Engineering and Technical Education in the Rochester, Minnesota Location of the IBM General Systems Division

Continuing education has been a way of life in IBM from the early days of the company. The educational activities in Rochester are fairly typical to all major domestic facilities and reflect a basic commitment of the corporation to provide an environment which supports personal growth and learning. Company support is available for all educational programs with applicability to current work or for future growth. The programs administered by the Education Department utilize a broad range of in-house capabilities and an equally wide range of outside facilities. Programs range from one-hour seminars to on-site Master of Science progams and on-campus graduate studies. The major thrust is in electrical engineering and computer sciences However, offerings even include discussion classes of the familiar Great Books program. These educational opportunities combined with other programs maintain the technical vitality of our people and provide firm support for personal gowth and learning.     

University-industry partnerships in biomedical engineering

We describe the activities that are vital to establishing and maintaining a thriving cooperative education and industrial internship program. In addition, we describe the benefits of such a program for not only the students but for the industrial partners and for the university. Student participants work as engineering professionals, gain valuable engineering and business experience, apply engineering concepts to real-world problems, and tend to be more focused on their career choices after participating in a co-op or internship opportunity. There are also multiple benefits to the industrial partner. Employers have the opportunity to train potential long-term employees; capture the attention of motivated, talented biomedical engineers; obtain visibility at the university; and ultimately lower their turnover and training costs. Students can also provide a fresh perspective and can be motivators contributing to the growth of the employers' organization. Finally, the academic department benefits from industrial partnerships through increased student satisfaction, improved student training, novel education programs, job placement for graduates, and research collaborations.     

Diversifying computing

The Computing Research Association (CRA) is an educational non-profit organization headquartered in Washington, DC. Its mission is to promote research and advanced education in computing. It members include computing research-oriented academic departments and government and industrial laboratories in the United States and Canada. Many of the major computing professional societies are affiliates of CRA and support CRA's activities. CRA supports programs to promote diversity in the computing research community through all four of its mission areas: community building, human resources, information gathering and dissemination, and public policy.     

A survey of educational and training needs for transition of aproduct from development to manufacturing

Serious technical problems are traditionally found when transitioning a design from development to production. A major study was conducted of over 1000 professionals from 22 high-technology companies to assess the educational and training needs of technical professionals engaged in the transition process. Of the survey, most respondents (86%) believe that a technically based and multidisciplined engineering approach is fundamental to ensure the successful transition of a design to production. Unfortunately, the survey indicates that university education and corporate training have been deficient for adequately explaining the basic engineering fundamentals behind the transition process. Over 88% of the respondents stated that “almost none to very little” course work in their university education was devoted to the underlying technical concepts and methodologies needed in the transition process. In addition, 93% stated that today's universities are not graduating students with the knowledge of these fundamental concepts. Similar findings regarding formal corporate training were also found. Most of the respondents (78%) indicated that “almost none to very little” training in the transition process was conducted in their companies, and 84% indicated that additional or improved corporate training is needed to increase their knowledge and understanding of this critical function. The majority of the companies surveyed have not conducted or implemented formal training programs for the transition process. In summary, the respondents believed that universities and corporations have often been indifferent to the educational and training requirements of transitioning a product from design to production     

Rethinking the Introduction to an Engineering Course

The student consumerism movement along with rapidly changing professional demands and opportunities are forces which will require engineering departments or colleges to inform new students more fully of their educational programs and career opportunities. The introductory engineering course is a natural place to provide such a service and yet if the current literature on engineering education and college catalogs is any gauge, this course is under-utilized and ineffectively organized. This paper discusses ECE 0100, an Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering, which is currently being offered at Wayne State University. This course incorporates the educational philosophy and assumptions advocated by humanistic psychology and shows that such an approach naturally satisfies the information requirements created by student consumerism and changing professionsal needs.     

Women in engineering: politics in the making of a statisticalcategory

National narratives, made up mostly by images of a nation in crisis and defined by powerful social actors and have significantly shaped US policies and programs for education and training of women in engineering, as well as the latter's significance as statistical categories for the American nation. Given the increasing importance of scientists and engineers in the fulfillment of US missions in the last four decades, educating, training, and having knowledge about scientists and engineers have become important activities for federal involvement, particularly through the US National Science Foundation (NSF). However, the creation and implementation of policies and programs in education and human resources results in struggles and encounters resistance from different actors involved in the education, training, and counting of scientists and engineers. Political struggles of the past 40 years (1960-2000) have shaped the US government's programs for the education and training of women in engineering, and demonstrated how the government has defined women as statistical categories based on its understanding of “appropriate” national needs. In the discussion presented, we see how what was considered “appropriate” changed over time     

The Education and Professional Development of Engineering Faculties

The goal of engineering education is to train students to enter the practice of engineering. To accomplish this, there must be a faculty which is itself well-educated and adept at the practice of engineering, as well as a sympathetic environment, adequately equipped with appropriate facilities. Today's rapid technological progress renders earlier developments obsolete. The engineer, therefore, must be alert to adapt to his purposes the latest and most powerful advances of scientific knowledge. The failure of the faculty to keep up this pace has resulted in an inability to cope with the implication of scientific advances and a lack of communication between the educator and his counterpart in industry and development laboratories. By default, the scientist has had to step in to assume engineering responsibilities; thus the training of our engineers all too often has become a function of industry and development centers. If industry and science continue to take over this responsibility, we need a searching examination to determine the cause of our inadequacy. Our faculties and institutions must maintain an adequate and identifiable program of engineering education, or our role will become precarious and ambiguous. At the heart of the problem are the opportunities, or lack of them, provided for engineering faculties to continue their educational and professional development. A total program of faculty education and professional development will include: 1) research and development investigations, 2) consulting, 3) internal educational activities, and 4) external educational activities.     

Fission or Fusion

This paper deals with a hyperbolic account of how scientific disciplines came into being and a means for dealing with the establishment of new academic programs. In the past, legitimate academic subject areas have been created by fission and fusion. Fission results when a single field of knowledge is fractionated into two or more fields that are formalized as new departments in colleges and universities. Fusion results from the combining of two separate fields into a single academic department. New departments created by fusion should offer degree programs at the graduate level by establishing requirements that fit the programs rather than following traditional departmental boundaries. Departments should be considered more as administrative necessities and less as a means of defining or protecting knowledge boundaries.     

Developing your electrical engineering degree thesis [Personal and Professional Growth]

The degree thesis (DT) in electrical engineering (EE), also known as the final year project or master's thesis, is often the final required step toward an EE degree, and it represents the culmination of EE studies. In such final work, students must carry out a synthesis of their acquired knowledge during their years at university. Officially, the degree thesis is only treated as one more subject that has to be passed. However, it plays a key role in the training of students both before joining an engineering position in a company or continuing with their academic career. The goals of EE DTs can be summarized as: · enabling the student to obtain maximum benefit from this final work · enhancing the student's knowledge on specific EE field, ranging from data collection and interpretation to academic report writing · developing a work of high quality relevant to both research and industries' needs.     

Updating the Training of Research and Development Personnel

Although there has been some leveling off in the expansion of established research organizations, normal business growth plus requirements by government-financed research and new businesses will keep the demand for manpower high. There is little likelihood that the output of scientists and engineers by universities will keep pace with the needs. Thus, increasing productivity by retraining researchers hired since World War II is the best way to raise substantially the nation's total technological effort. Technical obsolescence is due in part to the rapid growthrate of knowledge, the major modifications of collegiate training in recent years, the influence of computing machines, and the industrial practices of encouraging specialization and emphasizing supervisory training. The most common updating aid is the tuition refund plan, almost universally adopted by industry. Plans of this type encourage degree-oriented employees early in their careers, but do not provide sufficient motivation for older workers in need of refresher training. For these, companies are using university short courses extensively, and hiring professors to teach subjects at their plants. For the technical training of managers, one university has developed a 6-week course in modern engineering. Currently the greatest need is for training specifically designed for the employee 10 years or more out of school which will bring him up-to-date in the developments in his field of science or engineering. The suggestion is made that some universities offer such programs during the summer months.     

Technology and health care-driving costs up, not down

Health care costs in the United States are approaching a trillion dollars per year, about 14% of the Gross National Product. Despite this enormous cost, about 20% of the population are without health insurance. An even greater number are only partially insured. Under these circumstances, what are the roles of technical innovations such as telemedicine and electronic medical records? Will these innovations, if implemented, reduce health care costs, or just make the problem worse? The paper considers how these innovations are more likely to increase than to decrease costs     

Xerox In-Ouse Educational Progran

This paper examines one element of a total spectrum of education and training activities maintained by the Research and Engineering Division of the Xerox Corporation for updating and broadening its engineering and scientific personnel. It describes several ways in which one company capitalizes on its specialists and subject matter experts as instructional talent to share knowledge with other members of the technical community, and examines how cooperation between local colleges and universities during program development has resulted in relevant training to meet their specific industrial training needs. Techniques of using company resources to provide state of the art and interdisciplinary training in a wide range of highly unique and specialized areas are explored. Administrative and operational activities necessary for successfully establishing and maintaining an in-plant education and training program are examined, the scope of classroom facilities are specified, and the benefits achieved through these in-house training techniques are enumerated.     

Engineering Plus: challenges and choices

Engineering Plus is a name for a structure that provides a wide range of enhancements for the four-year baccalaureate engineering program. Each of these enhancements requires a year or more beyond the basic engineering program. The Engineering Plus umbrella covers programs that include the basic engineering program plus something in addition. The something else is not just a random collection of courses but it is an educational experience which is designed to meet a particular educational goal     

电业职工智能培训系统关键技术研究(I)——智能培训系统的功能和结构

文章分为三篇,分别论述了电业职工智能培训系统的功能和结构、知识的表示及智能培训系统的建模和软件设计等三个方面的技术问题。在采用计算机辅助培训系统对电业职工进行培训时,由于培训对象具有“知识水平不同、学习目标各异”的特点,因此对不同学员应采取相应的教学培训策略。文中的第一篇首先介绍智能教学系统的基本原理、系统的功能和结构,进而提出电业职工智能化知识培训系统的总体设计。     

Job Obsolescence: Challenge and Opportunity

The rate of accumulation of knowledge, and the application of knowledge, now frequently depreciates the value of an education gained in one's first 20 or 25 years. Experience acquired in the interim may not be a satisfactory substitute for the new knowledge which has become current since one's formal education. The consequence is to place an even greater premium on recently educated (younger) employees and to accelerate their rate of obsolescence. It is not only production workers who are threatened by new technologies, but professional and managerial personnel as well. They may not lose their jobs, but they may be downgraded on the promotional ladder. What is needed, if we are to avoid piling up frustrations on the part of people still in their physical and mental prime, is a new conception of formal education as something stretching through a person's lifetime. The additional cost will be more than offset by increased productivity. Even before this becomes public policy, companies can move on their own to encourage their management personnel, beginning with the younger members, to return to the classroom every few years to keep up with the flow of knowledge. Various mechanisms are available to make this a perfectly feasible program.     

Continuing Education at Western Electric's Corporate Education Center

The Western Electric Corporate Education Center is a tangible manifestation of the company's long-term commitment to continuing education for its technical-professional, supervisory, and upper management employees. Educational programs which have evolved over a period of years now provide post-graduate schooling to accelerate the development of new employees, to maintain and expand the expertise of experienced employees, and to help supervisory employees cope with enlarged areas of responsibility. The three principal areas of study involved are engineering, computer science and information systems, and business management, with roughly equal emphasis in each of the three areas. Teaching load is shared about equally between experienced company employees, and local-area college faculty and specialized consultants. Some 5800 employees annually attend courses in modern, campuslike facilities which accommodate up to 300 resident students at a time.     

Teaching as a Meaningful Pursuit in Engineering Education

Engineering educators are developing an increasing concern for the quality of instruction in their schools. Imaginative solutions to educational problems, together with innovative hardware techniques are reported with increasing frequency in the literature. However, in order to be truly effective, engineering education for the future must adopt a more radical departure from traditional methods. Real support for teaching excellence begins in graduate schools, where training for the professorial is initiated. Until educators begin assigning priority to the development of training procedures in engineering education, the quality of instruction can not be expected to improve significantly.     

Education: One Element in GE's Approach to Human Resource Development

Human resources is a term that refers collectively to employee potential for contributing individually and in concert to the achievement of an organization's objectives. Human resource management helps to assure the productivity and viability of the work force through recruiting, utilization, and development of the work force. Recruiting involves planning, attracting and screening candidates, and hiring of employees. Utilization involves guiding and leading employees to accomplish the desired work according to schedule, within cost, and to preset standards of performance. Development as one of the three major thrusts of human resource involves encouraging employees and providing means for their growth to cope with new and/or different job requirements and challenges. Career development is a complex, life-long learning process for producing and accumulating the relevant know-how, skills, art, and attributes used by engineers, managers, and other professionals who are the leaders of our society. Within the pertinent societal and organizational environment, career development seems to be influenced primarily by work assigments (80 percent); supervision and coaching (10 percent); career planning (3 percent); education (5 percent); and other activities (2 percent). Education is used broadly to include combinations of off-the-job training, indoctrination, instruction and studying that facilitate the production and accumulation of know-how, skills, art, and attributes.     

A Windows-based interactive and graphic package for the educationand training of power system analysis and operation

This paper presents a Windows-based interactive graphic package developed by the authors for the education and training of the power system modeling, analysis and operation with a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) and visual database management system (VDBMS). To achieve this goal, the package is designed to have following features: a graphic editor to visually edit the power system diagram; Windows-based power system database to interactively manage the data; graphic representations; animation; and interrupting schemes. The application programs in this package include the power flow calculation, transient stability analysis, fault analysis, economic dispatch and automatic load-frequency control. This package may be useful for educational and training purposes     

A survey of control systems education in the United States

In August of 1988 the Education Committee of the IEEE Control Systems Society sent out a questionnaire to 120 committee members on control systems education. A total of 28 responses were received from departments of electrical engineering in the United States. The responses received are discussed. The object of the survey was to answer some of the following questions: What fraction of the department faculty are in the control area? How many MS and PhD degrees were awarded for the academic year 1987-1988? How many BSEE programs require at least one course in control systems? What control topics are required in the BSEE degree program? What advanced mathematics is required at the undergraduate and graduate level? What text books are being used for various control courses?