Development of an Undergraduate Engineering Research Course

Arif Sirinterlikci

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Conference: 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Publication Date: June 24, 2017
Start Date: June 24, 2017
End Date: June 28, 2017
Conference Session: Experinces in Manufacturing Engineering Education
Tagged Division: Manufacturing
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--28169
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/28169
Download Count: 383

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Paper Authors

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Arif Sirinterlikci Robert Morris University orcid.org/0000-0002-3272-0649

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Arif Sirinterlikci is a University Professor of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and the Department Head of Engineering at Robert Morris University. He holds BS and MS degrees, both in Mechanical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in Turkey and his Ph.D. is in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Ohio State University. He has been actively involved in ASEE and SME organizations and conducted research in Rapid Prototyping and Reverse Engineering, Biomedical Device Design and Manufacturing, Automation and Robotics, and CAE in Manufacturing Processes fields.

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Abstract

This paper presents an effort to develop an undergraduate research course to produce an alternative to a mandatory internship course, Engineering Practice taken by all majors including manufacturing engineering. The new course is labeled as Engineering Research Projects. However, with the growing enrollments and especially in international students, internship placement has become a challenge. The new Engineering Research Projects course will reduce the pressure on Engineering Practice distributing the enrollment in between both courses. It will also accommodate the growing research needs of the department while engaging students in activities that prepare them for graduate study.

The author have been utilizing the internal research projects from the last 10 years as a reference in designing this course. These projects happened under the umbrella of the Engineering Practice course. The new course will be a better match in terms of its requirements. Engineering Practice requires at least 150 hours of engineering work that may include design, analysis, development, maintenance, service, and even technical sales. Each student in the Engineering Practice course deliver a PPT presentation after completing the experience, turn in a final report or a portfolio covering the work done at the workplace, a weekly log and journal that describes the activities. Students also complete a student survey to reflect on their experience and are graded by their work supervisors. Final grade is based on student work and the supervisor feedback. The new course will also include the minimum hours requirement, weekly journals and logs along with the PPT Presentation. The main difference will be that the students are required to produce scholarly works including conference papers and trade journal articles. Scholarly works of appropriate quality may also be submitted to scientific journals. The completion of these works will be the requirement, not the acceptance.

Engineering Research Projects will draw its students from internal and collaborative research projects at the institution along with students conducting research at other local institutions and through NSF REU and other similar programs. The number of students engaging these type of activities have been growing rapidly along with graduate study, and the new course will address this need as well.

Students will be utilizing research databases such as Scopus, Proquest, and Google Scholar, be guided on research methods and scholarly work production. Intellectual Property information and Google Patent will also be an important part of the course if the students develop an original product or process. This course will not replace the interdisciplinary capstone course, Integrated Engineering Design but will be a good complement to it along with Engineering Practice. This paper will include a comprehensive literature review on including research in undergraduate curriculum, the syllabus including ABET student learning outcomes, and relate to the existing and previous research work done at the institution as case studies.

Citation
Format

Sirinterlikci, A. (2017, June), Development of an Undergraduate Engineering Research Course Paper presented at 2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, Ohio. 10.18260/1-2--28169

TY - CPAPER
AB - This paper presents an effort to develop an undergraduate research course to produce an alternative to a mandatory internship course, Engineering Practice taken by all majors including manufacturing engineering. The new course is labeled as Engineering Research Projects. However, with the growing enrollments and especially in international students, internship placement has become a challenge. The new Engineering Research Projects course will reduce the pressure on Engineering Practice distributing the enrollment in between both courses. It will also accommodate the growing research needs of the department while engaging students in activities that prepare them for graduate study.

The author have been utilizing the internal research projects from the last 10 years as a reference in designing this course. These projects happened under the umbrella of the Engineering Practice course. The new course will be a better match in terms of its requirements. Engineering Practice requires at least 150 hours of engineering work that may include design, analysis, development, maintenance, service, and even technical sales. Each student in the Engineering Practice course deliver a PPT presentation after completing the experience, turn in a final report or a portfolio covering the work done at the workplace, a weekly log and journal that describes the activities. Students also complete a student survey to reflect on their experience and are graded by their work supervisors. Final grade is based on student work and the supervisor feedback. The new course will also include the minimum hours requirement, weekly journals and logs along with the PPT Presentation. The main difference will be that the students are required to produce scholarly works including conference papers and trade journal articles. Scholarly works of appropriate quality may also be submitted to scientific journals. The completion of these works will be the requirement, not the acceptance.

Engineering Research Projects will draw its students from internal and collaborative research projects at the institution along with students conducting research at other local institutions and through NSF REU and other similar programs. The number of students engaging these type of activities have been growing rapidly along with graduate study, and the new course will address this need as well.

Students will be utilizing research databases such as Scopus, Proquest, and Google Scholar, be guided on research methods and scholarly work production. Intellectual Property information and Google Patent will also be an important part of the course if the students develop an original product or process. This course will not replace the interdisciplinary capstone course, Integrated Engineering Design but will be a good complement to it along with Engineering Practice. This paper will include a comprehensive literature review on including research in undergraduate curriculum, the syllabus including ABET student learning outcomes, and relate to the existing and previous research work done at the institution as case studies.

AU - Arif Sirinterlikci
CY - Columbus, Ohio
DA - 2017/06/24
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Development of an Undergraduate Engineering Research Course
UR - https://peer.asee.org/28169
DO - 10.18260/1-2--28169
ER -