Louisville, Kentucky
June 20, 2010
June 20, 2010
June 23, 2010
2153-5965
Engineering Libraries
8
15.224.1 - 15.224.8
10.18260/1-2--16173
https://peer.asee.org/16173
394
Cameron W. Patterson is an undergraduate student at the University of Alabama majoring in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. He is a member of the UA Computer-Based Honor's program, a student member of IEEE and Eta Kappa Nu.
Nicholas A. Kraft is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Alabama. He received the BA degree
in mathematics from Indiana University in 2002 and the PhD degree in computer science from Clemson University in 2007. His research is
currently supported by three NSF awards, including one from the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) and one for a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site. He is a member of ACM, ACM SIGCSE, and IEEE Computer Society.
Susan L. Burkett is the Alabama Power Foundation Endowed Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. She served as Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Division of Undergraduate (DUE) Education from 2005-2007. Professor Burkett is a member of ASEE, AVS: Science and Technology Society, MRS, and a senior member of IEEE.
AVS: Science and Technology Virtual Museum Abstract
The American Vacuum Society (AVS) has a desire to create a “virtual museum” as a way to archive historical items. The items were used by vacuum technologists in the past for the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). The vacuum related equipment (e.g., pumps, gauges, and meters) represents important information regarding the history of the AVS. The AVS History Committee provided this project as a learning opportunity for a student in the Computer- Based Honors Program at The University of Alabama. The project required the student to create a professional web site with a user-friendly and visually-appealing interface to organize historical information about the relevant equipment. The student developed the web site using Drupal, an open-source web content management system (WCMS). The educational goals of this project include student proficiency using the Drupal software suite and implementation of full functionality to create a web site that meets the needs of the AVS. It is expected that the efforts exerted to give the web site a professional appearance will result in increased interest from members and guests with respect to the history of the technology that stimulated the formation of the AVS. This project is modeled after a similar effort at Harvard in which historical information of technological items is captured in the form of photographs and catalog data that are displayed in a rather passive format. In contrast, visitors to the AVS web site will be encouraged to comment on or to discuss the web content with other visitors. Thus, the project provides an opportunity for a society to archive important historical equipment and to give the virtual guest the experience of viewing historical items, learning about the equipment, and if desired, engaging in discussion. Finally, the endeavor proves to be a valuable learning experience in web site design as well as in acclimating to new tools that provide an innovative way to accomplish a task.
I. Introduction The AVS: Science and Technology Society, a non-profit organization, has a rich history. Established in 1953 as a Committee on Vacuum Techniques when fifty-six scientists and engineers determined a need for a community of scholars with knowledge centered around vacuum technology and corresponding applications.1 Understanding how to create, measure, and maintain a vacuum became something of a discipline in itself. The first symposium, held in 1954, attracted 295 participants from several countries.1 The American Vacuum Society (AVS) evolved from this original group, elected a Board of Directors, and established society by-laws. A unique feature of this initial group, which is still true of the AVS community today, is that symposium participants come from a variety of disciplines in both science and engineering. It is truly a multi-disciplinary society that addresses technological needs that are also quite varied. In addition to diversity in disciplines, the society members are diverse in their affiliations. Members, volunteers, and symposium registrants come from academic institutions, government agencies, national laboratories, and industry. The Industrial Physics Forum (IPF) associated with the AVS brings industry executives, researchers, and science-policy decision makers together to share business knowledge, to assess critical needs, and to determine future directions.2 Using vacuum technology for characterizing material surfaces and interfaces was a primary focus in the early days. Controlling the environment in a sample chamber allowed use of various beam technologies for materials characterization. With the invention of the integrated circuit in 1964,3 interest grew enormously in the use of vacuum techniques to deposit, pattern, and etch
Patterson, C., & Kraft, N. A., & Burkett, S. (2010, June), Avs: Science And Technology Virtual Museum Paper presented at 2010 Annual Conference & Exposition, Louisville, Kentucky. 10.18260/1-2--16173
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