Development And Delivery Of On Line Upper Division Engineering Technology Courses: A Case Study

With the advancement of Internet, on-line instruction is becoming popular in engineering education. Traditional and non-traditional colleges and universities are using a variety of instructional tools and techniques to deliver on-line courses to their students. Computer and telecommunication technological advances have provided alternatives to the traditional classroom setting. The on-line learning environment facilitates a learner-centered approach to learning, with the learner as an active participant in the learning process. On-line learning provides a greater degree of learner control over the course materials. It also offers an enhanced level of interaction both in relation to the course materials themselves and in the opportunities presented for active learning through conferencing, discussion groups, and collaborative learning projects. Excelsior College, located in Albany, New York, offers 31 different degree programs at the associate and baccalaureate levels in business, liberal arts, nursing, and technology and master’s level degrees in liberal studies, business administration, and nursing. The college has been a pioneer institution in the distance learning. Numerous on-line courses have been recently developed by Excelsior College to serve the educational needs of its students. These courses cover a wide range of academic disciplines and can be delivered by a course management system known as WebCT, CD-ROM or directly through the Web. This manuscript provides a detailed description of the WebCT-based upper-division engineering technology courses recently developed by the School of Business and Technology at the Excelsior College to fulfill the academic needs of students enrolled in its baccalaureate degree Electronics Engineering Technology program. These courses P ge 10445.1 Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright 2005, American Society for Engineering Education provide a virtual classroom with scheduled assignments, chat/whiteboards, dialogue with other students in the course via course e-mail, discussion boards, group activities, course content modules/lectures, quizzes, exams, and term projects/papers – all delivered online. The manuscript also provides information regarding the methods used in these courses to assess students’ learning. Finally, the manuscript describes Excelsior College’s future on-line education initiatives in the academic discipline of Electronics Engineering Technology.