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Session 3432

PACE - Project Automation and Collaboration Environment, a Web-based system developed for a Senior Design course in Electrical Engineering

Purvesh Thakker, Gary Swenson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Abstract

With the creation of the Internet, the world has standardized a way to share information over computer networks. Such a standard will have no less an impact on communication than standardizing a verbal or written language. The Project Automation and Collaboration Environment (PACE) provides a case study that illustrates these “network effects” as implemented for the University of Illinois Electrical Engineering Senior Projects course. The course has been set up to emulate a professional engineering environment and typically has 100 students working on 50 projects each semester. The course rarely meets as a group, yet demands communication between students, staff, and outside parties. PACE addresses these needs through many subsystems and distributes information to students on methods and procedures. The electronic form of paper submission eliminates paper delays, simplifies collection of late papers, and simultaneously builds the searchable Project Pages without burdening students. The Event Sign-up system allows instructors to easily schedule as many as 130 meetings in one week with specific people attending each meeting, and the Parts Request system allows students to quickly and easily obtain the parts that they need. PACE also improves the quality of projects since the added exposure makes it more worth a student’s effort to do well. During its first semester of operation, PACE archived 242 student documents and logged over 90,000 page views.

1 Introduction

In just a few short years, the Internet has moved from an unknown technology to the driving force behind an industry that impacts all other industries. Beginning in 1998, more data traffic traverses worldwide networks than voice traffic1. According to some statistics, Internet traffic doubles every 100 days. This growth comes from the increase in popularity of the Internet, the demand for higher bandwidth applications, and the fact that the absolute number of computers is growing at 20% - 30% per year2.

With the creation of the Internet, the world has standardized a way to share information over computer networks. Such a standard will have no less an impact on communication than standardizing a verbal or written language. With verbal communication we were able to share thoughts with others that were present and better coordinate immediate efforts. With written communication, we were able to share thoughts across time and space. People were able to build on the knowledge of others and share what they learned over a large area. As Sir Isaac Newton

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Thakker, P. B., & Swenson, G. R. (2000, June), Pace Project Automation And Collaboration Environment, A Web Based System For A Senior Design Course In Electrical Engineering Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8615