Experience with Mentoring and Directing Graduate Student Research at a Distance in a Mechanical Engineering Program

The advising of graduate student research projects from a distance requires both planning and flexibility from both the graduate student and the advisor. This paper provides an overview of the experience of the authors in the development of research programs in mechanical engineering in a distance education setting from an extended campus. Introduction and Background With the widespread availability of the internet and increased ownership of computers, it is natural that distance education would develop that uses the online environment. Currently most public and private universities and colleges have online courses. Moreover, there are for-profit universities with online degree programs. The online courses have evolved to include advanced degree programs involving a research component that could include a student thesis (see for example References 1-5). A key part of these advanced degree programs is mentoring of the distance graduate students so they can successfully complete their research efforts. The development of an MS distance learning degree program in engineering with a biomedical specialization is discussed by Griffin et al. to provide an advanced degree opportunity for engineers working in California. They found that communication concerning the requirements for a thesis and to provide motivation for students to finish their theses were issues for distance students. Additional time requirements for academic advising were also found to be necessary. The communication challenge has also been highlighted by Biezael and Tso in a distance graduate program for students at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Emails, phone calls, scanned files, etc. that involved faculty and student interactions were found to be ‘far from ideal’. Bumblauskas presents a brief review of distance learning trends and experiences from a graduate student that has been an onand off-campus student. An observation that was mentioned on the importance of face-to-face communication indicates the usefulness of the development of Internet teleconferencing to provide video conferencing tools for remote collaborations real-time. An internationally cooperative program presented by Kassegne discusses the supervision of graduate students in Ethiopia from the United States. Student surveys mentioned misunderstandings that occurred with written communications and the benefits the students received from interacting with advisors at a more focused technical level. One of the difficulties encountered was the reliability of Internet access. In this paper, an overview of 12 years of mentoring and directing graduate students in mechanical engineering at the University of Kentucky in a distance education setting is presented. A unique aspect of the current paper is that the graduate students primarily reside on P ge 23566.2 the main campus in Lexington, Kentucky while the faculty members are located on an extended campus located in Paducah, Kentucky. This paper presents strategies used to help students overcome communication issues with remotely located faculty members, the use of distance communication technology, and experience managing distance experimental programs, which were not covered in the references highlighted. To begin, a short summary of the college of engineering extended campus program in mechanical engineering will be discussed. A more complete description of this program can be found in Reference 6. Extended Campus Program The University of Kentucky, College of Engineering has established mechanical and chemical undergraduate engineering programs in western Kentucky. These extended campus programs are unique because they are located on a community college campus over 250 miles from the main Lexington campus, and they are the direct responsibility of the Lexington campus College of Engineering dean. These engineering programs have received separate ABET accreditation because of the differences in location, facilities, administration, and support services from the engineering programs in Lexington. All Paducah faculty positions, with the exception of the former director, are special-title series. These positions are primarily upper division nine-month teaching appointments. However, due to the nature of the Paducah program, these appointments involve additional assignments, including student recruitment, undergraduate laboratory development, and professional development. The traditional responsibilities involving instruction, academic advisement, and university service also apply. Because of these unique responsibilities and the limited access to graduate students, the expectation for research productivity is less than for the faculty on the Lexington campus. However, the faculty members are expected to develop a research program and advise graduate students. Since the Paducah programs are undergraduate degree programs, graduate student classes (beyond dual level) are not available. It is rare for graduate students that have completed their graduate courses in Lexington to relocate to the Paducah campus to complete their research; it is more common for the graduate students to remain in Lexington for their entire graduate student program. This requires the faculty members in Paducah to use distance communication technology to advise and direct the research efforts of the graduate students located in Lexington.