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Session 2632

Enhancing Senior/Graduate Education through Inter-University Course Sharing Dr. Bruce P. Johnson Electrical Engineering Department (260) University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, 89557

Abstract

The Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) is a participant in WestVEC, a consortium of western universities experimenting with sharing senior/graduate courses in electrical engineering. Current WestVEC participants include the University of Idaho, Idaho State University, Boise State University, Utah State University, the University of Utah, Northern Arizona State University and Montana State University. Based on our participation in spring, 1998, we have identified several advantages and some disadvantages that arise from participation in the consortium and these will be the topic of this paper. More specifically, the paper discusses the experiences associated with importing a videotaped course from another university for a course the instructor typically taught. The justification was to provide a course-load reduction so that the instructor could team-teach a new course in the department.

Introduction

For the spring, 1998 semester, the author was scheduled to teach two classes in the department. The first was a senior-graduate elective in Integrated Circuit Engineering and the second was a graduate class in GaAs Circuit Design. At the same time, the department was interested in introducing a new class in Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) that complements an existing instrumented antenna anechoic chamber in the department. A local company had expressed interest in having us videotape the EMC class for their internal use and a new faculty member was available to team teach the class if the author was also available.

To keep the teaching load down and still participate in the EMC class, the author took advantage of the department’s participation in WestVEC (1), a consortium of western universities interested in exchanging classes at the senior/graduate level. Participating schools included the University of Idaho, Idaho State University, Boise State University, Utah State University, the University of Utah, Northern Arizona State University and Montana State University. We opted to import a videotaped class from the University of Idaho entitled EE 445 “Introduction to VLSI Design”. Dr. Jake Baker taught the course. The class originated in Boise, Idaho and was taught through a live videoconferencing link to students at Moscow, Idaho. The videotaping took place in Moscow and tapes were then sent by overnight mail to UNR and other sites. There are three factors that made this experience unique. The first is that the course was very similar to one taught at UNR and both schools used the same textbook (2). The second factor was that Dr. Baker was a Ph.D. graduate of UNR and the author was his research advisor. The third factor was that while Dr. Baker gave the exams, graded homework and assigned course grades for all of

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Johnson, B. P. (1999, June), Enhancing Senior/Graduate Education Through Inter University Course Sharing Paper presented at 1999 Annual Conference, Charlotte, North Carolina. 10.18260/1-2--7642