Multi Institutional Approach To Engineering Education

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Multi-Institutional Approach to Engineering Education Introduction Many specialized areas of study exist for which there is a definite but small market in the industrial world. The size of this market may preclude the development of economically viable and self-sustaining programs of study worthy of long-term investment by a single institution, in the context of limited resources. Investment in such a program is fraught with the risk of large downward swings in enrollment due to market forces and cyclical variations in the industries relevant to the program. However, the development and implementation of such programs of study is often essential to the national infrastructure and economy. Hence the need to leverage limited resources available at multiple institutions is addressed in this paper. The broad background is first considered and the proposed approach is illustrated with a case study. The instructional process in post-secondary education consists of multiple steps, including decisions and implementations of: 1. Course outcomes 2. Course content 3. Instructional materials 4. Delivery methodology 5. Assessment and evaluation 6. Mentoring of students. Mentoring is the unique cornerstone of the learning process that requires individualized interactions between instructors and students. However, the remaining five steps can utilize the services and expertise of individuals in other locations, thereby increasing the effective use of resources at multiple educational institutions. Course outcomes and content are often based on the expectations of multiple stakeholders (including instructors of other courses), although sometimes not explicitly stated, or modified during the course delivery, or ignored. Accreditation requirements and curricular standardization efforts imply considerable redundancy in content and outcomes at different institutions. In other words, the efforts in this context are needlessly duplicated at multiple institutions. Besides, these activities do not generally require frequent revisions, and can be agreed upon by discussion and consensus among responsible individuals at different institutions. The third step (development of instructional materials) is again often duplicated, with essentially identical sets of slides, notes, and handouts being prepared at multiple institutions. Significant savings can be achieved by pooling the resources available at different institutions. The most common example of this is textbooks and materials associated with them used as needed at multiple institutions.