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Extending electrical engineering research to undergraduate students through a multi-media technology internship program

Abstract

A means by which electrical engineering research can be effectively extended to undergraduate students through the use of a university-wide multi-media technology internship program is described. A group of ten full time students participated in the program over a period of ten weeks during the summer. Undergraduates were introduced to research through the task of developing electronic portfolios describing research programs associated with faculty members. This conduit created a one-on-one faculty-to-student interaction, which enabled an environment in which the student could begin to understand the essential ideas behind doing research at a university. In addition to engineering, a variety of other disciplines were represented, including chemistry, economics, and literature. Each student/faculty partnership approached the experience from different directions. This provided a unique atmosphere for an electrical engineering undergraduate student to learn about university research in a broader sense. The approach taken by the electrical engineering faculty/student partnership involved exposing the undergraduate to a small scale research project designed to reflect typical activities experienced by graduate students. The student went through the entire cycle of design, simulation, fabrication, and test of a working device prototype. Through this approach, the student experienced a microcosm of graduate school while interacting with graduate students, experiencing the difference between laboratory and simulation work, and developing technical writing skills through the development of the electronic portfolio.

Introduction

A program referred to as "Research on Research" has been developed to expose undergraduate students to academic research. The program is instituted through the Technology Enhanced Learning & Research office (TELR) at the university. At the heart of TELR is the "TELR Design Team": a team of skilled professionals comprising instructional technologists, visual and web designers, web programmers, accessibility specialists, and researchers. TELR oversees projects in support of the instructional mission of the university including academic research, multimedia projects affiliated with a credit-bearing course, multimedia training projects for faculty, staff and students, etc.

The "Research on Research" program provides a means for faculty members to extend their research into the undergraduate learning environment via technology. Students are supported by TELR to collaborate with a faculty member during the summer period to develop a multimedia research portfolio documenting research. The entire program was hosted inside the "Digital Union": a TELR office space outfitted with both hardware and software multimedia tools. The Digital Union served as a meeting place where the students interacted with the TELR design team in a workshop environment.

The undergraduates worked one-on-one with a faculty member and explored some aspect of the faculty member’s research. This exploration was documented in what is called an "electronic

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Daniel, D., & Reano, R. (2006, June), Extending Electrical Engineering Research To Undergraduate Students Through A Multi Media Technology Internship Program Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--802