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Revising a BSEE Curriculum – or How One Change Begets Another Dr. Stephen B. Dobrow Fairleigh Dickinson University Teaneck, New Jersey
Abstract: Fairleigh Dickinson University's desire to devise a curriculum schedule where students could have two 6-month co-op experiences but still complete the degree in the traditional four years prompted the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology to revise its curriculums. This proved doable if the student took one web-based course during each co-op, attended two summer sessions, and took 18 credits during regular campus-based semesters. However, it required a reshuffling of courses with changes in prerequisites and corequisites. At the same time, it was a convenient opportunity to make other desired curricular changes. The order of courses and number of credits have been revised. Courses in circuits and electronics are now taken earlier in the curriculum. Laboratories have been integrated with recitation classes. Courses in emerging technical areas have been added.
The need for outcomes assessment triggered the idea of reviewing of the BSEE Curriculum at Fairleigh Dickinson University. But it was other very specific needs that actually triggered going through with a major realignment.
What started the process was the University's desire to develop a new co-op arrangement where students participate in two co-op experiences and are away from campus for two six-month periods but still would be able to complete a Bachelor's degree in four years.
The co-op would be in the Sophomore and Junior Years either from January through June or July through December, half the students in each. The split into two groups was to provide continuity of student availability to employers. To accommodate the two groups, the Sophomore and Junior courses have to be repeated Fall and Spring. The Freshman and Senior year were not considered for this "repeat" mode – but for different reasons. The Freshman Year is the same for each group because both are getting the same basics and it is too early for starting a co-op experience; the Senior year is the same for both groups because of a desire not to have to repeat electives and specialized courses. The schedule sequence has to be able to accommodate students not in the co-op program without excessive offerings as well.
To start the process, it was assumed that the curriculum would still have a credit requirement in the low 130s, but the problem was that the co-op student would only be on campus for six regular semesters. If 18 credits a semester maximum is assumed, this only amounts to 108 credits; thus at least 22 credits must be provided for either during the co-op experiences or during the summer terms immediately before or after the co-op.
A decision was made that each co-op experience would be worth 3 academic credits and that the student would take a 3-credit web-based course while away during each co-op. (This turned out to fit in very well with the University's later announced requirement for web-based courses as part of its Global Education initiative.) This left the need to take 6-7 credits during each of two summer sessions. This structure was used for all undergraduate programs in the School of Engineering and Engineering Technology, not just the Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.
Having only six regular semesters to work with means that courses might have to be moved earlier, some prerequisites might have to be changed to corequisites, and other courses might have to be moved around to fill in the gaps. Thus there is a pressure to change the order of courses and adjust the number of credits.
In thinking about what courses could be moved up earlier, consideration was made of previous student background, the ability to use "just in time" methods for providing related materials, and what might be useful during the first co-op. It was decided to move up Physics, Digital Design, and the first half of Signals and Systems to the freshman year for the co-op student, as well as increase the amount of computer programming experience.
As revised, the Digital Design course became a 3-credit, 4-contact hour course, one more contact hour than before, with the following description: "Binary codes, gates and flip-flops, registers and counters, adders and ALUs, analysis and design of combinational and sequential circuits, logic simulation, logic families" with an integrated laboratory experience. This course has no prerequisites or corequisites.
The new Signals and Systems I course became a second semester course of 4 credits, 5-contact hours covering, "Circuit elements and laws, D.C. circuits, analysis methods, network theorems, operational amplifiers, energy storage elements, step response" with an integrated laboratory experience.
The 2-credit, first semester Fundamentals of Engineering course was replaced by a 3-credit (5-contact hours) Engineering Practices, Graphics and Design course covering "Analytical techniques: equations, graphics, statistics; introduction to computer-aided analysis software; engineering applications; introduction to design; fundamentals of graphics as applied to sketching and drafting; professionalism and ethics," with an integrated laboratory experience. The 2-credit, second semester course Programming Languages in Engineering was expanded to 3 credits to give more computer work prior to the first co-op experience.
These changes allowed us to move up Electronic Circuits and Microprocessor Design to the sophomore year; however Electronic Circuits has to be taken at the same time of the second half of Signals and Systems. Since the Sophomore year had only one regular semester in the co-op program, to make things work, Differential Equations had to be moved so that it is taken before Calculus III, since its content was needed earlier than Calculus III.
The web-based courses to be offered during the co-op experience were considered with the idea of providing courses that would be useful to the job. Hence, Technical Communications and Advanced Engineering Programming were chosen for the purpose. Technical Communications encompasses, "Technical reporting and exposition; narration, description and argumentation; correspondence, proposals, instructions, progress reports, research papers; oral reports and conferencing; use of the web." The Advanced Engineering Programming course involves the use of computers for design, analysis, control and decision-making, making use of C++ and Matlab concepts.
As already noted, for co-op students, Physics was moved into the Freshman year. Chemistry has been reduced to a single semester. In the future, we would like the School of Natural Sciences to develop a specially designed one semester Chemistry course oriented towards materials rather than having our students simply taking Chemistry I. Course needs forced Differential Equations (which only has Calculus II as a prerequisite) to come before Calculus III. A course in Engineering Statistics and Reliability was added.
As noted earlier, Circuits and Systems I and Electronic Circuits were moved earlier in the curriculum, with some background material provided on a just-in-time basis.
Another change already noted is an increase in both digital software and hardware requirements. There have been senior course elective sequences in Computer Engineering and Computer-Aided Analysis and Design. These are in part replaced by the Advanced Engineering Programming and the second Microprocessor Design courses (both required). The microprocessor course covers "Microprocessor and microcomputer architecture and programming concepts, assembly and machine language programs, program modules and subroutines, bit manipulation and logic timing, I/O techniques, external device communications and control," with an integrated laboratory. New senior level electives are being developed for the computer area but the new versions are not needed for several years.
For some courses, tradeoffs had to be made between the optimum scheduling point for the course and available slots; as a result some courses were pushed into the Senior year since only one regular semester was available in the Junior year under the co-op arrangement.
It was decided that this would be a good time to look at some other issues. A decision was made to replace our sequence of three 2-credit laboratories with laboratories integrated with most courses giving the students increased lab experience at a time it could more closely complement the lecture material. Most of these courses stayed at 3 credits but increased contact hours to four to allow for the integrated lab experiments during the term. For example, all the courses in the Circuits and Systems, Electronics, Digital Systems and Communication Systems groups now will contain some lab experiments. The 3-credit capstone project was kept.
Another decision was made to reduce the number of electives in the program(including senior elective sequences) in order to provide expanded required course sequences in the digital area, the computer applications area, and the communications area, as well as requiring statistics and technical writing. Part of this is an intent to provide some "state-of-the-art" courses. The old curriculum had provision in the Senior year for two EE sequences (6 credits each) and four technical electives (3 credits each); the new curriculum allows for two technical electives for those in co-op programs and four for those not in the co-op program.
One area of increased required courses is the Communications area. In the old curriculum, a senior-elective sequence was available in Communication Systems, as well as some separate courses. Three new required courses have been added. Communications Systems covers, "Signal analysis, signal transmission, linear modulation, angle modulation, pulse modulation, data transmission, multiplexing." Data Communication and Computer Networks covers, "Message concentration, multiplexing and network design in geographically distributed digital data networks, queuing analysis, polling buffers and network design considerations." Wireless Communications covers, "Practical and theoretical aspects of wireless communication; system design with particular emphasis on mobile communication, cellular concepts, multiuser channels, propagation characteristics, modulation and encoding."
Changes were also made in some of the other course requirements. Among these is the replacement of Engineering Mechanics I with Mechanical Engineering Topics covering a broader range of topics. Another change provides for a History of Technology course.
Since this revised curriculum is just starting (with Fall 2001 freshmen), it is expected that some changes will be made along the way. There are indications that some adjustments have to made between the co-op and non-co-op scheduling. Both groups take the same courses, but in somewhat different order with different loads. The arrangement for those not in the co-op involves taking 17 credits rather than 18 in the first semester under the assumption that such students want a lighter load; this forces Physics back into the Sophomore year. The only course difference for those in the co-op program and those that are not is that the two co-ops replace two 3-credit electives. Another question is that of meshing students with deficiencies into the co-op sequence, as well as those who decide late that they want a co-op experience.
More program details can be found at http://alpha.fdu.edu/engineering.
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