Engineering Library Blog

Engineering Case Studies “This is a collection of information on engineering cases. These are accounts of real engineering projects that are written for use in engineering education. The accounts are not highly technical, and are quite readable by those with the appropriate interest.” - Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Carleton University http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/ECL/ This site also includes links for instructions about writing engineering case studies, as well as links with suggestions for use of engineering case studies in education.

From Knowledgespeak Newsletter, May 7, 2007: Educational and scientific society Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), US, has announced an expansion of its online resources for continuous learning. The steps include a doubling of online courses and a significant expansion of its current collection of books. ACM offers online educational offerings to over 80,000 students and professionals across the world free of cost. (To ACM members)

The resources now include 2,200 courses from SkillSoft covering a wide range of topics in computing and information technology as well as business management and leadership. They also include 1,100 books on innovative IT and computer science technologies, and the latest books on practical business skills from e-book providers Safari and Books 24x7.

As part of the Wikimedia project, begun in 2003, an Engineering bookshelf has been established. “Books” may be suggested, written, edited and read by anyone. These entries are in various stages of development: GENERAL - Control Systems - Statics — AERONAUTICS - Jet Propulsion — ASTRONAUTICS - Rocket Propulsion — AUTOMOTIVE - Automotive Systems - Electric Vehicle Conversion - Nissan 240SX Performance Modification — CIVIL ENGINEERING - House Construction - Soil mechanics - Structural engineering — MATERIALS SCIENCE - Introduction to Materials Science — MECHANICAL ENGINEERING - Engineering Acoustics - Solid Mechanics - Engineering Thermodynamics - Fluid Mechanics - Heat Transfer - Engineering Mechanics — ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING - Circuit Theory - Communication Systems - Digital Circuits - Digital Signal Processing - Embedded Systems - Signals and Systems — ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING - Circuit Idea - Electronics - Semiconductors — GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING - Geographic Information Systems — MICRO- and NANOTECHNOLOGY - Nanotechnology - Microtechnology

IEEE hosts regularly scheduled online seminars and training events which are free to all users of IEEE online technical information. Current 60 minute courses include ‘Searching with IEEE Xplore’. Free open demonstrations of IEEE products, for existing and potential customers, including tips on how to search in IEEE Xplore. Advance registration is required and space is limited. For more information and schedule, click here. Princeton has a subscription to this scholarly, technical, full text database on electrical engineering, computer science and electronics.

The Librarians at the Engineering Library are also very glad to answer any questions or provide instruction in the use of IEEE Xplore.

The IEEE New Technology Connections Portal provides visitors with an overview of key emerging technologies supported by the New Technologies Directions committee, and a list of resources to obtain additional information. Each featured technology includes a general description, upcoming conferences, news articles, technical papers, related standards, professional organizations, and academic programs. Technologies currently featured in the portal include RFID, remote sensing, wind power, and WiFi, with more to be added.

The ASEE Annual Conference will be held this year June 24-27, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii. On Sunday June 24 the workshop “Measuring the lifelong learning outcome in terms of information literacy components” will introduce engineering educators to methods and examples on how information literacy skills can be integrated into the curriculum for the purpose of assessing the lifelong learning outcome derived from ABET Criteria 3i.

Online Ethics Center at the National Academy of Engineering [pdf]

“Engineering is a key part of the modern world, and many engineering students (and teachers) crave high-quality materials on engineering ethics. Fortunately for such individuals, the Online Ethics Center (OEC) is a great place to find such materials. The OEC became an activity of the National Academy of Engineering in March 2007, and since then their online offerings have grown significantly. The teaching and educational materials on the site are organized into sections that include “Safety and the Environment”, “Employment and Legal Issues”, “Professional Practice”, and “Responsible Research”. Visitors can also click on a glossary of terms, and even suggest a resource that might be helpful to other users.”

Source: The Scout Report — September 7, 2007

It was via today’s SPARC enews , the “Resources for Authors” section that I found an interview with Dr. Zhigang Suo, now at Harvard, and formerly of Princeton, entitled:

“Thoughts on digital scholarship in engineering”

In this piece he discusses the web site iMechnica, which he created with Teng Li.

The mission of the website is twofold:

1. “to use the internet to enhance communication among people in mechanics”
2. “to pave a way to evolve all knowledge of mechanics online”.

IMechanica is free, and completely open access. It has at least 3,600 registers users.

SPARC = Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition

Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students
[ http://www.writing.eng.vt.edu/ ]

“Crafting meaningful and articulate lab presentations and correspondence can be difficult for anyone, including engineers and other scientists. This particular set of resources is designed to teach engineering and science students about creating and writing materials such as resumes, formal laboratory reports, presentation slides, and so on. The guidelines are gathered into several different sections, including “Introduction”, “Presentations”, “Correspondence”, and “Formal Reports”. There is material for instructors here as well, and the offerings include pieces on the design of writing assignments, the interactive teaching of writing, and the evaluation of writing assignments. Finally, the site also contains a number of writing exercises on grammar, punctuation, and word usage.”

From The Scout Report, Univ. of Wisconsin, Feb. 15, 2008

February 20 — In conjunction with National Engineers Week, the National Academy of Engineering and a coalition of engineering and educational organizations announced today the launch of “Engineer Your Life,” a new Web site to encourage academically prepared girls to enroll in undergraduate engineering programs. The site is part of a national effort to tell high school girls, and the adults in their lives, about what it is like to be an engineer.

News Release

Engineer Your Life

From today’s What’s new@national-academies.org

The Princeton Writing Program is offering 6 sections of two non-credit, 6-week courses in Writing in Science and Engineering (WSE). Space is limited and enrollment is by application only. The courses are sponsored by the Graduate School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS). The application deadlines are in advance of the beginning of each course. For more information visit http://www.princeton.edu/writing/WSE/.

TechOnline India http://www.techonlineindia.com/ TechOnlineIndia.com, is a new web site from TechInsights, the publishers of EE Times, that targets the education and technical information needs of the rapidly growing electronics engineering design and development community in India. There are many aspects to the website: articles, courses, blogs, webinars, a forum, a “virtualab”.

Source: Issue 167, Internet resources newsletter, “the free, monthly, newsletter for academics, students, engineers, scientists and social scientists”, from Herriot-Watt Univ., in the U.K.

Incorporating Standards Into Curricula

“In pursuit of its commitment to implementation of the United States Standards Strategy (USSS), ANSI is developing a pilot University Outreach program that will introduce globally-recognized and adopted standards into the classroom. ANSI will collaborate with faculty from a select group of universities to incorporate information about standards and conformity assessment, as well as knowledge of the appropriate standards, into their unique curricula. The program will be open to all disciplines.

Participants in the pilot program will have unfettered access to members of the U.S. standardization community who will be available to provide case studies, model tutorials, and other educational resources that can be used by professors in the classroom.”

“ANSI will continue to provide free access for faculty and students in the pilot to any defined group of standards currently available in the collections of the ISO and IEC. As the U.S. Member Body of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ANSI has been authorized to provide, upon request, complimentary access for students and faculty to selected standards currently available in the ISO collection. If needed, certain standards from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) may also be made available.

These collections are comprised of nearly 20,000 standards, which can be made available to faculty and students in all disciplines in institutions of higher learning throughout the United States.”

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) sponsors the Global Change Education Program (GCEP) to promote undergraduate and graduate education and training in support of the Department’s global change research activities. Global change research encompasses a number of technical areas, including atmospheric sciences, ecology, global carbon cycles, climate, and terrestrial processes. GCEP has two components:

· Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)

· Graduate Research Environmental Fellowships (GREF).

SURE appointments are competitive, require U.S. Citizenship, and a minimum overall GPA of 3.0 (4.0 system). In addition, GREF requires applicants to have successfully completed at least one year of graduate school.

For further information:

· Visit the website, http://www.atmos.anl.gov/GCEP/

· Contact Jeffrey Gaffney at jsgaffney@ualr.edu, Nancy Marley at namarley@ualr.edu, or Milton J. Constantin at milton.constantin@orau.org.

The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) administers the GCEP for the Department of Energy. ORISE is managed under contract by the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU).

Milton J. Constantin

Program Manager

865/576-7009 (T)

865/241-9445 (F)

milton.constantin@orau.org

From an email from: Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education