Sharing Courseware Resources
through the NEEDS (National Engineering Education Delivery System)
Database
Session Chair:
Alice M. Agogino, Director, Synthesis Coalition
University of California, Berkeley
aagogino@euler.me.berkeley.edu
Panel Participants:
Brandon Muramatsu, NEEDS Project Manager
mura@needs.org
Pamela A. Eibeck, NEEDS Co-editor
Northern Arizona University
pae@pine.cse.nau.edu
Martin Ramirez, NEEDS Co-editor
University of Detroit, Mercy and Greenfield Coalition
ramirez@udmercy.edu
Adebisi O. Oladipupo, NEEDS Associate Editor
Hampton University and Synthesis Coalition
bisi@engr1.engr.hamptonu.edu
Abstract
The Synthesis Coalition and the National Engineering Education Delivery System
(NEEDS) are at the forefront of courseware creation, delivery, and evaluation.
NEEDS is the architecture developed by the Synthesis Coalition to enable new
pedagogical models based on Internet-mediated environments for learning. The
NEEDS Database provides an access mechanism for students and faculty to a
diverse range of engineering educational materials. The database consists of
collections of modular, digital courseware and courseware elements. The user
is able to access and use courseware developed nationwide. In addition, the
existing courseware and courseware elements can be adapted to local use in
whole or by distilling several modules and joining them together to create a
new customized module. The Synthesis Coalition has the directive of making the
NEEDS database available to other NSF Undergraduate Engineering Education
Coalitions and other universities.
The exchange and evaluation of courseware is a growing need nationwide. During
the FIE '95 all multimedia courseware developers are invited to discuss their
progress and lessons learned. The requirements for and the feasibility of
making courseware available on the NEEDS database will be discussed. Database
records can range from a bibliographic record with pointers to the author's FTP
or WWW sites to archiving the full courseware on a NEEDS server. Critical
issues facing courseware developers will be identified.
The NEEDS Editorial Board is being established to develop a comprehensive
review procedure that will result in three tiers of courseware on the NEEDS
database: non-reviewed, endorsed, and premier courseware. We expect that the
process of reviewing the courseware on NEEDS will not only benefit the users of
the NEEDS database, but it will also benefit authors by recognizing the
scholarly and creative efforts that they have expended in developing effective,
high quality courseware. At FIE '95, the NEEDS Editors will discuss the
Editorial Board and the review procedures.
NEEDS can be reached at the following URL:
http://www.needs.org/.
For more information contact: Brandon Muramatsu, Project Manager, National
Engineering Education Delivery System (NEEDS), Synthesis Coalition, University
of California, Berkeley, 3115 Etcheverry Hall #1750, Berkeley, CA 94720-1750
USA; mura@needs.org.
National Engineering Education Delivery System
The objective of the Synthesis Coalition is to improve engineering education by
bringing more process-oriented engineering experiences into the classroom. We
have produced computer-based instructional material that integrates the diverse
analytic, design, experimental and intuitive skills that are required by a
practicing engineer. This material can be readily created, transferred, and
adapted to different student or campus needs utilizing the National Engineering
Education Delivery System (NEEDS), an architecture designed to enable new
pedagogical models based on Internet-mediated environments for learning. The
courseware development is directed towards adding synthesis concepts through
the curricula, with emphasis on multidisciplinary content, teamwork, hands-on
experience, open-ended problem formulation and solving, and case studies of
"best practices" from industry. Collections of modular, digital courseware and
courseware elements highlighting Synthesis concepts and pedagogy are being
cataloged with the NEEDS database in several forms. Courseware modules are
designed such that interesting elements can be distilled from several modules
and joined together to create new customized modules.
The NEEDS database, developed by the Synthesis Engineering Coalition, consists
of two main methods of browsing its distributed database of engineering
courseware and courseware elements.
(1) NEEDS Bibliographic Database, bibliographic catalog of courseware, and
(2) NINa (NEEDS Idea Navigator), a visual browsing system for exploration and
retrieval of the same courseware and associated courseware elements (such as
still images or video clips) in a multimedia format.
World Wide Web Access
The WWW has become a popular means of creating, displaying and navigating
hypermedia documents using information servers with standard file and document
formats (HTML - hypertext markup language) and a standard protocol for serving
and browsing these files (HTTP - hypertext transfer protocol). The WWW version
of the NEEDS database can be accessed from the Synthesis "home page" with the
URL (Universal Resource Locator):
http://synthesis.stanford.edu/
The user will see the Synthesis home page and can click on "hot links"
(highlighted text which link to other documents with a mouse click) to obtain
information about Synthesis and our projects and people. The user can link to
the NEEDS database home page from the Synthesis home page. The NEEDS database
home page can also be reached directly through URL:
http://www.needs.org/
Searching the NEEDS Database
The search options for the bibliographic database include a full text search
over standard library headings using the WAIS (Wide Area Information Services)
indexing algorithm. The result of a query will be a prioritized list of
courseware, courseware elements, collections of elements and other educational
material. From each catalog record, the user can download the item selected
(courseware, elements, etc.) or link to an image browser of the courseware,
called NINa (NEEDS Idea Navigator). In some cases the user can also link to
WWW/HTML versions of the courseware.
Figure 1 - Bibliographic Database Query - Search Over "mechatronics"
NINa (NEEDS Idea Navigator) is a browsing and retrieval tool that allows users
to search courseware multimedia elements (pictures, movies, screen dumps,
animations) in order to get browse the courseware before downloading and to
obtain the individual elements within the courseware. The multimedia elements
in NINa are stored in an SQL (Structured Query Language) database with a
user-friendly WWW interface which allows the user to search over keywords and
element types. The user has the choice of viewing the courseware element in a
tile format of thumbnail images or viewing the results with a mixture of text
and thumbnail images. Either way, a click on the thumbnail downloads the
courseware element to the local computer and displays the image or tries to
launch the needed application program. For example if the element is a
QuickTime movie, it will look for a player that will run the movie (for
example, Simple Player on the Apple Macintosh, Windows and UNIX users can run
QuickTime movies with proper viewers).
Figure 2 - NINa Query Results - Search Over "mechatronics"