Use of technology for undergraduate engineering education

Abstract

California Polytechnic State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute have formed a consortium to develop an alternative learning environment centered around a workstation comprised of a personal computer interfaced to a video disk and laboratory instrumentation. The first phase in their collective effort has involved the development of four instructional modules in the fundamentals of electrical engineering. The results of the first phase efforts are presented. They demonstrate how four different universities can work together to agree on standards, and to prepare instructional material that can be shared. The second phase will continue the development of instructional modules. The consortium plans to share its expertise and experience through a series of regional workshops for which funding is being sought from private sources. A national association of universities involved in creating modules will be developed to serve as a focal point through which new modules will be subject to peer review and existing modules distributed. Issues involving organizational form, marketing, distribution and other concerns will be addressed during the project with the goal of making the association a self-sustaining organization.<>