Electrical Engineering Assessment Report - WSU
Electrical Engineering Assessment Report
For 2007/2008 Academic Year
This Annual Assessment report summarizes the assessment activities for the academic year 2007-2008. The new assessment process that was adapted from Spring 2006 continues to be working well. There was 75% and 73% compliance respectively in submission of assessment reports for all undergraduate courses that were taught during Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 semesters. Concerns and action items from the current 2007-2008 academic year assessment process are discussed first in Section 1. Progress on action items from the previous year is summarized in Section 2.
The Electrical Engineering (EE) program had its second site visit in Fall 2007. A summary of one concern and one observation from the draft statement from ABET EAC visit is included in Appendix A along with the reply from School of EECS. A summary of the present BSEE assessment process together with the course assessment template is presented in Appendix B. A flow-chart has been developed for the EE curriculum and is enclosed in Appendix C. This is followed by an itemized review of different assessment measures in Appendices D through H. The appendices provide the details on various assessment measures as well as recommendations from faculty.
The major changes in the EE curriculum in the academic year approved in the current academic year 2007-2008 are summarized first.
1) Our BSEE degree program has a long-standing emphasis on faculty-student interactions. To help ensure that this continues to be the case, we have, formalized a new faculty advisor program to ensure undergraduates engage in broad professional discussions with the faculty. This program was discussed by the entire faculty in an October 2007 meeting where the new advising and mentoring procedures for pre-certification students were considered. In the following faculty meeting at the end of November 2007, a revised advising program was unanimously approved by the faculty to be effective beginning the Fall 2008 semester. This program requires students, beginning as freshmen, meet with a faculty mentor at least four times: 1) at the beginning of the degree program; 2) after one year; 3) at certification; and 4) before beginning technical electives and option courses. Transfer students will see a mentor starting at whatever point they enter the department. Faculty mentors will notify academic advisors when meetings with mentors have taken place. Finally, students will give feedback regarding the quality of mentoring they have received and that information will be compiled and forwarded to the Director. This feedback will be considered in the annual reviews of the faculty.
2) To improve the depth of BSEE program in addressing advanced EE topics, EE Curriculum committee approved a minor change that two out of the four required EE technical electives must be 400-level EE courses. This change is also effective from Fall 2008.
The EE curriculum underwent a few changes in the previous year 2006/2007 as noted next:
1) As part of the continuing assessment of EE applications of probability and statistics in BSEE degree program, the EE curriculum was modified as follows: EE faculty changed the probability requirement to be either of Math 360 Probability and Statistics or Math 443 Applied Probability. Math 360 is a junior level Math class that can be taken by the EE students in the second semester of the Junior year, a semester earlier than Math 443 in the old BSEE curriculum. The Math probability course is now followed by two required EE courses that show probability applications. The first required course is an EE special Technical Elective to be chosen from among four EE 400 level courses EE432 (RF Engineering for Telecommunications), EE451 (Digital Communication Systems), EE491 (Performance of Power Systems), and EE496 (Introduction to Semiconductor Device Theory). All these four courses require Math 360 or Math 443 as a prerequisite, and include at least two weeks coverage of probability and statistics applications to an EE problem. Math 360 has also been made a co-requisite for EE341 Signals and Systems, which now includes EE applications of probability concepts. The changes became effective from Fall 2007.
2) In order to address concerns on programming course requirements in the BSEE curriculum, EE faculty approved removal of the two-course sequence, CS121 and CS122, with 8 credits of programming classes. Instead, the EE students will be required to take a 3 credit C programming course CS251 and two credits of a new programming course EE221 Numerical Computing for Engineers that introduces Matlab programming for solving numerical analysis applications in engineering. The changes became effective from Spring 2007. The EE Curriculum Committee (CC) will monitor the effectiveness of the new programming classes on the subsequent EE core classes in the following semesters.
Syllabi for the courses are largely the same as those from last year. The syllabi are available along with the list of approved technical electives, and the area specific assessment plans at the EECS website
The main action item identified by CC for the next academic year is summarized first. Detailed discussion of these action items and the measures and concerns that led to these action items is presented in the first section on assessment activities.
(2008.A1) A complete revisiting of the EE curriculum to develop various special tracks within the EE curriculum such as a system track, a power system track, a microelectronics track and possibly a electro-physics track to better coordinate the required courses and electives within these individual tracks. Accordingly each area faculty have been requested to come up with draft program schedules for the individual tracks. EE curriculum committee will focus on streamlining the requirements and electives from various tracks towards meeting ABET requirements as well as BSEE objectives and outcomes in the next academic year.
A summary of the EE curriculum activities in addressing the topics from previous year is presented next:
(2007.A1) Coordination of design topics: Microelectronics faculty recommended better coordination of topics between EE311 and EE352. As noted above, Curriculum committee will revisit the question in the context of multiple EE tracks in the next year.
(2007.A2) Coverage and assessment of engineering ethics: EE faculty were encouraged to discuss engineering ethics topics in the EE courses with emphasis in the EE senior elective classes. The new EE requirement that at least two of out of four technical electives must be EE 400-level courses will improve EE students exposure to the coverage of engineering ethics topics in the 400-level courses.
(2007.A3) Improve effectiveness of Senior Curricular Debrief session report: Students in the senior design courses EE415 and EE416 are being exposed to the assessment tool, curricular debrief, through exposure to the technique during the regular course offerings. The effectiveness of the curricular debrief report will continue to be monitored.
(2007.A4) Coverage of EE applications of probability and statistics in the five EE courses EE341, EE432, EE451, EE491 and EE496: The initial feedback from the students has been positive on the coverage of probability and statistics within the five EE courses. This topic will be assessed through relevant course reports as well as other measures.
(2007.A5) Programming skills of EE students who have completed CS251 and EE221: The recent changes to programming requirements appear to have resulted in mixed success. While the new course requirement of CS251 and EE221 appear to have helped improve the retention rate, there is continuing concern among EE faculty that the students are lacking in adequate programming skills. Curriculum committee plans to revisit the question of required programming classes as part of the curriculum revision planned for next year.
Table of Contents:
1. Assessment Activities
2. Action Items from last year report
Appendix A. EECS reply to 2007 ABET EAC Draft Statement
Appendix B. EE Mission Statement and Assessment Plan
Appendix C. EE Curriculum Flowchart
Appendix D. EE Senior Design Assessment Reports
Appendix E. Systems Area Assessment Summary Report
Appendix F. Microelectronics Area Assessment Summary Report
Appendix G. EE Senior Curricular Debrief Session Report
Appendix I. EE Curriculum Presentation to IAB
1. Assessment Activities
All the EE course assessment reports for the 2006-2007 year can be seen from
According to our EE Assessment plan, the key courses that provide significant feedback on many of the BSEE program outcomes A through K are the senior design courses EE 415 and EE 416. These two courses were taught by Profs. Patrick Pedrow and Scott Campbell this academic year. The reports from the Prof. Pedrow are included in Appendix D along with the design course summary report from Prof. Pedrow. The evaluators for the two courses include external industry members who then provide valuable assessment feedback from the industry perspective. In general, the course reports indicate that all the main outcomes assessed by the courses were met in the curriculum. Prof. Pedrow has made several specific recommendations and their main observations are listed first:
2008. 1
Concern: Weak teaming skills
CC Recommendation: CC encourages following up on this topic with the entire EE faculty. CTLT is also helping in this regard.
2008.2
Concern: Qualification of students entering EE415 and EE416.
CC Recommendation: CC recently modified the pre-requisites for EE415 to explicitly require all the required 300-level EE courses to be completed before a student can enroll in EE415. We will monitor the effectiveness of the change.
2008.3
Concern: Weak programming skills
CC Recommendation: CC plans to revisit the programming requirements in the BSEE curriculum in the next academic year. A topic for discussion is whether to revert to the more rigorous computer science programming classes CS121 and CS122 in the BSEE program.
The systems area courses EE221 (Numerical methods), EE 321 (Electrical Circuits II), EE 341 (Signals and Systems), EE 451 (Digital Communication Systems), EE 464 (Digital Signal Processing) and EE 489 (Introduction to Control Systems), are discussed in the systems area report submitted by Prof. Sivakumar Krishnamoorthy in Appendix E. Again, the main recommendations are summarized next.
2008.4
Concern: Inadequate Matlab programming skills
CC Recommendation: CC encourages system faculty to explore the effectiveness of EE221 which has been specifically introduced into the EE curriculum for addressing this concern.
2008.5
Concern: Offering of EE441
CC Recommendation: CC recommends system faculty to either offer the course in the near future or to drop the course from the catalog.
In the area of electrophysics, the individual course reports and the summary can be seen at
There was no summary report submitted for the electrophysics group.
The assessment material related to the microelectronics area can be seen in Appendix F. The assessment reports for the courses EE311 (Electronics), EE476 (Analog Integrated Circuits) and EE477 (Analog Integrated Circuits Laboratory) are available at
The main recommendations are highlighted below.
2008.6
Concern: Coordination of EE311 and EE352.
CC Recommendation: CC recommends the microelectronics area faculty to discuss the coordination of topics in the two required core courses EE311 and EE352. This will be pursued as part of the curriculum revision planned for next academic year.
In the power systems area, the only available reports are from the power area course EE361 (Electrical Power Systems). Two instructors did not submit assessment reports. Prof. Tomsovic has since left WSU while Prof. Donolo was an adjunct faculty. The following list summarizes the main concern of the power area faculty.
2008.7
Concern: Phasor skills for students entering EE361
CC Recommendation: Power area faculty are encouraged to work with instructors of the pre-requisite classes EE261 and EE331 to include a better coverage of phasor problems in those classes.
2008.8
Concern: Writing in the Major (M course) requirements for EE362.
CC Recommendation: CC has changed the writing in the major requirement class to EE352 from EE362 effective Fall 2008.
Focus group reports used in the previous year assessment process have been replaced by a new assessment tool, Senior Curricular Debrief Session Report, starting this academic year. The Senior Curricular Debrief Session report, administered and prepared by CTLT, serves as a primary metric for the BSEE Program outcomes F, G, H, I and J. This report is presented in Appendix G. The main concerns from the debrief session report are stated below.
2008.9
Concern: Coverage of ethics in EE curriculum.
CC Recommendation: Students note that they cannot recall which EE courses involved discussion of engineering ethics. CC will monitor the coverage of ethics related topics in EE courses as part of the curriculum revision planned for next year.
2008. 10
Concern: Exposure of curriclular debrief to general EE faculty.
CC Recommendation: CC will share the results of curricular debrief report with all EE faculty and encourage similar assessment tools in other EE courses. EE 415 and EE 416 senior design courses have already started in this direction.
Presentation slides from EE curriculum presentation to the Industry Advisory Board meeting held in October 2007 are presented in Appendix H.
2008. 11
Concern: Project management skills for BSEE graduates: IAB encouraged EE curriculum committee to explore better exposure to engineering project management skills in the BSEE curriculum.
CC Recommendation: The possibility of including additional electives focused on project management skills will be discussed in the curriculum revision exercise planned for next year.
A compilation of assessment activities by CC in evaluating each of the A through K program outcomes is presented next. The recommendations by CC related to each of these outcomes is summarized below. Most of these recommendations are related to one or more of the concerns (2008.1) to (2008.11) as noted below, and they are repeated below for the sake of completeness.
Outcome A: Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.
1) Power area faculty has approved removing the topic of three phase circuits from EE 261 and EE 262 for a better emphasis on phasor calculations.
2) CC will recommend the microelectronics area faculty to discuss any need for revision of course topics in EE 311.
3) CC will work with the Dean’s office on possibly strengthening the mathematical skills learned by our students in the basic mathematics classes.
4) CC will monitor the student preparation with respect to Matlab in EE 300-level core courses for the new batch of students who are going through the introductory Matlab programming course EE 221.
Outcome B: Ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data.
1. CC will recommend a broad coordination of design topics in EE curriculum as part of the curriculum revision planned for next year.
2. CC will request the system area faculty to monitor any improvement in the data analysis skills of students after completing the new required EE course EE 221 Fundamental of Numerical Computing.
Outcome C: Ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs.
1. Faculty recommendations summarized above indicate concerns from faculty on the coordination of design topics in EE curriculum, even though the outcome measures do not clearly indicate any weakness in this area for the EE students. There were also comments by members of Industry Advisory Board (IAB) on the extent of coverage of design topics in BSEE degree program. Accordingly, CC will monitor the coverage of design topics in the revised EE curriculum to be developed next year.
Outcome D: Ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
1. Presently, our EE senior design teams contain only EE students and computer engineering students. EECS is moving toward more interdisciplinary teams within EECS. Soon the computer science students will participate in a required two sequence senior design program similar to the EE415/416 sequence presently required for all EE and computer engineering students. In addition, EECS students will be able to “crossover” and participate in either the EE senior design projects or the computer science senior design projects. In addition to this, the Dean of Engineering has endorsed a scheme by which seniors within any engineering school or department can “intermingle” and join each other’s design projects. This use of broader spectrum interdisciplinary teams is encouraged by CC; however, all ABET outcomes must continue to be assessed properly.
2. To strengthen our students’ experience in the teaming environment, teaming skills should be introduced early in the curriculum and reinforced at each level throughout the EECS curriculum. Teaming skills include effective communication with spoken and written English. EECS should measure student proficiency with spoken and written English, especially when English is the student’s second language. In some cases an accent reduction class or equivalent should be required of some students before they enter the EE415/416 sequence. CC should ask one of the design instructors, Scott Campbell, to make a DVD presentation that can be shown to EE415/416 classes. The focus would be on teaming skills, team dynamics, and efficient techniques for engineering teams. The material would be a mix of textbook theory and personal observations from teaching EE415/416. A team of former students could be invited to participate. By having the information on DVD the burden for presenting the material every semester would be lessened. Industry Advisory Board members should also be surveyed regarding successful seminar series that are used to train their employees on modern engineering teaming skills.
2008.12
Concern: Interdisciplinary engineering design courses.
CC Recommendation: CC will work with the Dean’s office in the development of interdepartmental engineering design classes as well as Computer Science design classes as alternates to the EE design courses.
Outcome E: Ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
1. CC will recommend the electro physics area faculty to discuss the syllabi for EE 331 and EE 351 towards better coordination.
2. CC will recommend system area faculty to consider introduction of contemporary industrial design concepts into EE 489, which will also address concerns on Outcome J on knowledge of contemporary issues.
Outcome F: Possess an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
1. CC will work with instructors of EE 415 and EE 416 to incorporate discussions of ethics more explicitly into EE415 and 416. CC will identify other EE courses where discussion of ethics can be incorporated more explicitly.
2. In senior design classes, there should be more explicit discussion of standards and their relevance in engineering practice. CC will identify other EE courses where explicit discussion of standards and their relevance in engineering practice can be introduced.
Outcome G: Ability to communicate effectively in written and oral formats.
1. CC will coordinate with instructors of EE352 on the assessment of writing skills in that course.
2. CC will explore the option of introducing oral communication components such as seminars in any EE course other than EE 415 and EE 416.
2008.12
Concern: Oral communication components in EE curriculum
CC Recommendation: CC will monitor the coverage of oral communication components in EE curriculum (CC monitoring needed).
Outcome H: A broad education to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, and societal context.
1. CC will recommend the instructors of EE 415 and EE 416 to work with CTLT to improve the assessment of Outcome H in the courses. Compared to last year curricular debrief report, in the 2008 report, there is much better consistency of evaluator scores between EE faculty evaluators and CTLT evaluators.
Outcome I: Recognize the need for, and have the ability to engage in life-long learning.
1. The course assessment report for EE 234 needs to clarify how Outcome I is being assessed in the course, and provide details on the assessment measures. Curriculum committee will work with instructor of EE 234 to require submission of course assessment report for every time the course is taught.
Outcome J: Have a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.
1. CC will work with instructors of EE 415 and EE 416 as well as a few specific EE technical elective courses to improve the coverage of contemporary issues in EE curriculum. CC will recommend the instructors of EE 415 and EE 416 to work with CTLT to improve the assessment of Outcome J in the courses. Work is already in progress in this report as discussed in Appendix D.
Outcome K: Ability to use techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practices.
1. Some assessment reports lack details on how the course metrics are related to the outcome being assessed. CC should hold training sessions so that faculty and instructors will write assessment reports that more clearly assess Outcome K.
Appendix A
EECS reply to ABET EAC Draft Statement
EAC Draft Statement, Concern: Criterion 1 requires that the institution advise students regarding curricular and career matters. Freshman and sophomores receive some advising from the academic coordinator in the department, but are not assigned a faculty advisor. Some of these students would benefit from faculty guidance, especially as the students are trying to make a choice among the three programs offered by the department: computer engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science. At the time of the visit newly adopted processes were in place that appear to be adequate to meet this criterion for upper division students who have declared their major. All students must receive curricular advising from the academic coordinator once each semester whether they are lower division or not. Students are also advised by faculty advisors just prior to declaring their major towards the end of the sophomore year, and again before picking their senior electives and senior design course towards the end of their junior year.
EECS Reply: As described in section B.1.2 of the Self-Study, our program has a long-standing emphasis on faculty-student interactions. To help ensure that this continues to be the case, we have, as noted in this Concern, instituted a new formal faculty advisor program to ensure undergraduate students engage in broad professional discussions with the faculty. This program requires students, beginning as freshmen, meet with a faculty mentor at least four times: 1) at the beginning of the degree program; 2) after one year; 3) at certification; and 4) before beginning technical electives and option courses. Transfer students will see a mentor starting at whatever point they enter the department. Faculty mentors will notify academic advisors when meetings with mentors have taken place. Finally, students will give feedback regarding the quality of mentoring they have received and that information will be compiled and forwarded to the Director. This feedback will be considered in the annual reviews of the faculty.
EAC Draft Statement, Observation: The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science has an opportunity to improve the retention of its undergraduate students by rethinking the learning environment of its lower division courses, e.g., CS 121. Promising steps have been taken to deal with the preparation for such student by identify in students with inadequate preparation and providing a feeder course CS 111. Furthermore, the EE 214 course is an excellent example of the value of having an instructor dedicated to getting students new to the field excited about the subject.
EECS Reply: Retention is given serious attention in all the programs within
the School. As noted in the Observation, CptS 111 (Introduction to Algorithmic Problem Solving), was recently created to assist students who might otherwise be ill-prepared for the demands of CptS 121 (Program Design and Development). The faculty continue to refine CptS 111 and this course falls directly under the research interests of Prof. Christopher Hundhausen (who has a grant to study different pedagogy in the computer science curriculum). However, the curriculum has been revised since the time of the visit so that electrical engineering students are no longer required to take CptS 121. Instead they take CptS 251 (C Programming Language which has be revamped specifically to meet the needs of electrical engineering students. We have also added EE 221 (Numerical Computing for Engineers) as a required course. This course, in addition to teaching students the underlying fundamental of various aspects of numerical computing, also provides a thorough introduction to program with Matlab (a programming tool that is used in courses throughout the curriculum). We continue to monitor and seek ways to improve other lower-division courses where retention is a concern, such as EE 120 (Innovation in Design), which is where students in various engineering programs, including electrical engineering, get their first exposure to electrical engineering.
Appendix B
EE Mission Statement and
Assessment Plan
The School of EECS educational mission is as follows:
i) educating graduates for professional leadership, civic influence, and lifelong learning and
ii) providing an education based on a theoretical, experimental, and ethical foundation and enhanced by opportunities for participation in research, internships, international studies, interdisciplinary programs, or programs in entrepreneurship.
The mission statement for the undergraduate BSEE program is the same as that of the School of EECS.
Educational Objectives
The educational objectives of the Electrical Engineering program in the School of EECS are published on the Web. These are contained in our assessment plan and are available via the Undergraduate Studies link from our home page
This link is readily available to all visitors to our website.
The educational objectives for the BSEE program are to:
1. Prepare graduates for a career in the field of electrical engineering by offering a curriculum based on the principles of mathematics, science, fundamentals of engineering design and analysis, and professional ethics.
Our graduates will have professional careers related to electrical engineering.
2. Prepare graduates to use state-of-the-art technologies and tools to solve problems relevant to societal and economic needs.
Our graduates can adapt to changes in technology as well as to the needs of the society.
3. Prepare graduates to work and live in a global, diversified society, instilling the value of life-long learning.
Our graduates will continue to seek knowledge to thrive in an increasingly globalized society.
4. Prepare graduates to meet the needs of industry for electrical engineering or to pursue graduate studies.
Our graduates will have options to pursue careers in industry or academia.
5. Prepare graduates to communicate clearly and work effectively in teams.
Our graduates can be team members or team leaders.
To ensure that the educational objectives 1 through 5 stated above are met, we have adopted the following program outcomes for the BSEE program, with qualifying remarks given below some outcomes.
Students graduating with the BS degree in Electrical engineering have:
A. Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.
B. Ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data.
C. Ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs.
D. Ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
[Multidisciplinary refers to fields that are diverse in scope and nature such as physics, mathematics, economics as well as other engineering disciplines.]
E. Ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
F. An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
G. Ability to communicate effectively in written and oral formats.
H. A broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, and societal context.
[This can be considered primarily a general education requirement. However, there are economic and social implications of electrical engineering that are, or may be, discussed within EE courses themselves. For example, wireless and satellite technologies have the potential to offer services to developing countries that could not afford to first deploy “wired” services. Additionally, smart-card and electronic information technologies have the potential to affect huge changes in society.]
I. Recognize the need for, and have the ability to engage in life long learning.
[Electrical engineering is a constantly changing discipline that, for its practitioners, clearly requires “lifelong learning.” For instance, the literature survey that is required at the beginning of the senior design projects is an example where the student has to engage in library activities to discover material not directly covered in the BSEE curriculum.]
J. Have a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.
[Contemporary issues are those pertinent to electrical engineers entering or in the workforce today. Examples of contemporary issues include such things as the impact of deregulation on the power industry, and the infrastructure problems related to the creation of a “wireless society”. ]
K. Ability to use techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practices.
BSEE Assessment Plan
An assessment plan has been developed and put in place to ensure that graduates have achieved the educational objectives and the program outcomes of the BSEE degree program.
Our assessment process has four distinct but related purposes:
1. Assessing the achievement of program educational objectives.
2. Assessing the achievement of program outcomes.
3. Aligning our program objectives and outcomes with the changing needs of our constituencies.
4. Improving EECS programs.
Four sub-processes, one for each of these purposes, constitute the assessment process used for each of the EECS programs. Some inputs are shared between the sub-processes, but the sub-processes have different time scales reflecting the practicalities of acquiring different inputs and the inertia of the educational processes that are being monitored and improved. The School's assessment committee, comprising the Director and the three curriculum committee chairs, monitors the assessment process itself.
Sub-process 1. Assessing the achievement of program educational objectives
[pic]
Objectives Flowchart
Overview: Achievement of program objectives is measured as described above using alumni surveys and through interactions with the IAB and industrial recruiters. The Electrical engineering curriculum committee and the School’s assessment committee use these inputs in advising the faculty regarding changes to the curriculum to address identified problem areas. The School’s assessment committee (the Director and the chairs of the curriculum committees for all the programs) consider these inputs as well as changes in University and ABET requirements to formulate proposed changes to the objectives.
Time Scale: Alumni surveys are conducted every three years. IAB and recruiter interactions occur twice a year. The curriculum committee incorporates assessment of program objectives in its annual report in years in which alumni surveys are conducted.
Required Documentation: Alumni survey results; IAB and recruiter notes.
Responsibilities:
▪ Development officer and Corporate Relations Officer– identify alumni and request survey participation
▪ School director – plan and conduct IAB meetings
▪ Faculty – meet with recruiters
▪ Electrical Engineering curriculum committee – evaluate data and report recommendations concerning the objectives in the annual report
▪ School assessment committee – recommend changes to the objectives to meet changing needs of the constituents and changing external requirements
▪ The objectives and outcomes of the program and the curriculum by which they are achieved are the responsibility of the Electrical engineering faculty as a body; changes are adopted by vote of the faculty.
▪
Sub-process 2. Assessing the achievement of program outcomes
[pic]
Outcomes Flowchart
Overview: For each program, the School maintains a program of study with program outcomes mapped to courses. Course designs require students to demonstrate, through work products such as homework, examinations, lab exercises, projects, written and oral presentations, their achievement level on the mapped outcomes. As a direct measure of achievement of outcomes, courses are designed to ensure that successful completion requires achievement of program outcomes. Each instructor certifies that a grade of C or better represents achievement of minimum requirements. The school retains documentation in the form of the instructor’s certification and examples of student work as evidence that the certification is justified. The university-wide degree audit reporting system ensures that every graduating student meets the degree program requirements which include the condition that students achieve a grade of C or better in all courses in the major.
The assessment process collects documentation of the achievement of outcomes from each course as students progress through the program. The Course Assessment Report documents each instructor’s assessment of outcomes for each course instance. A template for the report, listing expected program outcomes and course topics, is maintained by the coordinator for each course. End-state assessments are conducted through consideration of students’ performance in senior-level courses, through exit-surveys and senior Curricular Debriefs, through alumni surveys and discussions with the IAB. The Curriculum Committee uses these inputs to formulate its annual assessment report which recommends curriculum and course changes to the faculty based on the results of assessment.
Time scale: this sub-process runs continuously.
Required documentation: For each course instance, a Course Assessment Report document that shows how the work products (hw, tests, etc.) relate to achievement of the program outcomes, signed by the instructor; for each course instance syllabus, sample student work, assignments, examinations, etc.; student course evaluations; student transcripts and degree audits; senior exit surveys and interviews, Curricular Debrief reports. Alumni surveys also enter into this process.
Responsibilities:
▪ Electrical Engineering curriculum committee maintains the program of study and mapping of program outcomes to required courses, subject to approval or modification by the program's faculty (see the program improvement sub-process.)
▪ Course instructors devise and assess assignments and examinations in which students demonstrate their achievement of the required outcomes. Instructors produce a Course Assessment Report for each semester that a course is taught. It details how that instance of the course assessed the expected outcomes and asked the instructor to comment on students’ preparation for the course.
▪ The School maintains course instance documentation and Course Assessment Reports in a central location.
▪ Until Spring 2004, graduating seniors were interviewed by a senior faculty member, but this activity has been supplanted by Curricular Debriefs (described previously) and senior surveys.
▪ The University Registrar maintains transcripts and provides degree audits that ensure that every student meets all the requirements of the program as a condition of graduation. Students can review their degree audit on-line at any time. The School's Undergraduate Advisor assists students in registering for required classes and meeting other graduation requirements.
▪ The School does not have direct access to initial career placement data for all the students. The senior survey collects this information but many students do not have jobs by the time they take the survey. The alumni survey queries students as to their career progress.
▪ The Electrical Engineering curriculum committee reviews the collected data and reports identified issues and suggested changes to the faculty for action. It also creates an annual program assessment report for the faculty and the Associate Dean.
▪ The school assessment committee reviews suggested changes to the outcomes, courses, and curricula for consistency across the programs offered by the school.
▪ As noted for sub-process 1, the objectives and outcomes of the program and the curriculum by which they are achieved are the responsibility of the Electrical Engineering faculty as a body; changes are adopted by vote of the faculty.
▪
Sub-process 3. Aligning with constituencies' needs.
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Aligning Flowchart
Overview: Our process for aligning our programs’ objectives and outcomes with industrial constituencies’ needs involves three main sources of input: our Industrial Advisory Board, alumni surveys, and surveys and interviews of graduating students. Additional constituency input comes in the form of the institutional mission of WSU, which reflects the interests of Washington's citizens, and the ABET accreditation criteria. The faculty desires good personal and institutional reputations. Faculty members take pride in producing qualified graduates. Faculty input comes from faculty meetings and retreats, daily e-mail, oral, and written communications. Input from these sources is synthesized into the objectives and outcomes for each program in the School.
Time scales: We fully review program objectives and outcomes with the IAB at least every three years, though IAB input on specific issues may also be solicited annually. Alumni surveys are conducted every three years. Surveys of all graduating students are carried out each semester and a subset of graduating students participate each year in a curricular debrief that elicits their opinions of the program (in addition to the formally assessed component addressed above). Faculty review is continual through faculty and curriculum committee meetings as well as other forms of communication. We expect that objectives and outcomes will be quite stable over periods longer than three years. However, we are prepared to make changes in response to identified issues on an annual basis if needed.
Documentation: results of surveys and interviews; agendas and minutes of IAB meetings; agendas and minutes of faculty meetings; published objectives and outcomes; minutes of curriculum committee meetings.
Responsibilities:
▪ The Electrical Engineering curriculum committee maintains surveys administered to graduating seniors and alumni. The survey questions attempt to elicit individuals' perspective on both the importance to their current work of various aspects of the curriculum and the preparation that they received in that aspect.
▪ The School's Undergraduate Advisor conducts the survey of graduating students.
▪ The School's Development Officer and Industry Relations Officer identify alumni 2, 5 and 10 years past their graduation and solicit their participation in the alumni survey, which is administered every three years.
▪ The Director plans the IAB review of objectives and outcomes with the help of the curriculum committees.
▪ EE curriculum committee reviews all the collected data to determine if any changes to the program objectives and outcomes are indicated. Changes are recommended to the School Director who will present the proposed changes to the faculty for deliberation and approval
▪
Sub-process 4. Improving the Programs
Overview: Improving the programs is the major reason behind the existence of the other two sub-processes. In the figures above, program improvement is indicated by the closed feedback loops from assessment data collection to changes in the curriculum, outcomes, and objectives. The School's programs are expected to lead students to achievement and attainment of the program outcomes. To this end, the curriculum committee for each program maintains a program of study and a mapping of outcomes to specific courses within that program. The program improvement sub-process will, over time, lead to increases in both the average levels achieved by our students and the percentage of students reaching the minimum achievement level. The program improvement sub-process uses inputs from a variety of sources: the course documentation collected by the School for each course (Course Assessment Reports) including student work; student course evaluations; instructors' reflections on the level of preparation of students entering their classes and their achievement on leaving classes; retention rates from semester to semester; placement of graduates; alumni surveys; IAB input; and the annual curricular debriefs described above.
Time scale: The program improvement process at this level is the continuing responsibility of the curriculum committees, consuming most of their attention at several meetings each year. Many of the inputs are available each semester and aspects may be reviewed at any time. However, changes to the program of study are recommended to the faculty once a year. Adoption by the faculty is followed by publication of changes in the University catalog. The changes become requirements for students subsequently certifying in the major.
Documentation: published mapping of outcomes to courses; curriculum committee and faculty meeting minutes; the annual assessment report.
Responsibilities:
▪ The EE curriculum committee (CC) establishes and maintains, subject to advice and concurrence by the faculty, the program of study and mapping of program outcomes to courses. The CC also reviews the inputs for problems or opportunities throughout the year.
▪ The EE curriculum committee evaluates progress toward achievement of the program objectives and outcomes and reports to the faculty on what has been achieved.
▪ The EE CC annually reviews new and previously identified issues. For new issues a recommended plan of action is brought to the faculty. For previously identified issues the results of actions taken are assessed and the plan updated or the issue closed.
▪ The faculty acts on the CC’s recommendations or on its own initiative.
▪ The Undergraduate Advisor maintains the School's files of course materials, survey results, and other raw data inputs for the improvement process.
Appendix C
EE Curriculum Flowchart
[pic]
Appendix D
EE Senior Design
Assessment Reports
DATE: 11/7/2008
TO: Krishnamoorthy Sivakumar, Chair of EE Curriculum Committee
FROM: Patrick Pedrow, Chair of EE Senior Design Area Committee
CC: Scott Campbell, Member of EE Senior Design Area Committee, Mani Venkatasubramanian, John Schneider
RE: Annual Report for 2007/2008 Academic Year
This committee interacted via emails in October and November 2008 to assemble and discuss the assessment
reports for Fall 2007/Spring 2008 offerings of EE415 and EE416. This memo describes the committee’s observations
regarding each salient point:
Item 1:
Development of teaming skills should remain a priority for EE415 but also for the entire EECS schedule of studies.
Item 2:
It continues to be important for EECS to allow enrollment into EE415 by only qualified students. Immature students
weaken teams and degrade project quality. The EE415/416 sequence should be a “just in time for graduation”
experience so that the skill set of teams is as strong as possible.
Item 3:
Similar to fall 2006, in fall 2007 there was an entire team that received course grades less than C and that team must
repeat EE415. Such events leave a poor impression with sponsoring companies and mentors. The Center for Advising
and Learning (CTLT) will assist EE415 instructors in partitioning students onto teams. Allowing volunteer student
recruiters to “hire” the team without professional mentoring might yield a weak team containing only students perceived
as “less than efficient” by their colleagues.
Item 4:
Thanks in part to Casey Hanson’s efforts; one design team sponsor (Ergami, LLC) funded the team (Kodiak) with
$5,000 to facilitate their EE416 design work. This infusion or money was very beneficial to the design team but future
teams will benefit from any “residual” funds not used by this team.
Item 5:
Academic Media Services (AMS) will be asked to capture team seminars to streaming video so that students can place
their seminar presentation into their Eportfolio. CTLT is helping EECS with these arrangements.
Item 6:
It is essential that EECS senior design instructors continue to interact with Dr. Ashley Ater-Kranov, Assistant Director
of CTLT, in an effort to develop and evaluate our students’ professional skills. EECS should introduce professional
skills earlier in the schedule of studies. Dr. Ater-Kranov is very active in EE415 fall semester 2008.
Item 7:
The “yellow slip” policy described in the spring 2007 assessment report was included this semester and it was
successful in the sense that it inspired one team to meet with the instructor and discuss in a very frank way the marginal
teaming skill of one of their team members. The yellow slip policy allows a team to request a substantial points
deduction from a team member that displays unprofessional behavior. After discussing the situation more carefully this
particular team decided not to issue the yellow slip but the discussions it prompted were very valuable for instructor and
students alike.
Item 8:
The broader impacts essay is useful in the sense that it has kept CTLT active in assisting the instructor to assess the
professional skills parts of the ABET outcomes. CTLT is still analyzing the broader impact essays and EECS plans to
make that essay an integral part of future written proposals.
Item 9:
A trial run has been made to infuse more aggressive design work into EE415. As that set of students completes EE416
in fall 2008, the effectiveness of that effort will be evaluated.
Item 10:
Some design project sponsors feel that our EE majors are at a severe disadvantage with their minimal programming
skills. An alternate way to improve design team performance on programming skills would be to have more computer
engineering majors spread throughout the teams. Teams finishing EE416 in December have too few computer engineers.
Washington State University
School of EECS
Electrical Engineering Course Assessment Report
Course Number EE 415
Course Title Design Project Management
Semester Offered Fall 2007
Instructor P. Pedrow
10th Day Enrollment 31 Number Completing Successfully (C grade or better) 27
I. Assessment Outcomes from the Course Syllabus
| (A) Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and | (G) Ability to communicate effectively in written and oral |
|engineering. |formats. |
| (B) Ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze| (H) A broad education necessary to understand the impact of |
|and interpret data. |engineering solutions in global, economic, and societal context. |
| (C) Ability to design a system, component, or process to meet | (I) Recognize the need for, and have the ability to engage in |
|desired needs. |life long learning. |
| (D) Ability to function on multidisciplinary teams. | (J) Have a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.|
| (E) Ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering | (K) Ability to use techniques, skills and modern engineering |
|problems. |tools necessary for engineering practices. |
| (F) An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.| |
II. List of Course Topics from the Course Syllabus
1. Introduction to Total Quality management
2. Guest speaker on understanding your customer
3. Assignment of teams and projects
4. Guest speaker on successful entrepreneurship
5. Team building exercise
6. Product design specifications
7. Concept selection
8. Engineering economics
9. Guest speaker on project scheduling
10. Guest speaker on codes and standards
11. Guest speaker on business plan development
12. Guest speaker on intellectual property issues
13. Guest speaker on engineering presentations
14. Group project proposal presentations to instructor and faculty/industry mentors
Additional Graded Student Activity:
15. Laboratory Notebook
16. Homework and In-class Activities
17. Peer and Mentor Evaluations
18. Written Proposal
19. Exam on Technical Writing
20. Exam on Design Algorithm
III. Course Assessment Summary Table: one row of the table should be devoted to each of the checked outcomes in part I.
|Outcome |Topics |Specific Measures |
|(A) Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, |14, 18 |Scores on Proposal Section Entitled “Introduction” |
|science and engineering. | |Scores on Each Student’s Appendix |
|(B) Ability to design and conduct experiments as|15, 18 |Lab Book Scores |
|well as analyze and interpret data. | | |
|(C) Ability to design a system, component, or |14, 16, 18, 20 |Points lost on the Following Sections in Written |
|process to meet desired needs. | |Proposal: Customer Preferences, Target Technical |
| | |Specifications, Engineering Design Synthesis, Concept |
| | |Selection, Final Technical Specifications |
| | |Team and Student Seminar Scores |
| | |Individual Student Exam Score |
|(D) Ability to function on multidisciplinary |2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 17 |Peer & Mentor Evaluation (Individual Score) |
|teams. | | |
|(E) Ability to identify, formulate, and solve |6, 7, 14, 18 |Student Course Grades |
|engineering problems. | | |
|(F) An understanding of professional and ethical|1, 3, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15,|Mentors Are Practicing Professionals |
|responsibility. |17, 18 |Peer & Mentor Evaluation (Individual Scores) |
|(G) Ability to communicate effectively in |13, 14, 15, 18, 19 |Written Proposal Scores |
|written and oral formats. | |Individual Student Proposal Appendix Score |
| | |Team Seminar Score |
| | |Individual Student Seminar Score |
| | |Individual Student Exam Score |
|(H) A broad education necessary to understand |14, 18 |Inherent Nature of the Design Projects |
|the impact of engineering solutions in global, | | |
|economic, and societal context. | | |
|(I) Recognize the need for, and have the ability|18 |Cited Refereed Journals |
|to engage in life long learning. | | |
|(J) Have a broad education and knowledge of |14, 18 |Inherent Nature of the Design Projects |
|contemporary issues. | | |
|(K) Ability to use techniques, skills and modern|9, 16, 18 |Tools Listed in the “Engineering Analysis, Modeling and |
|engineering tools necessary for engineering | |Simulation” Section of the Team Written Proposal |
|practices. | | |
IV. Using the table as a guide, for each outcome summarize your evaluation of the students’ achievement of that outcome; cite student performance on the identified measures as evidence to support your conclusions.
(A) Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.
For archiving and reporting purposes, the instructor gave each team an icon name from a list of “islands”. This report will use the icon names for brevity. Table A.1 gives a summary of some team characteristics for Fall 2007 EE415.
Each of the seven design teams wrote a proposal. There were several locations in these proposals where students showed ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering. For this report student performance in the Introduction section will be cited as evidence that they have ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering. EE415 writing guidelines for the Introduction section say,
“Here are five objectives for the introduction: a) by way of a literature review it shows the reader that the team has accumulated a reading knowledge of the topics covered by your design project, b) it allows the reader to strengthen their background in these topics by reading the introduction and by reading cited references, c) it shows the reader that you will not duplicate other’s work since your work will go beyond what is described in the introduction, d) it cites high quality references as epitomized by refereed engineering and science journal articles and e) at the end of the introduction in a final short paragraph it tells the reader how your document is organized and what the reader should look for in each of the major sections. Spend about 70% of the Introduction on engineering topics within the general discipline where your design project is located and only about 30% of the Introduction on your specific design project. Many of your readers have a technical background but not in the area related to your project. You must ‘bring them along’ with you and capture their interest. Assume that your reader is a ‘quick learner’ but that they do need some introductory material about the discipline involved and about your design challenge. Present an equivalent circuit whenever practical. Equivalent circuits of interest could be induction motor, autotransformer, solar cell, dc-ac inverter, charge controller, fuel cell, force transducer for a robot arm, stepper motor, oscillator, antenna, transmission line, etc. Digital systems are not well represented by equivalent circuits but for some projects background information is needed on items such as FPGA, VHDL, digital communication protocol, etc.”
Table A.2 lists teams and technical topics covered in the Introduction section of their proposal. The instructor reviewed the Introduction section of graded proposals and tabulated points lost to technical errors (see Table A.3.) Five teams lost 0 points, one team lost 6 points, and one team lost 12 points. Sumatra lost 3 points for failing to describe how pulse width modulation is used in booster and H-bridge circuits. They also lost 3 points for an inconsistent description of their electrical load. The rest of the Sumatra Introduction contained quality information and the overall section was considered passing. The Java team lost 3 points for failing to show an equivalent circuit for at least one gantry crane motor. They lost 3 points for failing to show the torque-speed curve for a typical gantry crane mechanical load. They lost another 3 points for not mentioning details about the station service circuit. Java lost 3 points for failing to clearly describe the number and type of cranes that were to be included in their design project. Twelve points lost to technical content was excessive and showed that the Java team possessed only superficial knowledge in topics related to their design project. All members of the Java team received course grades less than C and must repeat EE415. The Introduction in the written proposal shows that all teams not required to repeat EE415 demonstrated an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering; however it does not present evidence regarding individual student abilities. For that, the instructor invokes the fact that each student wrote an appendix in the proposal that described the project from their vantage point. These individual student scores are shown in Table A.4. Remarkably low scores (68, 48, 61, 45, and 71) appear for students # 19, 23, 25, 27, and 28, respectively. Students #23, 25, 27, and 28 received a course grade less than C and must repeat EE415. Student #19 lost only 3 points for technical content thus his low score was mostly unrelated to his ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering. Thus the data shown in this section supports the contention that students passing EE415 Fall 2006 possessed sufficiently strong ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.
Table A.1. Summary of design teams for EE415 in fall semester 2007.
|Team Name |Number of Students|Sponsor |Project Title |
|Corsica |4 |Grant County PUD |"Voltage Support Procedure" |
|Elba |4 |Tacoma Power |"Dynamic Line Ratings" |
|Java |4 |U.S. Army Corps of Engineers|"Gantry Crane Power Supply" |
|Kodiak |5 |Ergami LLC |"Wireless Radio Frequency Powered Lighting System for Furniture" |
|Mindanao |5 |Cypress Semiconductor |"Temperature Compensated Digitally Controlled Crystal Oscillator" |
|Sumatra |4 |InnovaTek |"Development of a Compact Chip-based Controller for a Fuel Cell |
| | | |System Using Matlab/Simulink" |
|Timor |5 |SEL |"Ethernet-based Communications Network for Protective Relaying " |
Table A.2. Primary technical topics covered in the Introduction section of Fall 2007 EE415 written proposals.
|Team Name |Primary Technical Topics Covered in Introduction Section of Proposal |
|Corsica |Power system voltage control equations |
|Elba |Thermal model of conductors |
|Java |Gantry cranes |
|Kodiak |Wireless systems |
|Mindanao |Crystal oscillators |
|Sumatra |Fuel cell systems |
|Timor |Digital data acquisition for power systems |
Table A.3. Points lost to technical errors in Introduction section of graded proposals.
|Team |Points Lost to |
| |Technical |
| |Errors |
|Corsica |0 |
|Elba |0 |
|Java |12* |
|Kodiak |0 |
|Mindanao |0 |
|Sumatra |6 |
|Timor |0 |
*All members of this team must repeat EE415.
Table A.4. Student scores for their individual appendix in the written proposal.
|Student |Score on |
|Number |Appendix |
| |Written by This|
| |Student (100) |
|1 |82 |
|2 |97 |
|3 |84 |
|4 |89 |
|5 |91 |
|6 |100 |
|7 |97 |
|8 |77 |
|9 |97 |
|10 |93 |
|11 |97 |
|12 |87 |
|13 |97 |
|14 |91 |
|15 |97 |
|16 |91 |
|17 |100 |
|18 |81 |
|19 |68 |
|20 |100 |
|21 |77 |
|22 |100 |
|23* |48 |
|24 |88 |
|25* |61 |
|26 |94 |
|27* |45 |
|28* |71 |
|29 |87 |
|30 |93 |
|31 |100 |
*These students must repeat EE415.
(B) Ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data.
Each student was required to keep a laboratory notebook for the duration of EE415. Lab book guidelines read:
“Each student must maintain a lab book. It is feasible that your lab book will support an invention disclosure and it will definitely document your time spent on the design project. Generation and protection of intellectual property are other important reasons to keep a detailed lab book. In EE415/416, a well-kept lab book will be a mix of handwritten comments and attached exhibits. Your lab book can also function as a journal where you record your thoughts about the project. It is logical for an instructor to assume that a weak lab book results from insufficient hours per week spent on the project. Some of your EE416 evaluations will be oral reviews supplemented with a review of your lab book. A weak performance on the oral review can be "salvaged" by a strong lab book. This is very important to the person for whom English is not their primary language. Lab books are not just for grading but they are also for your convenience when you need to retrieve data that was generated earlier and recorded in your lab book.”
On two different occasions, the EE415 teaching assistant inspected and graded each student’s lab book. The lab book grading rubric is shown in Table B.1 while lab book scores are shown in Table B.2. Scores were quite high showing that students were quick to develop strong lab book habits. Students #3 and 15 received the lowest grades (70%); however, there were for the first lab book inspections and they responded well by improving their lab book scores significantly for the second inspection. With the caveat that EE415 does not have a strong experimental component, the instructor concludes that these high lab book scores are evidence that the EE415 students finished the course with an acceptable ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data.
Table B.1. Grading rubric applied to lab book scores.
| |Points Deducted (100 Points Available) |
|Number of Errors in|Category I. |Category II. |Category III. |Category IV. |
|the Category |Lab Book Setup and Page |Volume of Lab Book |Legibility and Coherence |Attachment Techniques for |
| |Formatting |Entries (Written |(Not Neatness) of Lab Book|Exhibits and Quality of |
| | |Sentences and |Entries |Exhibits |
| | |Attached Exhibits) | | |
|1 |-5 |-10 |-5 |-5 |
|2 |-10 |-20 |-10 |-10 |
|3 |-15 |-20 |-15 |-15 |
|4 |-20 |-20 |-20 |-20 |
|5 |-25 |-20 |-25 |-25 |
|(6 |-25 |-20 |-30 |-25 |
Table B.2. Lab book scores for EE415.
|Student Number |Lab Book Grade #1 |Lab Book Grade #2 |
| |(100) |(100) |
|1 |100 |90 |
|2 |95 |90 |
|3 |70 |95 |
|4 |100 |100 |
|5 |95 |95 |
|6 |100 |100 |
|7 |95 |100 |
|8 |100 |95 |
|9 |95 |100 |
|10 |100 |100 |
|11 |100 |95 |
|12 |100 |90 |
|13 |95 |100 |
|14 |100 |90 |
|15 |70 |80 |
|16 |100 |95 |
|17 |90 |95 |
|18 |95 |100 |
|19 |95 |90 |
|20 |100 |90 |
|21 |100 |90 |
|22 |95 |90 |
|23 |80 |85 |
|24 |100 |100 |
|25 |100 |100 |
|26 |85 |95 |
|27 |85 |95 |
|28 |90 |100 |
|29 |95 |100 |
|30 |90 |90 |
|31 |80 |85 |
(C) Ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs.
In EE415 each team received a sponsoring company or institution and a mentor who was a practicing engineer or scientist with the sponsor. In EE415 students write proposals describing (in preliminary terms) the design concept to be pursued in E416. The complete design algorithm used in EE415/416 consists of the steps shown in Table C.1 (some steps are in iterative paths). In the EE415 written proposals, teams are expected to demonstrate a working understanding of Steps 1-7, thus they show an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs. The preliminary design described in EE415 (Step 6) becomes much more detailed by the time students finish EE416 (Steps 8-12). Some EE415 teams make progress on Step 8; however, time contraints force most of the Step 8-12 activities into EE416.
Performance on the written proposal sections listed in Table C.2 are cited as evidence that these EE415 teams have a sufficiently strong ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs. (An important caveat is that students develop detailed design skills only after they complete the follow-on course EE416.)
The grading rubric for the written proposal is shown in Table C.3. Points lost in Category VII Design Algorithm have been tabulated for the seven teams and are shown in Table C.4. Elba, Mindanao, and Timor each lost no “design points”. Corsica and Kodiak each lost 4 design points (as shown in Table C.3 one error yielded a 4 point deduction) and in both cases the error related to a lack of quantitative values for the target technical specifications. Sumatra committed two design errors resulting in the loss of 8 points due to misguided target technical specification and misguided final technical specifications. Java lost 12 design points due to 3 design errors related to concept generation, bench marking, and concept selection. The Java team must repeat EE415 and so will have another opportunity to master the design algorithm.
Previous comments in this section addressed team performance. Each individual student was required to show intimate familiarity with the design process by contributing at least 12 minutes to a seminar where the audience included the mentor, other professionals, and other WSU students. It is claimed that a cohesive seminar could be presented only if each team member was adequately familiar with the design process that has been followed to bring the team to this point in their project. Table C5 shows team grades for seminar performance while Table C6 shows individual student grades for seminar performance. The only low and bothersome scores are for team members that must repeat EE415.
For the first time this semester, a design algorithm exam was administered in EE415 and the results are shown in Table C.7. Scores ranged between 55% and 100%. The Java team which must repeat EE415 scored 40, 85, 70, and 70% on this design algorithm exam. The Sumatra team which lost 8 points in Table C.4 scored 85, 65, 60, and 60% on this design algorithm exam. The trend is that students on the two teams weakest on design concepts in their proposal scored quite low on the design algorithm exam. Student number 16 had the lowest exam score and was on the Kodiak team which lost 4 design points. The design exam was given early in the semester and sampled student knowledge at that time. Scores on the final proposals reflect several iterative learning experiences with the design algorithm.
The evidence presented in this section shows that EE415 students not forced to repeat EE415 have a sufficiently strong ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs. Tables C.4 and C.7 show that three member of the Sumatra team displayed marginal but acceptable design skills.
Table C.1. Abreviated list of steps included in the EE415/416 design algorithm. These are consistent with the course textbook.
|Design Step |Design Step Description |Course |
|Number | | |
|1 |Build the Team |EE415 |
|2 |Develop Communication Link with Customer |EE415 |
|3 |Establish Customer Preferences |EE415 |
|4 |Convert Customer Preferences to Target Technical Specifications |EE415 |
|5 |Engineering Design Synthesis (Concept Generation and Concept Selection) |EE415 |
|6 |Describe Preliminary Design |EE415 |
|7 |List Final Technical Specifications |EE415 |
|8 |Engineering Analysis, Modeling, and Simulation |EE416 |
|9 |Determine Behavior of Revised Design |EE416 |
|10 |Refinements |EE416 |
|11 |Prototyping |EE416 |
|12 |Describe Final Design |EE416 |
Table C.2. Written proposal sections used to evaluate Outcome C.
|Customer Preferences |
|Target Technical Specifications |
|Concept Generation |
|Concept Selection |
|Final Technical Specifications |
Table C.3. Grading rubric for team score on written proposal. This rubric was included in the assignment.
| |Points Deducted |
|Number of Errors in |I. Page Setup |
|the Category |and “Boiler |
| |Plate” Items |
|Corsica |4 |
|Elba |0 |
|Java* |12* |
|Kodiak |4 |
|Mindanao |0 |
|Sumatra |8 |
|Timor |0 |
*All members must repeat EE415.
Table C.5. Team seminar scores.
|Team |Team Seminar |
| |Score (100) |
|Corsica |100 |
|Elba |100 |
|Java* |20* |
|Kodiak |100 |
|Mindanao |90 |
|Sumatra |100 |
|Timor |100 |
*All Java team members must repeat EE415.
Table C.6. Student seminar scores.
|Student |Seminar Score |
|Number |(100) |
|1 |100 |
|2 |100 |
|3 |100 |
|4 |100 |
|5 |100 |
|6 |100 |
|7 |100 |
|8 |100 |
|9 |100 |
|10 |100 |
|11 |100 |
|12 |100 |
|13 |100 |
|14 |100 |
|15 |100 |
|16 |100 |
|17 |100 |
|18 |100 |
|19 |100 |
|20 |100 |
|21 |100 |
|22 |100 |
|23* |75 |
|24 |100 |
|25* |50 |
|26 |100 |
|27* |65 |
|28* |85 |
|29 |100 |
|30 |90 |
|31 |100 |
*These students were on the Java team and all must repeat EE415.
Table C.7. Student scores for design algorithm exam.
|Student |Seminar Score |
|Number |(100) |
|1 |85 (Sumatra) |
|2 |100 |
|3 |80 |
|4 |80 |
|5 |65 (Sumatra) |
|6 |85 |
|7 |70 |
|8 |60 (Sumatra) |
|9 |75 |
|10 |85 |
|11 |95 |
|12 |70 |
|13 |85 |
|14 |65 |
|15 |60 (Sumatra) |
|16 |55 |
|17 |95 |
|18 |80 |
|19 |70 |
|20 |90 |
|21 |100 |
|22 |80 |
|23* |40 |
|24 |75 |
|25* |85 |
|26 |60 |
|27* |70 |
|28* |70 |
|29 |70 |
|30 |80 |
|31 |95 |
*These students were on the Java team and all must repeat EE415.
(D) Ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
Each student in Fall 2007 EE415 was assigned to a project team with size 4 or 5 students. These teams included students with diverse interests (e.g. software, hardware, electrophysics, computer engineering, analog electronics, etc.) From the standpoint of majors, the team members were a mix of electrical engineering majors and computer engineering majors. To evaluate a student's effectiveness in the team environment, at the end of the semester each student and each mentor was asked to prepare an evaluation of the student members of the team. Each evaluator (student or mentor) assigned a grade to each student on the team. Grades solicited from students and mentors were based on the following criteria:
A. Student work demonstrates consistently excellent scholastic performance; thorough comprehension; ability to correlate the material with other ideas, to communicate and to deal effectively with course concepts and new material; reliability in attendance and attention to assignments.
B. Student work demonstrates superior scholastic performance overall, reliability in attendance, and attention to assignments; may demonstrate excellence but be less consistent than the work of an A student.
C. Student work demonstrates satisfactory performance overall, as well as reliability in attendance, and attention to assignments.
D. Student work demonstrates minimal, barely passing performance overall; limited knowledge of subject matter.
F. Student work demonstrates unsatisfactory performance and comprehension or unfulfilled requirements. The grade is failing.
These letter grades were converted to scores based on the scale: A=100%, A-=95%, B+=90%, B=85%, B-=80%, C+=77%, C=75%, C-=70%, D+=67%, D=65%, D-=60%, and F=0. These peer and mentor scores are summarized in the histogram shown in Figure D.1.
[pic]
Figure D.1. Histogram of peer and mentor scores.
These are very high scores (minimum is 88 %) showing that all of these students possessed an acceptable ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
Not only were the teams composed of students with multidisciplinary interests but the array of topics covered by the projects was multidisciplinary. The Corsica team worked on electric power Voltage control techniques. The Elba team worked on heat conduction models as they relate to dynamic power line current ratings. the Java team worked on providing power to hydroelectric dam gantry cranes. The Kodiak team worked on wireless power supplies for furniture lighting systems. The Mindanao team worked on a temperature compensated digitally controlled crystal oscillator. The Sumatra team worked on Matlab/Simulink modeling of the componenets in a fuel cell-based electric power supply. The Timor team worked on an ethernet-based communications network for protection of electric power systems.
Mentor and co-mentor specialties also cut across many disciplines and included electronics engineers, electric power engineers, computer engineers, a computer scientist, an interior designer, a physicist, a biologist, a mechanical engineer, and a chemical engineer. Data and facts presented in this section support the assertion that these Fall 2007 EE415 students have sufficiently strong abilities to function on multidisciplinary teams.
(E) Ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
Each team was required to complete the initial steps on an engineering design project that was completely "open ended". An industry professional acted as mentor and there were several other professionals available as resource persons for the teams (the instructor and a faculty resource person for each team.) As part of the design project, each team was required to participate in writing a proposal and presenting a seminar, both of which described the initial work on their design and described work to be completed in EE416. Professionals (practicing engineers and scientists) attended the seminar and read the proposals. The overall student grades for Fall 2007 EE415 ranged from A to D. All members of one team received grades below a C and were required to repeat EE415. Neglecting the four students required to repeat EE415, the course grades ranged from A to B, showing that all students successfully completing EE415 were able to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
(F) An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
Two seminars related to professional and ethical responsibility were presented to these students: 1) “Engineering Ethics” by Ghery Pettit from Intel and 2) “Intellectual Property” by Sherry Gordon from the WSU Attorney General Office. Students in EE415 demonstrate their understanding of professional and ethical responsibility as they interact with peers on their team and as they interact with the team mentor. The instructor assumes that students displaying errant professional and ethical behavior will receive low peer/mentor grades. Table F.1 lists the mentors for the Fall 2007 EE415 teams. Mentors interacted with team members in the following venues: 1) face-to-face team meetings, 2) conference calls, 3) email exchanges, 4) telephone calls, 5) review of drafts of the written proposal, and 6) attendance at the team seminar. Table F.2 shows composite peer/mentor scores for students enrolled in EE415 fall 2007. From the scores listed in Table F.2 only two were below 90%. These “low” scores are for students #26 and 29. Table F.3 shows a summary of negative comments cited by team mates for students receiving a peer/mentor score less than 90%. Apathy and lack of communication skills are the salient complaints appearing in Table F.3. The lowest grade given by a mentor to a student was “B-” with negative comments related to missing document deadlines and failure to fully utilize the professional expertise of the co-mentor. The absence of low scores given by mentors suggests that the mentors identified no major student breaches of professional or ethical responsibility. These evaluations by peers and mentors support the instructor’s conclusion that students passing EE415 Fall 2007 understood their professional and ethical responsibilities.
Table F.1. Mentors for EE415 during Fall semester 2006.
|Team Name |Mentor |
|Corsica |Rodney Noteboom, PE |
| |Electric Power Engineer |
| |Grant County PUD |
| |Ephrata, WA 98823 |
|Elba |Amy Grice |
| |Electric Power Engineer |
| |Protection & Controls Engineering |
| |T&D Engineering |
| |Tacoma Power |
| |Tacoma, WA 98409-3192 |
|Java |Mathew Walden |
| |Electric Power Engineer |
| |Chief of Operations & Maintenance |
| |Albeni Falls Dam |
| |US Army Corps of Engineers |
| |Newport, WA 99156-0310 |
|Kodiak |Joe Felice |
| |Interior Designer |
| |Ergami, LLC |
| |Spokane Valley, WA 99206 |
|Mindanao |Greg Barnes |
| |Electronics Engineer |
| |Design Engineering Department Manager |
| |Cypress Semiconductor |
| |Moscow, ID 83843 |
|Sumatra |Quentin Ming, PhD |
| |Chemical Engineer |
| |Director of Sustainable Power |
| |InnovaTek, Inc |
| |Richland, WA 99354 |
|Timor |Greg Zweigle |
| |Electrical Engineer |
| |Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. |
| |Pullman, WA 99163 |
Table F.2. Peer/mentor composite grades for students enrolled in EE415 fall 2006.
|Student Number |Composite Peer/Mentor |
| |Grade (100) |
|1 |93 |
|2 |100 |
|3 |95 |
|4 |95 |
|5 |100 |
|6 |100 |
|7 |100 |
|8 |100 |
|9 |97 |
|10 |100 |
|11 |96 |
|12 |93 |
|13 |95 |
|14 |96 |
|15 |100 |
|16 |96 |
|17 |100 |
|18 |90 |
|19 |94 |
|20 |100 |
|21 |96 |
|22 |100 |
|23 |95 |
|24 |93 |
|25 |95 |
|26 |89 |
|27 |100 |
|28 |95 |
|29 |88 |
|30 |100 |
|31 |100 |
Table F.3. Comments cited by team mates when peer/mentor score was less than 90%.
|Student Number |Negative Issues Cited by Team Mates |
|26 |“Terrible communicator. Writing had to be redone from scratch.” |
| |“Had a lot of trouble communicating. It was difficult to explain what was expected for him and it was |
| |difficult to integrate his parts of the report.” |
|29 |“Needs explicit motivation to complete tasks. Needs to work on scheduling. Often forgot about meetings |
| |and due dates.” |
| |“Didn’t always put forth effort and/or enthusiasm during team meetings and work sessions.” |
(G) Ability to communicate effectively in written and oral formats.
The instructor arranged several seminar/workshop sessions to enhance students’ written and oral presentation skills. Students had numerous occasions at which they demonstrated these skills. There was an exam on technical writing guidelines.
The written proposal was built sequentially from two drafts that lead to the final proposal. The use of technical writing guidelines (provided by the instructor) was emphasized. Students were also encouraged to refer to their textbook (or handout notes) from their technical writing course, Engl 402 or Engl 403. Draft #1 of the proposal was critiqued by tutors provided by the WSU Writing Center. During an 80 minute workshop, one tutor per team evaluated the draft document and provided feedback to the team. Grading for Draft #1 was “bimodal” in the sense that full credit was given to any team bringing their Draft #1 to the workshop (zero credit was reserved for teams opting to not participate; however, all teams participated.) The writing tutors requested that they not be viewed as “grading” the documents since they wanted free flow of ideas between the teams and the tutors. Historically, this is a very popular workshop for the EE415 students. Draft #2 and then the final version of the proposal were graded by the instructor with help from the teaching assistant (mentor comments were also solicited). The grading rubric used by the instructor to grade the final written proposal is shown in Table C.3 on page 11. Four (I, II, III, and IV) of the seven grading categories were affiliated with writing proficiency.
For oral presentation techniques the EE415 students attended a seminar entitled “Giving Effective Engineering Presentations” by Mr. Randy Rhodes, an electrical engineer with PacifiCorp located in Portland, Oregon. The seminar by Mr. Rhodes was very effective at demonstrating effective presentation techniques for engineers.
Team scores for the final written proposal (excluding the team required to repeat EE415) were 96, 93, 89, 85, 69, and 52 %. The scores 69 and 52 % are quite low and require additional comments.
The team receiving 69 % on the final written proposal lost 13 points on writing techniques yielding an effective team writing skills score of 87% (the other 18 points were lost on technical content, on the design algorithm, and on failure to follow guidelines.) Each student on this team wrote a personal appendix and grades for those were 91, 88, 87, 81, and 77 %. These observations show that these five students possessed acceptable writing skills.
The team receiving 52 % on the final written proposal lost 18 points on writing techniques yielding an effective team writing skills score of 82 % (the other 30 points were lost on technical content, on the design algorithm, and on failure to follow guidelines.) Each student on this team wrote a personal appendix and grades for those were 97, 91, 82, and 77 %. These observations show that these four students possessed acceptable writing skills.
Team scores on the final written proposal do not address individual student writing abilities. To consider individual student writing abilities, grades on personal student appendixes (excluding students that must repeat EE415) were considered. These were in the range 77-100%. All of these scores are considered “C or better” thus each student not required to repeat EE415 demonstrated acceptable writing skills.
Student scores on the technical writing exam are shown in Figure G.1. All but one score was greater than 80 %. The low score was 65 % and was obtained by a student who received a 97 % on the “individual student score” in the written final proposal. The technical writing exam was very early in the semester and it appears that this student reinforced his technical writing skills before the semester ended.
Evidence that these EE415 students possessed adequate ability to communicate effectively in oral format is provided by seminar scores. Team scores (ignoring the team required to repeat EE415) were in the range 90-100% with quality very uniform from team to team. This highly uniform quality is partially due to the professional atmosphere surrounding the system that records these student seminars: Academic Media Services. Students are required by the instructor and by Academic Media Services to conduct a rehearsal in the same room and with the same technology that will be used when the seminar is taped while being presented to a live audience. During the rehearsals the entire team proofs and edits each other’s Power Point slides and proofs and edits each other’s oral statements. This contributes to a set of seminars possessing uniform quality. The WSU Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) is working with EECS to encourage the senior design students to include these recorded seminars in their online ePortfolio. Individual student performance was within this same range 90-100%.
The instructor contends that evidence presented in this section demonstrates that this group of EE415 students demonstrated acceptable ability to communicate effectively in written and oral formats.
Figure G.1. Distribution of scores on the technical writing exam.
(H) A broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, and societal context.
Each of the EE415 design projects contained global, economic, and societal issues; however, EE415 students were not explicitly evaluated on their ability to utilize their broad education to understand the impact of their engineering solution in these three arenas (global, economic, and societal.) EECS students are equipped with a broad education, partially due to the WSU general education requirements (GERs). The fact that EECS students must pass their GER classes gives evidence of a broad education but that alone does not document that each EE415 student understands the impact of their EE415 engineering design in global, economic, and societal context. This semester, a “trial section” was inserted into the final proposal writing guidelines. The section was entitled Ethical, Societal, and Environmental Issues and the prompt was,
“In this subsection, use at least 50 words to describe ethical, societal, or environmental issues that the team considered while working on this design proposal. You need not cover all of these issues but merely those that relate closely to your project. Prospective issues to comment on include life span of your product, public safety, landfill impact at the end of your product’s lifecycle, esthetics, device failure, public health, etc. These need not be issues that shaped your design but merely topics that the team recognized might be impacted by your design.”
The prompt included a broad set of issues where Outcome H concepts are included as a subset. Table H.1 shows how the teams responded to this prompt. Some responses in this table appear superficial. Dr. Ashley Ater-Kranov, Assistant Director of CTLT is working with EECS to improve the prompt for this section of the EE415 design proposal. She is also considering if there is an effective way to make these “professional skills” issues an integral part of the entire EE415 design proposal, rather than just relegated to one section of the proposal. EECS should also consider if such professional skills should be introduced earlier and more often into the EECS curriculum.
Table H.1. Team responses to the ethical, societal, and environmental issues prompt.
|Team Name |Response to the Ethical, Societal, and Environmental Issues Prompt |
|Corsica |“Due to the nature of the electric power industry, the financial costs associated with improvements and upgrades |
| |like those associated with this project trickle down to the consumer. An addition of hardware to control the voltage|
| |at the Wanapum substation may create considerable costs to the utility and thus to the consumer. Adding physical |
| |components to the system will obviously impact the local environment. Depending on the physical size of the |
| |implementation, the impacts may be minimal.” |
|Elba |“Team Elba is designing a DLR system for Tacoma Power, but must be cautious to identify the design’s effects on |
| |those other than the customer. For instance, there could be ethical, societal or environmental issues with the |
| |design. The team has thought about issues which could arise. One issue is product installation. Any product which |
| |requires the transmission line to be out of service in order to be installed could cause a power outage to |
| |customers, or at the very least cause unnecessary strain on the grid. Another issue, looking forward, is that of |
| |transmission grid congestion. DLR could be a solution which prevents new lines from being built, since the existing |
| |lines could support more load than before. As load increases further, transmission bottlenecks could occur due to |
| |lack of construction of new or updated lines. Also, DLR is a technology which pushes the power grid to higher limits|
| |than normal, cutting in to the normally conservative safety factor. The electric power grid is important; utilities |
| |must consider how their actions affect society now, and also plan for the future. In the same sense, Team Elba must |
| |be aware of the ramifications of the EE 416 senior design project.” |
|Java |“The biggest issue Java is faced with is the environmental issues. The gantry cranes are directly above the spill |
| |and flood gates and if a fuel leak occurs not only will the water supply be contaminated but the other motors inside|
| |the crane will also be affected. Should a spill occur, the cost of cleaning up the spill, or determining if the |
| |spill caused any damage to the motors, the crane itself, or the water would be costly.” |
|Kodiak |“Since this wireless lighting system uses RF signals to deliver power, it is almost impossible to avoid using energy|
| |storage devices such as capacitors and rechargeable batteries. These energy storage devices contain toxic chemicals |
| |such as lead, nickel and zinc, and it is an environmental issue because these substances leak into soil groundwater |
| |from landfills. This issue can affect our design because without using energy storage devices, there might not be |
| |enough power to power up LED lights. In term of health issue some people might think that the RF signal is going to |
| |affect human body. The reason is that RF waves carry energy, and according to Powercast health document [7], X-Rays |
| |carry about a billion times more energy than RF waves. Moreover, X-rays can be destructive to living tissues because|
| |it can cause ionization whereas the RF is not capable to cause ionization. Moreover, the operating frequency of |
| |Powercaster is similar to devices such as cell phones and walkie-talkie. Thus, the team concludes that it is safe to|
| |use Powercaster.” |
|Mindanao |“Team Mindanao has spent time considering the possible negative ramifications of the TCDCXO design project could |
| |have. The Intellectual Property of Cypress will be protected by Team Mindanao. during the course of the project, |
| |team Mindanao will attempt to minimize negative societal and environmental effects. Harmful chemicals dispensed due |
| |to the PCB manufacturing are one of the environmental concerns. The valuable resources which are mined from the |
| |earth in order to produce the PCB is another concern. EPA guidelines will be met by the team to ensure good |
| |environmental practices. The overall integrated product will be designed to benefit society and not be a burden or |
| |concern of any sort. Team Mindanao will consciously consider the ethical, societal and environmental concerns while |
| |designing the TCDCXO.” |
|Sumatra |“The software simulates a fuel cell system, which brings up a couple of environmental issues. This product will make|
| |fuel cell use more practical and efficient due to the control system integration. However, the fuel cell system |
| |being modeled is being provided its hydrogen via a fuel reformer, which provides the hydrogen fuel via a process |
| |which will output carbon monoxide, which might have an adverse impact on the environment. The lifespan of the |
| |project is indeterminate, as the model serves as a basis for future simulation models.” |
|Timor |“The societal issue the team has considered is reliability of the product. Since the power industry already has a |
| |set of standards, it will be important for the team’s product to be reliable in order for it gain acceptance in the |
| |power industry as a feasible solution to power monitoring. The team has also considered the life span of the |
| |product. Since the power industry is fairly stable, if the majority of industries accept the use of the protocol |
| |they may not change for many more years. Thus, this gives the product a long life span if accepted. The product will|
| |also prevent possible technician injuries because digital signals are much less dangerous than analog signals. Thus,|
| |the product has an added safety benefit. Lastly, the product will greatly reduce resources. As the product will be |
| |using Ethernet cable or fiber optic, as implemented in the real world, it greatly reduces the amount of copper that |
| |is used to monitor the power lines.” |
(I) Recognize the need for, and have the ability to engage in life long learning.
EE415 students are required to read and utilize at least four refereed journal articles in their final proposal. The journal articles demonstrate to the students that the expectations are high for practicing engineers and that learning new topics is essential for their professional growth. The EE415 final report guidelines read in part, “Teams must list at least 15 references. At least four of these must be refereed journal articles.” Table I.1 lists the refereed journal articles cited by the teams in their written final proposals. The team required to repeat EE415 (Java) is excluded from Table I.1. Only one of these teams met the 4 refereed papers requirement; however progress has been made in the sense that last year there were two teams with no refereed journal articles in their design proposal reference list. Table I.1 provides clear evidence that these students have the ability to engage in life long learning.
Table I.1. Refereed journal articles cited by the EE415 design teams in their written final proposals. The team required to repeat EE415 is excluded.
|Team |Refereed Journal Article |
|Corsica |[1] C. Chompoo-inwai, W. Lee, P. Fuangfoo, M. Williams, J. R. Liao, “System Impact Study for the Interconnection |
| |of Wind Generation and Utility System”, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 41, No. 1, Jan/Feb, |
| |2005, pg 163. |
| |[2] E. Denny, M. O’Malley, “Quantifying the Total Net Benefits of Grid Integrated Wind”, IEEE Transactions on |
| |Power Systems, Vol. 22, No. 2, May 2007, p 605. |
| |[3] C. Abbey, G. Joos, “Supercapacitor Energy Storage for Wind Energy Applications” IEEE Transactions on Industry|
| |Applications, Vol. 43, No.3, May/June 2007. |
| |[4] L. Gyugyi "Power Electronics in Electric Utilities: Static Var Compensators", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. |
| |76, No. 4, April 1988. |
| |[5] M.P. Selvan, K.S.Swarup, “Development of Power Flow Software Using Design Patterns”, Power Systems, IEEE |
| |Transactions, Vol. 21, No. 2, May 2006, pp 611-618. |
|Elba |[1] Stephen D. Foss, Robert A. Maraio, “Evaluation of an Overhead Line Forecast Rating Algorithm,” IEEE |
| |Transactions on Power Delivery, Volume 7, July. 1992 Page(s): 1618-1627. |
|Kodiak |[1] Chen, K. "Lighting Aesthetics with Energy Saving Ideas," IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications USA," |
| |Vol. IA12, no. 1, Jan.-Feb. 1976, pp. 35-38. |
|Mindanao |[1] R. Achenbach, “A digitally temperature-compensated crystal oscillator,” IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits,|
| |vol. 35, no. 10, p. 1, 2000. |
| |[2] J. S. Kathe, “Single line inter ic data transfer - an idea,” IETE Technical Review (Institution of |
| |Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, India), vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 491 – 496, 1998. |
|Sumatra |[1] Buller, S., Karden E., Kok, D., De Doncker, R.W. IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications. Volume 38. Issue|
| |6. “Modeling the Dynamic Behavior of Supercapacitors Using Impedance Spectroscopy.” November 2002. |
| |[2] Gao, Lijun, Liu, Shengyi, and Dougal, Roger. IEEE Transaction Components and Packaging Technologies. Volume |
| |25. Issue 3. “Dynamic Lithium-Ion Battery Model for System Simulation.” September 2002. |
|Timor |[1] Cagil R. Ozansoy, Aladin Zayegh, Akhtar Kalam, “The Real-Time Publisher/Subscriber Communication Model for |
| |Distributed Substation Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 22, no. 3, July 2007, pp. 1411-1423. |
| |[2] Cagil R. Ozansoy, Aladin Zayegh, and Akhtar Kalam, “The Real-Time Publisher/Subscriber Communication Model |
| |for Distributed Substation Systems” in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 22, No. 3, July 2007. |
(J) Have a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.
Similar to Item H above, EECS relies upon the student’s GERs to provide breadth in the student’s education. In addition, design projects are solicited from companies and institutions that provide contemporary “real world” design challenges for these EE415 teams. Examples of these contemporary issues and emerging technologies are shown in Table J.1. There are no graded activities or writing guidelines that can be cited to evaluate our student’s mastery of Item J. The prompt question shown in Outcome H could be expanded to include students writing on the topic of “contemporary issues” related to their design project. This “contemporary issues” component will be introduced into EE415 in collaboration with Dr. Ashley Ater-Kranov, Assistant Director of CTLT.
Table J.1. Contemporary issues and emerging technologies affiliated with the Fall 2007 EE415 design projects. The team required to repeat EE415 (Java) is omitted from this table.
|Team |Project Title |Contemporary Issues and|
| | |Emerging Technologies |
|Corsica |"Voltage Support |Wind Generation in |
| |Procedure" |Electric Power Systems |
|Elba |"Dynamic Line Ratings" |Limited Right of Way |
| | |for Electric Power |
| | |Systems |
|Kodiak |"Wireless Radio |Wireless Technology |
| |Frequency Powered | |
| |Lighting System for | |
| |Furniture" | |
|Mindanao |"Temperature Compensated|Modern Electronic |
| |Digitally Controlled |Devices |
| |Crystal Oscillator" | |
|Sumatra |"Development of a |Fuel Cells |
| |Compact Chip-based | |
| |Controller for a Fuel | |
| |Cell System Using | |
| |Matlab/Simulink" | |
|Timor |"Ethernet-based |Digital Communications |
| |Communications Network |Networks |
| |for Protective Relaying | |
| |" | |
(K) Ability to use techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practices.
Guidelines for the EE415 proposals read in part,
"Many of your undergraduate classes teach you how to conduct engineering analysis, modeling and simulations. Recall that these steps are an essential part of the design algorithm. You will participate in lots of these activities in EE416. With at least 100 words describe how the team plans to apply these activities (engineering analysis, modeling and simulation) in EE416 to obtain a more detailed description of your final design. Examples are SPICE simulations, MATLAB tool boxes, digital signal processing, electromagnetic simulation software, VHDL digital design software, ADS RF design software, ASPEN electric power system analysis software, Eagle software for PCB layouts, plant simulators, etc. Ask your mentor and your faculty resource person to recommend other engineering tools you should consider using for this aspect of your project.”
Engineering analysis, modeling and simulation tools listed by the Fall 2007 EE415 teams are shown in Table K.1. These students will work in-depth with these tools in Spring 2007 EE416; however, in EE415 students are introduced by mentors and other professionals to these tools. The proposal writing activity plus prelminary design work in EE415 begins the student’s work on these techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practices.
Table K.1. Engineering Analysis, modeling and simulation tools identified in EE415 for use by these students as they finish their design Spring 2007 in EE416. The team required to repeat EE415 (Java) is excluded from this table.
|Team |Engineering Analysis, Modeling and Simulation Tools Listed by the Team |
|Corsica |Power flow analysis performed in GE PSLF software |
|Elba |LineAmps software package |
|Kodiak |SPICE software package |
|Mindanao |MatLab software and the PSoC Express simulator software |
|Sumatra |Matlab and Simulink |
|Timor |Software packages: Xsniff, G++ Compiler, Linux C Compiler, MatLab, Flash |
V. Qualitative Assessment of Student Performance: using the arguments above and other data support the claim that students who completed this course with a grade of C or better have achieved each of the intended outcomes of this course.
Seven teams were formed for Fall 2007 EE415. Each team was matched with a project, a sponsoring company or institution, and a mentor. All students on one of these teams received course grades below C and are required to repeat EE415. For the six successful teams, the evidence cited in this report show clear evidence that each student:
(A) Possesses an acceptable ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.
(B) Possesses an acceptable ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data.
(C) Possesses an acceptable ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs.
(D) Possesses an acceptable ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
(E) Possesses an acceptable ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
(F) Possesses an acceptable understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
(G) Possesses an acceptable ability to communicate effectively in written and oral formats.
(H) Possesses an acceptable broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, and societal context.
(I) Recognizes the need for, and has the ability to engage in life long learning.
(J) Possesses a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.
(K) Possesses an acceptable ability to use techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practices.
VI. Concerns: state any concerns you may hold about this class – were the students adequately prepared coming into it? Are there topics or outcomes where (some) students were weak after completing the course? Other concerns? Were there any comments on students’ course evaluations that should be addressed in future instances of the course? This section is very important for improving our program: it provides critical input to the curriculum committee for identifying areas requiring attention.
Development of teaming skills should remain a priority for EE415 but also for the entire EECS schedule of studies. It continues to be important to allow enrollment into EE415 by only qualified students. Immature students weaken teams, degrade project quality. The EE415/416 sequence should be a “just in time for graduation” experience so that the skill set of teams is as strong as possible. Similar to fall 2006, in fall 2007 there was an entire team that received course grades less than C and that team must repeat EE415. Such events leave a poor impression with sponsoring companies and mentors. EECS staff that helps advise students should study students in these two groups (the Vesuvius team in fall 2006 and the Java team in fall 2007) to see if there are common deficiencies for the students on these teams. Clearly these students are not as mature as those on teams requiring only one exposure to EE415. Introducing design concepts earlier in the EECS schedule of studies might minimize the risk of teams needing to repeat EE415. Thanks in part to Casey Hanson’s efforts; one design team sponsor (Ergami, LLC) funded the team (Kodiak) with $5,000 to facilitate their EE416 design work. Casey Hanson continues to solicit funding from sponsoring companies for the design teams.
Academic Media Services (AMS) should record seminars onto DVD media rather than video tape. This will improve the quality of the recorded seminars and make them readily available for inclusion in the student’s ePortfolio.
It is essential that EECS continue to interact with Dr. Ashley Ater-Kranov, Assistant Director of CTLT, in an effort to develop and evaluate our students’ professional skills. EECS should introduce professional skills earlier in the schedule of studies.
(Student evaluations are not available at the time of writing this report.)
Signature _____P. D. Pedrow___________________ Date: __January 4, 2008
Please email a copy of the completed form to Patricia Arnold, patricia@eecs.wsu.edu and deliver a signed hardcopy to her mailbox.
1
Washington State University
School of EECS
Electrical Engineering Course Assessment Report
Course Number EE 416
Course Title Electrical Engineering Design
Semester Offered Spring 2008
Instructor Patrick Pedrow
10th Day Enrollment 27 Number Completing Successfully (C grade or better) 27
I. Assessment Outcomes from the Course Syllabus
(A) Ability to apply knowledge of
mathematics, science and
engineering.
(G) Ability to communicate effectively
in written and oral formats.
(B) Ability to design and conduct
experiments as well as analyze and
interpret data.
(H) A broad education necessary to
understand the impact of engineering
solutions in global, economic, and
societal context.
(C) Ability to design a system,
component, or process to meet desired
needs.
(I) Recognize the need for, and have the
ability to engage in life long learning.
(D) Ability to function on
multidisciplinary teams.
(J) Have a broad education and
knowledge of contemporary issues.
(E) Ability to identify, formulate, and
solve engineering problems.
(K) Ability to use techniques, skills and
modern engineering tools necessary
for engineering practices.
(F) An understanding of professional
and ethical responsibility.
II. List of Course Topics from the Course Syllabus
1. Team design project
2. Weekly oral progress evaluation of teams by instructor
3. Written progress report
4. Written final report
5. Midterm presentations to instructor and faculty/industry mentors
6. Final presentations to instructor and faculty/industry mentors
7. Poster presentations and equipment demonstrations judged by industry panel
Additional Graded Student Activities:
8. Laboratory Notebook
9. Peer/Mentor Evaluations
10. Broader Impacts Essay
2
III. Course Assessment Summary Table: one row of the table should be devoted to
each of the checked outcomes in part I.
Outcome Topics Specific Measures
(A) Ability to apply knowledge of
mathematics, science and
engineering.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 • Final Written Report Section
Entitled “Modeling, Simulation, and
Engineering Analysis”
• Cycles 1-5 of Wednesday Reviews
with Each Team and Each Student
(B) Ability to design and conduct
experiments as well as analyze and
interpret data.
7, 8 • Lab Book
• Demonstration Prototype
(C) Ability to design a system,
component, or process to meet
desired needs.
1, 4, 7 • Poster
• Written Final Report
(D) Ability to function on
multidisciplinary teams.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
9
• Cycles 1-5 of Wednesday Reviews
with Each Team and Each Student
• Written Progress Report
• Poster
• Written Final Report
• Peer & Mentor Evaluation
(E) Ability to identify, formulate, and
solve engineering problems.
1, 4, 7, 9 • Poster
• Written Final Report
• Peer & Mentor Evaluation
(F) An understanding of professional
and ethical responsibility.
1, 5, 6, 7, 9 • Peer/Mentor Grades
(G) Ability to communicate
effectively in written and oral
formats.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 • Cycles 1-5 of Wednesday Reviews
with Each Team and Each Student
• Written Progress Report
• Poster
• Written Final Report
(H) A broad education necessary to
understand the impact of engineering
solutions in global, economic, and
societal context.
10 • Broader Impacts Essay
(I) Recognize the need for, and have
the ability to engage in life long
learning.
3, 4 • Written Final Report
(J) Have a broad education and
knowledge of contemporary issues.
1, 4, 7 • List of Design Projects
(K) Ability to use techniques, skills
and modern engineering tools
necessary for engineering practices.
1, 3, 4, 7 • Poster
• Written Final Report
3
IV. Using the table as a guide, for each outcome summarize your evaluation of the
students’ achievement of that outcome; cite student performance on the identified
measures as evidence to support your conclusions.
(A) Ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science and engineering.
For archiving and reporting purposes, the instructor gave each team an icon name
from a list of “islands”. This report will use the icon names for the sake of brevity. Table
A.1 gives a summary of team activity for spring 2008 EE416.
Each of the six design teams wrote a final report, which contained a mandatory
section entitled “Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis”. Table A.2 lists teams and topics
covered in this section of the final written report. A review of the graded written final
reports shows that the work in this section of the reports was of sufficient quality and
quantity to result in no loss of points (for technical content) for these six teams.
In addition, each student took an oral evaluation with the instructor 5 times during the
semester. These oral evaluations focused on the math, science, and engineering
knowledge being applied in the students’ modeling, simulation, and analysis activities.
Table A.3 lists student scores in these five oral evaluations. Oral evaluation was
supplemented by a review of each student’s laboratory notebook. The lowest score for the
“Wednesday Review” oral evaluations was 90% thus all students were quite strong
during these reviews. Points were lost to issues that included insufficient number of lab
book entries and insufficient technical progress from one oral review to another.
Table A.1. Summary of design teams for EE416 in spring semester 2008.
Team
Name
Number of
Students on
Team
Sponsor Title of Project
Corsica 4 Grant County
PUD
"Voltage Support Procedure"
Elba 4 Tacoma Power "Dynamic Line Ratings"
Kodiak 5 Ergami LLC "Wireless Radio Frequency Powered Lighting
System for Furniture"
Mindanao 5 Cypress
Semiconductor
"Temperature Compensated Digitally
Controlled Crystal Oscillator"
Sumatra 4 InnovaTek "Development of a Compact Chip-based
Controller for a Fuel Cell System Using
MATLAB/Simulink"
Timor 5 SEL "Ethernet-based Communications Network
for Protective Relaying"
4
Table A.2. Primary topics covered in the Spring 2008 EE416 written final reports in the section entitled
“Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis”.
Team Name Primary Topics Covered
Corsica MATLAB sofware applied to analysis fo historical power data. A filtration and organizational
algorithm was created to make the data more accessible and easier to interpret. Power flow
analysis using GE PSLF software. Power flow studies consist of a non-linear system of
equations. The team implemented variations on two particular numerical methods: the
Newton-Raphson Method and the Gauss-Seidel Method. The team conducted short circuit
analysis using the ASPEN OneLiner software package. Symmetrical components are used by
ASPEN to complete the analysis. Single-phase to ground and three-phase faults were studied.
Elba This team conducted thermal modeling of transmission lines under various weather conditions.
The result of this modeling was the ampacity of various conductors. The transmission line
ampacity is not a fixed value, but changes with weather conditions, conductor temperature and
operating conditions. Team modeling included work with the IEEE 738 standard entitled
“IEEE Standard for Calculating the Current-Temperature of Bare Overhead Conductors.”
MATLAB software was use for many of these calculations. The team used the SEL-421
microprocessor relay to calculate the real-time conductor temperature.
Kodiak The team simulated the light emitting diodes with PSPICE software. A
Tektronix 571 curve tracer was used to characterize the light emitting diodes.
Photometric data was measured using a luxmeter and stored as a set of values
that corresponded to spherical positions using the lamp as the origin. A third
party Matlab program was downloaded from Matlab’s online library and it
proved very useful in studying various antenna types.
Mindanao Frequency deviation for the crystal oscillatore was modeled by the team with a third order
function of temperature. The software package MALAB was used to implement a least squares
method to fit data. The programmable clock chip achieved frequency correction by slightly
altering the values of pi-network capacitors. The Steinhart-Hart polynomial equation was used
by the team to model the thermistor used by the team to measure oscillator temperature.
Sumatra This team used MATLAB and Simulink to model electrical components found
in a fuel cell-based power supply. The SimPower Toolbox contained in the
Simulink environment was an essential tool for this team. The team relied
heavily on a University of Michigan fuel cell model in which a desired current
is taken as input, and the outputs are net power and cell stack voltage.
Timor Unified Modeling Language (UML) was used extensively by the team. UMLs
define each class and show which functions they contain. UMLs made up the
skeleton of the team’s program and allowed the student programmers to see at
a glance how each class will interacted with the others. The UMLs also
allowed team members to write pieces of code that pertain to different tasks in
parallel because each team member can see what functions each class should
have. This maked programming as a team more efficient and allowed the team
to compile the different pieces of code into one working program smoothly. A
second modeling tool utilized in the project development was MATLAB.
Another important engineering analysis tool was the basic Linux console
programs that are available on the operating system. One that was particularly
helpful is tcpdump. Tcpdump is a program that captures all of the network
traffic on a computer and prints the traffic report to the user's screen.
5
Table A.3. Student scores for five “Wednesday Review” oral evaluations.
Student
Number
Cycle #1 of
Wednesday
Reviews
(100)
Cycle #2 of
Wednesday
Reviews
(100)
Cycle #3 of
Wednesday
Reviews
(100)
Cycle #4 of
Wednesday
Reviews
(100)
Cycle #5 of
Wednesday
Reviews
(100)
1 100 100 100 90 100
2 100 100 100 100 100
3 100 95 100 100 100
4 100 95 100 100 100
5 100 100 100 90 100
6 100 100 100 100 100
7 100 100 100 100 100
8 100 100 100 90 100
9 100 100 100 100 100
10 100 100 100 100 100
11 100 100 100 100 100
12 100 100 100 100 100
13 100 100 100 100 100
14 100 100 100 100 100
15 100 100 100 90 100
16 100 100 100 100 100
17 100 100 100 100 100
18 100 100 100 100 100
19 100 100 100 100 100
20 100 95 100 100 100
21 100 100 100 100 100
22 100 100 100 100 100
23 100 100 100 100 100
24 100 95 100 100 100
25 100 100 100 100 100
26 95 95 100 100 100
27 100 100 100 100 100
(B) Ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze and interpret data.
Each student was required to keep a laboratory notebook for the duration of
EE416. On five different occasions, the instructor inspected each student’s lab book. Lab
book performance contributed to the oral evaluation grades listed in Table A.3. As
mentioned in Section (A), all students performed at or above the 90% level. The
instructor gave to the students detailed lab book guidelines that read in part:
“Generation and protection of intellectual property are other important reasons to keep a
detailed lab book. In EE415/416, a well-kept lab book will be a mix of handwritten
comments and attached exhibits. Your lab book can also function as a journal where you
record your thoughts about the project. It is logical for an instructor to assume that a
weak lab book results from insufficient hours per week spent on the project.”
6
Students received additional exposure to experimental procedure and data
analysis while designing, constructing, and demonstrating the team’s prototype. Each
team was required to write about their demonstration prototype in their final reports.
Table B.1 shows abbreviated versions of the teams’ prototype “report”. Prototypes could
impact grades in two ways: 1) in the written final report and 2) in their poster/prototype
grades. A review of the graded written final reports shows that no points were lost to
technical flaws in the prototypes. A review of instructor notes taken during poster
/prototype grading shows that for all teams the prototype component was as strong as or
stronger than the poster component of the display. These results from lab book and
prototype evaluations show that all students passing EE416 spring 2007 semester
demonstrated an acceptable ability to design and conduct experiments as well as analyze
and interpret data.
Table B.1. Team comments on their demonstration prototypes displayed at the end-ofsemester
poster session.
Team Name Abbreviated Team Comments on Prototype (From Written Final Reports)
Corsica An interactive model of the power system with the voltage procedure enabled was
demonstrated at the WSU School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science open house
on April 17th. The model consisted of one-line diagrams of the existing and proposed systems,
with interactive buttons on various sections of the system. Clicking on different sections
showed results from the historical data analysis, power flow simulations, and short circuit
analyses for that particular portion of the system. GE PSLF screenshots of Wind Ridge,
Wanapum and Vantage were included to demonstrate the power flows, while ASPEN one-line
diagrams were used to illustrate the results from the short circuit analysis. MATLAB plots
were included to exhibit the results from the historical data analysis. The interactive model
was useful for displaying the physical equipment involved in the system, like the wind
turbines, hydro-generators, and SVC devices.
Elba The components of the prototype consisted of: one variable speed fan, an anemometer, one
handheld FLUKE Multimeter with a thermocouple attachment, one step-down current
transformer (CT), one Doble F2350 Test System, one PC (with widescreen LCD monitor)
running Windows XP, an SEL-421 digital relay, an SEL-2600 RTD Module, one Platinum
RTD, one 19” half rack and one strip of tin fuse wire roughly 80 cm in length. The CT
supplies current to the relay from the Doble Test System which also supplies the current
source through the tin wire (representing the transmission line). The fan provides a 4 feet per
second breeze perpendicular to the tin wire in order for it to cool due to convection. The SEl-
421 contained logic responsible for calculating the estimated conductor temperature from the
ambient temperature (collected from the RTD Module) and the current loading through the
CT. A FLUKE Multimeter measured the direct temperature of the tin wire, but only for
comparison to the calculated temperature of the SEL-421. The SEL-421 is further configured
to protect the transmission line if the calculated conductor temperature reaches 50°C.
Although the relay was not able to completely track the actual conductor temperature during
dynamic-state (immediate increase in current), it was capable of calculating a temperature
within a few degrees of the measured temperature. After a short period had passed and the
temperature reached a steady-state, the calculated and measured temperatures agreed to within
a few tenths of a degree.
Kodiak Two separate prototypes were constructed, one as a moveable desk lamp to show the operation
ranges, and one as a fixed spot light mounted in the OS1 system to show luminosity. The only
difference between the two models is a switch in place of the remote controller on the spot
light. The desk lamp prototype consisted of 1 Powercast transmitter, 8 Powercast harvesters, 4
super capacitors, 1 DC-DC converter, 1 remote controller and 2 LEDs. Both the Powercast
transmitter and harvesters were purchased as part of a wireless powered Christmas tree. These
components remained unchanged throughout the prototyping process. Most of the circuit
7
components were soldered onto 2 circuit boards and hidden in the base of the desk lamp. The
harvesters were daisy-chained in a parallel configuration around the base of the lamp. The
remote controller components were soldered onto a circuit board. The prototypes were built to
show how well the system operates as a whole. Both the desk lamp and fixed spot light
worked as expected within the maxim operating range through proper mediums defined in the
results section. The DC-DC converter was able to regulate the voltage to the light with an
input voltage between V5.1 andV5.2. The super capacitor worked equally well.
Mindanao The heart of this prototype was a printed circuit board implementation of the design.
Peripheral components that contributed to the characterization of the system were also
constructed, including a computer interface for data logging and a heat forcing chamber. The
thermistor was placed next to the crystal to ensure that the temperature that the prototype was
correcting for was the actual temperature experienced by the crystal. In order to characterize
and test the operation of the prototype several connectors were added to the PCB. A bayonet
Neil-Concelman (BNC) connector was added to monitor the clock frequency and a header was
added to allow probes to be attached to the supply voltage plane, ground plane, and thermistor
output. Beginning with a fourteen bit digital signal describing the voltage from the temperature
measurement component, the lookup table determined the appropriate correction command to
apply. During generation, the MatLab code iterated through all possible fourteen bit digital
amplitudes. It converted these amplitudes into the corresponding analog voltage. Using the
characterization of the temperature measurement component, it determined the equivalent
temperature of operation. Using this temperature and the characterization of the oscillator, it
determined the expected frequency deviation. Then using this deviation and the
characterization of the capacitive correction, it determined the appropriate command to send to
the programmable clock chip.
Sumatra A Simulink model of a fuel cell with power conditioner circuit was developed by this team. A
PID control loop was included. A real time graphical user interface (GUI) was added using
Matlab’s GUIDE resource. This allows users to alter the required load for the system and alter
control parameters to illustrate the system’s response to changing loads. One slider bar
specified the power requested by the user in terms of Watts. This power was assumed to be fed
to a purely resistive load. A second slider bar altered the gain within the PID control unit. The
higher the gain the faster the system responded to a change in load. However, higher gains can
lead to system instability and are more difficult to implement using hardware.
Timor The demonstration prototype was one of the most important goals of the team’s entire project
effort. This is because all of the work that the team completed was summed up by the
prototype. The prototype was used to show what the project accomplished as a whole and how
it would be used in a real world setting. In the prototype, there were two different computers
running the system. The first computer was an SEL 1102. This machine ran the team’s
generator software that emulated the signals that would be coming out of the A/D converters
in a substation. It then sends data packets that conform to the 61850-9-2 packet structure
across the Ethernet to the second machine. This machine was running the monitoring software
which collected the packets and then displayed them for the user to observe. The key factors
that are shown in this prototype are the team’s ability to emulate power signals inside of a
substation, send power information using the 61850-9-2 packet structure, align the data
packets to make sure they are in the correct order based on time, determine useful power
monitoring information from the data that was sent and display the information in an easily
observable manner.
(C) Ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs.
In EE415 each team received a sponsoring company or institution and a mentor
who was a practicing engineer or scientist. In EE415 students had already written
accepted proposals describing in vague ways the design concept to be pursued in E416.
8
Teams were expected to iterate on modeling, simulation, and engineering analysis to
reach a final design plus construct a working prototype. Students displayed their final
designs and prototypes at the EECS open house poster session held on April 17, 2007.
All six teams finished the course in a very efficient manner with completed design
projects.
Scores on the written final reports for the six teams were 100, 100, 99, 97.5, 92,
and 87.5. Teams whose score was greater than 95% lost points only on technical writing
issues. The team receiving 92% was too imprecise while designing their temperature
controlled oven. The team with 87.5% had weak technical writing skills and failed to
correct previously graded errors.
Poster scores for these six teams were 100, 100, 100, 98, 96, and 90 %. The team
with 90% lost points due to unclear technical details and due to an unrefined
experimental setup. In general, the posters looked very professional and the teams were
skilled at discussing their poster and prototype with the instructor, with guests, and with a
panel of judges from industry. Scores on the final written reports and the poster session
show that students on these six teams clearly showed ability to design a system,
component, or process to meet desired needs.
(D) Ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
Each student in EE416 was on a project team with size 4-5 students. These teams
included students with diverse interests (e.g. software, hardware, computer engineering, analog
electronics, electric power, wireless technology, etc.) From the standpoint of majors, the team
members were a mix of electrical engineering majors and computer engineering majors. To
evaluate a student's effectiveness in the team environment, at the end of the semester each student
and each mentor was asked to prepare an evaluation of the student members of the team. Each
evaluator assigned a grade to each student on the team. Grades solicited from students and
mentors were based on the following criteria:
A. Student work demonstrates consistently excellent scholastic performance; thorough
comprehension; ability to correlate the material with other ideas, to communicate and to deal
effectively with course concepts and new material; reliability in attendance and attention to
assignments.
B. Student work demonstrates superior scholastic performance overall, reliability in attendance,
and attention to assignments; may demonstrate excellence but be less consistent than the work of
an A student.
C. Student work demonstrates satisfactory performance overall, as well as reliability in
attendance, and attention to assignments.
D. Student work demonstrates minimal, barely passing performance overall; limited knowledge
of subject matter.
F. Student work demonstrates unsatisfactory performance and comprehension or unfulfilled
requirements. The grade is failing.
These letter grades were converted to scores based on the scale: A=100, B=85, C=78,
D=50, and F=0. Plus and minus marks were used to interpolate between these values. These
peer/mentor scores are summarized in the histogram shown in Figure D.1. While all but one
student scored greater than 80% there was 1 student that received a mentor/peer score of 69%.
For this team the mentor opted to abstain from participating in grading thus this low score
consists only of peer grades. Scores given to this student by peers were B+, D, D, and B.
Paraphrased comments affiliated with the two D scores included 1) The student had trouble
understanding what was asked of him; 2) The student did not contribute to the prototype; 3) The
9
student had very poor communication skills; 4) The student becomes angry/resentful when others
can’t understand him; 5) The student seems to have poor technical skills as well. This student is
one for whom English is a second language. EECS should continue to explore ways to improve
the communication skills possessed by such students. Poor communication skills will reflect
negatively on EECS as this graduate enters the engineering profession. Senior design classes
EE415/416 are not effective at filtering out students with weak communication skills because
team work is emphasized and the mandatory cycles of proofing and editing acts to obscur an
individual’s weak communication skills and the resulting weak teaming skills possessed by the
student.
Peer grading remains “volatile” thus it receives only 5% weighting toward the course
average. The term volatile is used to describe the fact that a team completing a design with C
work sometimes merely gives the obligatory “A” to their peers with the understanding that they
too will receive an “A” from their colleagues. At the opposite extreme is the student with a
personality conflict with a team mate who gives an artificially low peer grade to that student. An
effective way to filter this type of noise from the grading process is to give it reduced weight. In
Figure D.1 the student with a mentor/peer score of 69% went on to pass EE416 with a grade of C
or better yet they possessed a very marginal ability to function in a teaming environment.
Not only did the students on a team represent a broad spectrum of specialties (thus they
were multidisciplinary teams) but the topics for each team were also multidisciplinary. All six
design projects were broad in nature and cut across many disciplines. Mentors and co-mentors
included electrical engineers, computer engineers, a chemical engineer, a design specialist, a
chemical engineer, a physicist, a mechanical engineer, and a biologist.
The interdisciplinary nature of the topics covered will now be listed briefly for each team.
The Corsica team worked with voltage support procedures including buck/boost control
procedures; power system stability and reliability; large wind projects; wind generators; power
electronics; static VAR devices; hydroelectric dams; power flow modeling; and fault current
analysis including three-phase and single-phase to ground faults. The Elba team worked with
dynamically predicting conductor current rating; designing a dynamic line rating (DLR) system; a
SEL-421 digital relay that is capable of calculating the conductor temperature as a function of
time; thermal and heat flow models; the IEEE 738 standard entitled “IEEE Standard for
Calculating the Current-Temperature of Bare Overhead Conductors; Matlab simulations; and a
human machine interface. The Kodiak team worked with a wireless powered lighting system; an
encoder/decoder electronic system; super capacitors; an RF transmitter and receiver for remote
control; a DC-DC converter; light meters; light emitting diodes; a software package to simulate
the radiation pattern from multiple antennas; and other software packages that include Matlab,
LTSpice, AGI32, and PSPICE. The Mindanao team worked with making a clock signal with a
nearly constant frequency in a variable temperature environment; a programmable system on a
chip; a programmable clock chip; and printed circuit boards. The Sumatra team worked with
simulations for a fuel cell-based power supply, a PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell,
thermodynamic calculations, MATLAB, and Simulink. The Timor team worked with designing a
digital communication system to be used for monitoring power lines; a data packetizer; an
Ethernet manager; a time aligner; an SQL database; and two graphical user interfaces.
The paragraphs shown above give evidence that the EE416 students demonstrated an
acceptable ability to function on multidisciplinary teams.
10
Peer/Mentor Grades
0
5
10
15
20
25
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Score (%)
Number of Students
Figure D.1. Histogram of peer/mentor grades.
(E) Ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
Each team of students was required to complete an engineering design project that
was completely "open ended". An industry professional acted as mentor. Four of the six
teams were also assigned at least one co-mentor by their sponsor. There were also several
other professionals available as resource persons for the teams (the instructor and a
faculty resource person for each team.) An important part of the design project is
iteratively applying the steps of modeling, simulation, engineering analysis, and
refinement. As part of the design project, each team was required to participate in oral
and written progress reports, a poster with working demonstration prototype and a written
final report. Guests at the EECS open house attended the poster presentation. An industry
judging team evaluated the poster presentations and named the top three posters (this
competition included Computer Science design posters as well). The overall student
grades for spring 2008 EE416 ranged from A to B showing that all students were clearly
able to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems.
(F) An understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.
Students in EE416 demonstrate their understanding of professional and ethical
responsibility as they interact with peers on their team and as they interact with the team
mentor. The instructor assumes that students displaying errant professional and ethical
behavior will receive low peer/mentor grades. Table F.1 lists the mentors for the spring
2008 EE416 teams. Mentors interacted with team members in the following venues: 1)
face-to-face team meetings, 2) conference calls, 3) email exchanges, 4) telephone calls, 5)
review of drafts of written progress report, 6) review of drafts of written final report, 7)
review of drafts of the team poster, and 8) by attending with the instructor at least one
oral “Wednesday review” session. Table F.2 shows composite peer/mentor scores for
students in EE416 spring 2008. In Table F.2 only the student at row #24 received a score
low enough to warrant concern. In this case the mentor refrained from grading the team
thus the low score is due entirely to peer grades. As mentioned earlier in this report,
scores given to this student by peers were B+, D, D, and B. Paraphrased comments affiliated with
the two D scores included 1) The student had trouble understanding what was asked of him; 2)
The student did not contribute to the prototype; 3) The student had very poor communication
skills; 4) The student becomes angry/resentful when others can’t understand him; 5) The student
11
seems to have poor technical skills as well. This student clearly had weak skills associated with
understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. The instructor assumes that if the
mentor observed unprofessional or unethical behavior then they would have discussed it
with the instructor and/or participated in mentor grading so that the issue would be
documented. Singling out such a student from a team environment is very difficult;
however, the “yellow slip” available to teams allows a team to severely penalize a student
if there is unanimous consensus that the student has blatantly exhibited non-professional
behavior. With the exception of the student at row #24 in Table F.2, there appears to be
ample evidence to support the instructor’s claim that these students showed an acceptable
understanding of their professional and ethical responsibilities.
Table F.1. Mentors for EE416 during spring 2008.
Team Name Mentor
Corsica Mr. Rodney Noteboom, PE
Electrical Engineer
Grant County PUD
PO Box 878
Ephrata, WA 98823
Elba Mr. Mark Pigman
Substation Engineering
T&D Engineering
Tacoma Power
Tacoma, WA
Kodiak Mr. Joe Felice, CEO
Ergami, LLC
PO Box 725
Liberty Lake, WA
Mindanao Mr. Greg Barnes
Design Engineering Department Manager
Cypress Semiconductor
121 Sweet Avenue
Moscow, ID
Sumatra Dr. Quentin Ming
ClearEdge Power
7205 NW Evergreen Parkway
Hillsboro, OR 97124
Timor Mr. Greg Zweigle
Electrical Engineer
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.
2350 NE Hopkins Court
Pullman, WA 99163
12
Table F.2. Peer/mentor composite grades for EE416 spring 2008.
Student
Row
Number
Composite
Peer/Mentor
Grade (100)
1 90
2 100
3 99
4 88
5 100
6 100
7 100
8 100
9 96
10 100
11 100
12 96
13 95
14 100
15 100
16 96
17 100
18 96
19 89
20 100
21 96
22 100
23 96
24 69
25 85
26 92
27 100
(G) Ability to communicate effectively in written and oral formats.
The instructor made several assignments designed to enhance written and oral
presentation skills. EE416 is a “writing in the major” or [M] course and technical writing
assignments are integral parts of the class activities. One form of written communication
was design and printing of a poster describing their project. The instructor circulated
guidelines for the posters and asked students to examine research posters displayed by
others on campus. Students received guidelines for their written reports. Students first
reviewed their technical writing textbook. Students invited their mentor to edit drafts of
their written reports. All team members were to proof read the written documents. Grades
on the written progress reports were in the range 60-98%. For the written final reports
grades were in the range 88-100%. While there might have been concern with respect to
the progress report lowest score of 60% all teams improved their technical writing such
that the weakest score on the final report was a respectable grade of 88%. Five oral
13
“Wednesday reviews” were required for each team with each student responsible for at
least 5 minutes of the oral evaluation. Each team was required to have their mentor attend
one of these review sessions. This Wednesday review activity simulated technical
meetings that are an important part of the engineer’s professional career. The ranges of
student scores for these five oral reviews were 95-100, 95-100, 100-100, 90-100, and
100-100 %, respectively. These are very satisfactory scores. Another oral communication
requirement was that the teams presented their poster to guests at the EECS open house
in April 2008. Showing the demonstration prototype also required oral communication
skills. All teams performed well at the poster session. Observations described in this
paragraph indicate that these students have an acceptable ability to communicate
effectively in written and oral formats.
(H) A broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in
global, economic, and societal context.
EECS students are equipped with a broad education, partially due to the WSU
general education requirements (GERs). The fact that EECS students must pass their
GER classes gives evidence of a broad education but that alone does not document that
each EE416 student understands the impact of their EE416 engineering design in global,
economic, and societal context. Each EE416 student was required to write a short essay
using the prompt shown in Table H.1. A randomly selected essay is shown in Table H.2.
The essay was a mandatory activity; however, the essay score contributed only 5% to the
course grade. Consequently the essays tended to be rather superficial. The WSU Center
for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (CTLT) is still helping the instructor evaluate
these essays. Knowing that the essay is a required component to the course does make the
students take note of professional skills issues; however, it is difficult to invoke that the
essays themselves is sufficient evidence that the students possessed a broad education
necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, and
societal context. Continued interaction with CTLT will continue in an effort to improve
our ability to assess this ABET outcome.
14
Table H.1. Essay prompt related to global, economic, and societal issues associated with the design
projects.
Introduction:
Knowledge of contemporary issues and an understanding of the impact of engineering
solutions in global, economic, environmental, and cultural/societal contexts are crucial
skills for 21st century professional engineers.
Essay Prompt:
In your introduction, show how the problem your team is tackling is related to a broader
contemporary issue. Then, describe the impact that your team’s engineering solution will
have in global, economic, environmental, and cultural/societal contexts. Be sure to
provide specific examples, using data and evidence from your project and other pertinent
sources (if needed). Your conclusion should specify how your solution addresses the
problem both professionally and ethically. The audience for this essay is a potential
employer.
Clarifications:
Contemporary issues can be either technical or non-technical. An example of a technical
contemporary issue is: Does your design consider the fact that wireless devices are
pervasive in modern societies? An example of a non-technical contemporary issue is:
Does your design consider the fact that in the U.S. there is a profound demographic
change as the median age increases significantly? Global can be taken to mean bridging
two or more cultures. Societal can be taken to mean issues associated with groups of
people and their beliefs, practices and needs.
Assessment of your essay will be coordinated by the WSU Center for Teaching, Learning,
and Technology. A panel of WSU instructors will assist with the assessment.
15
Table H.2. Randomly selected essay.
One of the most necessary and volatile commodities in America is energy. The need for
energy not only permeates into every facet of our lives, but dictates political and social agendas
at home and abroad. Today in America, there is a large movement towards alternative sources of
energy. Energy that is renewable, does not have to be imported from volatile parts of the world,
and is friendly to the environment. One particular example of a renewable energy source is wind.
Wind generation poses many engineering challenges that need to be met to successfully integrate
large amounts of wind and other variable energy sources into the electric power grid. Team
Corsica’s, “Voltage Control Procedure for Wanapum Substation,” is a small example of the
engineering work needed to verify if the current implementations of wind generation are
sufficient to be executed on an even larger scale than what exists is today.
Socially, the issue of “green” energy has become a very hot topic. More and more
people are pushing for it as reports of global warming fly through the media. The carbon dioxide
emitted from coal and other fossil fuel burning plants have been deemed a threat to the
environment by the green movement. With the engineering work done by Team Corsica, better
VAr support procedures will help maintain a set voltage at substations that are connected to wind
farms; creating a more reliable and cleaner power network in the United States. The procedure
developed with Grant County PUD and Team Corsica only corresponded to the Wanapum
Substation; though, the methods of historical data analysis, power flow simulation modeling, and
fault analysis can be adapted to similar scenarios.
Over the years, energy has been the driving force in American foreign policy; keeping
the economy running strong helps when energy is cheap. The United States purchases oil and
natural gas from a few countries that do not like us. Because of America’s addiction to foreign
oil, we fund the people who hate us. The current military actions in Iraq are a testament to the
cost the United States pays for these actions. In addition, the rising energy needs of India and
China further augment the fight over global energy resources. Consequently, if the driving issue
of “Climate Change” turns out to not be true, there are many other advantages of producing clean
energy at home.
Work that is being done to further green energy also acts to create jobs and give the
United States a technical edge. As said before, there is a large movement towards clean and
renewable energy sources throughout the world. This emerging market would be great for U.S.
industry and should prove to be fruitful for many years.
To summarize, the “Voltage Control Procedure for Wanapum Substation” is only a
small piece to a very large puzzle. These types of problems must be broken down into
manageable portions. What was done by Team Corsica could be seen as just an engineering
project to solve some abstract technical problem that the rest of the world would not even bother
to notice. However, this abstract problem is linked to many bigger problems that affect everyone
around the world.
(I) Recognize the need for, and have the ability to engage in life long learning.
EE416 students are required to read and utilize at least four refereed journal
articles that were to be cited in their written final report. The journal articles show the
students that the expectations are high for practicing engineers and that learning new
topics will permeate all of their professional lives. In Table I.1 all teams presented the
four journal references. Table I.1 shows that these students have the ability to engage in
life long learning.
16
Table I.1. Refereed journal articles cited by the EE416 design teams in their written final reports.
Team Refereed Journal Article
Corsica [1] E. Denny, M. O’Malley, “Quantifying the Total Net Benefits of Grid
Integrated Wind”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 22, No. 2, May
2007, p 605.
Corsica [3] C. Chompoo-inwai, W. Lee, P. Fuangfoo, M. Williams, J. R. Liao, “System
Impact Study for the Interconnection of Wind Generation and Utility System”,
IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 41, No. 1, Jan/Feb, 2005, pg
163.
Corsica [4] C. Han, A. Huang, M. Baran, W. Litzenberger, L. Anderson “STATCOM
Impact Study on the Integration of a Large Wind Farm into a Weak Loop Power
System” IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion, Vol. 23, No. 1, March 2008,
pp 226 – 233.
Corsica [11] A. Keyhani, A. Abur, S. Hao, “Evaluation of power flow techniques for
personal computers”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 4, Issue 2,
May 1989, pp. 817 – 826.
Elba . [3] John R. Harvey, “Creep of Transmission Line Conductors,” IEEE
Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, Vol. PAS-88, No. 4, April
1969.
Elba [7] Stephen D. Foss, “Dynamic Line Rating In The Operating
Environment.” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 5, No. 2, April
1990.
Elba [16] D.G. Harvard, G. Bellamy, et. el., “Aged ACSR Conductors Part 1-
Testing Procedures for Conductors and Line Items,” IEEE Transactions on
Power Delivery, Vol. 7, No. 2, April 1992.
Elba [17] R.D. Findlay, V.T. Morgan, “The Effect Of Frequency On The
Resistance And Internal Inductance Of Bare ACSR Conductors,” IEEE
Transactions on Power Delivery, Vol. 6, No. 3, July 1991.
Kodiak [4] John Zhang, Ian Ashdown, Ian Lewin, “Linear Moving-Detector
Photometer: A New Design Concept/Discussions”, Journal of the Illuminating
Engineering Society; Winter 2004; Vol 33, Issue 1; Research Library pp. 75.
Kodiak [13] H. Kim, B. N. Popov, “Mathematical model of RuO2/Carbon Composite
Electrode for Supercapacitors”, Journal Electrochemical Society, 2003
Kodiak [16] J.N. Marie-Francoise, H. Gualous, R. Outbib, and A. Berthon, “42 V
Power Net with Supercapacitor and Battery for Automotive Applications”,
Journal of Power Sources, vol. 143, issues 1-2, 27 April 2005, pp. 275-283.
Kodiak [18] Georgiana Daian, “Modeling the Dielectric Properties of Wood”, Wood
Science Technology, vol 40, pp. 237-246, Jan 2006.
Mindanao [3] R. Achenbach, “A digitally temperature-compensated crystal oscillator,”
IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, Vol. 35, No. 10, p. 1, 2000.
Mindanao [5] A. Atieg, “A class of methods for fitting a curve or surface to data by
minimizing the sum of squares of orthogonal distances,” Journal of
Computational and Applied Mathematics, Vol. 158, No. 2, pp. 277-296, 2003.
Mindanao [7] L. Brocker, “Euler integration and euler multiplication,” Advances in
Geometry, Vol. 5, No. 1, p. 145, 2005.
17
Mindanao [8] D. Cigoy, “Basics of temperature measurement-thermistors,” Control
Engineering, Vol. 53.5, 2006.
Sumatra [1] Avargel, Y and Cohen, I. “Adaptive system identification in the shorttime
Fourier transform domain using cross-multiplicative transfer function
approximation.” Jan. 2008. IEEE transactions. Vol. 16. Feb. 12, 2008.
Sumatra [3] Dougal, Roger and Jiang, Zhenhua. “Real-time strategy for active power
sharing in a fuel cell powered battery charger.” Journal of Power Sources.
Vol. 142 (2005) pp. 253–263.
Sumatra [13] Ogata, M. and Nishi, T. "Topological criteria for switched mode DCDC
converters" Circuits and Systems Vol. 3 (2003) pp. 184 -187.
Sumatra [18] Y. Xue, L. Chang, S.B. Kjaer, J. Bordonau, T. Shimizu,” Topologies
of Single-Phase Inverters for Small Distributed Power Generators: An
Overview” IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, 1305 – 1314.
Timor [7] T. Kostic, O. Preiss, C. Frei, "Understanding and Using the IEC 61850:
A Case for Meta-Modelling," Elsevier Journal of Computer Standards &
Interfaces, vol. 27/6, pp. 679-695, 2005.
Timor [11] H. Schubert; G. Wong, “Towards seamless communications in
substations” The IET Power Engineer, vol. 17/4, pp. 20-23, 2003.
Timor [12] Cagil R. Ozansoy, Aladin Zayegh, Akhtar Kalam, “The Real-Time
Publisher/Subscriber Communication Model for Distributed Substation
Systems,” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol. 22, no. 3, July 2007,
pp. 1411-1423.
Timor [13] Otto Preiss, Alain Wegmann, “Towards a composition model problem
based on IEC61850”, Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 65, no. 3, 2003,
pp.227-236
18
(J) Have a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.
Similar to Item H above, EECS relies partially upon the student’s GERs to
provide breadth in the student’s education. In addition, design project are solicited from
companies and institutions that provide contemporary “real world” design challenges for
these EE416 teams. Examples of these contemporary issues and emerging technologies
are shown in Table J.1. There are no graded activities or writing guidelines that can be
cited to evaluate our student’s mastery of Item J; however, the fact that thy were
immersed in their design project for two semesters combined with Table J.1 shows that
these students have a broad education and knowledge of contemporary issues.
Table J.1. Contemporary issues and emerging technologies affiliated with the spring 2008 EE416 design
projects.
Team Item Designed Contemporary Issues and Emerging Technologies
Corsica Voltage Control Algorithm Wind Power
Elba Dynamic Line Current Rating Energy Systems, Upgrading Decaying
Infrastructure
Kodiak Wireless Power Source for
Desk Lighting
Wireless Systems
Mindanao Temperature-compensated
Clock Signal
Cell Phone Technology
Sumatra Model of Biofuel-based Fuel
Cell System
Green Energy Systems
Timor LAN-based Power System
Data Acquistion System
Energy Systems, Upgrading the Decaying
Infrastructure
(K) Ability to use techniques, skills and modern engineering tools necessary for
engineering practices.
Each team used at least one modern software package in their design work: 1) The
Corsica team used Aspen software to analyze load flow scenarios; 2) The Elba team used
LineAmps software to calculate the dynamic line rating of transmission lines; 3) The
Kodiak team used AGI32, a lighting calculation software made by Lighting Analysts; 4)
The Mindanao team used MATLAB for circuit analysis; 5) The Sumatra team used
Simulink to simulate fuel cell systems; and 6) The Timor team used PHP software for
data acquisition and archiving.
V. Qualitative Assessment of Student Performance: using the arguments above and
other data support the claim that students who completed this course with a grade
of C or better have achieved each of the intended outcomes of this course.
Scores on the final written reports and the poster session presentations (including
the demonstration prototypes) show clear evidence that each team has shown the ability
to 1) design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs, 2) function as a
multidisciplinary team, 3) identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems, 4)
communicate effectively in written and oral formats, and 5) use techniques, skills and
modern engineering tools necessary for engineering practices. The instructor conducted
19
oral evaluations (and inspected individual student lab books) five times during the
semester with each student. These evaluations were designed to insure that each student
was contributing effectively to the team and thus that the individual students had these
same abilities.
VI. Concerns: state any concerns you may hold about this class – were the students
adequately prepared coming into it? Are there topics or outcomes where (some)
students were weak after completing the course? Other concerns? Were there any
comments on students’ course evaluations that should be addressed in future
instances of the course? This section is very important for improving our program:
it provides critical input to the curriculum committee for identifying areas requiring
attention.
The “yellow slip” policy described in the spring 2007 assessment report
was included this semester and it was successful in the sense that it inspired one team to
meet with the instructor and discuss in a very frank way the marginal teaming skill of one
of their team members. After discussing the situation more carefully amongst themselves,
the team decided not to issue the yellow slip but the discussions it prompted were very
valuable for instructor and students alike. The broader impacts essay is useful in the sense
that it has kept CTLT active in assisting the instructor to assess the professional skills
parts of the ABET outcomes. CTLT is still analyzing the broader impact essays.
Signature __________________________________________ Date: __________
Please email a copy of the completed form to Patricia Arnold, patricia@eecs.wsu.edu and
deliver a signed hardcopy to her mailbox.
Appendix E
Systems Area Assessment Summary Report
Individual course assessment reports can be seen at
EE Systems Area ABET report for Academic year 2007-2008
Courses covered: EE221, EE321, EE341, EE451, EE464, and EE489.
Observation from reports
All the reports indicate that the students successfully completing one of the above courses have achieved the intended ABET assessment outcomes for that course. For the most part, the instructors were satisfied with the overall preparation of the students entering the course and performance of the students at the end of the course.
Significant variation in student programming skills was a concern in EE221. Change in EE graduation requirements (programming courses) could have contributed to this; this variation has improved in Fall 2008.
Inadequate matlab skills were again a concern expressed in some courses, though an improvement (over previous years) was noted. The introduction of EE 221 (Numerical Computing for Engineers) seems to have helped in this respect.
The math background of some students was again a concern in many courses. Application of concepts learnt in prerequisite courses was also a concern in some cases. On the positive side, students were better able to assimilate different concepts when applied to a course design project.
Communication skills (written and oral) were generally adequate; providing appropriate feedback based on interim reports helped the students learn to prepare a good final report.
Recommendations
• EE441: It was generally agreed that EE441 (or a controls laboratory) needs to be offered as a senior elective in the near future. Instructor resource continues to be a concern. There is strong student interest and instructor willingness to offer the course. Hopefully the School can provide additional resources to offer this in the near future.
Follow up with Changes
• EE221: The experience so far has been positive. Students have generally better matlab skills than in previous years. We will continue to monitor the progress and make changes in EE221 as required.
• EE341: Stat 360 has been added as a co-req. to EE341 and a probability application has been added to EE341 (starting Fall 2007). Frequency modulation has also been dropped. So far, the changes have been reasonably well received.
Appendix F
Microelectronics Area Assessment Summary Report
Individual course assessment reports can be seen at
To: Curriculum Committee
From: George La Rue
Subject: Microelectronics Area Committee Recommendations
The microelectronics area committee met November 20, 2008 with Professors Heo, LaRue and Osman present. Input from Professor Ringo was received on November 21 and all professors reviewed the recommendations. The committee has the following recommendations based on the assessments for the 2007-2008 academic year for courses EE311 and EE476 and EE477.
For EE311:
• With recent changes in the students’ curriculum too much is being asked of EE311 to provide a proper understanding of electronics. Today, no associated electronics laboratory and no course in either electronic materials or elementary device physics are required by electrical engineering students. Many students have no practical grasp of the material without an associated lab. Last year we agreed that a more closely coupled co-requisite lab course EE352 would help students understand the circuits and concepts better. We now recommend that students be required to take EE352 concurrently with EE311 and we will work with the EE Curriculum Committee to modify the requirements. We will work with the EE352 instructor to modify EE352 to coordinate the lab experiments to better help student understanding of EE311 material. Computer engineering students currently are not required to take EE352. This change in requirements will need to be addressed by the Computer Engineering Curriculum Committee.
• The average percentage of students failing EE311 dropped to about 10%, which is down from 20% last year and 35% the year before. We will continue to monitor this.
• EE311 emphasizes problem solving skills, with which the students seem not to have experience. Many students coming into EE311 have trouble with resistor divider problems. We recommend continuing to spend time in lecture at the beginning of the semester reviewing basics and/or having problem solving sessions starting early in the semester. In addition, we also recommend that EE311 instructors give a 10 question exam on material they should have learned in EE261 that is critical to doing well in EE311. Students are required to get 9 correct answers in order to stay in the class. Students will have 5 attempts.
• Some students have complained about the book. We tried a different book a couple years ago, which did not work out well, and we went back to a newer edition of Sedra and Smith. We will continue looking for a better book.
For EE476
• There were only 5 undergraduates that took the course in Fall 2007 compared to 10 and 11 the previous 2 years. Student performance was good and the third exam scores improved to a reasonable value. It is recommended to keep the weighting of time spent on each topic the same and see if the third exam scores remain elevated over a larger sample of students.
• Enrollment in Fall 2008 increased to 12 undergraduate students so the enrollment drop seems to be a one time event.
For EE477
• EE477 was not taught this year. Due to lack of microelectronics faculty, it is not expected to be taught in the next year or two and has been removed from the course catalog. It may be resurrected and offered as a combination graduate/undergraduate lab in the future.
Appendix G
EE Senior Curricular Debrief Session Report
Electrical and Computer Engineering Programs
WSU College of Engineering & Architecture
2008 Curricular Debrief Project to Assess ABET Outcomes 3f-j
DRAFT Findings and Recommendations
Prepared by: Ashley Ater Kranov
Date: August 11, 2008
Purpose
This draft has been prepared by the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) for the Electrical and Computer Engineering (EE & CE) programs. Please record your comments and questions as you read and reflect on this information. The value of this information depends on EE & CE administrations and faculty discussing it, determining what it means to the two programs and making decisions based on that shared understanding. CTLT is available to consult and collaborate with EE and CE faculty to implement recommendations.
Contents
I. Executive Summary
II. 2007 Findings, Recommendations and 2007-2008 Programmatic Changes
III. Overview of 2008 Curricular Debrief Process and Procedures
IV. Findings for Spring 2008
1. Faculty ratings of the curricular debrief discussion
2. Faculty comments on student performance of each ABET outcome
3. Summary of student focus group
4. Faculty comments on the curricular debrief process/procedures
V. CTLT Recommendations and Next Steps for 2008-2009
VI. Faculty Recommendations and Next Steps for 2008-2009
VII. Conclusion
VIII. Appendices
A. 2008 Curricular Debrief Scenario and Instructions
B. 2008 Student Discussion transcript
C. 2008 Student Focus Group transcript
D. 2007-2008 ABET Professional Skills Rubric (separate document)
E. 2008 Revised ABET Professional Skills Rubric (separate document)
I. Executive Summary
Washington State University’s (WSU) Electrical and Computer Engineering (EE & CE) programs have been participating in the college-wide curricular debrief project to directly measure programmatic efficacy in developing students’ professional skills since spring 2007. Using the ABET Professional Skills rubric, EE and CE faculty rated and discussed one of the three spring 2008 student group curricular debrief discussions. Assessment specialists from the WSU Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (CTLT) compiled and analyzed the findings, as well as made recommendations for program improvement. This assessment provides data to inform the ongoing improvement of the EE and CE program and also supports work towards the CEA’s re-accreditation by ABET and WSU’s re-accreditation by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges. This direct assessment method has been recognized by both ABET and ASEE as a solid and innovative direct method for developing and assessing professional skills simultaneously. The paper describing this project won the 2008 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Best Paper Award.
2008 Findings
Student group performance
According to faculty ratings, the EECE student group performed very near, at or above competency that the programs would like students to exhibit upon graduation (professional-entry level rating = 4) on all 5 outcomes:
• 3f: the understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (average= 4.3)[1]
• 3g: the ability to communicate effectively (average= 4.3)
• 3h: the ability to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context (average= 3.8)
• 3i: the ability to engage in life-long learning (average= 4)
• 3j: the knowledge of contemporary issues (average= 3.8)
Comparison with 2007 Findings
The 2008 EECE group compared to the 2007 EE student group performed, on average, .3 points higher on outcomes 3f and 3g; .2 points lower on 3h; .8 points lower on 3i and 1.5 points higher on 3j. The 2008 EECE group compared to the 2007 CE student group performed, on average, .3 points higher on outcomes 3f; .4 points lower on 3g; the same on 3h; .7 points lower on 3i; and .2 points lower on 3j.
Rater Reliability
Spring 2008 rater reliability was strong, with raters consistently rating within one point of each other. This is notable since there was not time to conduct a “norming” session, that representatives from both programs participated, and that one of the faculty raters was new to the assessment.
II. 2007 Findings, Recommendations and 2007-2008 Programmatic Changes
2007 Electrical Engineering Findings
The 2007 EE student group performed at or above graduating competency on 4 out of 5 outcomes; it performed significantly lower on outcome (3j) knowledge of contemporary issues.
• 3f: the understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (4.0)[2]
• 3g: the ability to communicate effectively (4.0)
• 3h: the ability to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context (4.0)
• 3i: the ability to engage in life-long learning (4.8)
• 3j: the knowledge of contemporary issues (2.3)
Faculty had high rater reliability, scoring consistently within one point of each other on all rubric dimensions. See Figure 1 for a histogram of the ratings.
[pic]
Figure 1. 2007 WSU Electrical Engineering Program Curricular Debrief Faculty Ratings
2007 Electrical Engineering Faculty and Student Recommendations
• Emphasize team communication in courses, especially EE 415 and 416. This could also occur earlier in the curriculum in labs by rotating team leaders in the assigned team experiments.
• Incorporate discussion of ethics more explicitly into EE 415 and 416, and surface these issues in other core courses where appropriate.
• Emphasize economic impacts in the core curriculum and perhaps as a separate elective.
• Faculty should emphasize societal context and contemporary issues in informal conversations, which may motivate and engage students.
• In Engineering Administration and/or Senior Design (as well as in appropriate elective courses), there should be more explicit discussion of concept of standards and their relevance in engineering practice.
• Students expressed that they would like to feel that their courses applied to “the real world,” as well as to improving their professional skills. Students expressed a need to see their professors as engineers, not just teachers. Professors could discuss what they did in previous engineering jobs, or what engineers typically do on the job.
2007 Computer Engineering Findings
The 2007 CE student group performed near, at or above graduating competency on all 5 outcomes.
• 3f: the understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (4.0)[3]
• 3g: the ability to communicate effectively (4.7)
• 3h: the ability to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context (3.8)
• 3i: the ability to engage in life-long learning (4.0)
• 3j: the knowledge of contemporary issues (3.8)
Faculty had high rater reliability, scoring consistently within one point of each other on all rubric dimensions. See Figure 2 for a histogram of the ratings.
[pic]
Figure 2. 2007 WSU Computer Engineering Program Curricular Debrief Faculty Ratings
2007 Computer Engineering Faculty and Student Recommendations
• Have student teams discuss or complete assignments addressing real-world problems in courses such as Computer Architecture 334.
• EE 415 & 416 (the senior design courses for Computer Engineering students) was not mentioned by students as helping them address the curricular debrief scenario. The senior design course should explicitly address professional skills.
• In Engineering Administration and/or Senior Design (as well as in appropriate elective courses), there should be more explicit discussion of concept of standards and their relevance in engineering practice.
• Students requested a 1-credit course using roundtable discussions on current events connecting technology and engineering. This course would substitute for another 1-credit course. Students also suggested that professors have students discuss hypothetical, real-world issues in class and complete assignments to “design something relevant to society.” In addition, students asked for more emphasis on long-term career goals in class.
III. Overview of Spring 2008 Curricular Debrief Process and Procedures
Three 45-minute curricular debrief session were conducted with all students enrolled in EECS 416, the second of a two-semester senior design course for both EE and CE majors in March 2008. This draft only reports one of the curricular debrief sessions since faculty still need to meet and rate the other two discussions. 9 male students participated in this session, 6 Caucasian and 3 Minority. Students discussed an issue regarding the potential link of childhood leukemia to overhead power lines (see Appendix A for the scenario and instructions). The curricular debrief discussion was taped and then transcribed (see Appendix B). Three focus groups with the same students followed each discussion to determine how students thought that they had gained the professional skills they used to address the issues raised in the scenario, as well as to elicit their perspectives regarding program strengths and areas for improvement. The focus group discussions were taped and then transcribed. This draft only reports the focus group discussion following the accompanying curricular debrief (see Appendix C for the focus group discussion transcript).
Because of time constraints, a “norming” session was not conducted with the three faculty (2 from EE, one of whom had participated in the 2007 rating session, and 1 from CE who was part of the 2007 assessment cohort). The 2008 faculty cohort focused on rating the quality of the 2008 curricular debrief discussion using the ABET Professional Skills rubric (see Appendix D for the rubric and Figure 3 for the ratings).
IV. Findings for Spring 2008
1. Faculty Ratings of the Curricular Debrief Discussion
According to faculty ratings, the student group performed very near, at or above competency that the programs would like students to exhibit upon graduation (professional-entry level rating = 4) on all 5 outcomes:
• 3f: the understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (4.3)
• 3g: the ability to communicate effectively (4.3)
• 3h: the ability to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context (3.8)
• 3i: the ability to engage in life-long learning (4.0)
• 3j: the knowledge of contemporary issues (3.8)
Spring 2008 rater reliability was strong, with raters consistently rating within one point of each other. This is notable since there was not time to conduct a “norming” session, that representatives from both programs participated, and that one of the faculty raters was new to the assessment.
[pic]
Figure 2. 2008 WSU Electrical and Computer Engineering Program Curricular Debrief Faculty Ratings[4]
2. Faculty Comments on Student Performance of Each ABET Outcome
(3f) the understanding of professional and ethical responsibility
Faculty B: “Several solutions: underground, (illegible), air filtering, covering, move away. Issues: poor people, hysteria.” (5.0)
Faculty C: “Though the students framed the professional challenge, they only suggested some approaches, but no concrete steps to solve the problem. It seemed a little superficial.” (4.0)
Faculty E: “Concern for poor moving in if property values go down. Some of what they said seemed cynical.” (4.0)
(3g) the ability to communicate effectively
Faculty B: “S3 and S4 minimal, S1, S2, S8 and S6 most.” (4.0)
Faculty C: “Students demonstrated good team approach. Some of the students did not take part much in the discussion.” (4.5)
Faculty E: “Lots of give and take, back and forth.” (4.5)
(3h) the ability to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context
Faculty B: “Poor people moving in; cost.” (4.0)
Faculty C: “Not too much discussion on global and cultural contexts.” (3.5)
Faculty E: “Lots of comments about ‘who pays?’” (4.0)
(3i) the ability to engage in life-long learning
Faculty B: “More research, where published.” (3.5)
Faculty C: “Though the students agree on what needs to be learned, they do not suggest a plan to retrieve an organize data and evidence.” (3.5)
Faculty E: (No comments) (5.0)
(3j ) the knowledge of contemporary issues
Faculty B: “Some talk about Wales, wind, solar, UV on molecules.” (4.0)
Faculty C: “Students did not discuss this in much depth. I was not impressed.” (3.5)
Faculty E: (No comments) (4.0)
3. Summary of Student Focus Group
A focus group with the same students followed the discussion to determine how students thought that they had gained the professional skills they used to address the issues raised in the scenario, as well as to elicit their perspectives regarding program strengths and areas for improvement. The discussion was taped and then transcribed (see Appendix C for the focus group discussion transcript).
Students noted that they felt they’d been taught to consider the broader impacts of an engineering problem. All seemed to feel that the senior design course had them work with real-world problems and, because of that, it was important to consider who was affected by the problem and who would be affected by the solutions. Other than 402, they did not think that ethics was overtly taught in the EE & CE curricula. Some noted that they learned more about ethics in English and Sociology courses. Some felt it wasn’t the responsibility of their departments to teach ethics.
4. Faculty comments on the curricular debrief process/procedures
There were none this year – last year’s recommendations/comments from CE faculty, which can be implemented in 09, if the faculty are still interested, were:
• To save time during the rating process, faculty could rate curricular debrief transcripts before meeting in person to discuss observations and ratings.
• Overall, this new direct measure is a great improvement and complement to the student self reports recorded in the focus group.
V. CTLT Recommendations and Next Steps for 2008-2009
• Read and discuss this report with faculty in the assessment cohort and meet with CTLT to discuss recommendations and next steps.
• Incorporate focus group feedback into program and curricular improvement.
• Incorporate activities that teach and assess professional skills into the core course curriculum (e.g., one required course for freshman to senior years).
• Have each interested faculty member integrate professional skill-building into their teaching by using a scenario activity in one course each semester or year. These activities may be informal student discussions during one class period, with time for reflection on the value of the activity or the skills themselves. Or, they may be assignments that ask for written responses to scenarios or hands-on group work.
• Continue to strengthen the alignment between professional skills and class activities by discussing current events related to Electrical and Computer Engineering whenever the opportunity arises naturally in class.
• Use the 2008 revised rubric more overtly in instruction and as a guide for grading. Give students the rubric before an assignment to help them learn what is expected of them, self-evaluate, and evaluate each other on activities that teach and assess professional skills.
• Conduct department-wide rating sessions each year (preceded by norming sessions), and include a wider range of participants (faculty, students, assessment specialists, and professionals in the field).
• Meet regularly to identify and implement changes. Solicit faculty reflections on strategies for augmenting class activities to improve student’s professional skills and level of engagement.
VI. Conclusions
ABET administrators note that using multiple measures, both direct and indirect, can form a more complete picture of student performance as well as inform program revisions. Therefore, the results of the curricular debrief sessions may be combined with other assessment results to give the Computer Science program a more complete picture of student mastery of certain professional skills. Longitudinal results of curricular debrief sessions, along with other indicators and methods, may be combined to track improvements over the years.
This performance shows that previous efforts to address professional skills have helped the students work toward mastery. The curricular debrief sessions and rubric tool can be employed longitudinally to help faculty gauge students’ strengths and weaknesses. Faculty can then focus their efforts by embedding practice lessons on particular skills more deeply into the curriculum, with core courses, group activities, discussions and assignments
Appendix A
Curricular Debrief Scenario and Instructions
Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments
College of Engineering & Architecture
Scenario and Instructions
Student Instructions:
Imagine that you are a team of engineers working together on the issue described in the scenario below. Discuss what your team would need to take into consideration to address the issue. You do not need to find solutions, but try to come to a consensus on what is most important, and agree on one or more approaches. You will have 45 minutes.
Scenario:
The largest study ever done on the link between power lines and cancer has been completed – with inconclusive results. Although it was found that children living near overhead power lines have an increased risk of leukemia, the confusing message is that the results, “although statistically significant, may be due to chance.”
The study looked at childhood cancer data in England and Wales from 1962-1995. 29,000 children with cancer were compared with the same number of children without cancer living in comparable districts. Children whose birth address was within 200 meters of an overhead power line had a 70% increased risk of leukemia, and children living 200 to 600 meters away from power lines had a 20% increased risk.
“To put these results in perspective, our study shows that about five of the 400 cases of childhood leukemia every year may be linked to power lines - which is about 1% of cases,” says Gerald Draper at Oxford University, who led the study. “The condition is very rare and people living near power lines should have no cause for concern.”
However, the results are controversial, coming just one month after the major UK Childhood Cancer Study report, which declared that there was no risk to children living these distances away from power lines. To complicate matters, other studies have found a conclusive link between childhood cancer and power lines for those living within 60 meters of an overhead power line.
Adapted from “Large study links power lines to childhood cancer” by Gaia Vince. New , June 2005.
Appendix B
Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments
College of Engineering & Architecture
Curricular Debrief
March 24, 2008
Facilitator: Kimberly Green
Transcriber: Tara Petrie
Note: Participants are identified as S1, S2, etc. Total number of participants = 9
START OF SESSION
1. S1: We have to agree on what?
2.
3. S8: We have to find out what is important.
4. S2: How we would go about it, I guess.
5. S2: Who wants to start?
6. S1: Who understands exactly what’s being asked?
7. S6: They’re trying to say make a conclusive link between power lines and leukemia. But these statistics are inconclusive, but there was conclusive evidence that within 60 meters there is a definite increased risk of cancer. So I think they’re just wondering if there’s a significant increase in risk by living close to these lines, so they threw out a bunch of statistics and we need to identify what the most important aspect of this problem is.
8. S2: Saving children or having power lines right?
9. S1: What would you consider overhead power lines, the large currents, or the everyday ones across the U.S? I’m talking about the ones you can hear crackling if you walk under them.
10. S5: Yeah, the type of power line is vague.
11. S1: The neighborhood I grew up in, every house there is within 400 meters of a power line.
12. S8: They’re talking about transmission lines, high voltage.
13. S6: They’re talking about the big ones. I heard about those sorts of things growing up.
14. S1: So the other question to ask them, if they’re the big ones, “what other environmental factors may relate to cancer?” If there is no conclusive evidence of the link, what else could contribute?
15. S8: Like power plants.
16. S1: Or maybe they just built power lines over areas that aren’t, I don’t know…
17. S8: Industrial areas.
18. S1: Maybe the stuff they used to make them.
19. S6: I don’t know if it’s isolated, but it’s one study in like, England.
20. S8: The first thing I’d do is try to find studies in different locations.
21. S2: They’re only looking at one factor, the power lines.
22. S6: Don’t they do have different power systems than we do?
23. S8: Yeah different frequencies.
24. S7: It’s low frequency.
25. S1: What about power lines could actually contribute to cancer, because it’s usually just a fundamental glitch in DNA.
26. S7: Radiation, the EMF field…
27. S9: Certain pollutants in the atmosphere when they’re under the voltage they’ll change chemically, and that will cause leukemia. It’s not changing people’s DNA.
28. S1: So it’s not the EMF field, its chemicals reacting to the fields. If that’s the link there’s definitely got to be some other environmental factors. If it’s not just the power lines, there are other pollutants.
29. S8: Are you talking about pollutants or other things in the air?
30. S9: No, I think it would be pollutants, like CFC’s.
31. S1: So, we’d have to find studies about something out in the middle of nowhere.
32. S6: I think one of the last sentences was, “to complicate matters, other studies have found a direct connection between power lines and childhood cancer.”
33. S8: Isn’t it kind of hard to live within 60 meters of a transition line? They’re usually 30 meters high.
34. S6: I don’t know.
35. S5: In Wales, they don’t have a lot of land mass; they might just build stuff underneath without regard of what might happen.
36. S6: You’d have to have kids sleeping right under the power lines.
37. S2: These are all risks, though. Doesn’t say anything about cases. They say it’s linked, but…
38. S1: Also, look at the second paragraph where it talks about the studies of Wales where it talks about birth address within 200 meters. So it’s like children living there. If their birth address is there it doesn’t mean their entire childhood was there.
39. S6: Yeah, that is a good point; they need to expand on that.
40. S8: So we have to come up with 1 or more approaches to the problem.
41. S8: The way I’d approach it is more accurate research, expanded studies.
42. S6: Especially in that one little area.
43. S8: I don’t think it’s worth shutting down the power grid at this point.
44. S9: What about just informing the public?
45. S8: Send this to the newspaper.
46. S2: We’re only talking 200 to 600 meters, that’s not a long difference.
47. S1: If you watch the news, everything gets sensationalized, so it might not be a good idea.
48. S5: Anyone near power lines will think they have cancer when they get sick, hysteria.
49. S6: So we could think about what would happen if there was conclusive evidence that power lines cause cancer, or what if the link wasn’t…
50. S8: Underground transmission lines, you could bury all of them. It’s really expensive though.
51. S2: You could just re-route them.
52. S8: Yeah, but if they go thru the city, it will be hard to find how to get them further away…
53. S2: Put them higher?
54. S1: Yeah, but if the cancer is caused by what is in the air, that air is more susceptible.
55. S1: I don’t think there’s enough information.
56. S2: I don’t see this scenario as related to engineers as much as like, doctors.
FACILITATOR: Who are all of the stakeholders you can think of?
57. S1: Well parents, landowners, power companies. Studies that show very, very small risk and aren’t conclusive are not worth changing everything for.
58. S6: Well, say like they were conclusive. Should the government step in or should the private owners?
59. S1: If there was a study showing 100% that there’s a direct link between a closeness to power lines and leukemia, I think the market would fix itself real quick. The property values would drop, the problem would be there would be poor people moving in.
60. S8: That wouldn’t affect utility operations at all.
61. S1: But it would affect a lot of other things.
62. S8: Somebody would have to intervene, and say, “Hey, we need to bury the lines or run them up lower voltage in certain areas.”
63. S1: Aren’t these publically owned, especially in a place like Wales?
64. S6: I think in Wales it is.
65. S1: So where is the money coming from to fix these things?
66. S8: You have to raise the bills to make changes, just like anything these days, kind of like wind generation; create a false demand by doing a government mandate.
67. S1: I’d also have to ask, in that study in 1962-1995, how many years is that? How many years is that, 30,000 children got cancer? And this is leukemia? I believe that the money you’d invest in leukemia research would be less than having to change infrastructure.
68. S6: What about the adults? Can you conduct studies on adults, like are you able to get anything after a particular age?
69. S5: Adults would have a higher immune system to toxins.
70. S1: Leukemia is usually more a childhood disease; it hits you early on.
71. S1: Let’s list the things most important to this issue, what would you guys say would be the most important things: accuracy of study, expanded studies?
72. S1: And if there is a direct link found, what’s the next most important thing to consider?
73. S1: I’d say deciding whether to change infrastructure or keep it. Would it be worth the cost, or would the money better be spent elsewhere?
74. S8: You need to understand different approaches, because there are probably many different ways to change the system.
75. S1: Any ideas?
76. S8: Well, if it’s caused by high voltage, maybe lower voltages, a threshold that didn’t cause the reaction. But then you take all sorts of losses.
77. S1: Don’t you have to change what they’re connected to?
78. S8: No, you could just have a transformer…
79. S5: You’d have more losses; you’d have to have parallel systems, which are more EMF, which could cause more toxins. If people would conserve, that could be good; people might make steps to do that for a cause.
80. S1: Maybe figuring out what toxins are reacting in the first place.
81. S6: What about buying out the space of this area, pay the people for their home worth?
82. S1: So let’s think about this, 600 meters squared. How much is land there? It’s a good idea, but expensive as hell.
83. S6: It would be more expensive to do an underground thing.
84. S1: They could re-zone the area.
85. S2: It’s people’s decision between electricity, or their kids maybe get leukemia.
86. S8: It’s not a hard decision for most parents.
87. S1: But then once those people move out, some people move in and then you got a whole different social problem.
88. S1: Better filtering systems inside the homes.
89. S6: What about future placements of power lines, things like that? Well obviously they’d be smarter with property.
90. S1: So if a rule said new developing had to be so far away from power lines…
91. S6: In the future, what about implementing underground power lines?
92. S1: Imagine… Don’t the high power lines transmit power really long distances?
93. S8: Or just in metro areas it could be underground. That’s the way people are going with distribution and transmission not so much.
94. S2: I don’t know why this is focused so much on children.
95. S1: Adults aren’t affected by this kind of cancer as much.
96. S8: Is leukemia a type of cancer?
97. S9: Blood cancer, T-cells and…
98. FACILITATOR: So what stakeholders would your group involve?
99. S2: Good question.
100. S1: Power companies, people living within 1,000 feet of the lines, and the landowners.
101. S5: If you force the power companies to recognize this, they’ll charge the people. They have controlled areas. The bottom line is that if something is done it trickles down to the public to pay for it.
102. S1: That’s true.
103. S1: So pretty much we’re going with everyone?
104. S8: Except for people who don’t have power.
105. S6: You could have some solar panels, some wind generators.
106. S8: What if you have a wind generator and live under a power line.
107. S1: And it doesn’t blow the toxins away…
108. S8: Yeah, a vortex of cancer.
109. S4: Underground is quite expensive. If there could be a new approach to either lower line, and then we can stay the same with procedure in order to cover the power line and also to consume less power. That’s the only way I can think of.
110. S1: We’re thinking about changing things and spending massive amounts of money, and we’re talking about 1% of people, and that’s inconclusive. I think we should find more ways to fight leukemia… S1% of all leukemia cases could be linked.
111. S6: Well this study is weird because 5 of every 400 cases… How many of those are cases of children living near power lines? So if you’re trying to make a link between this.
112. S1: Their study, if you say “linked” power lines… Even if they have a risk, and they were about to get leukemia anyways they could blame it on power lines.
113. S6: It goes back to our expanded study.
114. S8: I guess scientific researchers would be another stakeholder.
115. S1: They need jobs too, right?
116. S1: Also, where were these studies published, a referenced journal?
117. S8: , I don’t see a volume number.
118. S1: Also, this study takes place 1962-1995, and we all know the 1960’s people put stuff into the air. I think in the 1990s some of the problems were banned. I’d like to see a study about chemicals and what exactly reacts with the power lines. I don’t see how those frequencies can really be a problem.
119. S9: Yeah, they seem too low, it’s only when you get up to UV levels where you see changes in molecular levels, a direct link.
120. S6: That’s a good point. It seems that they had a hard time collecting data. You cannot start documenting people, you have to go off of what they have, and it might be inaccurate. Getting down to the details of the science would be good.
121. S1: Just having a correlation does not imply there is a causal effect. I don’t know. I’d like to see something a lot better documented. They’re looking at people who got cancer and seeing if they live by power lines. I’m betting that people who live by them are living there for economic reasons and maybe they’re exposed to other things. Maybe their diet is bad and other things.
122. S8: I’d have to keep going back to that. We all agree on that. More research.
123. S2: That’s what professors do, more research.
END OF SESSION
Appendix C
Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments
College of Engineering & Architecture
Focus Group Transcript
March 24, 2008
Facilitator: Kimberly Green
Transcriber: Tara Petrie
Note: Participants were identified as S1, S2, etc. Number of student participants = 9.
124. FACILITATOR: How has the knowledge or skills you’ve gained from the WSU engineering program influenced your approach to the issues raised in this scenario?
125. S2: Globalized our ideas; helped us see where the location or geographic location is before we start on the engineering part.
126. S6: Looking at broader impacts in terms of who is affected. That’s what has been ingrained in my head. Just think of how many people this affects and what could be the possible outcome, or what could happen to some of these people if these changes or if conclusive evidence was found.
127. S8: From an engineering education perspective, we’ve learned how to problem solve through the years. Just taking data and figuring out what it means, not just taking it at face value.
128. S2: Also looking at the importance of the data, but which part is more important to look at. Take some, toss the rest.
129. S1: I think they’ve ingrained in the statistics class; that statistics can be used for anything you want them to be used for, and that seems to be the case in this scenario.
130. S6: That relates to understanding the problem and what is being asked of us.
131. S1: One thing I’ve learned very well at this university is to take very vague information and go with it.
132. FACILITATOR: Do you think the WSU engineering program has helped you address real world situations like this one?
133. S8: Of course.
134. S2: Yes.
135. FACILITATOR: So why is that?
136. S1: On our proposal, we had to have a section on society, impacts, and concerns.
137. S8: In design class, real-world problems are stressed with each one of our design projects, not just design itself, but who it will impact. But in general I think the education of any 4-year degree you have a different way of looking at things in general. You like to take in more information to solve a problem. Real world problems aren’t black and white and you have to look at the details, there aren’t necessarily right or wrong answers, not with this problem or other problems.
138. S2: The right answer is that it depends.
139. FACILITATOR: What knowledge or skills from outside the department did you use to address this scenario (current events, non-engineering courses, life events)?
140. S8: (Name Omitted) brought some stuff from Sociology 101. The SES of people, for instance, takes that into account.
141. S1: There is a website where they have impacts on the population.
142. S8: Did someone from the university tell you about slashdoc?
143. S6: I guess. In English we talk about ethics and how those affect what is going on in the world, and you can think about that in relation to your senior design project, and with this as well. 402 introduced and stresses on ethics and explores that.
144. S2: I was going to say that sociology class or research or whatever. This research hasn’t been done, and so it would help to evaluate this research.
145. FACILITATOR: What are some ethical responsibilities that apply to your profession?
146. S8: Public safety. I don’t want to design anything that’s too powerful for people.
147. S1: Unless you’re making a million dollars. I’m kidding, but that seems to be the trend with a lot of companies.
148. S5: A lot of initiatives have been passed. People don’t know what or why they’re voting. So it’s important for engineers to understand issues behind it and do what they’re going to do to help, or kind of fall under that. I’ve been talking about this all morning; they’re needing either to conserve or build a greener generation in Washington State. So going in, engineers need to understand what’s on the minds of people because ultimately they’re the ones that calls the shots. A lot of companies have tried to step up and put wind farms in, build generators, etc. So it’s kind of counter-productive in a sense, but it’s not because it falls under green energy. There is really no solution right now, but they keep looking into the future and trying to do more research, something that can finally be a solution that the people want.
149. S6: It’s about improving living standards for today as well as the future and we should strive for that.
150. FACILITATOR: So did you ever discuss ethical issues in a WSU engineering course?
151. S1: No, just when we’re told to. In classes we’ll have 5 minutes to talk about societal and ethical issues because we have to and then it’s done.
152. S5: Computers and Society.
153. S1: But that was mainly Bob ranting.
154. S5: So yes we listen to him rant and rave about stuff. It’s interesting stuff, but…
155. S1: It’s also an entirely optional class. In four engineering courses, the only one we talked about it in was senior design. We were just to put that in a proposal and talk about it.
156. S8: I don’t remember discussing it at all. And then when I was studying for the ethical aspect of the engineering test, I had to study for it.
157. S6: Yes, that’s funny because I haven’t taken the computer and society, and our English 402 professor keeps telling us we should have already taken an ethics course.
158. FACILITATOR: So you don’t spend time on it?
159. S1: Well, but there are different kinds of ethics, like insider trading, and then ethical implications of making products.
160. S2: It’s not directly related to engineering, but the diversity classes should help you make those links. But they don’t say it’s directly related to engineering.
161. S6: Yeah, maybe cut out one of these other electives and install an engineering ethics course.
162. S1: So cut out power lines.
163. FACILITATOR: How have discussions with faculty made you aware of societal or global issues?
164. S5: In our design projects, we’ve talked to our faculty mentor and he’s definitely brought this up. Our team is dealing primarily with an ethical thing. This problem was brought up because people wanted more green energy. And by doing so, we can eventually get to the point where we can get to a real solution, rather than patchwork. What are engineers going to focus on later on?
165. S1: The senior projects don’t have direct impacts on society…
166. S2: Ours does; we’re researching how high we can go with the frequencies before it’s going to be dangerous. So that’s societal, but other than that…
167. S1: They haven’t made us less aware either. We’re taught to make things better, faster. When you’re told to design something, your project manager isn’t going to listen to us talking about how to make it safer, cheaper, etc. Which is why they don’t focus on ethics because that’s what business people need to do more. We need ethics courses because it doesn’t fall in our ethical job description.
168. S8: I think it does, engineers need to think about that.
169. S1: They do. But really, how often?
170. S8: An example I think of, a woman I worked with, her previous company made surge protectors. She was an electrical engineering, a test engineer; she found out that it starts fires. 1 in every 1,000 will start a fire. She told the boss. The boss told her not to say anything about it. And she ended up quitting her job because she couldn’t ethically do that. And I think that’s the right choice. If you have knowledge something could hurt someone, you have a responsibility to tell someone about it. I don’t know if you can teach that to someone in school, that’s more morality than ethics.
171. S1: It’s not that easy, because that company probably just hired someone that wouldn’t say anything and life goes on.
172. FACILITATOR: What are three ways your department could do a better job with these issues?
173. S1: I don’t think it’s their responsibility. Perhaps just a course, have courses on ethics.
174. S1: Having professors who are trying to teach logic, and you haven’t even talked about ethics; it’s not worth anyone’s time. Have a class that examines all of these issues.
175. S8: It’s hard to integrate it, systems, signals, and ethics.
176. S1: Yeah, that would be like an afterthought so we can pass ABET.
177. S2: When you’re trying to solve a problem and people talk ethics everyone zones out and comes back in.
178. FACILITATOR: Have your engineering professors discussed long-term career and educational goals for people in your profession?
179. S5: There was a class. I’ve talked to them outside of class and that’s always the topic. They’re doing their job. It’s not an in-class presentation.
(Most of them: No)
180. S1: You have to catch them during office hours. I did have one professor who was really good about that; he talked to us specifically about how to apply to our careers down the line. It wasn’t part of the class, it was whatever he was talking about he relates to what is done with it in the real world.
181. S2: There were maybe a couple of professors who have a personal in-depth conversation with you.
182. S2: Some would bring in presenters from the army and try to relate it.
183. S6: I discuss these sorts of things with the instructor I T.A. for. It’s harder to make time to sit down and talk about stuff like that. They’re busy; we’re busy.
184. S2: They lack personality, though, so it’s hard to talk to them. A lot of them are…
185. S1: Even the ones I did talk to, it’s a professor you’ve had a few times, you just mention something and they’ll say, “what are you doing, where are you interviewing, where are you applying?” First three years, not so much. At the beginning, you’re just thinking about goals in a very abstract way.
186. S6: Overall, I think the professors have been more approachable as I matriculated; they know who you are so it wouldn’t be that awkward to ask for help or do you a favor.
END OF SESSION
Appendix H
EE Curriculum Presentation to IAB
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[1]This number represents an average of the three faculty ratings on each ABET outcome.
[2] This number represents an average of the two faculty ratings on each ABET outcome.
[3] This number represents an average of the three faculty ratings on each ABET outcome.
[4] In figure 3, faculty B represent s EE faculty B who participated in 2007. Faculty C represents CE faculty C who participated in 2007. Faculty E is new to 2008.
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