millard, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Mohamed Chouikha, Howard University; Frederick Berry, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

. This is about the cost of a textbook. It is a device that the students would own throughout their entire undergraduate career, and have applications beyond that of a particular class. For instance, the device could be used as a multimeter, scope or a controller (using the digital I/O in conjunction with the analog I/O); providing a highly useful project tool (signal processor/controller) for any individual studying to become a scientist or engineer.EVALUATION The following research questions are currently being tested and evaluated in diversesituations in the Circuits (for majors), and Electronics & Instrumentation (for non-majors) coursesat each of the partnering schools to study the resulting impact on student