Database Decision Making

Examples of the Continuous Change Cycle:

Over the past decade the ECE Department has substantially reviewed and adjusted its programs based upon the department's data collection process. Once a change is implemented, the impact is monitored and reviewed. The following are examples of such changes.

• Example 1:
  
  Adding Computer Engineering. In the early 1990s the department began a series of major changes in the curriculum. The initial project investigated the possibility of adding a separate program in computer engineering. Surveys on this matter, that had previously been published, were reviewed and another was conducted. The faculty unanimously agreed that the change should be made. Implementation of the change required two years of work analyzing the existing curriculum and planning the new courses. The computer engineering program began in fall 1996. Monitoring of the CE and EE programs began immediately to verify how well the changes were working.


• Example 2:
  
  Changing from Quarters to Semesters. Two weeks after the computer engineering program was approved, the department was notified that university was switching from quarters to semesters. This required another two years of analysis and planning that incorporated faculty and staff experience with the addition of the computer engineering degree. The semester schedule began fall 1998. In 2000, results of this change were analyzed adjusted based on problems that had appeared.


• Example 3:
  
  Interdisciplinary Project Development Summary. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering recognizes the need for interdisciplinary project development within the curriculum. A summary of the steps that have been taken and the parties involved in bringing this goal to fruition follows.
  
  On February 25, 2000 the ECE Industrial Advisory Committee recommended the following after reviewing the ECE objectives and outcomes, and the ECE curriculum:
  • Learning outside a narrow engineering discipline is important.
  • Junior/Senior design should provide a multi-disciplinary team experience.
  • Junior/Senior design should include speakers from industry and address the marketing and financial side.
  • Assessments from alumni, graduating students and recruiters should be used in evaluation of our current program and also in the evaluation of the efficiency of improvement efforts.

  In consideration of the recommendations of the ECE Industrial Advisory Committee, the ECE faculty made the following recommendations March 9, 2000:
  • Junior/Senior design should be interdisciplinary and include participants outside of ECE.
  • Formation of an ad hoc committee from the ECE curriculum committee and the MAE curriculum committee to make specific recommendations.
  
  An Ad Hoc Committee was formed consisting of:
  
  ECE
  R. Harris (Replaced by G. Mather)
  R. Thurgood
  R. Haupt
  
  MAE
  S. Reed
  C. Wood
  C. Batty
  
  The committee developed the new junior design course ECE 3810/3820 and MAE 3800 Design I. This course incorporates the recommendations of the ECE Industrial Advisory Committee and the faculty to facilitate:
  • Multidisciplinary team experience
  • Speakers from industry
  • Address the marketing and financial aspects of engineering
  The committee then combined ECE 4310 and MAE 5310 to create a course entitled Central Systems I. While this course did not use project teams, combining of ECE and MAE students in a single course brought both aspects to bear on the practical problems encountered.
  Finally, ECE 5770 Microcomputer Interfacing was revamped to reach the goals of interdisciplinary teaming. This course uses ECE, MAE and CE multidisciplinary teams to solve practical problems chosen by the teams.
  
  On October 20, 2000 the faculty reported back to the Industrial Advisory Committee with the following report:
  
  In the past several years, students have been exposed to projects in specific courses and the senior design series where students propose a project, implement it, and present a written and oral report. Students were free to choose projects and, while the choice of interdisciplinary projects and teaming were encouraged, only a small percentage of the students chose to do so. More recently, as many as 50% of the students in the senior design course series have accepted industry proposed/funded/supervised projects, most of which involved engineering teams. Furthermore, our 5770 course in microprocessor interfacing has used teams involving ECE, CS, and MAE students. Even so, our recent surveys of both students and recruiters have shown that more interdisciplinary and team projects are desirable and appropriate.
  
  In academic year 2000/2001, the junior level design course (the first course of what was previously our senior design series) was combined with that for MAE, which uses teams to solve a design and build problem for delivery to an industrial customer. This course requires cost proposals, scheduling documents, written and oral presentations. Technical communications, customer relations and satisfaction, and professional conduct are also stressed. In addition, the controls course was combined with that of MAE to provide a complete controls systems engineering education and to expose students to interdisciplinary aspects. This course contains a continuous design problem in an open-ended ABET sense, which exposes the teams of electrical, computer, and mechanical engineers to an interdisciplinary application.
  
  In summary, beginning this year three courses will be available that provide the opportunity for interdisciplinary activity:
  • EE 5570 - Microcomputer Interfacing
  • EE 4310/MAE 5310 - Control Systems I
  • EE 3810/3820/MAE 3380 - Engineering Design I
  For detailed information see the Interdisciplinary Project Development Report by Linda S. Powers.


• Example 4:
  
  Adding UNIX to the Curriculum. A member of our Industrial Advisory Committee from Micron noted that most of our ECE graduates lacked experience with UNIX. He felt that an exposure to UNIX is extremely important for electrical and computer engineering graduates. We discussed this matter at a faculty meeting and decided that UNIX should be added to the curriculum. We presently have a number of the machines in the college PC lab set up to boot Linux as well as Windows. Dr. Stiles discussed this problem with Computer Science faculty and a CS 1720 instructor. Micron is pleased with the change, and we will continue to confer with other employers to guarantee that our students have an adequate exposure to UNIX.


• Example 5:
  
  Creating a 1 Credit Transmission Line Course for Computer Engineers. High speed digital circuits require some knowledge of transmission line theory. Micron, Intel, AMI, and TI suggested that we require our computer engineering majors to take some transmission line theory. We discussed this problem in a faculty meeting and decided to create ECE 3160, a one credit transmission line course for computer engineering majors. This course will be taken concurrently with EE majors in ECE 3870, Electromagnetics starting fall 2002.


• Example 6:
  
  Addition of Electives to the Computer Engineering Program. Feedback from students indicated that some were not entering the program because of the apparently small number of allowed electives. This appearance was partly due to the fact that the CE program requires six semesters of Computer Science courses, thus reducing the number of Engineering courses possible, and partly to the fact that we only explicitly listed four electives on our check sheet (although students could - and did - request authorization to substitute other appropriate courses; such requests were usually granted). We have modified the check sheet for fall 2002 to show several additional electives and will advertise that the list is not exhaustive.


• Example 7:
  
  Addition of Operating Systems as a Required Course. When the Computer Engineering program was originally established, Operating Systems was not required due to the large number of courses already required in CE and to the fact that no discussion of concurrency was included. With the change to semesters, the CS Department has changed the content to include concurrency - which leads nicely into our upper-division and graduate courses in this area. Operating Systems will be required of CE majors starting fall 2002.