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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Thomas Barnwell III; Monson Hayes III; Joel Jackson; David Anderson

Session 2320 InFusion: Simplifying Online Course Creation Joel R. Jackson, Thomas P. Barnwell III, David V. Anderson, Monson H. Hayes IIIAbstractIn order for faculty to become involved in the development of online or computer enhanced lecturematerials, the production process must be easy and convenient. We have developed a presentationdevelopment system called inFusion that makes it possible to create online presentations almostinstantly. Lecturers use a very simple interface (below, right) to synchronize graphics, video andaudio into a coherent presentation viewable in

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Plymale; Scott Midkiff; Luiz DaSilva

Session 1658 Experiences in Teaching an Online Course in Information Technology Scott F. Midkiff, Luiz A. DaSilva, William O. Plymale Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, Virginia 24061 USAAbstractVirginia Tech initiated a Master of Information Technology degree program in Fall 1998 andbegan online delivery of the program in Fall 2000. One of the first of three online coursesoffered in Fall 2000 was “Fundamentals of Computer Systems” which was developed and taughtby the authors of this paper. The

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Raj Desai; Eugenio Lord

other universities4. The home page, whichProceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Educationincludes the syllabus for each of the classes, bulletin board for students to discuss topicswith each other, and online grade information for the students’ benefit, were all madewith the help of the CSTL. Students are happy to have the means to communicate witheach other5 as is provided by the bulletin board program.The School of Extended Learning at Southeast Missouri State University is making amajor push towards offering courses online. The School of Extended Learning is evenoffering incentives for faculty teaching on-line

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Elaine M. Cooney; Kenneth Reid

Session 1647 Using the Internet as a Course Textbook Kenneth Reid and Elaine Cooney Electrical Engineering Technology, IUPUIAbstractThis paper describes the creation and use of an online textbook for a course in ElectronicsManufacturing. This project originated when no appropriate textbook could be found in print forEET 360: CIMT in Electronics Manufacturing. Creating an online textbook in this area waspossible because of the plethora of information available on the web about electronicsmanufacturing. Trade magazines and vendors provide a wide variety of up-to-date and in

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Frederick Reardon

Session 1647 Internet Use in a Beginning Thermodynamics Course Frederick H. Reardon California State University, SacramentoAbstractThermodynamics is a complex subject, involving many new concepts, complicated equations,and large amounts of data. Instructors are faced with the problem of how to present newconcepts and reinforce old ones. The use of the Internet in a beginning thermodynamics coursehas proven to be helpful and effective. A web site is established for the course; it includes thecourse syllabus, with the goals and objectives, grading information, a course

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Glenn Moffett; Thomas Hall

byusing several technologically oriented methods in distance education. At the same time, theuniversity has been improving its ties with area industry through partnerships. In part, theseefforts have been motivated by a desire to expand the university’s ability to offer courses toindustry, its employees, and to other people who are not free to attend class during traditionalclassroom periods. While there are many examples of lecture and discussion-group classes online, one hallmark of an electronics engineering technology program is that laboratory classesaccompany most lecture courses. Though most of our lecture classes can be delivered at adistance, it is not possible to duplicate the hands-on experience of an electronics laboratory overthe

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jerome Lavelle; Peter Shull; Heather Nachtmann; Joseph Hartman; Robert Martinazzi; Kim Needy

everything fromcourse material sharing, labs and software, to teaching and career management workshops andgrant opportunities1. Repositories are being provided in selected instances for faculty members.For instance, MIR FacultyOnline6 is an online source of textbook information for college anduniversity professors. The service provides access to textbook data, including reviews, lists oftop-selling titles by course, among other information. The Internet Scout Report3 states "MIRcan be extremely useful, especially for younger faculty or professors tasked with teachingcourses out of their field." Despite this new abundance of information available, enabled by theInternet, there is still little guidance offered as to its use.The framework and model in

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Douglas H. Baxter

Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2001, American Society for Engineering Education”After the student has viewed the material, they take an online quiz. The online quiz isgiven to ensure that the student has understood the material. Instructors can enter WebCTand determine who has taken the quiz and what scores were obtained. The student hasthree opportunities to earn a passing mark. An example of one test question is shown inFigure 5.Figure 5: WebCT Online Quiz QuestionFinally, the student can check to see what problems will be assigned in their laboratorysession. Instructors are required to keep their web page syllabus sheet filled in with atleast one week lead-time. This allows students to work

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Hilda Black; Jenna Carpenter

into student teams. Most teams have at least one member with access to a personalcomputer.ContentThe web sites have been primarily used in the following three ways: to provide supportingmaterial for the course, to make required assignments, and to communicate with the class.Supporting Material - The course web sites contain copies, and in many cases downloadablefiles, of items such as the course syllabus, suggested homework assignments, instructorinformation, as well as other course documents (guidelines for homework format, instructions forjournal papers, etc.). Most of this material is also given to students in class the first few days ofthe term, since first-time freshman and transfer students generally do not have an active networkaccount

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Teodora Shuman; Greg Mason

) objectives for the teaching style and effectiveness. Each of theobjectives represents characteristics in the learning environment that could be used by a Page 6.874.2 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society of Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Educationprofessor to improve the course outline, syllabus, the project complexity or relevance, and theteaching style, homework, or tests.Course learning objectives address specific skills or knowledge the students are expected toacquire during the course. A typical objective in an engineering Static course

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Vikas Yellamraju; Kurt Gramoll

assigned by their instructor for homework and tests.All courses have access to the same online lectures that are QuickTime based. A detaileddiscussion about online lectures and discussion groups is explained later in the paper.III. CD-Based CoursewareAlthough the web site has homework’s, quizzes, tests, syllabus, utilities, and lectures-on-demand, the students still need core theory and examples. For this course, the theory, examplesand simulations are delivered to the student on a CD-ROM that was developed previously by theauthor [3, 4]. The CD-ROM, which is presented in a case study approach, contains all relevanttheory for Statics and Dynamics courses. Each major topic is introduced through the use of atypical engineering problem. Each case is

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Thaddeus Roppel; Victor Nelson

Page 6.1149.1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering EducationLincoln4, Northeastern University5, University of Florida6, and the Colorado School of Mines7,to name a few. The web-based content associated with these laboratory courses ranges fromsyllabus supplements to full experimental details, including equipment descriptions and pre-labquizzes. In each case, however, there is reference to a printed laboratory manual whichaccompanies the web-based material. In the implementation at Auburn, we do not have a printedlaboratory manual- all of the primary instructional material is online and accessed through

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Hakan Gurocak

PLC program through the I/O withsome basic handshaking to synchronize the two controllers.IV. Was the e-Lab effective?The course syllabus lists 12 measurable outcomes such as being able to use I/O mapping of aPLC in hardware interfacing, being able to develop control programs, etc. We studied thecourse grades to measure these outcomes. In addition, we wanted to quantitatively measure ifthe e-Lab resulted in an evenly distributed quality of education across all sites.First, the entire set of homework and exam questions as well as laboratory assignments wereexamined. Then, questions related to each outcome were combined. Next, scores of eachstudent for each outcome were tabulated. Finally, a normalized average per outcome wascomputed for (1

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Pamela Mack; Yacob Astatke

theway to expand the online course and offer it to more freshmen engineering studentsnext summer.Bibliography1.Joyce Menges, ‘‘Preparing Underprepared Students for College’’, Syllabus Magazine, Volume 13, No.7,March 2000.2.Sally Illman, ‘‘Advanced Placement Online Reaches Geographically Dispersed Students’’, SyllabusMagazine, Volume 13, No.8, April 2000.3. Jonathan Lewin ,‘‘Using Technology to teach College Mathematics’’ Syllabus Magazine, Volume 13,No.6, February 2000.4. Lawrence E. Levine, ‘‘Using Technology to teach Linear Algebra: A Case Study’’ Syllabus Magazine,Volume 13, No.7, March 2000.YACOB ASTATKEYacob Astatke received his B.S.E.E. from Morgan State University, and his M.S.E.E.from Johns Hopkins University. His is currently a full

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Naseem Ishaq; Salahuddin Qazi

courses.The management of online courses is needed to provide structured environment for course notes,references, enhanced materials, online quizzes, assessment and grades. A system used to managean online course is called course management system (CMS) and a number of such systemsoffering different features are also available. In a recent workshop on “CMS PlatformComparison”, SUNY Syracuse Training Center 8 compared the capabilities of three coursemanagement systems, the Blackboard, WebCT and TopClass on the following task units.1. Create a syllabus. This can be accomplished by the following different ways. (a) Importing text & other instructional materials (b) Modifying the contents of the online courses (c) Importing graphics &

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Tom Noack; Rose Marra; Johnissia Stevenson; Harry Tyrer; Eric Epperson; Jose Castro

newly developed problems, and an assessment of thecourse at the end. Page 6.392.1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & 2 Exposition Copyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Education Distance Learning Between Two Countries: A Rationale for Distance Education MethodologyI. IntroductionDistance learning is a booming market. In 1998, there were 1.6 million students takingmore than 54,000 courses online, according to the US Department of Education (Roberts2000). That is more than double

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Morteza Sadat-Hossieny

can be downloaded or viewed in smallmodules instantaneously. This has the added advantage that one can work at one’s own pacerather than cramming the material in a one-day training session. Examples are: Autodesk e-learning training, iDesign online conference, Bently’s online services and educational supports“www.bentleyinstitute.bentley.com”3, and SDRC web site www.sdrc.com/education/4. Some ofthe features presented under Autodeskpress-e-resources include: syllabus and lesson plan tools,chapter hints, Power Point presentations, computerized test bank, CADD drawing files, WorldClass manager, which allows instructors to automatically extract and track data from on-line test.Practice tests, and animations, which depict the execution of key

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Strenth

would consist of foursegments. Students were required to work on assignments, take the quiz, and complete thesegment test by a designated date. They were permitted to work ahead of the schedule, butthey were unable to work past any pre-determined deadline.Course information was provided including course description, course goals, class syllabus,grading requirements, and test information (Figure 2). Page 6.356.2Proceeding of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & ExpositionCopyright @ 2001, American Society for Engineering EducationFigure 2 Course information page A

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Basavapatna Sridhara

the use of faculty and students. This author attended anon-campus workshop about CourseInfo and learned several new tools and techniques. In the Fallof 2000, Fluid Power course site was developed using CourseInfo. Course syllabus, handouts,and staff information were posted on the course site with links to appropriate files and images.Announcements regarding guest speakers, tests, assignments, useful web sites, and lab groupsand meeting times were posted and upgraded periodically. Homework assignments, projects andextra-credit problems were posted with necessary links. Lab instructions, lab quizzes andsolutions to test problems were posted on the course site. Students communicated with eachother using the discussion board and virtual chat

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Shirley Holloway

knowledge accessible to all faculty and students via the web Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright @2001, American Society for Engineering Education• provide support for curriculum delivery through technology• enhance student learning• express the syllabus of each course or program in terms of measurable outcomes• facilitate program validation and accreditation processesThe Learning Outcome Guides (LOGs)In effect this digital curriculum database expresses the intellectual capital of the institution andunderpins a strategic initiative to transform all NAIT curricula into outcomes-based modules.Each module relates to the achievement of a

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Medhat Morcos; David Soldan

distance course are both essential. Successful instructors frequentlygive their often overloaded students some flexibility in assignments and test-taking. Instructorsare also optimistic that as they grow more comfortable teaching online and technologies becomemore sophisticated, their retention rates will improve. There is significant variation amonginstitutions–with some reporting course-completion rates of more than 80 percent and othersfinding that fewer than 50 percent of distance-education students finish their courses. Severaladministrators concur that course-completion rates are often 10 to 20 percentage points higher intraditional courses than in distance offerings.There has got to be recognition in the rewards system that this is just

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Audeen Fentiman; Robert J. Gustafson; John Merrill; John Demel; Richard Freuler

quarter, view theirdaily syllabus, participate in a class calendar, and access information about their instructionalteam. WebCT also carries a direct link to Course Sorcerer, an online tool used for journal entriesand course evaluations. The journal entries are tools for the administration and teaching team toobserve student’s attitudes towards specific issues throughout the quarter. These submissions arecompletely anonymous, yet instructors can view completion status. The written results arecompiled by graduate teaching assistants and can be shared with the class in order to address theirquestions and concerns. Course evaluations used at the end of the quarter and are designed toevaluate the overall effectiveness of the program’s objectives.3.0

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Patricia C. Tempel; Hisham Alnajjar; Beth Richards; Andrea Brick Ader; Ronald Adrezin

, faculty most likely needed to meet weeklyor every other week to achieve the best integration of these courses. We also feel that a numberof classes need to meet jointly, with both instructors present in the classroom—something wewere not able to do a lot this semester because of scheduling incompatibilities. One future goalmight be to have a joint syllabus, which could resemble the shared activities worksheet that wedeveloped during planning.Discussion: Some Activities that WorkedDuring the first few weeks of class, we realized that our initial worksheet of outcomes was ratherambitious and most likely not achievable with the current set-up. As we regrouped, we agreedthat each team would focus on building a significant shared project. Following

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Wil Clouse; Terry Goodin

objectives are as follows: To develop new and interesting ways of thinking about engineering applications. To investigate future trends in a world environment and to identify specific needs or new entrepreneurial ventures. To connect Engineering students with Human and Organizational Development students to develop cross-discipline discussions. To conceptualize and develop a prototype for a new business venture.IX. Course Outline (Topics)The following information is a part of the course syllabus and will provide the readerwith more details about how we have structured the class. Assignments for Grading and Important Dates Topic & Assignments Due Date

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Mary Cardenas; Patrick Little

or recitationformat. From the syllabus: "What this entails is that students will work alone or in teams onparticular design exercises which allow the students to learn by doing, to learn by observing theresults of others, and to learn from one another while trying out new ideas. The role of theinstructor corresponds more to that of a coach or mentor."Each section of the course met twice a week. On Day A, the class met for 2 hours; on the nextday, Day B, the class met for one hour. Attendance was expected, and students were notified onthe syllabus that failure to attend or take part in team meetings (often scheduled outside of class)would result in a lowered grade. The students were each given a laboratory notebook and wereexpected to

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ed McCombs; David Pratt; John Nazemetz

.2 Information Transfer and Student InteractionDuring the Fall 1999 and Fall 2000 offerings of the course, eleven (11) different modes ofinformation transfer and interaction were used, however, not all modes were used both years.The modes and their period of use were: • a course website that contained the syllabus, course and university policies, schedules of assignments, class contact lists, biographical sketches of students and instructors with pictures, example papers, copies of prepared papers, copies of all slides used in lecture and discussion sessions (1999, 2000), • the videostreaming website that contained the streamed lectures and discussion sessions (1999, 2000), • e-mail for individual questions

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Wang Chien Ming; Mohamad Ridwan; Ang Kok Keng

out a lotof the syllabus just to implement these new techniques.4. Live and Archived Web-Casting of LecturesThrough the collaboration with the Centre for Instructional Technology (a campus-wide centre tosupport NUS faculties and departments in online teaching and learning over the NUS intranetand the Internet), the Engineering Center for Information Technology and Applications (CITA),a faculty-level make-up, have adopted the technology of broadcasting lectures ‘live’. As part ofthe drive to enhance the learning process of the EG1104 module, the educators have embracedthis new technology. Out of the three lecture sessions given per week, a 2-hr lecture onMondays was also broadcasted over the Intranet ‘live’.Besides video and audio clips

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Stephen Zahorian; Sacharia Albin; William Swart

with the OldDominion University curriculum, the following specific procedure was agreed upon. Eachcourse to be taught in India would have a companion Old Dominion University faculty member.This Old Dominion University faculty member would provide a syllabus, suggest a textbookand even specific homework and project assignments, and remain in email contact during thecourse of each semester. The Old Dominion University faculty member would also create andgrade a final exam for the course he or she was overseeing. These final exams were to beadministered by a single Old Dominion University faculty member who would go to India at theend of each semester, give and proctor all exams, and then bring them back to the US forgrading.One difficulty with

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ross Staffeldt

the course segment on the classification of critical points. In particularstudents should learn how to locate critical points graphically, by studying fields of gradientvectors and plots of level curves; formally, by solving explicitly for the zeroes of the gradient;and numerically, when formal solutions are infeasible. They should also learn to interpret theclassification theorem verbally and graphically. The computations needed to locate the zeroes ofthe gradient of a function are almost always difficult, so it helps enormously to have thecomputer help solve equations. But a complete analysis of an example is a multi-step procedure,and, if it is all done on a computer, the procedure requires the use of many commands andthoughtful evaluation