Conference Session

Best of the NEE

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Edward Gehringer, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

New Engineering Educators

, Regarding grading, I often find it useful to retroactively change disasters into extra-credit opportunities. That is, I explain that the problem won't count against anyone's grade, but that those students who managed against all odds to solve (or make substantial headway toward solving) a very difficult (or impossible) problem will be rewarded with extra-credit points.Students should not expect assignments to be perfect. Several instructors made the point that inthe real world, requirements are incompletely specified, change during the project, etc. As KathyRoberson9 put it, Up front, and several times during the semester, I explain to my students that they are preparing for a career where they will frequently be

Conference Session

Service Courses for Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Krupczak, Hope College; Timothy Simpson, Pennsylvania State University; Vince Bertsch, Santa Rosa Junior College; Kate Disney, Mission College; Elsa Garmire, Dartmouth College; Barbara Oakley, Oakland University; Mary Rose, Ball State University

Tagged Divisions

Technological Literacy Constituent Committee

develop Educational Standards andBenchmarks to define what K-12 students need to know and be able to do about this kind oftechnology. In 1993, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)published, Project 2061: Benchmarks for Science Literacy [6] and in 1996 the National ScienceEducation Standards were published by the National Academies Press [7], both of whichcontained a section devoted to technology. In 2000 the International Technology EducationAssociation (ITEA) published Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study ofTechnology [8] with the intent of encouraging educational curricula that would providetechnological literacy to K-12 studentsIn Tech Tally, NAE identified three major components, or cognitive

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 2

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Holly Matusovich; Ruth Streveler, Purdue University; Heidi Loshbaugh, Colorado School of Mines; Ronald Miller, Colorado School of Mines; Barbara Olds, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

change with time and relate toexperiences they are having on campus.In his third year, Joe talks about balancing skills and knowledge with “willingness to learn andexplore”. During this time he is trying to decide if he should pursue industry or research and hisinterview responses reflect his struggle with this decision. His basis for distinguishing thebetween two career avenues is not clear.By her fourth year, Anna’s beliefs about skills needed for success are more grounded inengineering. Similar to Hillary’s answer in the first year, Anna’s answers are generic. Annatalks about having “many, many skills: writing skills; people skills; management skills; skills tobe aware of, of umm, the project as a whole and where you’re going with it” and

Conference Session

Educating Graduates in Engineering for a Flat World

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Michael Mariasingam, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Thomas Smith, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Sandra Courter, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

International

the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Zimbabwe. He was coordinator of the Africa Virtual University Project at NUST in Zimbabwe. He was founding chairman of the Electronic Science and Technology Program at Universiti Sains Malaysia. A frequent presenter at international conferences, Mariasingam has focused on quality in distance education, reforms and innovation in engineering education, alternative delivery approaches and alternative approaches to financing engineering education. He has developed a comprehensive set of quality standards in terms of rigorous benchmarks for assessment of the quality of online degree programs. He has published papers and

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

, instrumentalsystems are well suited to different kinds of political conditions, especially ones worthsustaining.”8 It is not a new method that is needed, but a whole new approach bridging“political, spatial, and technical dimensions” of design.9 Such inquiry is necessaryinterdisciplinary, since careful understanding of social worlds, technology, and their interactionsis required. Since technology-making is not an end in itself, “It must always be seen in thecontext of broader political debates, goals, projects, and struggles.”10Winner calls his proposed new discipline “political ergonomics,” and he builds a sketch of howpolitical ergonomics might be approached by drawing together the main strengths of threedistinct design traditions—engineering, statecraft

Conference Session

Information Technologies Classroom Instruction

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert MacDonald, Purdue University; Raheel Malik, Whirlpool Corp.; Anthony Smith, Purdue University; James Goldman, Purdue University

Tagged Divisions

Information Systems

team at Whirlpool Corporation in Benton Harbor, MI. His responsibilities include penetration testing their network, conducting internal IT audits for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, investigating computer-related security incidents, and providing security consulting for on-going projects. Raheel holds a Masters of Science degree specializing in Information Security and a Bachelors of Science degree, with distinction, in Telecommunications and Networking from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.Anthony Smith, Purdue University Anthony H. Smith is an assistant professor with the Computer and Information Technology Department at Purdue University. He has more than 15 years of experience in

Conference Session

Case Studies & Engineering Education Around the Globe

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adnan Zahed; Abdullah Bafail; Reda Abdulaal; Ali Al-Bahi

Tagged Divisions

International

quizzes,exams, reports, projects, presentations, etc., have to be converted to levels of achievement ofCourse Learning Objectives (CLOs). The mapping of these CLOs into Program Outcomes (POs)is used to obtain the degree of achievement of each student in the POs addressed by the course.This paper describes an EXCEL workbook developed to carry out this task. HI-CLASS isdesigned to be used by the course instructor on daily basis. In the beginning of the semester theinstructor enters the main elements of the course design into a master sheet. The data and theresults of each graded assessment are to be entered in a separate assessment work sheet thatcalculates the scores achieved by every student in each CLO and each PO addressed by thecourse, the

Conference Session

FPD8 - Early Intervention & Retention

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mukul Shirvaikar, University of Texas at Tyler; David Beams, University of Texas at Tyler; Sagun Shrestha, University of Texas at Tyler

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

the principal investigator for the “Back-To-Basics” project aimed at engineering student retention.David Beams, University of Texas at Tyler DAVID M. BEAMS is an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas at Tyler. He received his BS and MS degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in and the Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has had over 16 years of industrial experience in addition to his 10 years with UT-Tyler. He is a licensed professional engineer in Wisconsin and Texas and holds or shares four patents.Sagun Shrestha, University of Texas at Tyler SAGUN SHRESTHA is pursuing his Bachelor of Science in Electrical

Conference Session

Web-Based Learning in Engineering Technology

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Ronald Uhlig, National University; Ali Farahani; Howard Evans, National University; Shekar Viswanathan, National University; Mark Sotelo, National University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

received from HP, he is conducting research into the effectiveness of advanced technology in teaching complex information structures. He is a member of the Steering Committee for Project Inkwell (www.projectinkwell.com). Prior to joining the National University faculty, he was President/CEO, SegWave, Inc., an educational technology systems company he founded in 2000. He was Vice President for Russia and Eastern Europe, Qualcomm Inc., 1995-99, with offices in San Diego and Moscow. He was with Northern Telecom, 1984-95 in multiple positions including Director, Intelligent Network Solutions and Director, Asia/Pacific Strategic Marketing. He was with Bell-Northern Research

Collection

2008 Spring ASEE Middle Atlantic Section Conference

Authors

Daniel J. McCarthy; Michael J. Kwinn

place” in the curriculum to do the assessment. Forexample, in support of assessing program outcome 5.1 “Design and conduct systems experiments,including collecting, analyzing and interpreting data, “ one of the performance criteria we defined is “Useappropriate data analysis techniques including appropriate software data analysis tools to analyze theresults of a systems experiment.” Our assessment plan dictates that our students will be assessed againstthis criterion in the completion of a design project in the Statistics for Engineers course they take as partof the curriculum. Given that data analysis is a major topic in this course and the design project requiresthe students to do this type of analysis, this seemed like the “right place” to

Collection

2008 ASEE Zone 1 Conference

Authors

Daniel J. McCarthy; Michael J. Kwinn

place” in the curriculum to do the assessment. Forexample, in support of assessing program outcome 5.1 “Design and conduct systems experiments,including collecting, analyzing and interpreting data, “ one of the performance criteria we defined is “Useappropriate data analysis techniques including appropriate software data analysis tools to analyze theresults of a systems experiment.” Our assessment plan dictates that our students will be assessed againstthis criterion in the completion of a design project in the Statistics for Engineers course they take as partof the curriculum. Given that data analysis is a major topic in this course and the design project requiresthe students to do this type of analysis, this seemed like the “right place” to

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 2

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Jocuns, University of Washington; Reed Stevens, University of Washington; Lari Garrison, University of Washington; Daniel Amos, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

I’m doing research all day. Which, I’m sure would be true if I went into the academic setting, but um, but I may end up working for some sort of firm, um, if I got say a biochemical engineering degree. I could go and work for a company that makes say replacement knees or things like that. (Steve, SPRI, Year 1)Steve’s sophomore year interview focused upon a dominant image of engineering that we havenoticed previously in both Erica’s and Colin’s excerpts above, being a design engineer. As an engineer? Hmm, I imagine it depends on what, like, phase of the project I’m in. Like if I’m in the initial design phase, coming up with lots of random ideas, you know, my brain to meet whatever fantasy the client

Conference Session

Successful Outcomes of Student Entrepreneurship

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Khanjan Mehta, Pennsylvania State University; Sven Bilen, Pennsylvania State University

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

with original product ideas need the resources to evaluate the practicalityof their ideas, develop their products, and perform thorough tests to realize robust marketableproducts. Researchers working in labs and research centers use lab automation tools, such asNational Instruments’ LabVIEW7, to automate experiments. Connecting different types ofinstruments to computers to control experiments and acquire/analyze data is crucial toperforming some experiments. In other cases, it speeds up the experiment significantly, resultingin increased productivity. A large number of engineering and science students involved inprofessional project-based organizations like Network of Entrepreneurs, Engineers for aSustainable World, Student Space Programs Lab

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 1

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mia Clark, Stanford University; Lorraine Fleming, Howard University; Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University; Cynthia Atman, University of Washington; Ronald Miller, Colorado School of Mines; Ruth Streveler, Purdue University; Reed Stevens, University of Washington; Karl Smith, University of Minnesota

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

implications foracademic practices. As such, this paper is a “welcome mat” or introduction for those interested inlearning more about APS. Components of the paper address questions researchers designing newstudies may have about the organizational and technical infrastructure that supported this project,or about the quantitative and qualitative research methods, tools, and protocols used. Othercomponents of the paper address questions that researchers and engineering faculty andadministrators might have regarding how to explore the findings and insights that are emergingfrom this extensive longitudinal and cross-sectional study of students’ pathways throughengineering. Research findings to date are summarized in a companion paper entitled Findingsfrom

Conference Session

Design: Content and Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donald McEachron, Drexel University; Fred Allen, Drexel University; Elisabeth Papazoglou, Drexel University; Mustafa Sualp, Drexel University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

own transformation. This wouldseem to make the necessity for successful assessment and CQI greater in education than anyother activity since the potential sources of failure are greater in education compared to theseother activities.Initial Planning Steps and Constraints on the ModelIn a typical engineering project, the initial steps include such items as a problem or visionstatement (what are we trying to accomplish), business case (why are we trying to develop thisprocess or product) and the specification of at least some of the product or process requirements(how do we know we have solved the problem adequately). In waterfall models, there is anattempt to specify the majority of requirements in advance of the design process whereasadaptive

Conference Session

SPECIAL SESSION: Describing the Engineering Student Learning Experience Based on CAEE Findings: Part 1

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Cynthia Atman, University of Washington; Lorraine Fleming, Howard University; Sheri Sheppard, Stanford University; Ronald Miller, Colorado School of Mines; Karl Smith, University of Minnesota; Reed Stevens, University of Washington; Ruth Streveler, Purdue University; Christine Loucks-Jaret, University of Washington; Dennis Lund, University of Washington

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

degrees are in Metallurgical Engineering from Michigan Technological University and his Ph.D. is in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota. He has co-written eight books including Cooperative learning: Increasing college faculty instructional productivity; Strategies for energizing large classes: From small groups to learning communities; and Teamwork and project management, 3rd Ed.Reed Stevens, University of Washington REED STEVENS is an Associate Professor in the College of Education at the University of Washington. He specializes in ethnographic and comparative approaches to studying how people learn, especially in disciplines related to mathematics, science

Conference Session

Student Engagement and Motivation

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jonathan Stolk, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; John Geddes, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Mark Somerville, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering; Robert Martello, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

the survey question as “Provide adefinition of self-directed learning in your Olin College courses.” With this interpretation, itwould be reasonable for students to assume that they may control aspects of the learningplanning and monitoring, but that evaluations of their development are the responsibility of theirinstructors. Alternatively, students may have neglected to include reflection in their definitionsbecause reflection is seldom emphasized in undergraduate engineering courses. Engineering Page 13.527.11students are frequently pushed to their limits during the end-of-semester crunch time;“successful” completion of completing projects

Conference Session

Engineering Professional Development for K12 Teachers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Brant Miller, University Of Minnesota; Tamara Moore, University Of Minnesota

Tagged Divisions

K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

and high schools.The primary vehicle to attain our goals is the “on-campus” research component. During this fiveweek intensive, on-campus immersion into research the RET Research Assistants (RAs) areexpected to be an integral part of the research being undertaken by faculty and select graduateand undergraduate students assigned to their particular project. To prepare RET RAs for thisrelatively short research window; RET RAs take part in an Advanced Preparation (AP)component of the program prior to coming on to campus. During the AP experience the RETRAs are expected to become familiar with the literature provided by their faculty mentor and toask questions via email or face-to-face as logistics allow to begin the professional dialogue

Conference Session

Use of Technology to Provide Civil Engineering Education

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jakob Bruhl, United States Military Academy; James Ledlie Klosky; Elizabeth Bristow, United States Military Academy

Tagged Divisions

Civil Engineering

generally out-of-sync with this trend; we still rely primarily on a“push” approach. Recent research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project indicates thatthe current generation of high school and college students are dissatisfied with the “digitaldisconnect” between their lives and the classes they take in school1. Today’s students desireextensive control over how they get their information both in their courses and in their lives, andthe mixture of “life” and “work” information is complex. Many professors have begunproviding some content over the internet, experimenting with podcasting, vodcasting and othermodes2,3. The vast majority of this content is recordings of the conventional classroom lecturesthat students can then access at their

Conference Session

Computer and Electrical Engineering Technology Innovations

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David Loker, Pennsylvania State University-Erie

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Technology

collection.Several laboratory projects utilizing the MaxStream XBee wireless module are presented. The firstlab is designed to introduce this module to the students. The objectives include interfacing themodule to the computer serial port, using HyperTerminal to communicate with the module,configuring the module through AT commands, and verifying functionality of the module throughfile transfer. The second lab is designed to introduce remote data acquisition. Students will design aterminal program utilizing LabVIEW, integrate a temperature sensor, and perform remote datacollection. The third lab will introduce students to personal area networking (PAN). The objectiveis the establishment of a wireless sensor network. It will utilize a star network

Conference Session

Student Engagement and Motivation

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Linda Vanasupa, California Polytechnic State University; Trevor Harding, California Polytechnic State University; William Hughes, California Polytechnic State University

Tagged Divisions

Educational Research and Methods

materials engineering course which met for 3 hours per week over the courseof a complete academic year (90 total class hours). In essence, the course that we arespeaking of made up 6-8.3% of the units taken by this cohort of students during theirfreshman year. We note that the balance of the curriculum was the usual sequence offreshmen-level communication courses (technical writing, composition, speech),calculus, chemistry, and physics. Some may have also taken courses in computer scienceand computer-aided drawing. In other words, ~91-94% of their total freshmen year ofcourses was similar to other engineering programs in the U.S..During the first of the three-term, freshmen design sequence, students worked in teams offive or six on three projects

Conference Session

Sustainability and Engineering Courses

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Daniel Lynch, Dartmouth College

Tagged Divisions

Environmental Engineering

definitions and requirements.In addition, Table 1 highlights what is commonly held: that there are aggregate effects ofindividual activities. Isolated acts that are perfectly benign and sustainable, can be unsustainablewhen aggregated. There is a scale effect of professional action; and professions need to look atthe aggregate effects of their action. The natural time and space scales imposed by naturalresources, transcending individual projects and actions, (as well as jurisdictions, lifetimes),imposes a professional burden – to channel individual actions toward sustainable relations with,common property resourcesviii.Lacking this responsibility, “no one is watching the store.” NAE and ASCE are asserting aprofessional role for engineering in

Conference Session

NSF Grantees Poster Session

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Hrynuk, Clarkson University; Matthew Pennington, Clarkson University; David Illig, Clarkson University; John P. Dempsey, Clarkson University

“Hands-On Learningin Engineering” project were Professors J. Dempsey, J. Carroll, J. Taylor, W. Wilcox, and A.Zander. The teaching methodology for the revised ES100 course adapted the ‘integratedteaching and learning’ paradigm pioneered and developed by Drs L.E. Carlson and J.F. Sullivanat the University of Colorado at Boulder. 2 The adaptation at Clarkson is a combination oflaboratory experience woven within an introductory computer course teaching both MATLABand LabVIEW. The goals and objectives of this original proposal are listed below. These goalshave guided the ES100 course revisions throughout all of the twists and turns discussed in thispaper. Significantly, note that just recently (February, 2008), Drs Sullivan and Carlson wereawarded

Conference Session

Successful K-12 Programs for Girls & Minorities

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Zbigniew Pasek, University of Windsor

Tagged Divisions

K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

students, who were contributing to the project only part-time. Involvedstudents, both graduate and undergraduate, were coming from various disciplines, includingmechanical and software engineering, economics, education, business and art design.Exhibit OverviewThe exhibit station consists of two main components: a set of interactive computer games and anexhibit kiosk, which constitutes both the physical display environment and houses the computerequipment 11. These parts are designed to complementarily satisfy the three goals of exhibitdesign, mentioned above. The physical display environment is developed to attract the visitorsand support the knowledge acquisition by presenting content materials and graphic instructionsfor the games. The game

Conference Session

Opportunities for Entrepreneurship Programs and Program Assessment

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Thomas Mason, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

or Steve Jobs than the best music schools can create another Mozart. However,entrepreneurship courses and other activities can increase awareness of the opportunitiesand provide knowledge on what it takes to increase the chances for success in innovation.Like other education, we need to look at works best in doing this. It appears thatexperiential education is embraced as a most powerful way to instill entrepreneurialattributes and even Birch, the critic cited above, said learning could occur inapprenticeships, but projects and internships are not the only ways. Moreover, theexperiential approaches can be costly.Background on entrepreneurship centersAccording to the Kauffman Foundation, about two thirds of the colleges and universitiesin the

Conference Session

LabVIEW and Mindstorms Based Experiments

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Alexander Ganago, University of Michigan; Andrew Watchorn, National Instruments; John DeBusscher, University of Michigan

Tagged Divisions

Division Experimentation & Lab-Oriented Studies

AC 2008-1591: A SET OF COMPUTER-CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS ININTRODUCTORY ELECTRIC CIRCUIT LABORATORIES FOR ELECTRICALENGINEERING (EE) AND NON-EE MAJORSAlexander Ganago, University of MichiganAndrew Watchorn, National InstrumentsJohn DeBusscher, University of Michigan Page 13.100.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 A Set of Computer-Controlled Experiments in Introductory Electric Circuits Laboratories for EE and non-EE MajorsAbstractThis report is focused on development and implementation of a set of Virtual Instruments (VIs)for all lab projects of introductory courses in electric circuits for EE and non-EE majors. Due tousing the Interchangeable Virtual

Conference Session

Design Communications

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Julie Linsey, Texas A&M University; Kristin Wood, University of Texas at Austin; Arthur Markman, University of Texas- Austin

Tagged Divisions

Design in Engineering Education

device with a single word. The nextcategory is the critical or difficult functions to solve, and the final category is the importantcustomer needs transformed into single action verbs. Normally the customer needs are acombination of an adjective and a noun. To be used in the WordTree Method, customer needsmust be converted to equivalent verbs. For example, the verb form of the customer need of “easyto repair” is “repair”. Figures 4-6 illustrate the mission statement, partial functional model andblack box model for a device to fold laundry18. The laundry folding device is intended forstudents with very limited fine motor skills. This design project was originally completedwithout the WordTree Method presented in this paper and then the design

Conference Session

Impact Student Success

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stephen Frempong, State University of New York

Tagged Divisions

Minorities in Engineering

, there is a resulting Page 13.1236.3 significant propagation delay of about 250 milliseconds. As such, GEOs are best suited in non-interactive transmissions such as TV broadcasting,Video on Demand, and asymmetric data services. For interactiveapplications such as voice communications, video conferencing ormultimedia services, the service performance over GEO is a significantdetriment. NASA launched a GEO satellite called AdvancedCommunication Technology Satellite (ACTS) in 1993, with the capabilityto transmit hundreds of megabits per second of information.Because of the growing need in data communication, several companiesare working on satellite projects

Conference Session

ECE Pedagogy and Assessment I

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Charles Kim, Howard University; Mohamed Chouikha, Howard University; Veronica Thomas, Howard University

Tagged Divisions

Electrical and Computer

. His"Mobile Studio" project developed a hardware/software interface which, when connected tocomputer via USB cable, provides similar functionality to that of the laboratory equipment currentlyassociated with an instrumented studio classroom2. The first generation Mobile Studio was realizedby a tablet PC, and instrumentation interface implemented on a breadboard, and graphic displaysoftware as shown in Fig. 1. The instrumentation interface reads data from and sends signals to thestudent circuit made in the open space of the interface board. The graphic display software allowsstudents, by tapping icons and clicking buttons, to measure and display data and to generate signals.With access to wireless internet for class materials, the portable set

Conference Session

Information and Network Security

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Barry Cumbie, Auburn University; Chetan Sankar, Auburn University; P.K. Raju, Auburn University

Tagged Divisions

Information Systems

experience while updating critical data sources in the community.This service-oriented student project differs from others in that it is ongoing, designed tocontinue into subsequent academic terms with new student teams building upon theirpredecessors work. This project was made possible by employing the focus group and contentanalysis methodologies. These research methodologies permit a high realism of context and thusenabled the researchers to gain a substantive understanding of the problem area. This led toidentifying both the problem of not having critical data and information after a disaster but alsothe problem of not having the resources to ensure the availability of this data and information.These two problems are simultaneously addressed by