SELF-STUDY QUESTIONNAIRE

for:The Department of Electrical Engineering

submitted by:

University of Hawai`i at ManoaCollege of Engineering

June 30, 2003

Engineering Accreditation CommissionAccreditation Board for Engineering and Technology

111 Market Place, Suite 1050Baltimore, Maryland 21202-4012

Phone: 410-347-7700Fax: 410-625-2238

e-mail: eac@abet.orgwww: http://www.abet.org/

1

Table of Contents

A. BACKGROUND INFORMATION....................................................................................51. Degree Titles........................................................................................................................52. Program Modes....................................................................................................................53. Actions to Correct Previous Shortcomings..........................................................................54. Contact Information.............................................................................................................6

B. ACCREDITATION SUMMARY.......................................................................................71. STUDENTS......................................................................................................................12

1.1 Admission of Students.................................................................................................121.2 Advising.......................................................................................................................131.3 Monitoring Student Progress.......................................................................................141.4 Transfer Students.........................................................................................................141.5 Transfer Credits...........................................................................................................151.6 Student Performance....................................................................................................15

2. PROGRAM EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES................................................................162.1. Statement of Objectives..............................................................................................162.2 Significant Constituencies..........................................................................................182.3 Periodic Evaluation of Objectives..............................................................................192.4 Curriculum to Ensure Achievement...........................................................................192.5 Processes to Ensure Achievement..............................................................................222.6 Evaluation to Determine Achievement.......................................................................232.7 Use of Results to Improve the Program......................................................................23

3. PROGRAM OUTCOMES AND ASSESSMENT...........................................................253.1. Statement of Program Outcomes...............................................................................253.2. Relationship to Educational Objectives.....................................................................253.3. Relationship to Criterion 3..........................................................................................263.4. Processes to Produce and Assess Program Outcomes................................................263.5. Course Objectives and Outcomes...............................................................................273.6. Relationship of Courses to Program Outcomes..........................................................293.7. Achievement of All Outcomes by All Students.........................................................323.8. Process for Achievement of Outcomes.......................................................................323.9. Metric Goals for Outcomes........................................................................................323.10. Assessment of Program Outcomes and Results.......................................................37

3.10.1. Overview of Assessment Tools.........................................................................383.10.2. Campus Senior Exit Surveys and Alumni Survey.............................................393.10.3. Course Evaluation/Assessment Surveys............................................................50Figure 3.26. The Newly Developed Prerequisite Survey..............................................583.10.4. Prerequisite Survey............................................................................................583.10.5. IAB and SAB Surveys.......................................................................................593.10.6. Faculty Course Assessment...............................................................................64

3.11. Processes to Apply Assessment Results to Improve the Program...........................643.12. Changes Implemented or Pending Implementation.................................................65

3.12.1. Improvements from 1997-2001.........................................................................653.12.2. Improvements for 2001-2002............................................................................653.12.3. Improvements for 2002-2003............................................................................67

2

3.12.3. Continuing Work...............................................................................................693.13. Materials Available for Review During ABET Visit..............................................71

4. PROFESSIONAL COMPONENT...................................................................................724.1. Overview of Curriculum Requirements.....................................................................72

4.1.1. Mathematics and Basic Sciences.........................................................................724.1.2. Engineering Topics..............................................................................................734.1.3. General Education...............................................................................................764.1.4. Special Topics, Directed Reading, and Inactive Courses....................................77

4.2. Design Experience in the Curriculum.........................................................................784.2.1. Required Major Design Experience....................................................................83

5. FACULTY........................................................................................................................865.1. Number and Competencies to Cover the Curricular Areas........................................865.2. Department, College, and University Service Activities...........................................895.3. Professional Development.........................................................................................905.4. Interaction with Practitioners and Employers............................................................90

6. FACILITIES.....................................................................................................................926.1 Space and equipment for faculty.................................................................................926.2 Undergraduate and Project Laboratories.....................................................................92

6.2.1 Basic circuits lab (Holmes 357)............................................................................926.2.2 Analog circuits lab (Holmes 358).........................................................................936.2.3 Digital circuits lab (Holmes 451).........................................................................946.2.4 Communications lab (Holmes 386)......................................................................946.2.5 Physical electronics lab (POST Building)............................................................956.2.6 Casual Use Computer lab (Holmes 486, soon to be moved to Holmes 387).......95

6.3 Space and equipment for teaching or research assistants............................................977. INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT AND FINANCIAL RESOURCES.................................98

7.1 Institutional support, financial resources, and constructive leadership.......................987.2 Processes used to determine the budget.......................................................................987.3 Faculty professional development...............................................................................997.4 Plan and sufficiency of resources to acquire, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment..........................................................................................................................997.5 Support personnel and institutional services...............................................................99

8. PROGRAM CRITERIA.................................................................................................100APPENDIX I Program Data ......................................................................................................1

APPENDIX I-A Curriculum, faculty and expenditure information.......................................2Table I-1. Basic-Level Curriculum.....................................................................................2Table I-2. Course and Section Size Summary....................................................................5Table I-3. Faculty Workload Summary..............................................................................9Table I-4. Faculty Analysis...............................................................................................11Table I-5. Support Expenditures.......................................................................................13

APPENDIX I-B Course Syllabi............................................................................................14APPENDIX I-C Faculty Curriculum Vitae........................................................................111

APPENDIX II Institutional Profile.............................................................................................1APPENDIX III Role of Committees..........................................................................................1APPENDIX IV Summary Report to Constituents FY 2001-2002.............................................1APPENDIX V Undergraduate Curriculum Committee Reports................................................1

3

APPENDIX V-A. UCC Proposal: May 2002........................................................................2APPENDIX V-B. UCC Report on Curriculum Changes: September 2002........................13APPENDIX V-C. UCC Final Report: Academic Year 2001-02.........................................15APPENDIX V-D. UCC Final Report: Academic Year 2002-03.........................................18

APPENDIX VI Interface Committee Documents......................................................................1APPENDIX VII Assessment Committee Report Spring 2002...................................................1

4

A. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1. Degree Titles

We currently offer undergraduate and graduate programs in Electrical Engineering and offer B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees. The department has three different areas of emphasis for both undergraduate and graduate students. These three areas are computer engineering (software and hardware), electrophysics (circuits, devices, electromagnetics, optics), and systems (communications, control, networks, signal processing, power).

2. Program Modes

The primary mode of instruction is daytime, on-campus. This is consistent with the information provided in Appendix II for the engineering unit as a whole.

3. Actions to Correct Previous Shortcomings

Program-specific shortcomings identified during the 1997 ABET visit were as follows:

1) Math and basic sciences are not adequately applied in the courses in the different optional areas.

2) Lack of documentation of the realistic constraints in engineering was noted.

3) Lack of guidelines for the course required of the major design experiences.

4) Application of probability and statistics not required of all students.

The actions taken to address these shortcomings were:

Action 1: In 1998, the faculty of the College of Engineering negotiated with the faculty of the Math Department to establish two sequences of calculus courses: Math 241, 242, 243, 244; and Math 151, 152, 153. The two sequences were designed to meet the needs of students with different levels of high school preparation (those who have taken introductory calculus and those who have not). Both groups of students are more satisfied with this situation and are doing better work. This has allowed an improved level of mathematics in our electrical engineering courses.

Action 2, 3: The EE296 (1 cr), EE396 (2 cr), and EE496 (3 cr) design project sequence has been restructured to improve the quality of the design experience (please see section 4.2, below).

Action 4: All students are required to take EE342 (Probability and Statistics).

An institutional shortcoming identified during the 1997 ABET visit was with respect to the chemistry instructional laboratories, which were found marginally adequate for instructional purposes.

5

In response, (as expressed in letters from the Dean of the College of Engineering to ABET dated March 30, 1998 and March 12, 2001), the Chemistry Department received approximately $100,000 to upgrade the laboratories in Bilger Hall, which was also newly renovated. Equipment purchased with these funds included 12 pH meters, 12 hot plates/stirrers, 4 balances, 12 electrodes, 12 power supplies and 12 voltmeters. The Chemistry Department was also provided funds by the Interim Dean of the College of Natural Sciences to hire additional teaching assistants.

4. Contact Information

Primary pre-visit contact person:

Todd R. ReedProfessor and ChairDepartment of Electrical Engineering2540 Dole StreetHolmes Hall 485Honolulu, Hawaii 96822

Phone: (808) 956-3427Fax: (808) 956-3427Email: treed@hawaii.edu

6

B. ACCREDITATION SUMMARY

There have been significant changes within the department in regards to preparation for ABET evaluation. In the previous six-year evaluation cycle, the department chair appointed an ABET Committee approximately two years in advance of the ABET’s visit. This ad-hoc committee was responsible for all the tasks related to ABET evaluation. Due to the recent changes in EC2000 criteria, a new ‘system’ has now been developed and its implementation began during the academic year 2001-02. The system ensures involvement of constituents, administration and faculty in establishing an on-going cycle of feedback and improvement of the undergraduate program.

Our system is implemented by four separate EE faculty committees, each having a specific set of ABET related tasks (the details of the responsibilities of the committees may be found in Appendix III):

Assessment Committee (AC): This committee oversees all aspects of assessment, which include assessment of the outcomes to verify that the undergraduate curriculum satisfies the department’s objectives, and continual modification of the metrics, methods and procedures used to assess the outcomes.

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC): This committee oversees all aspects of the undergraduate curriculum, which include ensuring continual improvement of the undergraduate curriculum, such that it meets the department’s objectives, and updating documents for the undergraduate curriculum.

Interface Committee (IC): This committee oversees all aspects of interaction with the constituencies, which include identifying, interfacing and getting feedback from the constituencies on the Department’s objectives and its performance in educating undergraduate students. It deals primarily with the following constituencies: students, industry, and alumni.

ABET Core Committee: This committee oversees all aspects of the ABET criteria and evaluation process, which include developing the undergraduate educational objectives, developing a mechanism by which these objectives are determined and evaluated, developing a system of ongoing assessment that leads to continuous improvement of the undergraduate curriculum, and evaluating outcomes and providing recommendations to modifications and improvements in the program. As a minimum the membership includes the chairs of the other three committees and the Department Chair. The committee may have additional members, though it is optional.

Figure 1.1 illustrates our adaptation to the ‘two loop process’ of EC 2000, and its relationship with the above-mentioned committees. It is important to note that these committees are standing committees in the department with memberships that encompass a large fraction, and even a majority, of the department’s faculty.

7

Figure 1.1. ABET cycle diagram.

Figure 1.2 illustrates how the committees interact with each other, the constituencies, and faculty. Overseeing the whole process is the ABET Core Committee. Through this committee, the other three committees exchange information and plans of action via their chairs. The plans of action are typically recommendations to implement some type of change or to investigate a possible deficiency. It is up to the other committees to determine if the suggestions are feasible and then to implement them. The ABET Core Committee also establishes and updates the Program Objectives and Outcomes. Basically, the Program Outcomes state what students should be able to do at the time of graduation, while Program Objectives indicate what graduates should be able to do several years after graduation. Detailed description of the Program’s Objectives and Outcomes are discussed in Sections B.2 and B.3, respectively.

To facilitate inter- and intra-communication between the committees, and document preparation and archiving, an intranet site (abet-uhee.intranets.com) was also created in Fall 2000. All the faculty members participating in various committees have access to the site and hence remain cognizant of the ABET related activities in the department.

8

AssessmentCommittee

Determineeducationalobjectives

Evaluate/Assess

Input fromConstituencies

Formal InstructionStudent Activities

Determine Outcomes

Required to Achieve

ObjectivesDetermine

How Outcomes

will be Achieved

Determine How

Outcomes will be

Assessed

Establish Indicators for Achievement of

Outcomes/Objectives

ABET Core Committee

ABET Core Committee

InterfaceCommittee

UndergraduateCurriculumCommittee

AssessmentCommittee

AssessmentCommittee

UndergraduateCurriculumCommittee

“Small Loop”

“Big Loop”

Figure 1.2. Committees and constituents in relation to each other.

As shown in Figure 1.2, the IC gets feedback from external constituencies about the curriculum, Program Objectives and Outcomes, and other aspects of the department. Currently, these external constituencies are industry and alumni who are represented by an Industrial Advisory Board (IAB). In addition, the IC organizes a Student Advisory Board (SAB), composed of undergraduate students. The SAB provides feedback about the state of the Department for the constituency of students.

The AC assesses student ability to meet the Program Objectives and Outcomes. Important measurement tools are surveys from students and faculty including end-of-semester surveys of courses and exit surveys of graduating seniors. The AC also receives the reports from the IAB and SAB via the IC.

The UCC implements any changes to the curriculum suggested by the ABET Core Committee. The UCC is also responsible for advertising course and curriculum information. The committee updates the information in the annual University course catalog and the Department’s web site (www-ee.eng.hawaii.edu).

Figure 1.2 also illustrates that all EE faculty have input into the process even if they are not members of a committee. They may recommend changes to any of the committees, and have final approval on curriculum changes or changes to the Program Objectives and Outcomes.

9

Faculty

ConstituentsIndustryAlumni

UndergraduateCurriculumCommittee

(UCC)

AssessmentCommittee

(AC)

InterfaceCommittee

(IC)

UCC ChairAC Chair IC Chair

ABET Core Committee DepartmentChair

Department of Electrical Engineering

Students

PerformanceFeedback

CurriculumCourses

StudentAdvisory

Board(SAB)

Approval

Two Loops

Our system implements the two loops of Figure 1.1. The purpose of the “small loop” is to maintain the Program Objectives and to ensure that graduates achieve them. The IC, with help from the AC, solicit evaluations from external constituencies about whether the Program Objectives are appropriate and how well our graduates achieved them. The IC then reports to the ABET Core Committee, who updates the Program Objectives if necessary.

The “big loop” is to maintain the Program Outcomes and to ensure that students can achieve them at the time of graduation. Our system does not exactly follow the information flow of the “big loop” in Figure 1.1 due to our particular organization, as illustrated in Figure 1.2.

The process is as follows. The IC solicits input from industry and alumni about the appropriateness of the Outcomes and whether fresh graduates achieve them. The AC measures student performance, and gathers student feedback about the curriculum and Program Outcomes. The IC and AC report their findings to the ABET Core Committee. The ABET Core Committee determines if the Program Outcomes are appropriate, whether graduating students are achieving them, and whether they are appropriate for achieving the Program Objectives. The committee updates the outcomes if necessary. The committee identifies important issues to improve the undergraduate program and forwards them to the appropriate entity. If the issue is about the undergraduate curriculum then the entity is the UCC. If the issue is about resources or personnel then the entity is the Department Chair. If the issue is about assessment then the entity is the AC.

The entities then resolve their assigned issues. Any solutions must be discussed and approved by the EE faculty during departmental meetings. Then the Department Chair or the chair of the appropriate committee takes appropriate measures to implement the solution. With this process, the cycle that begins with feedback from the constituencies lead to on-going improvements in the department.

Timelines

The chairs and members of the committees are selected for the academic year during the first two weeks of each fall semester, i.e., the beginning of the academic year. At this time, the IC and UCC should each have prepared an end-of-year report of their activities from the previous academic year (the exact dates when these reports are due will be discussed shortly). The AC prepares its end-of-year report of its activities from the previous academic year during the third week of the fall semester. From these reports and its own evaluation, the ABET Core Committee prepares its own final report for the previous academic year during the fourth week of the fall semester. The ABET Core Committee may take an additional two weeks to make recommendations to all committees for the academic year. The Core committee also prepares a report for the constituents summarizing the improvements and in-process activities. An example of such a report for the FY 2001-2002 is attached in Appendix IV. Final reports from the UCC can be found in Appendices V-C and V-D, a report from the IC can be found in Appendix VI-K, and one from the AC can be found in Appendix VII.

10

Typically, the IC will organize visits from the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) to evaluate the program during the middle of the fall semester. It should be timed so that the Core Committee’s report for the constituents is available for evaluation. In this way, the IAB can determine if their recommendations and observations were properly addressed. The IC also organizes the Student Advisory Board (SAB) to evaluate the program at the same time.

Based upon reports from the IC about the IAB and SAB visits, the Core Committee can make additional recommendations to the committees and Department Chair.

As mentioned earlier, each committee is required to prepare an end-of-year report of their activities. At the end of the academic year, 3 weeks prior to the last day of instruction of the spring semester, the IC and UCC each prepare and submit an annual report. The AC may require more time to complete their assessment of the spring semester, and therefore, its annual report is due three weeks after the beginning of the fall semester of the next academic year. The Core Committee prepares its end-of-year report a week after the AC’s report is due.

The frequency of committee meetings varies between the four committees. The Core Committee meet every other week and in many cases every week throughout the fall and spring semesters because it is the main organizing committee. The other committees meet as needed. For example, the IC’s main activity is the visit from the IAB and SAB which occurs in the fall semester. Thus, they meet frequently in the fall and less so during spring.

Faculty Involvement

In general, the department faculty are involved at two levels. First, all faculty are involved with curriculum development through their own courses and by providing suggestions to improve the curriculum to appropriate committees. They also provide important data such as the course syllabi, course assessments, responding to surveys, and participate in meetings with the student and industrial constituents. Second, a substantial number of faculty directly participate by being members in one of the four committees discussed above. For example, during the 2002-2003 academic year, the following were the membership of the committees:

ABET Core: A. Kuh, V. Malhotra, T. Reed (Chair), G. Sasaki, J. Yee, and D. Yun. Assessment Committee: D. Yun (Chair), T. Dobry, and K. Najita. Interface Committee: J. Holm-Kennedy (Chair 2002), A. Bullock, A. Host-Madsen, N.

Reed, and J. Yee (Chair 2003). Undergraduate Curriculum Committee: G. Sasaki (Chair), T. Gaarder, A. Kuh, and W.

Shiroma.

Twelve faculty directly participated for the year which is a little more than half of our Department. The previous academic year had about the same participation. We expect that the Assessment, Interface, and Undergraduate Curriculum Committees to have at least three participants, and so we expect that on average to have about a dozen faculty who will be direct participants per year. This is a very high percentage for a Department of our size, and is considerably larger than the faculty who participated in the previous six-year ABET evaluation cycle.

11

1. STUDENTS

1.1 Admission of Students

Engineering in general, and Electrical Engineering in particular, tends to attract high quality students. This is due to both career potential and the challenging nature of the engineering curriculum. Students applying into Electrical Engineering as freshmen are initially screened by the office of Admissions and Records for meeting UHM guidelines (2.8 high school GPA, SAT scores of 510/510 and rank in the upper 40% of the graduating class). Applications of students accepted to UHM are forwarded to the College of Engineering Student Services section for evaluation by the Assistant Dean. Additional criteria required for admission in Engineering include completion of high school chemistry, physics and mathematics at least through trigonometry, with special emphasis on the grades for these courses. Freshmen students who do not meet the admission requirements are directed to apply for admission to other units of the University of Hawai`i system in order to complete course or grade requirements. They may subsequently apply to the College of Engineering for admission as transfer students.

While these are the minimum requirements for entering freshmen, those admitted to EE tend to be well above this. The average for the entering freshmen in Electrical Engineering in the past 2 years has been a 3.43 high school GPA and 567/627 SAT. In addition, a significant portion of Regents Scholars enter the EE program as freshmen. These are prestigious, 4-year scholarships offered to 20 entering freshmen from throughout the state each year with outstanding academic records. In the past four years, between 2 and 5 of these 20 scholars have been EE students; significant considering about 70 of the 2000 freshmen enter EE.

While EE admits many excellent students, a growing number of freshmen are entering with inadequate high school preparation; particularly in mathematics. In recent years, an average of about 40% of entering freshmen have not placed into Calculus I in their first semester, based on placement exam results. Between 20-25% of first term freshmen are place on probation due to low grades after their first semester. The College of Engineering has put in place several practices to address these issues. Learning Communities have been established for first term freshmen, where cohorts of students are enrolled together in sections of courses common in the first semester. Social activities, such as a picnic sponsored by the Raytheon Company are held in the Fall semester to allow new students to meet other engineering students who may be potential sources of help in their course work. Freshmen are encouraged to become involved in College recruiting activities such as Open House. Those freshmen who are placed on probation in their first semester are encouraged to enroll in ENGR 100, a Freshman Seminar course which provides both motivation and information on engineering and the study skills and habits needed to succeed.

The retention rate for Electrical Engineering students is in line with the national average for engineering programs. Over the last 10 years, the graduation rate (the number of freshmen beginning the program who complete the degree) has been about 44%. A rough survey of retention shows that between the freshman and sophomore years, about 25% leave the program. Another 15% leave after the sophomore year. The remaining 15% typically leave the program

12

after several attempts to get through the introductory level Electrical Engineering courses. The college is working on programs to improve students' study habits, particularly at the freshman level. We have also recently worked with the Math department to reorganize the calculus sequence to better support the engineering programs. To further address a desired improvement in retention, the College of Engineering has engaged the services of a retention consulting firm, Noel-Levitz. Benchmarking data was gathered, and a student satisfaction survey conducted in Fall 2002. A faculty workshop was held in Spring 2003 to determine goals and develop action plans for improvement. Development and implementation of these plans is on-going.

1.2 Advising

Academic advising is required of all engineering students every semester. The process begins with incoming freshmen. The College of Engineering conducts an advising session as part of the New Student Orientation (NSO) offered by the New Students Program in the UHM Office of Student Affairs during the summer prior to their first semester. During the advising session, the Assistant Dean explains the curriculum requirements, describes what is expected of engineering students, introduces resources available in the college (including student organizations), and encourages students to become involved in their education. Academic advising follows with faculty and students from each department to help select courses for their first semester. The remainder of the NSO program familiarizes the new students with the campus and facilities and resources available to them. Approximately 50% of incoming freshmen attend one of the NSO sessions during the summer. The remaining students contact their department or the Assistant Dean for advising prior to registration.

For continuing students, an advising week is designated each semester prior to registration for for the following semester. Students are assigned to a faculty advisor when they enter the program and keep the same advisor until they decide on an emphasis area around the junior year. At that point they may be assigned to an advisor within their area of interest. Students may also choose their advisor if they have a preference. Advising sessions consist of checking the student's progress in the EE curriculum, identifying any academic problems, and helping the student select courses for the following semester to ensure satisfactory progress toward the degree. In addition, one EE faculty is assigned as the Undergraduate Advisor for the department. This task includes coordinating advising, assigning advisors and assisting faculty during advising week. The Undergraduate Advisor is available to all EE students for academic consulting throughout the semester, and typically advises 25-30% of the undergraduate students in place of, or in addition to, advising sessions with the assigned advisor each semester.

In addition to academic advising, the project courses required at the sophomore, junior and senior levels (EE 296, EE 396 and EE 496), including the student projects (CubeSat/NanoSat, MicroMouse and the Engineering Clinics) provide for more interaction between students and faculty. These projects allow students to interact with their peers and develop social and team work skills as well as leadership skills for those who take on those positions on the projects. These projects have become highly popular, with as many as 60 students working on CubeSat, and as many as five MicroMouse teams going to competition in recent years. At any given time, about half of the students working on these project are using that for the required credit project; with the remainder contributing to the project because it is interesting and good experience.

13

1.3 Monitoring Student Progress

Student progress in the EE curriculum is monitored on the Curriculum Check Sheet maintained by the Student Services section of the Dean's office. These check sheets show all requirements for the degree and are updated with grades each semester. The updated check sheets are provided to the student and the faculty advisor prior to advising week and are used to check progress and spot difficulties in completing the program.

Students are required to maintain a 2.0 cumulative GPA, as well as 2.0 GPA in major courses numbered 300 and above. This level of performance is required for graduation, and is also used to determine academic actions. Each semester, a “trouble list” is provided to the College of Engineering by the Office of Admissions and Records listing students who have a semester GPA or cumulative GPA below 2.0 as well as those currently on probation. The records of the students on this list are reviewed by the Assistant Dean to determine any academic actions. Students with a semester GPA below 2.0, who are otherwise in good standing are sent a warning letter encouraging them to take corrective steps to do better in the next semester. These warnings do not affect a student's academic standing; however inform them that they are in danger of failing to meet the minimum requirements for continued registration. Students whose GPA or major GPA fall below 2.0 are placed on probation. On probation, students are required to maintain at least a 2.0 semester GPA until they bring the overall or major GPA above 2.0 to be removed from probation. Students failing to meet the conditions of probation may be suspended for one semester. Students who do not meet the conditions of probation after returning from suspension may be dismissed from the college.

Students who are subject to academic action receive a letter form the Assistant Dean informing them of the action, and encouraging them to see him to discuss any difficulties they may be having and possible corrective actions. In EE, about 20-25% of students receive some type of academic action each semester. Some of these students ultimately transfer out of the engineering program; others turn around and complete the program.

In addition, each semester, students who receive a semester GPA above 3.5, with a minimum course load and requirements, are placed on the Dean's List and receive a letter and certificate from the College. In EE, about 20% of the students are placed on the Dean's List each semester, and about 40% maintain a GPA above 3.0.

1.4 Transfer Students

For transfer admissions, the requirements are a grade point average of 3.0 for all college-level work and completion of English 100, Mathematics 241, 242 and 242L, Chemistry 161, 161L, and 162, and Physics 170 and 170L, or their equivalents, preferably with grades of B or better. The Student Services section and the Assistant Dean are responsible for enforcing these requirements. Transfer students tend to do well in the program and have a higher graduation rate than students who begin as freshmen. over the past 8 years, 65% of students who transferred into the program have graduated within 2 to 3 years of transfer, compared to 44% of entering freshmen.

14

1.5 Transfer Credits

Articulation agreements have been developed for other campuses within the University of Hawai`i system for course transfer. Credits for course work outside of the University of Hawai`i system are evaluated by the Office of Admissions and Records by consulting with the appropriate departments on this campus. Course descriptions, and if necessary, syllabi are provided to faculty in the departments to evaluate equivalence to UHM courses. A data base of course equivalence is provided at http://www2.admrec.hawaii.edu/transfer/CreditTransfer.asp. In addition, the College of Engineering requests evaluation of courses not in the data base from the appropriate departments for courses on the Engineering curricula.

1.6 Student Performance

A good measure of the quality of students is their performance. In recent years, UH's Delta Omega Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu has received awards for their activities. One student was recognized this year with the Alton Zerby award as the top EE student in the country. In the regional EEE MicroMouse competition, over the past seven years, UH teams have taken first place three times, and second place twice.

Academically, our students do well also. As mentioned above, 20% of the EE students merit placement on the Dean's List each semester, and 40% maintain a GPA over 3.0. Though a 2.0 GPA is the minimum for graduation, over the past 6 years, the average GPA for graduates has been 3.06, both overall and in the major.

UHM Electrical Engineering graduates are highly sought after by industry, both locally and on the mainland. The informal feedback we get from industries that hire our students indicates that those students who complete the degree perform well as engineers and do well in their careers. An informal poll of our graduates in the past 5 years shows that 51% of our graduates have found engineering jobs upon graduation. with 30% finding engineering jobs in Hawaii. Local companies that hire our students include Adtech, SPAWAR, NAVSEA, Orincon, Boeing, Oceanit, Pearl Harbor and others, including utilities and consulting companies in the construction industry. About 20% of our graduates find jobs in mainland companies including TRW, Raytheon, Boeing, ON Semiconductor and others. A number of companies, TRW and Raytheon in particular, recruit strongly from the department and have large numbers of UH EE graduates employed. About 16% of our graduates go on to graduate programs at schools including MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, and UHM. Many of our graduates complete a Masters degree while working in their first engineering position, particularly with mainland companies. The recently approved Intern Plus program provides a means for students employed in local industry to complete a Masters degree at UHM while continuing to work. We do not have employment information on 32% of our graduates. Some of these students do not begin their job search until after graduation; others we do not know their employment status. The department is working on programs to better track our alumni as they progress through their careers. This includes the institution of the above mentioned Industrial Advisory Board to provide outcomes assessment of our program and updates on the changing needs of industry for engineers.

15

2. PROGRAM EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

In this section, the Program Education Objectives (or, for brevity, Program Objectives) will be discussed in detail. Section 2.1 presents the objectives, how they were developed, and how they are consistent with the mission of the Department and accreditation criteria.

Section 2.2 identifies the significant constituents of the program and how their needs are met by the Program Objectives.

Section 2.3 describes the processes used to establish and review the Objectives. Section 2.4 explains how the program curriculum ensures achievement of the Objectives, while Section 2.5 presents the processes that ensure the achievement.

Section 2.6 describes the evaluation of the level of achievement of the Objectives, and the results obtained by the evaluation, while Section 2.7 provides evidence that the results are being used to improve the program.

2.1. Statement of Objectives

The department’s old ad-hoc ABET Committee drafted Program Educational Objectives in Fall 2000 which are shown below.

Old Program Education Objectives (Fall 2000 to Spring 2002)

1. An ability to apply fundamental knowledge of mathematics and science to electrical engineering problems.

2. An ability to identify, formulate, analyze and solve real-world electrical engineering problems using modern engineering methods.

3. An ability to practice the engineering design process to achieve objectives while meeting constraints.

4. An ability to design and conduct scientific and engineering experiments, and to analyze and interpret the resulting data.

5. Opportunities to function and communicate effectively within multidisciplinary teams.

6. An academic environment that fosters life-long learning.

7. An education that spans a wide range of technical specialties, including recent developments in electrical engineering.

8. A broad education needed to understand the impact of electrical engineering solutions in a global, societal, and environmental context.

16

9. A solid understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.

10. Development of diversity within the profession through the education of minority and women students.

They had been selected to be consistent with the mission of the Department, which is as follows:

Department’s Mission: The mission of the Department of Electrical Engineering (EE), is to provide quality education, research and service to our constituents. Major goals of the Department are:

1. Educate a new generation of Electrical Engineers to meet the challenges of the future.

2. Create, develop, and disseminate new knowledge.3. Promote a sense of scholarship, leadership, and service among our graduates.

These objectives were reviewed by the ABET Core Committee, the faculty, Industrial Advisory Board (IAB), and Student Advisory Board (SAB) during the academic year 2001-2002. After receiving comments, the ABET Core Committee revised the Program Education Objectives, which were discussed and approved by the faculty in Spring 2002. The current Objectives are shown below.

Program Education Objectives (Current since Spring 2002)

A. The students shall have technical competence to solve electrical engineering problems through the application of basic science, mathematics, and engineering. They will have the fundamental knowledge and skills to apply modern engineering techniques and tools to identify, formulate, and solve electrical engineering problems with realistic constraints. They will have the ability to apply design methods effectively, and possess an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice. The students shall also acquire skills of testing, data collection, interpretation and verification for the purpose of validation by experiments.

B. They will have the basic skills to communicate effectively and develop the ability to function as members of multi-disciplinary teams.

C. In addition to acquiring a broad based knowledge of engineering practice, they will also develop an understanding of societal, environmental, and ethical issues.

D. The students shall develop lifelong learning skills. They will be critical thinkers and independent learners with the ability to adapt to changing engineering technology.

E. Development of diversity within the profession through the education of minority and women students.

17

Note that the Objectives are consistent with the Major Goals 1 and 3 of the Department’s Mission Statement. The Objectives are also consistent with ABET accreditation Criterion 2 as will be explained next.

The Objectives are detailed and published on the Department’s web site: www-ee.eng.hawaii.edu. As mentioned earlier, the Objectives are consistent with the mission of the Department. Sections 2.2 through 2.7 explain how the rest of Criterion 2 is met. In particular, the significant constituencies and how their needs are met by the Objectives are described in Section 2.2. The process based on the needs of the constituencies in which the objectives are periodically evaluated is presented in Section 2.3. Section 2.4 describes how the curriculum ensures the achievement of the Objectives, while Section 2.5 describes the processes to ensure achievement. Section 2.6 describes the Department’s ongoing evaluation that demonstrates achievement of the Objectives, while Section 2.7 explains how the Department uses the results to improve the program.

2.2 Significant Constituencies

The significant constituencies are students, alumni, industry, and community. The Department solicits feedback from students, alumni, and industry about the program. There are formal meetings with the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and Student Advisory Board (SAB). The IAB provides feedback from industry and alumni, because some members of the IAB are alumni. The SAB provides a forum for students to comment about the program. They also provide input through course work performance, instructor and course evaluations, projects, and day-to-day interactions.

The department faculty, though not formally a constituency, obviously have a stake in the welfare of the graduates and Department. They provide continuous feedback either formally, such as through faculty committee activities, departmental meetings, course assessments, and surveys, or informally through discussions with the ABET committee members.

The needs of the constituencies are essentially that the Department produce graduates that are well trained and will become successful, competent, and contributing engineers throughout their working years. Program Educational Objectives A through D address these needs. Objective A is to ensure that our graduates are well trained in fundamental engineering knowledge, problem solving, and design methods. Objective B addresses the modern engineering environment, where engineers must work in groups and often interact with customers. In this environment, an engineer must have good communication skills and be able to efficiently work with others, who may have diverse skills. Objective C ensures that our graduates take into account important non-technical issues. Of course, Objective D is important for engineers, especially electrical engineers who work in a discipline that is constantly changing.

Objective E does not directly contribute to training good engineers. However, in Hawaii with its diverse cultural and ethnic population, it is believed that it should be promoted.

18

2.3 Periodic Evaluation of Objectives

Section 2.1 has already described how the Objectives were established. We now describe the process to review and update them. The process corresponds to the “small loop” in Figure 1.1.

The Interface Committee (IC) organizes an on-campus meeting with the IAB, which represents the constituencies of industry and alumni. An example itinerary of the meeting is given in Appendix VI-J. Through the meeting, the IAB learns about the state of the Department and then provides an evaluation. Part of this evaluation is a survey on how our graduates meet the Objectives and how important each Objective is. An example survey form is provided in VI-B (note that this form is for the original rather than the current list of Objectives). As an example, the results of the survey for the Fall 2002 IAB meeting are given in Appendix VI-F. The IAB provided numerical ratings of the achievement of each Program Objective whenever possible. They also rated the importance of each Objective, and gave comments about the curriculum, Objectives, and program in general.

The IC then reports to the ABET Core Committee, who updates the Program Objectives if necessary. The ABET Core Committee updates the objectives taking into account the mission of the institution. The ABET Core Committee can also recommend that the Assessment Committee improve upon the surveys issued by the IC to the IAB.

This process has input from faculty through committee participation and department meeting discussions. Note that it is a periodic process as committees interact with each other per academic year. In addition, IAB visits are annual since Fall 2001. Input from these constituencies become the drivers for annual changes in the program.

This process has already achieved some improvements, e.g., Section 2.1 described how the original Objectives were modified to the current Objectives.

2.4 Curriculum to Ensure Achievement

The following is a discussion of how the curriculum ensures achievement of the Program Objectives. First, we will summarize the curriculum (a more detailed description is given in Section 4 “Professional Component”). Then we will show how each Objective is addressed by the curriculum.

The curriculum can be divided into five requirements:

Basic sciences: These are required chemistry and physics courses and laboratories.

Mathematics: These are required courses on calculus, differential equations and probability and statistics.

Engineering Required: These are required courses that cover a breadth of EE fundamentals, and in particular computer programming, analog and digital circuits, signals and systems,

19

electro-magnetic engineering, and solid-state theory and devices. They also include the following:

o Project Courses at the sophomore, junior, and senior levels. The senior level project course is the capstone design project and the major design experience. Students select their own projects and project advisors. Projects tend to be open-ended, and exercise the ability to self-learn new concepts and tools. All project courses have oral presentations. The senior project also has a writing requirement of written reports, with a total of at least 4000 words or approximately 16 pages.

o Engineering Breadth, which is an engineering or related course of a student’s interest. It enhances breadth of knowledge in engineering.

EE Technical Electives: These are EE elective courses that allow students to specialize in topics of their own interest. The courses are divided into three groups called “Tracks”: Computers, Systems, and Electro-Physics. The Computer Track is focused on computer hardware and software. The Electro-Physics Track is focused on the EE applications of physics and chemistry, and it covers analog circuits, micro- and millimeter-wave engineering, optics, and solid-state devices. The Systems Track is focused on signals and systems, and it covers communications, controls, and signal processing. Through a Track of their own choosing, students explore topics in depth and at the same time gain some breadth within the Track area. If a student finds the track system too restrictive, then he or she with the help and consent of a faculty advisor may propose an alternate set of electives, i.e., a student may design his or her own track.

General Education: These are required by the University to ensure a sound university education. They include requirements of written and oral communication, and ethics. In particular, a student must take five Writing Intensive (W) courses, an Oral Communication (O) course, and a Contemporary Ethical Issues (E) course. This is explained in more detail in Section 4 “Professional Component.”

Objective A: The curriculum ensures achievement of Objective A as follows. The basic sciences, mathematics, Engineering Required, and EE Technical Elective courses provide students with technical competence to solve electrical engineering problems. Engineering Required and EE Technical Elective courses ensure that students will have the fundamental knowledge and skills to apply modern engineering techniques and tools to identify, formulate, and solve electrical engineering problems with realistic constraints. They ensure that students will have the ability to apply design methods effectively, and possess an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice. This is especially true for the project courses.

Basic science and a number of Engineering Required courses have laboratories. They develop the skills of testing, data collection, interpretation and verification for the purpose of validation by experiments. A number of EE Technical Electives also cover this.

Objective B: The curriculum ensures achievement of Objective B as follows. The General Education requirements and the project courses ensure that students have the basic skills to

20

communicate effectively as members of multi-disciplinary teams. In particular, the General Education requirements have O and W requirements. All project courses require oral presentations, and the senior project course has a writing requirement. In addition, students are required to take a number of labs: four in basic science, five in Engineering Required, and two in EE Technical Electives. Most if not all labs have students working in groups, usually two or three. This provides practice in working in teams. The labs have some elements of multidisciplinary training since the lab assignments are on non-engineering topics, e.g., physics or chemistry. The labs also provide practice in writing since they require written lab reports.

Objective C: The achievement of this objective is ensured by the following requirements: General Education requirements include 6 credit hours of Global and Multicultural

Perspectives (e.g., HIST 151 World Civilization, ART 176 Survey of Global Art, and GEOG 151 Geography and Contemporary Society), 3 credit hours of Introduction to Economics (ECON 120, 130, or 131), a Contemporary Ethical Issues (E) course, and a course on Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Issues (H). The General Education requirements provide a broad based education to develop an understanding of societal, environmental, and ethical issues.

Engineering Breadth helps ensure a broad based engineering education. Figure 4.1 has list of courses that satisfy this requirement.

EE project courses contribute to a broad based engineering education. The project can cover issues outside of the strictly technical ones. This is especially true of the senior capstone design course.

Some Regular EE courses contribute to Objective C. Figures 3.2 shows the form used to establish course contributions to each Outcome. Figure 3.3 shows how each course contributes to the Program Outcomes. Outcomes 6 and 8 directly relate to Program Objective C. Figure 3.3 illustrates that there is some emphasis on Outcomes 6 and 8 in many of the upper division courses.

Objective D: All courses provide some development of lifelong learning skills, so that students become critical thinkers and independent learners with the ability to adapt to changing engineering technology. This is emphasized more in the EE Technical Elective courses that leverage the maturity of the students. Students must decide for themselves what specialization to pursue. In addition, many EE Technical Elective courses have less detailed instruction, assuming that students can work out the details. Project courses also emphasize lifelong learning skills, especially the senior capstone design project. These courses involve less instruction, and students are expected to have more initiative.

Objective E: As a recognized minority educational institution, the University of Hawaii has a particularly strong commitment to diversity. An example is the recent partnership (funded by Siemens Building Technologies) in which the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies and the College of Engineering will work together to identify 15-20 minority students for scholarships each year, as well as providing them (through Siemens) opportunities for internships. The College of Engineering has a student chapter of Society of Women Engineers (SWE), with Prof. Audra Bullock of our department serving as their academic advisor. Professor Nancy Reed, with the sponsorship of the Women in Technology program of the Maui Economic Development Board, has become active in the national Women in Engineering Programs &

21

Advocates Network. She is also active in MentorNet, the national program for women in engineering and science. It should be noted as well that the gender balance within our department is unusual for Electrical Engineering departments, with 20% women faculty members. This provides an excellent opportunity for improving access to engineering for young women via role models in the classroom. In an effort to continue to improve our service to underrepresented groups, the department chair (Prof. Todd Reed) attended the National Science Foundation’s Workshop on Achieving Diversity in Electrical and Computer Engineering June 17-18 of this year, and will be working with the Foundation to formulate programs supporting diversity.

Note that Section 3 will discuss how the curriculum ensures achievement of the Program Objectives from another perspective. In Section 3, the focus is on the Program Outcomes. However, there is a direct relationship between Program Outcomes and Program Objectives A through D. This is represented as a matrix (Figure 3.1) in Section 3.2, “Relationship to Educational Objectives.” By demonstrating that the curriculum ensures achievement of the Program Outcomes, it will imply ensuring achievement of Program Objectives A through D.

2.5 Processes to Ensure Achievement

There are three processes to ensure achievement. First, instructors organize their courses to ensure that students meet course goals. A variety of methods are employed and may include problem sets, quizzes, midterm exams, final exams, written project reports, oral presentations, and project and laboratory demonstrations. These are exercises that allow a student to apply what is learned in lectures and reading assignments.

Instructors must hold office hours. They also post homework set and exam solutions, and conduct review sessions. When appropriate, a lecture course will have an accompanying laboratory. These laboratories may be part of a lecture course or may be separate. They provide hands-on experience in building real systems, and in using laboratory equipment.

The second process is that instructors get feedback about their courses first-hand from their students. The instructors can use the feedback to improve their effectiveness. One form of feedback is the results of the assignments, quizzes, exams, and projects. The instructors may also get feedback from discussions with students in the class. Another form of feedback is the course assessments at the end of each semester that are administered by the Department. The forms have a number of questions about the course, and space for comments.

The third process ensures the well being of the overall curriculum. Part of this process is the on-campus visit by the IAB that is organized by the IC, as described in Section 2.3. This meeting includes an evaluation of the program by both the IAB and SAB. This provides input from the constituencies of industry, alumni, and students. Of particular interest are any comments on whether graduates meet the Program Objectives, and any suggested changes to the curriculum or Objectives. Section 2.3 describes the surveys used.

The Assessment Committee also provides a report on the performance of students based upon its suite of surveys and other measurements. Another source of input is from individual faculty members who have suggestions for improving the curriculum.

22

All input is evaluated by the ABET Core Committee, the main organizing committee. If necessary, they will update the Program Objectives. They determine the most important issues and forward them to the appropriate entity, which usually is the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee or the Department Chair. If the issue is about a course or the undergraduate curriculum then it is for the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. If it is a personnel or resource issue it is for the Department Chair.

The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) will evaluate the curriculum taking into account the issues posed by the ABET Core Committee. However, the evaluation is also based on the requirements of the College of Engineering, the University, ABET, and the EE faculty at large. After their evaluation, the UCC proposes changes to the curriculum, and implements those accepted by the faculty.

In the case of personnel or resource issues, the Department Chair may request additional resources and personnel positions from higher administration.

Another process that helps ensure achievement of the Objectives is described in Section 3. This process is actually one to ensure achievement of Program Outcomes. However, ensuring achievement of the Outcomes implies ensuring achievement of the Objectives because there is a relationship between the two, described in Section 3.2 “Relationship to Educational Objectives.”

2.6 Evaluation to Determine Achievement

Section 2.3 described the “small loop” of Figure 1.1, which is the annual process to evaluate and if necessary update the Program Objectives. Section 2.5 described the process that is used to ensure achievement of the Objectives. In that process, the IC solicits an evaluation from the IAB of how graduates meet Program Objectives.

Another slightly less direct evaluation is done regularly. The evaluation is actually one to determine achievement of Program Outcomes, described in Section 3. There is a direct relationship between Program Outcomes and Program Objectives A through D. This relationship is represented as a matrix in Section 3.2 “Relationship to Educational Objectives.” By demonstrating that the curriculum ensures achievement of the Program Outcomes, it will imply that it also ensures achievement of the Program Objectives A through D.

2.7 Use of Results to Improve the Program

Section 2.5 describes the process used to ensure achievement of the Program Objectives. The ABET Core Committee forwards any issues to the appropriate entity, which is usually the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee or the Department Chair. The entities act upon the issues to improve the program.

The following are examples to demonstrate that this process works. During Fall 2001, the IAB/SAB commented (i) on the need for Matlab instruction, (ii) that CEE 270 (Applied Mechanics I)/ME 311 (Thermodynamics) requirement should be evaluated for its usefulness, and

23

(iii) that more instructors are needed for analog circuits. As a result, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee recommended that Matlab be covered in EE 213 (Basic Circuit Analysis II), and the CEE 270/ME 311 requirement should be replaced by a more flexible Engineering Breadth requirement. These were accepted by the EE faculty in Fall 2002. The Department also hired a new faculty member (Dr. Olga Boric-Lubecke) who is an expert in analog circuits.

During Fall 2002, the IAB/SAB raised concerns regarding TA quality and quantity and the quality of EE211/213 laboratory experience. As a result, steps were taken to improve the communication and teaching skills of TA’s, and to improve the number of TA awardees enrolling in our program. The EE211/213 laboratories were evaluated, and although they were found to be in generally good condition, a substantial investment in new furniture and equipment was made.

Another example was given in Section 2.1, which described how the Program Objectives were updated. More examples are given in Section 3.12, as well as some pending issues that are still being investigated.

24

3. PROGRAM OUTCOMES AND ASSESSMENT

The Program Outcomes will be described. Section 3.1 has the list of Program Outcomes, Section 3.2 has their relation to the Program Educational Objectives, and Section 3.3 has their relation to the outcome requirements of Criterion 3. The processes used to produce and assess the Program Outcomes are given in Section 3.4.

Sections 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7 describe how the courses lead to the achievement of Program Outcomes. Section 3.8 has a description of the processes that ensure the achievement of Program Outcomes.

Metric goals for the Program Outcomes that will ultimately lead to achievement of the Educational Objectives are presented in Section 3.9. Assessment data and their analysis are given in Section 3.10. Section 3.11 has a description of how the assessment results are used to improve the program, and Section 3.12 has evidence of improvements. Section 3.13 has a list of the materials to be made available during the ABET visit.

3.1. Statement of Program Outcomes

All graduates of the Electrical Engineering Program are expected to have: 

Program Outcomes:

1. Knowledge of probability and statistics, including examples relevant to Electrical Engineering (program criteria). Knowledge of mathematics through differential and integral calculus, basic sciences, and engineering sciences necessary to analyze and design complex devices and systems containing hardware and software. Knowledge of advanced mathematics, including differential equations (program criteria). 

2. Demonstrated an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to interpret data. 3. Demonstrated an ability to design a system or component that meets a specified need.4. Demonstrated an ability to function in a multi-disciplinary team. 5. Demonstrated an ability to identify, formulate and solve electrical engineering problems. 6. Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. 7. Demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively (written and oral). 8. Demonstrated an understanding of the impact of engineering solutions in a global and

societal context. 9. Recognition of the need for life-long learning. 10. Demonstrated a knowledge of contemporary issues. 11. Demonstrated an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern tools necessary for

engineering practice.

3.2. Relationship to Educational Objectives

The Program Outcomes are the expected achievements for a student at the time of graduation. These will lead to longer-term achievements as described in the Program Educational Objectives. Therefore, there is a relationship between the Outcomes and the Objectives. Figure 3.1 shows

25

Outcome: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Row SumObjective A 2 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 10Objective B 1 0 0 2 0 1 2 0 0 0 1 7Objective C 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 7Objective D 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 3Objective E 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 5Column Sum 5 2 2 3 2 5 2 2 2 4 3 ---

Figure 3.1. Matrix showing the relationship of Program Outcomes to Objectives. Key: 0 = none, 1 = some, and 2 = strong.

the relationship in matrix form. The “weights” of the matrix are either 0, 1, or 2 and indicate whether there is a strong or weak relationship. The value “0” means no relationship, “1” means some relationship, and “2” means strong relationship. This matrix was established and is maintained by the Assessment Committee.

The figure shows that the Program Outcomes provide good coverage of the Objectives. This is indicated roughly by the “Row Sums”.

3.3. Relationship to Criterion 3

The Program Outcomes (1)-(11) in Section 3.1 cover the program outcomes (a)-(k) of Criterion 3.

3.4. Processes to Produce and Assess Program Outcomes

The Program Outcomes were designed at the same time as the Educational Program Objectives in Fall 2000 by the department’s old ad-hoc ABET Committee. They were designed to ensure achievement in the Program Educational Objectives and to cover Criterion 3’s program outcomes (a)-(k).

The process to assess and update the Program Outcomes corresponds to the “big loop” in Figure 1.1. As mentioned earlier, our system does not exactly follow the information flow of the “big loop.” However, we believe our process is effective for our organization, which is illustrated in Figure 1.2. The process is as follows.

The Interface Committee (IC) organizes a meeting with the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and Student Advisory Board (SAB), and solicits input about the appropriateness of the Outcomes and whether fresh graduates achieve them. Note that the IAB represents the constituencies of industry and alumni, and SAB represents the constituency of students. The IC also solicits suggestions for improvements to the program. The inputs from the IAB and SAB are from informal discussions, meetings, and written reports. Section 3.10 discusses how the IC collects its inputs.

26

The Assessment Committee (AC) measures student performance, and gathers student feedback about the curriculum and Program Outcomes. The ACs inputs are from its suite of student surveys and other measurements. Section 3.10 discusses how the AC collects its inputs.

The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) collects additional input from the faculty through Course Assessment Forms as shown in Figure 3.2. This collection is described in Section 3.5, and the results are discussed in Section 3.9. Another source of inputs are from individual faculty who have suggestions for improving the curriculum.

The IC, AC, and UCC report their findings to the ABET Core Committee. The ABET Core Committee determines if the Program Outcomes are appropriate, whether graduating students are achieving them, and whether they are appropriate for achieving the Program Objectives. The committee updates the outcomes if necessary.

The ABET Core Committee also identifies important issues to improve the undergraduate program and forwards them to the appropriate entity. If the issue is about the undergraduate curriculum then the entity is the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC). If the issue is about resources or personnel then the entity is the Department Chair. If the issue is about assessment then the entity is the Assessment Committee (AC).

After the entities receive recommendations from the ABET Core Committee, they develop solutions or determine that there are no practical solutions. In the case that the entity is the UCC, the committee must also maintain the curriculum to ensure that students achieve the Program Outcomes.

All solutions must be proposed to the EE faculty during departmental meetings. All faculty have an opportunity to discuss and vote on proposals for improvement. If the vote is in favor of the proposed solution, the Department Chair or the chair of the appropriate committee takes measures to implement the proposal. In many cases, this leads to a change in the curriculum or additional resources and personnel positions, perhaps from higher administration.

3.5. Course Objectives and Outcomes

Course Objectives and Outcomes are descriptions of how a course contributes to the Program Outcomes. Course Objectives is a short description of the purpose of the course. Course Outcomes is a list of specific statements describing the capabilities of a student at the completion of the course. Each statement is linked to the subset of Program Outcomes that it applies to. As much as possible, each statement should correspond to something that is measurable.

Course Objectives and Outcomes are described in each course’s syllabus. A faculty member, who is designated as Course Coordinator, prepares the syllabus (exceptions noted below). For project courses (EE 296, 396, and 496), special topics courses (EE 491), provisional topics courses (EE 494), and directed reading courses (EE 499), the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee serves as the Course Coordinator. All syllabi are prepared with consultation from other faculty members who may teach the course, and must be approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

27

Figure 3.2. Course Assessment Forms For Program Outcomes.

When preparing a syllabus, a Course Coordinator also prepares a Course Assessment For Program Outcomes form as shown in Figure 3.2. The form has the list of Program Outcomes, and the Coordinator provides numerical ratings of how the course contributes to each Outcome. For non-EE courses and requirements, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee prepares the forms. The results of these inputs are presented in Section 3.6.

28

Course Assessment For Program OutcomesInstructions: This is used to assess how a course helps students meet EE Program Outcomes. It should be completed by faculty, who are Course Coordinators or instructors of the course. A Course Coordinator should complete it whenever a new syllabus is prepared. An instructor should complete it after teaching the course.

Course Number and Title:Preparer’s Name and Date:Are you a Course Coordinator or Instructor?: Semester and Year:

In the table below, for each EE Program Outcome, assign an integer-valued rating from 1 (“not at all”) to 4 ("a great deal") of how the course helps (or helped) students toward meeting the outcome.

EE Program Outcome Rating (1-4)1. Knowledge of probability and statistics, including examples relevant to Electrical Engineering (program criteria). Knowledge of mathematics through differential and integral calculus, basic sciences, and engineering sciences necessary to analyze and design complex devices and systems containing hardware and software. Knowledge of advanced mathematics, including differential equations (program criteria).2. Demonstrated an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to interpret data.3. Demonstrated an ability to design a system or component that meets a specified need.4. Demonstrated an ability to function in a multi-disciplinary team.5. Demonstrated an ability to identify, formulate and solve electrical engineering problems.6. Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.7. Demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively (written and oral).8. Demonstrated an understanding of the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context.9. Recognition of the need for life-long learning.10. Demonstrated a knowledge of contemporary issues.11. Demonstrated an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern tools necessary for engineering practice.

Include any comments on improving the course. If you feel the design credit amount should be changed, please include your comments. You may use the space below and continue on a separate sheet.

In addition, each time a course is offered, the instructor completes the form. The form also has space for comments to improve the course. For example, the instructor for EE 211 (Basic Circuit Analysis I) for Spring 2003 put in the comments section that

“1) We currently have five experiments out of 14 with design content: Exp. 4, 6, 9, 13 in my lab manual or ~36%. Suggest 1/3 – 1/4 cr. for design.2) Suggest separate lab (1 CR) for lecture (3 CR), preventing students from using lab. score to boost course grade. Also, eliminates problem with lab. grade for repeat students.”

These comments will be considered by the UCC to possibly modify EE 211.

These forms provide a continuous faculty input on how outcomes are being achieved. The results of these inputs are presented in Section 3.9.

3.6. Relationship of Courses to Program Outcomes

Figures 3.3 and 3.4 illustrate how the curriculum prepares students for the Program Outcomes. Figure 3.3 lists the required courses, indicating how each contributes to the Program Outcomes (1)-(11). The contribution is the rating given by the Course Coordinator on the Course Assessment For Program Outcomes (Figure 3.2). The figure gives an overall view of how the required courses contribute to the Program Outcomes. Since this is for required courses, it applies to all students and provides a baseline of their EE education.

The required courses are divided into categories as described in Section 4, “Professional Component.” For brevity, not all University General Education courses are listed, but only the ones that contribute to Program Outcomes. For non-EE courses and requirements, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee determined the contributions to the Program Outcomes.

From Figure 3.3, we can see that all outcomes have some emphasis from multiple required courses, though in many cases the emphasis is small. This shows that all outcomes have at least some coverage. Naturally, most courses have greater emphasis on technical outcomes because of the technical nature of electrical engineering.

Figure 3.4 corresponds to the EE Technical Electives. As described in Section 4, the technical electives are divided into three Tracks: Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems. Each Track is further divided into Groups I and II. A student must take 17 credit hours in a particular Track including all of Group I. The student must also take 3 credit hours of technical elective outside the chosen Track. This helps insure technical breadth within the EE discipline.

Since technical electives are designed for technical depth (i.e., specialization), they are focused on Program Outcomes that are technical.

29

Figure 3.3. Program Outcomes in relation to required courses.

30

Figure 3.4. Program Outcomes in relation to EE Technical Electives.

31

3.7. Achievement of All Outcomes by All Students

This is illustrated in Figure 3.3, which shows Program Outcomes in relation to required courses.

3.8. Process for Achievement of Outcomes

The process for achievement of Outcomes is similar to the process for achievement of Objectives, which is described in Section 2.5 “Processes to Ensure Achievement.” There are three processes. In the first process, instructors organize their courses to meet the Course Outcomes. Toward this end, they give appropriate assignments and teaching support which is described in Section 2.5.

The second process is that instructors get feedback about their courses first-hand from their students as described in Section 2.5. This includes an end-of-semester survey that asks students to rate how a course helps to achieve each Program Outcome. It is similar to the assessment form in Figure 3.2.

These inputs are immediate and direct feedback from students to the instructor, who use the information to improve his or her effectiveness.

The third process ensures the well being of the overall curriculum. This process is described in Section 3.4 and corresponds to the “big loop” in Figure 1.1.

3.9. Metric Goals for Outcomes

We took an evolutionary approach to determine metric goals for the Program Outcomes. We started with the curriculum and collection of courses for the Academic Year 2002-03. Faculty Course Coordinators were requested to complete the Course Assessment Form (shown in Figure 3.2) for each course. This provides ratings of how each course contributes to the achievement of the Program Outcomes. The ratings are shown in Figures 3.3 and 3.4. The numerical values of these ratings are displayed in Figure 3.5 for EE courses, where each column corresponds to an outcome (1 - 11).

The ratings are a metric goal for Program Outcomes per course. Though these ratings are goals in relation to Program Outcomes, they can be translated to goals in relation to Program Objectives via the matrix in Figure 3.1.

With these metric goals, a quantitative evaluation can be made to determine how courses help meet Program Outcomes.

Next an example evaluation will be discussed based upon course instructor surveys. In Section 3.5, it was mentioned that the Course Assessment Form in Figure 3.1 should be completed every time an instructor has taught a course. These ratings were collected for the courses in Fall 2002 and Spring 2003. Refer to these ratings as Instructor Ratings, and the ratings from Figure 3.5 as

32

Coordinator Ratings. Recall that the Coordinator Ratings are a baseline on how courses contribute to the achievement of Program Outcomes.

Ideally, Instructor Ratings should be the same as the Coordinator Ratings. If they differ then it is preferable that the Instructor Ratings exceed the Coordinator Ratings. If the Instructor Ratings is less than the Coordinator Ratings then the course has not contributed towards achievement in Program Outcomes as expected.

By subtracting the Coordinator Rating from the Instructor Rating, we have a difference value that is a measure of whether a course has met expectations. If the value is nonnegative then the course has met expectations. Otherwise, it has not. We refer to the value as the Rating Difference. Now recall that the ratings range from 1 through 4. Therefore, the Rating Difference ranges from –3 through +3. If the Rating Difference is –1 then we consider it a deficiency but at least in the “ball park.” If the Rating Difference is –2 or –3 then the deficiency is considered significant.

Figures 3.6 shows the Rating Difference for courses taught in Fall 2002. Portions of the figure are empty because the figure lists all EE courses and a number were not offered that particular semester. In addition, some instructors did not complete the Course Assessment Form of Figure 3.2. From the figure, we can identify courses that did not meet expectations and the particular outcomes when expectations were not met. Most of the Rating Differences are 0, and a few are –1. However, EE 211 (Basic Circuit Analysis I) has significant deficiencies.

Figure 3.7 shows the Rating Difference for courses taught in Spring 2003. Again, most Rating Differences are 0, and a minority are –1. The figure shows that there are two courses that have significant deficiencies which are EE 371 (Engineering Electromagnetics I) and EE 372 (Engineering Electromagnetics II).

33

Figure 3.5. EE Courses contributing to Program Outcomes 1-11, rated by Course Coordinators.

34

Figure 3.6. Rating Differences for courses offered during Fall 2002.

35

Figure 3.7. Rating Difference for courses offered Spring 2003.

36

3.10. Assessment of Program Outcomes and Results

The Assessment Committee of AY 2002-2003 (consisting of D. Y. Y. Yun – Chair, Tep Dobry and K. Najita) developed several weighting schemes to help the analysis of Outcomes and the propagation of these results to the Objectives.

For data that does not directly map to Outcomes (e.g., some of the questions in the Exit and Alumni surveys below), a weighting vector is assigned to each question, indicating the degree to which that question applies to each Outcome. For a given survey, the result is a “correlation matrix.” The results from each questionnaire are then weighted, summed, and normalized to produce an assessment for each Outcome.

Similarly, a correlation matrix mapping Outcomes to Objectives has been produced (Figure 3.1, above), to propagate the Outcomes assessments to the Objectives. This process will be considered in more detail for specific assessment tools, below.

Although specified earlier in this document, the Program Outcomes and Objectives are listed below again for convenience of reference.

Outcomes (1 - 11):

1. Knowledge of probability and statistics, including examples relevant to Electrical Engineering. Knowledge of mathematics through differential and integral calculus, basic sciences, and engineering sciences necessary to analyze and design complex devices and systems containing hardware and software. Knowledge of advanced mathematics, including differential equations. 

2. Demonstrated an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to interpret data. 3. Demonstrated an ability to design a system or component that meets a specified need.4. Demonstrated an ability to function in a multi-disciplinary team. 5. Demonstrated an ability to identify, formulate and solve electrical engineering problems. 6. Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. 7. Demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively (written and oral). 8. Demonstrated an understanding of the impact of engineering solutions in a global and

societal context. 9. Recognition of the need for life-long learning. 10. Demonstrated knowledge of contemporary issues. 11. Demonstrated an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern tools necessary for

engineering practice.

Objectives (A - E):

A. The students shall have technical competence to solve electrical engineering problems through the application of basic science, mathematics, and engineering. They will have the fundamental knowledge and skills to apply modern engineering techniques and tools to identify, formulate, and solve electrical engineering problems with realistic constraints. They

37

will have the ability to apply design methods effectively, and possess an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice. The students shall also acquire skills of testing, data collection, interpretation and verification for the purpose of validation by experiments.

B. They will have the basic skills to communicate effectively and develop the ability to function as members of multi-disciplinary teams.

C. In addition to acquiring a broad based knowledge of engineering practice, they will also develop an understanding of societal, environmental, and ethical issues.

D. The students shall develop lifelong learning skills. They will be critical thinkers and independent learners with the ability to adapt to changing engineering technology.

E. Development of diversity within the profession through the education of minority and women students.

3.10.1. Overview of Assessment Tools

The primary data gathering approach for assessment is through surveys, although more focused mechanisms include exams, grades, evaluations, interviews, behavior observations, alumni career advancements, academic and professional achievements, IAB and SAB reports, peer institution reports and national statistics. The assessments activities fall into the following six (6) primary categories and cover (1) students, (2) graduating seniors, (3) faculty, (4) alumni, (5) industrial advisors and (6) other comparable EE programs around the country (through their assessment experiences):

a. Course Evaluation – Surveying students on the course content, coverage, teaching practice and effectiveness. Conducted in the classroom by a representative of the HKN student organization during the last week of classes every semester (fall and spring).

b. Education Outcome – Surveying students on how their educational programs have met the requirements of the defined outcomes A—K as described below. Conducted in the classroom during the last week of classes every semester over the last two years.

c. Exit Survey – Surveying graduating seniors on the overall educational experience at the EE Department and their preparedness for future pursuits. Conducted at the time that every graduating senior files for graduation near the beginning of the last semester, with summarizing reports completed on July 31, 2001 and July 17, 2002 in the last two years.

d. Alumni Survey – Surveying graduates on their job preparedness and career satisfaction. Conducted by mail during the last 2 months of the spring semester.

e. Industrial Advisory Board – A selected group of senior electrical engineers in related industries, about half from local institutions and the other half from mainland are invited on campus for a two-day meeting, which is held in October of every year.

f. Student Advisory Board – A representative cross-section of EE students are invited to meet with the faculty and the IAB over the same a two-day meeting in October, to hear reports on the status of the Department’s programs and discussing ways to improve them.

The response rates for these survey data gathering are indicated below:

1. Course Evaluation – Nearly 100% of the remaining students in every course offered during any given semester (since the survey is handed out and collected by a HKN representative during the last week of classes, which are usually well attended).

38

2. Education Outcome – Nearly 100% of the remaining students in every course offered during any given semester (since the survey is handed out and collected by a HKN representative during the last week of classes, which are usually well attended).

3. Exit Survey – The response rate was 49% in 2002.4. Alumni Survey – The Spring 2002 response rate was 18% (based on 54 respondents in a 300

alumni mailing). 5. Industrial Advisory Board – Seven (7) IAB members came to the on-campus IAB meeting in

October 2002.6. Student Advisory Board – All eight (8) members of the SAB came to most of the scheduled

events of the IAB meeting (due to their own class conflicts), whereas they continue to have oral communications with faculty members, especially the Interface Committee and the Chair of the Department during the semesters.

The Assessment Committee has, this year, developed and deployed a new monitoring, analysis and propagation process to evaluate how our undergraduate program is meeting desired objectives using the data from the surveys listed above. We have made significant progress in implementing this new process. The assessment analyses and tabulations are shown in the following pages.

3.10.2. Campus Senior Exit Surveys and Alumni Survey

Educational Benchmarking Inc. (EBI) was contracted to perform both Senior Exit Surveys and Alumni Surveys for the College of Engineering. To date, we have received results from 2001 and 2002 Exit Surveys, and the 2002 Alumni Survey. The questionnaires used for these surveys are shown in Figures 3.8 – 3.10. As can be seen from the questionnaires, many of the questions asked are not relevant to the Outcomes and Objectives. The average responses to those that were considered relevant are shown in Figure 3.11. Note that there are significant differences between the 2001 and 2002 Exit Surveys. The effect of these differences will become apparent in our analysis of the results.

The correlation matrices for the three surveys are shown on the left of Figures 3.12 through 3.14. The sums along the columns of the matrices are shown at the bottom left. The column sums are particularly useful as an indicator of the “coverage” of the surveys for each Outcome. Note in particular that the 2001 Exit Survey (Figure 3.12) has a sum of zero for the column associated with Outcome 1, indicating that it provides no information on the student’s knowledge of statistics, advanced mathematics, and basic science. Figure 3.13 (with a nonzero sum for this column) illustrates that this shortcoming was addressed in the 2002 survey. Similarly, the Alumni Survey correlation matrix shows a zero sum associated with Outcome 10, so that information relating to knowledge of contemporary issues is not available from that survey.

In the column to the immediate right of the correlation matrix in each figure, the average survey score for each question is shown. The result of multiplying the vector of weights for each Outcome by the average survey score and computing their sum is shown under the heading Mmult. In the column labeled Norm, the sum of the entries in the correlation matrix for each Outcome is shown. Dividing entries in Mmult by the corresponding entries in Norm yields the entries in Res1. Res2 is simply a rescaling of this result to the range 0-9. Res3 is normalized with respect to the average value in Res2. Finally, the score of each Outcome is ranked under Rank.

39

Figure 3.8. Questionnaire for the 2001 Senior Exit Survey.

40

Figure 3.8 (continued). Questionnaire for the 2001 Senior Exit Survey.

41

Figure 3.9. Questionnaire for the 2002 Senior Exit Survey.

42

Figure 3.9 (continued). Questionnaire for the 2002 Senior Exit Survey.

43

Figure 3.10. Questionnaire for the 2002 Alumni Survey.

44

Figure 3.10. Questionnaire for the 2002 Alumni Survey.

45

EBI 2001 Exit Survey EBI 2002 Exit Survey EBI 2002 Alumni SurveyQuestion No. Average Question No. Average Question No. Averagen=8 1 to 7 scale n=22 1 to 7 scale n=17 1 to 7 scale

38 5.75 38 4.86 19 5.1839 5.63 39 4.95 21 5.5340 5.63 40 5.09 23 5.5641 5.88 41 4.95 25 5.0642 5.00 42 4.91 27 5.2943 5.38 43 5.32 29 5.2544 6.00 44 4.95 31 5.3845 5.43 45 5.11 33 5.2546 4.67 46 5.23 35 4.9347 5.13 47 5.05 37 5.3548 5.13 48 5.15 39 5.4749 5.38 49 4.58 41 5.5950 5.00 50 5.05 43 4.9451 5.38 51 5.48 45 5.6552 6.29 52 5.68 47 5.7553 6.25 53 5.50 49 5.7154 6.13 54 5.64 51 5.6555 5.71 55 5.4556 4.43 56 5.2357 3.60 57 4.9158 4.14 58 5.6459 4.17 59 5.4560 3.71 60 5.1561 3.40 61 4.5562 3.20 62 3.6963 2.80 63 4.2864 5.13 64 4.2665 5.50 65 4.0066 4.63 66 3.75

67 3.7668 3.2969 4.4170 4.1471 4.59

Figure 3.11. Survey results for questions relevant to the Outcomes and Objectives.

46

Correlation Matrix Analysis

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mmult: Norm:38 9 5.75 = 0.0 039 9 5.63 178.1 3240 9 5.63 158.4 3641 9 5.88 67.0 1342 9 5.00 207.9 4543 9 5.38 196.1 4944 9 6.00 116.6 2245 9 5.43 159.8 4146 9 4.67 144.9 2447 9 5.13 176.7 4848 9 5.13 171.3 3449 9 5.3850 5 7 5.0051 3 9 5.3852 9 6.29 Res1 Res2 Res3 Outcome53 5 6.25 /7*9 /Avg*7 # Rank54 5 6.13 155 3 3 5.71 5.57 7.16 8.17 2 256 3 3 5 4 6 4.43 4.40 5.66 6.46 3 757 3 3 5 4 6 3.60 5.15 6.63 7.56 4 458 3 3 5 4 6 4.14 4.62 5.94 6.78 5 659 3 3 5 4 6 4.17 4.00 5.15 5.87 6 860 3 3 5 4 6 3.71 5.30 6.81 7.78 7 361 3 3 5 4 6 3.40 3.90 5.01 5.72 8 962 3 3 5 4 6 3.20 6.04 7.76 8.86 9 163 3 3 5 4 6 2.80 3.68 4.73 5.40 10 1064 2 5.13 5.04 6.48 7.39 11 565 4 4 5.50 Avg 4.77 6.13 7.0066 9 4.63

ColSum 0 32 36 13 45 49 22 41 24 48 34

Figure 3.12. 2001 EBI Engineering Exit Survey Question/Outcome Correlation Matrixand Analysis of Results.

47

Correlation Matrix Analysis

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mmult: Norm:

38 9 4.86 = 151.38 27

39 9 4.95 157.00 32

40 9 5.09 154.74 36

41 9 4.95 60.75 13

42 9 4.91 343.93 70

43 9 5.32 202.45 49

44 9 4.95 108.36 22

45 9 5.11 172.31 41

46 9 5.23 128.74 24

47 9 5.05 233.67 57

48 9 5.15 272.45 53

49 5 7 4.58

50 3 9 5.05

51 9 5.48

52 9 5 6 5.68 Res1 Res2 Res3 Outcome

53 9 5 6 5.50 /7*9 /Avg*7 # Rank

54 9 6 7 5.64 5.61 7.21 8.26 1 1

55 9 5.45 4.91 6.31 7.23 2 6

56 9 5.23 4.30 5.53 6.33 3 8

57 9 4.91 4.67 6.01 6.89 4 7

58 5 5.64 4.91 6.32 7.24 5 5

59 5 5.45 4.13 5.31 6.09 6 10

60 3 3 5.15 4.93 6.33 7.26 7 4

61 3 3 5 4 6 4.55 4.20 5.4 6.19 8 9

62 3 3 5 4 6 3.6 5.36 6.9 7.90 9 2

48

9

63 3 3 5 4 6 4.28 4.10 5.27 6.04 10 11

64 3 3 5 4 6 4.26 5.14 6.61 7.57 11 3

65 3 3 5 4 6 4.00 Avg 4.75 6.11 7.00

66 3 3 5 4 6 3.75

67 3 3 5 4 6 3.76

68 3 3 5 4 6 3.29

69 2 4.41

70 4 4 4.14

71 9 4.59

ColSum 27 32 36 13 70 49 22 41 24 57 53

Figure 3.13. 2002 EBI Engineering Exit Survey Question/Outcome Correlation Matrixand Analysis of Results.

49

Figure 3.14. 2002 EBI Engineering Alumni Survey Question/Outcome Correlation Matrixand Analysis of Results.

Correlation Matrix Analysis

Res1 Res2 Res3 Outcome1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mmult: Norm: /7*9 /Avg*7 # Rank

19 9 5.18 = 102.2 18 5.68 7.30 7.40 1 221 9 5.53 171.1 32 5.35 6.88 6.97 2 623 9 5.56 45.5 9 5.06 6.51 6.59 3 925 9 5.06 47.6 9 5.29 6.80 6.89 4 727 9 5.29 152.5 28 5.45 7.00 7.10 5 529 9 5.25 47.3 9 5.25 6.75 6.84 6 831 9 5.38 99.5 18 5.53 7.11 7.21 7 333 9 5.25 44.4 9 4.93 6.34 6.43 8 1035 9 4.93 68.7 12 5.73 7.36 7.46 9 137 9 5.35 0.0 0 0.00 0.00 1039 9 5.47 201.7 37 5.45 7.01 7.11 11 441 9 5.59 Avg 5.37 6.28 6.3643 5 7 4.9445 3 9 5.6547 9 5.7549 9 5 6 5.7151 9 5 6 5.65

ColSum 18 32 9 9 28 9 18 9 12 0 37

50

The Assessment Committee also determined a transition matrix from Outcomes to Objectives (shown previously in Figure 3.1), and used it to assess the propagation of Outcomes from the Alumni survey and 2 Exit surveys. The transition matrix and the results are given in Figure 3.15. The values shown immediately under Obj. are the weighted sums of the the Outcome scores. The values at the bottom of each column (boxed and in bold) are normalized by the row sums of the transition matrix.

Although the value of such propagation is not clearly demonstrated in this case, due in part to the lack of consistent data gathering, and even the change from one exit survey to the next, the mechanism is hereby established. Its value will be more evident in the next section when 4 semesters of course evaluation/assessment survey data are analyzed, Outcomes assessed, Objectives propagated and some conclusions made.

3.10.3. Course Evaluation/Assessment Surveys

Course Evaluation/Assessment Surveys have been conducted for 4 semesters, S01, F01, S02 and F02. Only the S01 survey was conducted using a 3-point scale, while all others were conducted on a 4-point scale. Since AC decided to consistently use a 9-point scale, some appropriate conversions were made. As can be observed from the previous 3 pages of analyzed results, this change did not affect the results (in terms of ranking) and conversion among them is a simple process. The AC feels that a 9-point scale allows more flexibility and less arbitrariness (due to the urge to use fractional or decimal numbers, such as 3 ¼ or 2.7). The course evaluation data on a nine point scale are shown in Figures 3.16 – 3.19.

From these (4 semesters of) data, Outcome analyses are now possible, by a simple one-to-one transition (identity) matrix, for each course. The real value arises from the grouping of courses, e.g., for each track (Computer (CmP), Electro-Physics (EP), and System (Sys)), for spring courses and fall courses, for all EE core courses, and for EE core plus each track’s courses (Figures 3.20 – 3.24). The number of students taking the survey for each course is used as a weighting factor to obtain any of the Outcome averages. It is satisfying to notice the consistencies of the highly ranked and lowly ranked Outcome averages. These high and low ranked Outcomes give good indications of successes in the program of courses (as a group) and provide warnings of the needs to reinforce efforts in weaker areas. Overall and consistently, Outcome 1 (Kn. of EE, Sci. & Math) ranks the highest, while 6 (Prof. & Ethic.) ranks the lowest. Outcome 9 (life-long learning) ranks 2nd highest, while 4 (team functions) ranks 2nd lowest, 3 out of 4 semesters.

When these group Outcomes are propagated using the Outcome-Objective transition matrix, further valuable realizations can be drawn on the effectiveness of the programs of courses to achieve the educational Objectives that have been stated as goals for the Department (Figure 3.25). Note the anomalies in S01 Core due to the use of a 3-point scale (all other semesters used a 4-point scale). Note also the emphasis placed on Obj.A for CpE courses (although the score for Obj.D is quite close).

51

Figure 3.15. The Outcome/Objective Transition Matrix and Results for the 2001 Exit Survey, 2002 Exit Survey, and 2002 Alumni Survey.

Outcome 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11Row Sum

01Ex Obj. 02Ex Obj. 02Alm Obj

Objective A 2

2

2 -

2 - - - - -

2

10 - 57.60 8.26 73.27 7.40 70.34

Objective B 1 - -

2 -

1

2 - - -

1

7 8.17 43.95 7.23 50.21 6.97 49.55

Objective C 1 - - - -

2 -

2 -

2 -

7 6.46 34.00 6.33 44.90 6.59 33.94

Objective D 1 - - - - - - -

2 - -

3 7.56 17.72 6.89 24.07 6.89 22.33

Objective E - - - 1 -

2 - - -

2 -

5 6.78 30.12 7.24 31.14 7.10 20.58

Column Sum

5

2

2

3

2

5

2

2

2

4

3   5.87 6.09 6.84

7.78 5.76 7.26 7.33 7.21

7.03

5.72 6.28 6.19 7.17 6.43

7.08

8.86 4.86 7.90 6.41 7.46

4.85

5.40 5.91 6.04 8.02 0.00

7.44

7.39 6.02 7.57 6.23 7.11

4.12

52

  COURSE NUMBER  150 160 211 213 260 315 323 327 342 366 367 371 372 422 426 437 442 461 496  MEAN (based on a 9-point scale)

1 3.00 6.99 6.69 7.29 6.00 6.96 7.41 7.20 8.34 6.48 6.90 8.07 9.00 8.13 6.00 6.00 6.99 6.24 9.002 8.01 7.05 6.54 5.22 8.01 4.26 6.96 6.00 2.79 7.26 7.68 5.46 6.00 8.58 4.50 6.27 5.01 4.38 9.003 3.99 6.51 6.00 5.34 8.49 6.15 5.40 6.60 1.50 8.04 7.32 5.07 3.00 7.71 6.75 6.27 7.20 4.86 9.004 2.01 7.32 5.64 4.83 6.00 4.11 9.33 6.60 5.13 6.48 5.67 3.21 9.00 7.29 3.00 3.00 3.99 5.31 6.005 3.99 6.54 6.69 6.90 6.00 6.48 7.35 7.20 7.74 6.48 6.99 7.68 9.00 7.71 6.75 6.54 6.99 6.45 9.006 3.00 5.34 4.74 4.23 6.00 3.00 5.04 4.80 1.29 4.59 3.33 3.39 6.00 6.87 0.75 3.00 3.00 3.00 6.007 8.01 6.00 4.41 3.66 6.24 3.63 5.22 6.60 3.42 5.22 5.01 4.68 9.00 8.13 8.25 4.35 4.20 5.07 6.008 0.99 4.08 4.56 3.51 5.76 4.59 5.22 4.20 1.08 3.63 4.68 5.64 6.00 5.58 1.50 3.81 3.60 2.76 0.009 3.00 6.12 5.28 4.71 6.00 4.89 6.66 6.00 5.70 4.26 5.34 6.57 6.00 7.29 7.50 4.08 4.80 4.86 9.00

10 3.00 4.44 4.95 4.68 5.76 5.67 5.22 8.40 0.87 5.22 6.33 6.39 6.00 6.87 6.00 4.92 6.39 4.38 6.0011 5.01 6.54 5.46 6.27 7.74 5.52 6.96 7.80 6.63 7.11 6.99 6.75 6.00 8.58 6.00 5.46 5.40 5.55 9.00

Ave: 4.00 6.22 5.62 5.08 6.50 4.90 6.51 6.13 4.11 5.83 5.88 5.53 7.00 7.48 5.00 4.81 5.09 4.77 7.00No. 3 59 17 23 12 19 19 5 14 19 19 16 1 7 4 11 15 13 1

Figure 3.16. Spring 2001 Course Evaluation Survey Data (converted to 9-point scale).

  COURSE NUMBER  160 211 213 260 315 323 324 326 327 328 342 361 415 467 602 645  MEAN (based on a 9-point scale) 1 5.40 6.75 7.83 7.11 7.58 7.00 7.43 6.35 8.26 7.31 8.15 7.11 7.94 7.09 6.75 9.002 5.40 6.44 7.13 7.11 6.89 6.75 5.96 5.00 6.75 7.49 6.62 7.47 7.54 6.75 8.03 9.003 5.18 6.08 6.66 7.20 5.72 5.63 5.72 5.63 7.13 9.00 5.90 7.25 6.91 6.75 5.24 9.004 5.40 5.40 5.24 4.68 5.63 4.50 7.00 5.31 5.00 9.00 5.47 5.45 6.75 4.95 7.88 0.005 5.40 5.78 6.03 6.53 5.49 5.69 6.12 5.63 8.26 6.75 6.19 5.76 6.57 6.91 7.13 8.266 3.38 3.38 4.68 4.03 4.64 4.39 4.41 4.50 6.50 5.06 4.86 4.37 4.34 4.82 5.78 6.017 5.40 5.24 6.75 6.37 6.10 4.95 6.21 5.63 8.75 7.88 6.26 6.75 6.91 6.91 8.03 8.268 5.36 5.40 6.28 5.81 5.96 5.83 6.48 5.40 8.01 9.00 6.62 7.00 7.07 7.13 8.26 9.009 5.40 6.30 7.58 7.29 7.22 6.64 7.00 6.35 8.26 8.44 7.40 7.31 7.54 7.20 8.62 9.0010 5.85 5.85 7.16 7.11 6.01 6.77 6.08 5.74 7.25 9.00 6.59 7.00 7.54 6.57 7.70 9.0011 5.40 4.50 6.55 5.78 6.75 6.21 6.08 5.85 7.74 8.26 6.39 6.37 6.91 6.55 7.49 8.26No. 10 10 27 25 19 19 27 11 11 4 21 19 17 15 7 3

Figure 3.17. Fall 2001 Course Evaluation Survey Data (converted to 9-point scale).

53

  COURSE NUMBER  150 160 211 213 260 315 324 341 342 351 366 367 371 372 422 426 442 452 461  MEAN (based on a 9-point scale)  1 6.75 7.07 8.03 7.54 6.03 7.34 8.35 7.09 8.01 7.97 7.20 5.69 4.82 8.06 8.26 8.35 9.00 7.88 7.882 6.75 7.49 6.44 6.48 6.28 6.75 7.49 6.23 6.75 7.61 7.65 5.69 4.37 6.57 7.49 7.65 7.88 7.88 7.133 4.50 7.07 6.23 6.30 6.10 6.19 8.06 5.06 4.50 6.10 7.04 5.36 4.52 7.20 6.37 7.20 6.75 8.55 7.884   7.20 5.83 7.88 4.03 7.16 3.65 5.72 5.15 6.23 5.24 6.26 4.66 6.19 2.99 4.50 4.12 2.99 3.385 5.63 7.49 5.87 5.87 5.76 6.05 7.43 5.11 5.63 6.01 7.13 4.79 4.03 6.30 7.13 8.10 7.20 7.88 7.886 2.25 3.94 4.32 4.61 4.10 4.88 6.10 3.65 3.67 4.68 5.36 2.99 2.25 4.88 5.24 6.75 5.47 5.63 5.637 5.63 7.04 6.57 5.67 5.83 7.04 7.56 5.81 6.75 5.81 6.23 5.42 4.12 6.57 6.75 9.00 6.75 7.88 7.888 4.50 5.63 6.41 5.56 5.72 6.26 8.06 5.81 7.13 7.13 6.91 5.15 3.76 7.31 7.13 9.00 7.88 7.88 7.499 4.50 7.07 7.27 6.57 6.19 7.18 7.88 7.09 8.01 7.79 7.65 5.38 4.28 7.31 7.88 8.62 8.03 7.49 8.2610 6.75 7.49 7.22 6.75 6.12 5.69 7.31 5.90 8.17 7.27 7.49 5.76 3.89 7.09 6.37 7.49 7.40 7.49 7.4911   5.85 6.01 5.58 5.54 7.40 7.79 6.75 6.75 6.30 6.75 5.27 4.75 6.37 7.13 8.35 6.75 7.88 7.88No. 3 8 41 14 29 23 14 14 9 13 15 19 23 12 6 7 7 6 6

Figure 3.18. Spring 2002 Course Evaluation Survey Data (converted to 9-point scale).

COURSE NUMBER  160 211 213 260 315 323 324 327 331 341 342 361 371 415 449 453 467  MEAN (Based on a 9-point scale)1 4.82 6.82 7.99 7.49 6.84 6.44 7.04 7.47 6.75 7.31 6.89 7.20 8.08 8.44 7.13 5.78 5.452 5.54 6.23 6.95 6.75 6.12 6.35 6.01 6.05 6.95 6.32 6.12 7.65 7.22 8.17 5.63 6.44 5.513 5.65 6.21 6.64 6.75 6.10 6.35 5.81 6.01 6.12 6.84 5.92 7.65 6.75 8.30 5.24 5.78 5.814 5.42 5.96 5.94 6.75 6.05 6.75 6.30 6.28 6.30 6.37 6.28 7.20 6.82 7.81 5.40 4.82 6.015 4.25 5.69 3.33 3.76 7.16 6.66 5.81 8.42 9.00 5.42 6.12 5.49 6.75 3.24 5.81 6.75 5.906 4.50 5.27 6.98 6.75 5.15 5.87 6.30 5.85 6.50 6.30 6.28 6.44 7.56 7.20 5.31 5.85 4.507 5.22 5.85 6.75 6.01 6.21 5.96 5.74 6.75 7.00 6.35 6.62 6.84 7.31 7.16 5.63 5.15 5.728 4.68 5.67 6.53 7.49 6.01 5.63 6.26 6.57 6.14 7.00 6.01 7.04 7.88 7.18 6.93 5.78 4.889 2.88 3.58 4.59 4.50 4.10 3.87 4.10 4.50 4.50 4.50 4.37 5.06 6.03 4.93 4.68 3.76 3.20

10 4.41 5.74 6.95 6.75 5.56 5.63 6.19 6.14 7.20 7.09 6.19 7.13 8.37 7.61 7.16 5.85 5.3611 5.67 6.53 7.76 7.49 6.44 6.75 5.94 7.02 6.59 7.22 6.62 7.29 8.06 8.60 6.19 5.78 5.63No. 29 30 22 40 23 23 23 19 15 28 18 25 34 16 12 7 14

Figure 3.19. Fall 2002 Course Evaluation Survey Data (converted to 9-point scale).

54

Rank: Highest=   High=   Low=   Lowest=  

S01 EE Core               Sum CpE   176 EP     87 Sys   107     Rank  59 17 23 12 19 19 14 16   179 19 19 13   5 1 7 4     11 15 94 Ave    160 211 213 260 315 323 342 371     Ave 366 367 461   327 372 422 426     437 442 track All  

1 7.0 6.7 7.3 6.0 7.0 7.4 8.3 8.1 7.18 6.5 6.9 6.2   7.2 9.0 8.1 6.0     6.0 7.0 6.72 7.02 12 7.1 6.5 5.2 8.0 4.3 7.0 2.8 5.5 6.05 7.3 7.7 4.4   6.0 6.0 8.6 4.5     6.3 5.0 6.37 6.16  3 6.5 6.0 5.3 8.5 6.2 5.4 1.5 5.1 5.77 8.0 7.3 4.9   6.6 3.0 7.7 6.8     6.3 7.2 6.90 6.16  4 7.3 5.6 4.8 6.0 4.1 9.3 5.1 3.2 6.09 6.5 5.7 5.3   6.6 9.0 7.3 3.0     3.0 4.0 5.30 5.81  5 6.5 6.7 6.9 6.0 6.5 7.4 7.7 7.7 6.84 6.5 7.0 6.5   7.2 9.0 7.7 6.8     6.5 7.0 6.84 6.84 26 5.3 4.7 4.2 6.0 3.0 5.0 1.3 3.4 4.41 4.6 3.3 3.0   4.8 6.0 6.9 0.8     3.0 3.0 3.71 4.17 107 6.0 4.4 3.7 6.2 3.6 5.2 3.4 4.7 4.91 5.2 5.0 5.1   6.6 9.0 8.1 8.3     4.4 4.2 5.35 5.06  8 4.1 4.6 3.5 5.8 4.6 5.2 1.1 5.6 4.24 3.6 4.7 2.8   4.2 6.0 5.6 1.5     3.8 3.6 3.85 4.11 119 6.1 5.3 4.7 6.0 4.9 6.7 5.7 6.6 5.79 4.3 5.3 4.9   6.0 6.0 7.3 7.5     4.1 4.8 5.10 5.55  10 4.4 5.0 4.7 5.8 5.7 5.2 0.9 6.4 4.72 5.2 6.3 4.4   8.4 6.0 6.9 6.0     4.9 6.4 5.81 5.09 911 6.5 5.5 6.3 7.7 5.5 7.0 6.6 6.8     6.45 7.1 7.0 5.6   7.8 6.0 8.6 6.0     5.5 5.4 6.49 6.46 3

Figure 3.20. Spring 2001 Course Assessments.

F01 EE Core               Sum CpE     EP       Sys         Rank  10 10 27 25 19 19 27 21     158 19   15   11 11 4   17       77 Ave    160 211 213 260 315 323 324 342     Ave 361   467   326 327 328   415       track All  

1 5.4 6.8 7.8 7.1 7.6 7.0 7.4 8.1     7.34 7.1   7.1 6.3 8.3 7.3 7.9   7.35 7.34 12 5.4 6.4 7.1 7.1 6.9 6.8 6.0 6.6     6.63 7.5   6.8 5.0 6.8 7.5 7.5   6.89 6.72  3 5.2 6.1 6.7 7.2 5.7 5.6 5.7 5.9     6.11 7.2   6.8 5.6 7.1 9.0 6.9   6.92 6.38  4 5.4 5.4 5.2 4.7 5.6 4.5 7.0 5.5     5.46 5.4   5.0 5.3 5.0 9.0 6.8   5.74 5.55 105 5.4 5.8 6.0 6.5 5.5 5.7 6.1 6.2     5.98 5.8   6.9 5.6 8.3 6.8 6.6   6.55 6.17  6 3.4 3.4 4.7 4.0 4.6 4.4 4.4 4.9     4.35 4.4   4.8 4.5 6.5 5.1 4.3   4.81 4.50 117 5.4 5.2 6.8 6.4 6.1 5.0 6.2 6.3     6.06 6.8   6.9 5.6 8.8 7.9 6.9   7.00 6.36  8 5.4 5.4 6.3 5.8 6.0 5.8 6.5 6.6     6.08 7.0   7.1 5.4 8.0 9.0 7.1   7.06 6.40  9 5.4 6.3 7.6 7.3 7.2 6.6 7.0 7.4     7.04 7.3   7.2 6.3 8.3 8.4 7.5   7.40 7.15 210 5.9 5.9 7.2 7.1 6.0 6.8 6.1 6.6     6.54 7.0   6.6 5.7 7.2 9.0 7.5   6.99 6.69  11 5.4 4.5 6.5 5.8 6.8 6.2 6.1 6.4     6.11 6.4   6.5   5.9 7.7 8.3   6.9       6.74 6.31  

Figure 3.21. Fall 2001 Course Assessments.

55

S02 EE Core               Sum CpE     EP       Sys         Rank  8 41 14 29 23 14 14 9 13 165 15 19 6   12   6 7 13   7 6 91 Ave    160 211 213 260 315 324 341 342 371   Ave 366 367 461   372   422 426 351   442 452 track All  

1 7.1 8.0 7.5 6.0 7.3 8.3 7.1 8.0 4.8 7.19 7.2 5.7 7.9   8.1   8.3 8.3 8.0   9.0 7.9 7.49 7.30 12 7.5 6.4 6.5 6.3 6.8 7.5 6.2 6.8 4.4 6.43 7.7 5.7 7.1 6.6 7.5 7.7 7.6 7.9 7.9 7.08 6.66  3 7.1 6.2 6.3 6.1 6.2 8.1 5.1 4.5 4.5 6.07 7.0 5.4 7.9 7.2 6.4 7.2 6.1 6.8 8.6 6.68 6.29  4 7.2 5.8 7.9 4.0 7.2 3.6 5.7 5.2 4.2 5.58 5.2 6.3 3.4 6.2 3.0 4.5 6.2 4.1 3.0 5.16 5.43 105 7.5 5.9 5.9 5.8 6.1 7.4 5.1 5.6 4.0 5.86 7.1 4.8 7.9 6.3 7.1 8.1 6.0 7.2 7.9 6.55 6.11  6 3.9 4.3 4.6 4.1 4.9 6.1 3.6 3.7 2.3 4.26 5.4 3.0 5.6 4.9 5.2 6.8 4.7 5.5 5.6 4.85 4.47 117 7.0 6.6 5.7 5.8 7.0 7.6 5.8 6.8 4.1 6.29 6.2 5.4 7.9 6.6 6.8 9.0 5.8 6.8 7.9 6.55 6.38  8 5.6 6.4 5.6 5.7 6.3 8.1 5.8 7.1 3.8 6.08 6.9 5.2 7.5 7.3 7.1 9.0 7.1 7.9 7.9 6.98 6.40  9 7.1 7.3 6.6 6.2 7.2 7.9 7.1 8.0 4.3 6.84 7.7 5.4 8.3 7.3 7.9 8.6 7.8 8.0 7.5 7.30 7.00 210 7.5 7.2 6.8 6.1 5.7 7.3 5.9 8.2 3.9 6.47 7.5 5.8 7.5 7.1 6.4 7.5 7.3 7.4 7.5 6.96 6.65  11 5.9 6.0 5.6 5.5 7.4 7.8 6.8 6.8 4.7   6.23 6.8 5.3 7.9   6.4   7.1 8.3 6.3   6.8 7.9 6.62 6.37  

Figure 3.22. Spring 2002 Course Assessments.

F02 EE Core               Sum CpE     EP       Sys         Rank  29 30 22 40 23 23 23 28 18 34 270 25   12 14 19       16   15 7 108 Ave    160 211 213 260 315 323 324 341 342 371 Ave 361   449 467 327       415   331 453 track All  

1 4.8 6.8 8.0 7.5 6.8 6.4 7.0 7.3 6.9 8.1 7.00 7.2   7.1 5.4 7.5     8.4   6.8 5.8 6.89 6.94 12 5.6 6.2 6.6 6.8 6.1 6.3 5.8 6.8 5.9 6.8 6.35 7.7   5.2 5.8 6.0     8.3   6.1 5.8 6.42 6.35  3 5.4 6.0 5.9 6.8 6.1 6.8 6.3 6.4 6.3 6.8 6.29 7.2   5.4 6.0 6.3     7.8   6.3 4.8 6.26 6.26  4 4.3 5.7 3.3 3.8 7.2 6.7 5.8 5.4 6.1 6.8 5.41 5.5   5.8 5.9 8.4     3.2   9.0 6.8 6.37 5.86 105 4.5 5.3 7.0 6.8 5.2 5.9 6.3 6.3 6.3 7.6 6.14 6.4   5.3 4.5 5.9     7.2   6.5 5.9 5.95 6.04  6 2.9 3.6 4.6 4.5 4.1 3.9 4.1 4.5 4.4 6.0 4.29 5.1   4.7 3.2 4.5     4.9   4.5 3.8 4.37 4.30 117 5.2 5.9 6.8 6.0 6.2 6.0 5.7 6.3 6.6 7.3 6.20 6.8   5.6 5.7 6.8     7.2   7.0 5.2 6.32 6.25  8 4.4 5.7 7.0 6.8 5.6 5.6 6.2 7.1 6.2 8.4 6.36 7.1   7.2 5.4 6.1     7.6   7.2 5.9 6.63 6.43  9 5.7 6.5 7.8 7.5 6.4 6.8 5.9 7.2 6.6 8.1 6.91 7.3   6.2 5.6 7.0     8.6   6.6 5.8 6.73 6.80 210 5.5 6.2 7.0 6.8 6.1 6.3 6.0 6.3 6.1 7.2 6.40 7.7   5.6 5.5 6.1     8.2   7.0 6.4 6.63 6.47  11 4.7 5.7 6.5 7.5 6.0 5.6 6.3 7.0 6.0 7.9 6.42 7.0   6.9 4.9 6.6       7.2   6.1 5.8 6.36 6.33  

Figure 3.23. Fall 2002 Course Assessments.

56

Figure 3.24. Weighted Averages used to Compile and Assess Outcome Averages for Additional Groups of Courses (Programs).

EE Core        Accumulative Averages S01&S02 F01&F02 All 4 Sem 7.18 1 7.12 1 7.15 6.726.23   6.45 3 6.35 6.735.91   6.23   6.09 6.695.84   5.43 10 5.61 5.606.37 2 6.08   6.21 6.174.34 11 4.31 11 4.32 4.225.57   6.14 9 5.89 5.995.12 10 6.25   5.75 5.796.29   6.96 2 6.66 6.225.56 9 6.45   6.05 6.316.34 3 6.30   6.32 6.45

EE Core + Track AveragesCpE   EP   Sys  

           7.07 1 7.20 1 7.19 16.42 3 6.44 3 6.42 36.20   6.22   6.17  5.61 10 5.73 10 5.58 106.20   6.33   6.27  4.31 11 4.46 11 4.32 115.91   6.09   5.92  5.76 9 5.87 9 5.83 96.58 2 6.79 2 6.67 26.10   6.18   6.17  6.34   6.46   6.33  

Track Averages (no EE core)CpE   EP   Sys             6.72 2 7.61 1 7.44 16.73 1 7.18   6.90 36.69 3 7.37   6.78  5.60 10 6.77 10 5.32 106.17   7.42   6.71  4.22 11 5.67 11 4.27 115.99   7.92 3 6.11 95.79 9 6.95 9 6.37  6.22   7.94 2 6.77  6.31   7.33   7.00 26.45   7.75   6.38  

57

EE Core         Track Averages (no EE core) EE Core + Track Averages  

S01&S02 F01&F02 All 4 CpE   EP   Sys  CpE   EP   Sys  

Objective A 7.18 6.41 7.12 6.44 7.15 6.42 6.72 6.55 7.61 7.47 7.44 6.84 7.07 6.45 7.20 6.53 7.19 6.48

Objective B 6.23 5.81 6.45 5.73 6.35 5.83 6.73 5.79 7.18 7.20 6.90 5.85 6.42 5.82 6.44 5.97 6.42 5.83

Objective C 5.91 5.32 6.23 5.88 6.09 5.63 6.69 5.62 7.37 6.79 6.78 6.11 6.20 5.63 6.22 5.75 6.17 5.69

Objective D 5.84 6.59 5.05 7.01 5.61 6.82 5.60 6.38 6.77 7.83 5.32 6.99 5.61 6.74 5.73 6.93 5.58 6.84 Objective E 6.37 5.13 6.08 5.32 6.21 5.27 6.17 5.33 7.42 6.55 6.71 5.58 6.20 5.28 6.33 5.40 6.27 5.31

4.34   4.31   4.32   4.22   5.67   4.27   4.31   4.46   4.32

5.57 64.1 6.14 64.4 5.89 64.2 5.99 65.5 7.92 74.7 6.11 68.4 5.91 64.5 6.09 65.3 5.92 64.8

5.12 40.7 6.25 40.1 5.75 40.8 5.79 40.6 6.95 50.4 6.37 41.0 5.76 40.8 5.87 41.8 5.83 40.8

6.29 37.2 6.96 41.2 6.66 39.4 6.22 39.4 7.94 47.5 6.77 42.7 6.58 39.4 6.79 40.2 6.67 39.8

5.56 19.8 6.45 21.0 6.05 20.5 6.31 19.2 7.33 23.5 7.00 21.0 6.10 20.2 6.18 20.8 6.17 20.5

6.34 25.6 6.30 26.6 6.32 26.4 6.45 26.7 7.75 32.8 6.38 27.9 6.34 26.4 6.46 27.0 6.33 26.6

Figure 3.25. Course Assessments (S01--F02, 4 Semesters) Transitioned to Objectives (Applying the Outcome-Objective Transition Matrix).

S01 Core F01 Core S02 Core F02 Core7.18 6.46 7.34 6.43 7.19 6.36 7.00 6.44

6.05 5.72 6.63 5.83 6.43 5.92 6.35 5.85

5.77 4.85 6.11 5.90 6.07 5.83 6.29 5.87

6.09 6.25 5.46 7.14 5.58 6.96 5.41 6.94

6.84 4.87 5.98 5.45 5.86 5.41 6.14 5.36

4.41   4.35 4.26   4.29  

4.91 64.58 6.06 64.35 6.29 63.56 6.20 64.40

4.24 40.04 6.08 40.84 6.08 41.42 6.36 40.93

5.79 33.92 7.04 41.28 6.84 40.81 6.91 41.10

4.72 18.76 6.54 21.42 6.47 20.87 6.40 20.82

6.45 24.35 6.11 27.24 6.23 27.04 6.42 26.79

Objective AObjective BObjective CObjective DObjective E

Ranking: High= Bold Low= ItalObj. D (Life-long Learning) is consistantly highObj. A (Kn. & Skills) is usually a close secondObj. E (Minority) is consistantly low

58

Figure 3.26. The Newly Developed Prerequisite Survey.

3.10.4. Prerequisite Survey

The 2002-03 Assessment Committee also developed a Prerequisite Survey (Figure 3.26) to facilitate the tracking of material covered in those courses and to assess their relevance or value to the course that follows. The Prerequisite Survey is intended to be filled in by the instructor of the current course to evaluate the students’ preparedness in the relevant background material from the prerequisite course(s).

59

3.10.5. IAB and SAB Surveys

The Interface Committee solicits and receives feedback from the constituencies. Our primary constituencies are industry, alumni, and students who are represented by the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and the Student Advisory Board (SAB). The SAB produced a questionnaire for the students in the Fall of 2002, shortly before the IAB meeting.

A summary of the results of the SAB questionnaire is shown in Figure 3.27 below. The scores are on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest. The results show that the students are relatively satisfied with the courses, projects and teaching in the department.

Questions: Avg. Score:

1)       Faculty instructional quality

a)       Faculty present material in the context of real-world applications 3.8

b)       Faculty instill a sense of lifelong learning 3.6

c)       Faculty are technically proficient 4.1

d)       Faculty are able to effectively deliver course material 3.7

e)       Consistency in course material among faculty teaching the same course 3.5

2)       Quality of laboratory courses

a)       Teaching Assistance (TA)

i)         TAs are technically proficient 3.2

ii)       TAs are able to effectively deliver course material 2.7

iii)      TAs should be required to attend a short-course in verbal communication 4.4

b)       Lab Coursework

i)         How well does the lab-work compliment the classroom-work? 3.5

ii)       Does the lab teach practical and applicable skills? 3.5

iii)      Do you feel labs effectively teach Troubleshooting? 3.2

c)       Lab facilities

i)         Functionality 3.3

ii)       Quality of Equipment 3.0

iii)      Availability of quality components 3.1

3)       Coursework structure

a)       Department’s adherence to the projected course schedule 3.7

b)       Feasibility of the recommended EE curriculum check sheet  3.6

c)       Consistency of course material from semester to semester 3.6

60

d)       Structure of prerequisites 3.5

e)       Track curricula is well organized and course are available to facilitate completion 3.4

4)       Quality of research facilitiesa)       Do you feel you have been sufficiently informed regarding the purpose and function of the EE research facilities?

3.0

b)       Have you had an opportunity to utilize one of the EE research facilities? 3.2

i)         If yes, please rate your experience. 3.8

ii)       If not, rate your desire to participate 4.1

5)       Quality of EE X96 Design Projects

a)       Technical content and skills 3.8

b)       Development of Team working skills 4.0

c)      Motivation for life long learning in engineering 4.0

d)      Exposure to modern engineering tools and practices 3.9

e)       Use of creativity and design skills 4.0

6)       Quality of student activities in the departmenta)       Rate your ability/availability to participate in extracurricular student activities (e.g., activities outside of your classes including IEEE, HKN, etc.)

3.1

b)       Rate the Department’s efforts to accommodate extracurricular student activities 3.3

7)       Ethics

a)       Rate your exposure to professional ethics in your coursework 3.4

b)       Rate the quality of ethics amongst students 3.4

8)       Registration and Academic advising

a)       Rate the ease of registering for Electrical Engineering courses 3.5

b)       Rate the quality/utility of academic advising 3.7

9)       Please rate your overall experience in the Department of Electrical Engineering 3.6

Figure 3.27. Student Questionnaire Results, Fall 2002. Scale: 1-5 (highest).

The recommendations from the SAB are included next. Text taken directly from reports is underlined.

61

The following comments outline new issues not previously addressed last year, and are the opinions/concerns of the SAB. This section has been divided into Faculty , Coursework, Laboratories, Student Projects, and Student Experience (which includes activities, registration, advising, and overall experience).

1.1. Faculty 1.1.1. Outstanding faculty do not receive significant recognition from students.

1.1.1.1. A handsome Outstanding/Inspirational Award could be given each semester to professors

who go beyond the call of the classroom.

1.1.2. Lack of faculty orientation, such as the research they do and the facilities they work in.

1.1.2.1. “Faculty Day”, an short event where professors give a short introduction/presentation of

themselves and the labs they utilize. This can open the door to x96 project possibilities,

and produce an understanding of their professor’s specialty.

1.1.3. Student input from “Course Evaluations” have no effect.

1.1.3.1. Put up a student bulletin board, where comments on a professor, class, etc. can be left as an

open forum (post surveys?).

1.2. Coursework 1.2.1. Lack of understanding/motivation in engineering.

1.2.1.1. EE101.

1.2.2. Misunderstanding/confusion of professional ethics.

1.3. Laboratories 1.3.1. Lack of trade skills (equipment/troubleshooting).

1.3.1.1. Integration with existing lab/course (EE211?).

1.3.2. Little integration of simulators, software assistance (i.e. MATLAB)

1.3.2.1. Integration with existing lab/course.

1.3.3. Little correlation between course and lab.

1.3.3.1. Professors stop by.

1.3.4. Lab experience poor.

1.3.4.1. Course re-evaluation, overhaul.

1.4. Student Projects 1.4.1. Currently doing well.

1.5. Student Experience 1.5.1. Lack of EE gathering location, hangout, lounge area.

62

1.5.1.1. Unknown solution. Would promote department cohesiveness.

2. Improvements to the SAB next year

2.1. Improve/develop SAB Webpage

2.1.1. Informative

2.1.2. Logged minutes from SAB meetings

2.1.3. Suggestions/concerns box/forum

2.1.4. Future goals

2.2. Further refining Survey

2.2.1. Rewording of a few questions to allow for Yes/No.

2.2.2. Very precise directions to Non-EE majors filling out survey.

2.3. Student Interviews/Open Forum

2.4. Further developed board policy

2.5. Internal management, organization, policy

2.6. Organize future board by end of Spring ’03

A summary of the response from the IAB after the meeting in 2002 is follows. Numbers in brackets following the comments rank the priority on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest.

Use lecturers and more (and better quality) TAs. Investigate ways to address student concerns w/ TA communication skills. Most major universities successfully utilizes lecturers. The resource pool in Hawaii is probably greater than they think. Also, many professors would kill for a chance at a sabbatical in Hawaii (appeal to them during the winter). [8]

Great idea. You may even be able to attract ABD graduate students from mainland universities and from Europe that way.

Close the loop back w/ the SAB student survey. Ensure that every attempt is made to address their concerns and then “advertise” the results. [9]

Beef up controls and comm (esp. wireless) areas. Controls expertise is needed for many applications. Comm needs will once again explode in a few years. [5]

I agree, and furthermore comms continue to be of great interest to the defense industry.

Have more space-oriented courses and activities. The Aerospace industry is predominantly located on the west coast where most UH grads will relocate to. [7]

Other than comms, I’m not sure what else can be covered adequately in an undergraduate curriculum regarding space. Robotics is too specialized and advanced. Same with high-

63

radiation physics and electronics. Aeronautics/astronautics is an entirely different discipline. Good engineering principles and program/project management skills are more valuable than specific knowledge of space systems.

Arrange one course that provides business management and program management exposure. [6]

Formally teach s/w tools that are commonly used in industry (Labview, Matlab, etc.). Apply them in research projects and labs. [7]

Also include hands-on use of embedded operating systems such as VxWorks, at least in the computing track.

If possible, reduce lab group size from 3 to 2 students. If not possible, identify three roles within the lab group and rotate the roles for each lab session --need to have the TA enforce this, though. Consider limiting the (x96) project group size to three students. The system-track project presented at the IAB meeting had 5-6 students on it. This seems like a large group to ensure everyone gets a fair share of the project and is contributing to the level expected from students working in a smaller group. [9]

Develop and enforce an Honor Code to help emphasize ethics. [9]

Use 1-credit, C/NC seminars. Perhaps some seminars like that could address some things like ethics and what engineers do, as brought up by the student board. The old EE 101 might be a model for one such seminar. [no score]

Encourage and reward faculty mentoring. Encourage alumni to get involved. Implement a process to get feedback from alumni, perhaps at specific time periods (e.g., 1 year after graduation, 3 yrs after, 5 yrs after). Collect information such as track/emphasis studied, employment/ graduate school, area of employment/focus of graduate studies, position or tasks involved. Also get their take on which department objectives/outcomes were most relevant during their post-UH experience. [8]

Increase the number of credits required for graduation. I think the concern over the time to graduate might be a tad overblown. Rather than look at the average time it takes for a student to graduate, it might make more sense to look at the average time to graduate from the time a student starts his/her first calculus class, since the calculus sequence is really a prerequisite to the entire EE (and CE and ME, for that matter) curriculum. [no score]

Investigate impact of dropping power engineering sequence. [5]

Assess costs/value of creating and maintaining new CE program vs combined ECE program [2]

Provide outcomes assessment data to IAB. [3]

Develop 5-yr plan to automate the assessment process (web-based portal for data capture and access). [4]

64

IAB meeting was better organized this year. Good mix of members, hopefully more can attend next time. Department did an outstanding job of preparing agenda and hosting.

IAB Documents CD is a great way to capture program information, ABET criteria, and prior program changes. Worked well for preparing for IAB meeting. Note book also well organized and effective. It would have been extremely useful for compilation and discussion purposes if all IAB members utilized laptops for their inputs. Perhaps next time, computers could be made available (even better, the utilization of collaboration tools).

The set of committees (IC, AC, UCC, SAB, IAB) that has been established appears to an effective approach to accomplish the assessment process by dividing the responsibilities among a broad group of participants without over burdening any one party.

I had difficulty 'projecting' what I saw from the student presentation to the entire student population. That is, what was true of the students and their presentations was probably not representative of the general population --but I could not tell for sure. I am not sure how this could be improved, but perhaps some sort of summary of the grades earned for particular critical courses (or for the different curriculum areas of emphasis) such as the writing intensive and speaking intensive courses would be helpful.

As was last year, the SAB was impressive in what they achieved in the amount of time they were given. They should be organized earlier to give themselves more time to possibly digest the information from the surveys returned.

For future visits, it would be more helpful if the charter of the IAB were more carefully delineated. As part of the department’s constituency, the IAB should be asked to provide feedback regarding the quality of the students as potential employees. I am not sure that having the IAB fill our ABET-like review questionnaires outside of this charter is helpful.

3.10.6. Faculty Course Assessment

As mentioned in Section 3.5, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) collects Course Assessment Forms (an example form is shown in Figure 3.2) from course instructors each semester. Section 3.9 has a description of how the data is evaluated. The data is shown in Figures 3.6 and 3.7 as Rating Differences for the courses in Fall 2002 and Spring 2003, respectively. This gives a quick overview of which courses are not meeting expectations towards achieving Program Outcomes.

3.11. Processes to Apply Assessment Results to Improve the Program

The processes used to apply assessment results to improve the program were discussed in Section 3.4. In the next section, we discuss some of the changes that have been implemented due to the processes.

65

3.12. Changes Implemented or Pending Implementation

In this section, a brief summary of major changes to the Department made during 1997-2001 is given. It is followed by more detailed descriptions of changes implemented during 2001-2002 and 2002-2003, and a list of pending changes and those under study.

3.12.1. Improvements from 1997-2001

Fall 1997: EE342 Probability and Statistics required of all majors. This requirement was added in

response to a comment from ABET. EE196/296/396/496 Design Project added. This requirement was added in response to a

comment from ABET.

Spring 1998: EE201 Electrical Engineering Skills for Transfer Students added. This course eases the

transition for students coming from other programs.

Fall 1998: EE160 Programming for Engineers added. This course includes a laboratory component to

provide guided hands-on experience. It replaces EE150 for EE majors. EE120 deleted (replaced by EE260 Introduction to Digital Design). EE266, EE462, EE463, EE464 deleted (obsolete). EE466 changed to EE366 CMOS VLSI Design, becoming a core Computer track

requirement.

Spring 1999: EE475 Optical Communications added. This course provides undergraduates with

fundamental knowledge in modern communications.

Fall 1999: Math 241, 242, 242L, 243, 244 replace Math 205, 206, 231, 232 to provide better

mathematics background for engineering problem solving. Math 302 Introduction to Differential Equations is added to the EE core requirements to

guarantee the necessary background for later EE courses.

Fall 2000: EE224 is renumbered to EE324 Physical Electronics.

3.12.2. Improvements for 2001-2002

Undergraduate Program Organization

o New Program Objectives and Outcomes. Based on the requirements set by ABET, and the inputs received from IAB/SAB, the department has established a new set of educational objectives and anticipated outcomes. This is described in Section 2.1.

66

o Faculty Committees and Work Flow. Several new committees were formed so that there is a systematic approach to receiving inputs from constituents, evaluating these inputs, and then acting upon them to achieve an on-going improvement in the curriculum. The committees are the following: Interface Committee, Assessment Committee, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, and the ABET Core Committee. Committee duties were determined together with how they are to interact, including a time schedule.

Faculty

o Successful Recruitment of Faculty. Drs. Olga Boric-Lubecke and Victor Lubecke joined us in January 2003. Olga Lubecke’s area is in analog circuit design, with applications in the wireless communications. Victor Lubecke’s area is in MEMS, and semiconductor devices. They will significantly enhance our teaching and research capabilities in the Electro-Physics area. These additions address the issue of upgrading the analog circuit curriculum as was suggested during the previous IAB/SAB feedback sessions. Dr. Yingfei Dong will join us in August 2003. His areas of interest are computer architecture and networks (including network security). This addition significantly improves the computer engineering component of our program.

o Positions for New Faculty: We are currently recruiting faculty in the digital/mixed circuits, analog/mixed circuits and control/optimization areas to further strengthen the department in course offerings and research. To provide a mechanism for student input to this process, recruitment seminars are widely publicized and open to all. When possible, interview sessions with candidates are arranged for students.

Facilities and Resources

o Recent Equipment Upgrades. Over the last three years the Department of Electrical Engineering has made a concerted effort to upgrade undergraduate instructional and computer labs. New equipment and computers were purchased for the basic circuits, analog circuits, digital circuits, and communications labs. Further improvements are planned, subject to the availability of funds. This issue was part of the IAB/SAB feedback.

o New Multimedia Teaching Facility. We opened a new multimedia facility (Holmes 389) with computer projection and distance learning capabilities to enhance classroom instruction. This room has capabilities similar to the Donald Kim classroom in the POST building. This room was used for several courses starting in Spring 2003. The need for more courses taught in such facilities was indicated by the SAB.

Curriculum. During Spring 2002, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) received feedback from the IAB, SAB, Interface Committee and faculty about the state of the curriculum. The Committee addressed each of the issues. For some of the issues, no action was taken because they were beyond the scope of the program. Some others were viewed as being already adequately addressed by the curriculum. For example, it was suggested that

67

EE 342 (EE Probability and Statistics) should cover the design of experiments. However, the Committee found that this topic was more appropriate as part of a graduate course, and therefore beyond the scope of the undergraduate program. For other issues, the Committee drafted proposals to change the curriculum to address them.

The draft was presented to the EE faculty in May 2002 and September 2002. Some of the proposals were accepted, and the rest are under further study. The proposals for further study are included in Section 3.12.3.

The following were accepted into the curriculum.

o Design Your Own Track (DYOT): The IAB/SAB found the existing Track System (Electro-Physics, Computers, and Systems) to be restrictive. It did not encourage students to take other courses that better fit their career goals. As a result, the department has implemented a new system that allows a student, in consultation with a faculty advisor, to choose his or her own set of Technical Electives. The set must be equivalent to a track, and approved by the Department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

o Engineering Breadth: The requirement of either CEE 270 (Applied Mechanics I) or ME 311 (Thermodynamics) has been relaxed. The new requirement is any 300-level, 3-credit, non-EE engineering or physical/biological science course. This new requirement is known as “Engineering Breadth”. This change is based on the comments of the IAB and SAB that CEE 270 and ME 311 have questionable usefulness for electrical engineers and therefore should not be required. However, having a non-EE engineering (or related) course requirement was viewed as desirable because it enhanced a broader view of engineering.

o Matlab for EE 213: It was suggested that Matlab be required since it is a standard tool. Matlab is now a required topic in EE 213 (Basic Circuit Analysis II).

Appendix V has documentation on this process. Appendix V-A is a report by the UCC on how they addressed each issue raised by the IAB and SAB. For example, in the report, there is a Section 2 “Course Requirements,” which has proposed changes to the course requirements. There is a Subsection 2.1 “IC 2002 Report and our responses”, which lists all issues from the IAB and SAB in regards to course requirements, and the responses from the UCC to each issue. Appendix V-B is the UCC report on the changes to the curriculum that were accepted by the EE faculty. Appendices V-C and V-D have the annual reports by the UCC explaining their activities for the academic years 2001-02 and 2002-03, respectively.

3.12.3. Improvements for 2002-2003

Based on IAB/SAB feedback from Fall 2002, five key areas for possible improvement were identified and assigned to the ABET Committees and the Department Chair:

TA quality/quantity (Chair): The department currently has 8 (.5 FTE) teaching assistants supported by general funds. Due to a lack of other resources for graduate student recruitment,

68

these positions have been used to bring (primarily international) students into our program. The University requires a minimum TOEFL score of 600 for TA appointees. However, in some cases the correlation between TOEFL scores and ability to communicate verbally has been poor.

To help address this problem, whenever possible substantially higher TOEFL scores are being given preference, as are academically qualified native English speakers. Attempts to address this via phone interviews were also made in the past, with some success. The Department Chair (who is also Graduate Chair) has now undertaken phone interviews with any applicants for which communication skills are in doubt.

A mandatory TA training program has been established campus-wide, which will be supplemented by departmental training and mentoring. This is expected to contribute substantially to improving TA performance.

In order to improve the number of TA candidates that enroll, offers in excess of the 8 existing positions have been made. Visa problems, in particular, have motivated this approach. The Dean of the College of Engineering has agreed to provide financial help if needed. Requests have also been made to increase the number of funded TA positions in the department. Unfortunately, these requests have not so far proven successful.

Improve communications for X96 projects and facilitate matching of students to projects/supervisors (Core): All undergraduate students are required to complete a capstone design project via the EE196/296/396/496 series of courses, referred to generically as X96 projects. EE196 is an optional Freshman course, providing a means for early identification of a project and supervisor. Students must take at least one credit of EE 296, Sophomore Projects and two credits of EE 396, Junior Projects to prepare for the EE 496 Capstone Design Project.

Because student involvement with the faculty is somewhat limited at the sophomore level, students may have some difficulty in identifying a supervisor. The situation improves at the junior and senior levels, but it has been observed (particularly through our Student Advisory Board) that finding a suitable project is sometimes difficult.

The appropriate solution to this problem is still under study. One approach that has been suggested is a webpage. A natural location for the link to this page would be under the Undergraduate Information section of the departmental website.

Review EE211/EE213 labs (UCC): Comments from the Industrial and Student Advisory Boards suggested that the laboratory facilities for EE 211 Basic Circuit Analysis I and EE 213 Basic Circuit Analysis II could be improved. The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee investigated this in April 2003 but found the laboratories to be in adequate condition. The laboratories were kept neat, new equipment was purchased, and there were adequate numbers of equipment. However, the Committee did suggest to the Department Chair that the laboratory could use more personal computers to facilitate using computer aided design tools. The Committee suspects that the low rating by the Boards were primarily from the students who were at the senior level. They may have experienced the laboratories when they were in worse shape a few years ago.

69

Nonetheless, new workbenches, new (digital sampling) oscilloscopes, and new power supplies have been ordered for these laboratories. As funds permit, additional computers will be installed.

Establish a resume bank in cooperation with HKN and/or IEEE (Interface): At the suggestion of the Industrial Affiliates Board, a resume bank is being established. This will facilitate placement of our students, and will aid our IAB members in justifying their taking part in our yearly meetings.

Review and improve assessment instruments (Assessment): There are three specific areas that appear can be improved: i) Increasing the utility of the IAB questionnaire (increasing the coupling to our mission, objective and outcomes); ii) Doing the same for the SAB questionnaire, and iii) Automating survey tabulation to the degree possible. To address item iii, an optical mark reader and questionnaire design software has been purchased.

An additional item for improvement has been identified by a retention consultant from Noel-Levitz, hired by the College of Engineering to review undergraduate issues College-wide. It was observed that access to computing facilities in the College is comparatively limited. To address this issue, the department is moving our general access computing lab to a substantially larger room, and will upgrade and add additional facilities as funds permit. It is planned to hire student assistants to allow the lab to be open additional hours.

3.12.3. Continuing Work

The following are continuing work by faculty to improve the curriculum. They are responses to feedback from the IAB, SAB, and faculty.

Advanced Mathematics: A committee has been formed to study the need for additional advanced mathematics courses in the curriculum. The particular topics are linear algebra and discrete mathematics for engineers. It was concluded that such topics were best taught outside the Department. It was found that appropriate discrete mathematics courses are already offered in the Department of Information and Computer Science and the Department of Mathematics. The Department of Mathematics currently has a course on linear algebra, MATH 311. Currently this course does not include topics typically used in Electrical Engineering, such as eigenvalues, but focuses more on proof techniques, and is not well suited for electrical engineering. The Department of Mathematics offered to make a version of MATH 311 with an applied focus, “applied linear algebra,” but the department found the mathematics course load might become too high if this was required of all students. Instead the committee is exploring making a combined linear algebra/linear differential equations course to replace the currently required course on linear differential equations, MATH 302.

Written and Oral Communication Skills:  It is generally believed that technical writing and oral communication skills of the students need improvement.  A group of Electrical Engineering faculty, in consultation with the Director of the University of Hawaii Manoa Writing Program, is evaluating the methods with which this can be accomplished.  A

70

proposal currently under consideration is to develop a College of Engineering Technical Communication Center, lead by a fulltime director with background in technical communications.  The Director of the center would supervise a staff composed of student employees, with demonstrated communication skills predominately at the graduate level, who would tutor students on writing.  The center would also provide resources to help faculty teach writing- and speaking-intensive courses in the context of the disciplines within the college.   Preliminary investigations show that there are many universities that have such centers.  As an additional effort to improve student's technical communication skills, the director would teach a course at the junior-level, open to all departments in the College of Engineering, that would address both oral and written communication skills.  The faculty members investigating this issue believe that such a course would be particularly beneficial to students as they proceed through the senior curriculum.  This proposal was submitted to the Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in January 2003, with approval pending.

Ethics Education: We would like to improve our ethics education so that it is more directly related to the electrical engineering profession. In addition, the University General Education requires that all students must take a course that emphasizes Contemporary Ethical Issues, i.e., an “E” course. We are investigating how a student could fulfill the “E” requirement with an electrical engineering focus. One option is to develop a new EE or general engineering course that satisfies the University’s “E” requirement and perhaps will address societal and environmental issues too. The UH requirement that these courses be at the upper division (300-level or above) makes it difficult to satisfy the requirement in any other way. Unfortunately, staffing such a course at this time is extremely problematic.

Improving the IAB/SAB Process: The meetings with the IAB and SAB are a major undertaking for the Department which can take several months of planning. The Interface Committee is continually revising the organization and itineraries of these meetings to make them more effective. For example, in past meetings, there were few representatives of design projects (EE 296, 396, and 496) from the Systems Track for the SAB to evaluate. Another example was that the SAB wanted a more typical collection of students to interview rather than the best students. The comments by the IAB/SAB have been noted and are being acted upon by the Interface Committee.

General issues: a) The department chair will make efforts to ensure that the same book is used for a given course if two different faculty teach the same course during a semester. b) The training of teaching assistants is now required by the Graduate Division, provided by the campus-wide Center for Teaching Excellence. The department will supplement this training, including providing ongoing mentorship for teaching assistants. In the past, the vast majority of TA’s have been international students, some of whom have had only moderate communication skills. As before, these students will be encouraged to take courses in English. In addition, language skills have been given increased priority in the assignment of teaching assistantships. In cases where skills are difficult to determine from the candidate’s application, telephone interviews are being conducted. c) The foreign language requirement has been waived for EE students.

71

Lifelong Learning: Life-long learning can be viewed as composed of (i) having the ability to self-learn new techniques, knowledge, etc and (ii) recognizing that a successful electrical engineer must continue to learn. Some of the courses, especially project courses, promote self-learning by allowing students to learn on their own or with little supervision. It is unclear at this time what additional changes can be made to promote item (ii).

It should be noted that EE courses have some emphasis on lifelong learning as indicated in Figures 3.3 and 3.4. Program Outcome 9 is the recognition of the need for lifelong learning, and as shown in the figures there is at least some emphasis of this outcome in most EE courses. Student survey results indicate that students are gaining an understanding of the importance of lifelong learning.

A More Relevant Curriculum: The IAB/SAB would like to see a more integrated curriculum so that students are comfortable using skills from multiple sub-disciplines to solve design problems. Some of our courses do this, but more could be done. The IAB/SAB would also like to see more design oriented courses that use CAD tools as much as possible. Again, some of our courses are design oriented, but the design content of others could be increased.

3.13. Materials Available for Review During ABET Visit

Course Assessment Forms as shown in Figure 3.2, completed by Course Coordinators and instructors.

Course materials including instructor evaluations, examples of student exams and other work for all EE courses.

Exit surveys.

Alumni surveys.

Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior (Capstone design project) reports.

Industrial Advisory Board / Student Advisory Board / EE Department meeting materials.

72

4. PROFESSIONAL COMPONENT

It will be explained how the curriculum devotes adequate attention and time to each curricular component area and described how students are prepared for electrical engineering as required by Criterion 4. An overview of the curriculum is presented in Subsection 4.1, which describes how students are prepared for electrical engineering practice through course work. The curriculum will be shown to have at least one year of a combination of college level mathematics and basic sciences, at least one and one-half years of engineering topics, and a general education component.

At the end of the section there is an explanation of special topics, directed reading, and inactive courses in the curriculum. Inactive courses are not currently being taught and therefore no syllabi or course assessments are provided for them.

Section 4.2 presents the design experience in the curriculum. It is a major component in training students for engineering practice. Design experience comes through course work and projects, and culminates in the senior capstone design project, which is the major design experience. The section explains how the design experience incorporates engineering standards and realistic constraints.

We should note that Appendix I has supporting documentation. In the appendix, Table I-1 has a summary of the Basic-Level Curriculum, and Table I-2 has the Course and Section Size Summary. Appendix I.B has all the course syllabi.

4.1. Overview of Curriculum Requirements

The bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering requires 122 credit hours. This includes courses in mathematics, basic science, engineering, and general education. They satisfy requirements by the College of Engineering, the Department of Electrical Engineering, and the University. In this document they are organized into three categories: Mathematics and Basic Science, Engineering Topics, and General Education. Engineering Topics are further divided into Engineering Required and EE Technical Electives. Sections 4.1.1, 4.1.2, and 4.1.3 discuss, respectively, Mathematics and Basic Sciences, Engineering Topics, and General Education. Section 4.1.4 discusses inactive courses.

4.1.1. Mathematics and Basic Sciences

There are 38 credit hours (over one year) of mathematics and basic sciences which addresses the professional component of EC 2002.

There are 20 credit hours of mathematics that includes Calculus I (basic concepts; differentiation with applications; integration) through IV (multiple integrals; line integrals and Green’s Theorem; surface integrals, Stoke’s and Gauss’s Theorems), and differential equations. It also includes a thorough understanding of probability and statistics in EE 342 (3 credit hours).

73

There are 18 credit hours of basic sciences comprised of general chemistry and a sequence of three courses in physics. This includes three 1 credit-hour laboratories.

Mathematics (20 hrs). The required mathematics courses are comprised of 16 credit hours of lecture and 1 credit hour of lab.

Math 241 Calculus I (4 hrs) Math 242 Calculus II (3 hrs) Math 242L Calculus Computer Lab (1 hr) Math 243 Calculus III (3 hrs) Math 244 Calculus IV (3 hrs) Math 302 Introduction to Differential Equations (3 hrs) EE 342 EE Probability and Statistics (3 hrs)

Basic Sciences (18 hrs). The basic science courses are comprised of 7 credits hours of chemistry including 1 credit hour of lab, and 11 credit hours of physics including two 1 credit-hour laboratories.

Chem 161 General Chemistry I (3 hrs) Chem 161L General Chemistry Lab I (1 hr) Chem 162 General Chemistry II (3 hrs) Phys 170 General Physics I (3 hrs) Phys 170L General Physics I Lab (1 hr) Phys 272 General Physics II (3 hrs) Phys 272L General Physics II Lab (1 hr) Phys 274 General Physics III (3 hrs)

4.1.2. Engineering Topics

The requirement of engineering and related courses is 58 credit hours, which is more than the 1.5 years of engineering topics for the EC 2002 professional component. In this report, they are divided into “Engineering Required” and “EE Technical Electives”.

Engineering Required covers fundamental topics in electrical engineering. It includes 6 credit hours of project courses as an important component to the design experience. It also includes a 3 credit-hour “engineering breadth” requirement to broaden the knowledge of engineering and related sciences. The following are the Engineering Required courses.

Engineering Required (42 hrs)o Circuits (12 hrs)

EE 211 Basic Circuit Analysis I (4 hrs)EE 213 Basic Circuit Analysis II (4 hrs)EE 323 Microelectronic Circuits I (3 hrs)EE 323L Microelectronic Circuits I Lab (1 hr)

o Computer Software and Digital HardwareEE 160 Programming for Engineers (4 hrs)

74

EE 260 Introduction to Digital Design (4 hrs)o Signals and Systems

EE 315 Signal and System Analysis (3 hrs)EE 341 Introduction to Communication Systems (3 hrs)EE 341L Introduction to Communication Systems Lab (1 hr)

o Electro-MagneticsEE 371 Engineering Electromagmetics I (3 hrs)

o Solid-State DevicesEE 324 Physical Electronics (3 hrs)

o ProjectsEE 296 Sophomore Project (1 hr)EE 396 Junior Project (2 hrs)EE 496 Capstone Design Project (3 hrs)

o Engineering Breadth (3 hrs). This is satisfied by CEE 270 Applied Mechanics I, ME 311 Thermodynamics, or a CEE, ME, OE or BE course that is at the 300 level or higher. It may also be satisfied by a physical or biological science course that is at the 300 level or higher and approved by the Department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. The current list of approved courses is in Figure 4.1. Note that the list includes non-engineering courses. As a result, we do not count Engineering Breadth towards the 58 credits of Engineering Topics. In Table I-1, Engineering Breadth is listed under “Other.”

The Engineering Required portion of the curriculum is designed to introduce EE courses to students as soon as possible. EE 160, 260, 211 and 213 should be taken during the first two years of college. Each has a laboratory component, equivalent to 1 credit hour, to supplement lectures with hands-on experiments and projects. All sophomores are required to take EE 296 “Sophomore Project,” a project course of 1 credit hour. It introduces them to EE project activities.

The remaining courses are taken in the third and fourth years. This includes two 1 credit-hour laboratories, EE 323L and EE 341L, for additional hands-on experience.

EE Technical Electives are upper division courses. They are advanced courses with pre-requisites from Engineering Required or other EE Technical Electives. They are divided into three “Tracks”: Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems. The Computer Track is focused on computer hardware and software. The Electro-Physics Track is focused on the EE applications of physics and chemistry, and covers analog circuits, micro- and millimeter-wave engineering, optics, and solid-state devices. The Systems Track is focused on signals and systems, and covers communications, controls, and signal processing. Tracks allow students to explore specialized topics of their choice. The exploration is in depth and yet provides breadth within a track. Students that find the track system too restrictive may, with the help and consent of a faculty advisor, propose an alternate set of electives, i.e., students may design their own track. The alternate set requires approval from the Department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

The EE Technical Electives requirement is 20 credit hours. A minimum of 17 hours must be in one of the major tracks, which includes all courses in Group I (11 hours) and the remaining

75

courses in Group II (6 hours). Group I courses include at least two 1-credit hour laboratories. In the Systems Track, one of the labs is a component of EE 415 Digital Signal Processing. Note that Group I is for breadth within a track, while Group II is for depth. A minimum of 3 credit hours must be outside the major track and at the 300 level or higher.

EE Technical Electives Computer Track

Group I (11 hrs)EE 361 Digital Systems and Computer Design (3 hrs)EE 361L Digital Systems and Computer Design Lab (1 hr)EE 366 CMOS VLSI Design (3 hrs)EE 367 Computer Data Structures and Algorithms (3 hrs)EE 367L Computer Data Structures and Algorithms Lab (1 hr)

Group IIEE 344 Networking I (4 hrs)EE 449 Computer Communication Networks (3 hrs)EE 461 Computer Architecture (3 hrs)EE 467 Object-Oriented Software Engineering (3 hrs)EE 468 Introduction to Operating Systems (3 hrs)EE 469 Wireless Data Networks (3 hrs)

Electro-Physics Track Group I (11 hrs)

EE 326 Microelectronics Circuits II (3 hrs)EE 326L Microelectronics Circuits II Lab (1 hr)EE 327 Theory and Design of IC Devices (3 hrs)EE 372 Engineering Electromagnetics II (3 hrs)EE 372L Engineering Electromagnetics II Lab (1 hr)

Group IIEE 328 (3 hrs) Physical Electronics Lab TechniquesEE 328L (1 hr) Physical Electronics LabEE 422 (3 hrs) Electronic InstrumentationEE 422L (1 hr) Instrumentation LabEE 426 (3 hrs) Advanced Si IC and Solid State DevicesEE 473 (3 hrs) Microwave EngineeringEE 475 (3 hrs) Optical Communications

System Track Group I (8 hrs)

EE 351 Linear Systems and Control (3 hrs)EE 351L Linear Systems and Control Lab (1 hr)EE 415 Digital Signal Processing (4 hrs)

Group IIEE 344 Networks I (4 hrs)EE 442 Digital Communications (3 hrs)EE 449 Computer Communication Networks (3 hrs)EE 452 Digital Control Systems (3 hrs)EE 453 Modern Control Theory (3 hrs)

76

4.1.3. General Education

University General Education has the following requirements.

Foundation: This is intended to give students skills and perspectives that are fundamental to undertaking higher education. For engineering students, this is satisfied by

o ENG 100 Composition I (3 hrs)o Global and Multicultural Perspectives (6 hrs). Example courses are HIST 151 World

Civilization, ART 176 Survey of Global Art, and GEOG 151 Geography and Contemporary Society.

Diversification: This is intended to assure that every student has a broad exposure to different domains of academic knowledge, while at the same time allowing flexibility for students with different goals and interests. For engineering students, this is satisfied by

o SP 251 Principles of Effective Public Speaking (3 hrs).o ECON 120 Introduction to Economics (3 hrs). This can be substituted with ECON

130 or 131.

Hawaiian or Second Language: This is intended to “prepare students to function effectively in a global society,” to “preserve and promulgate Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific language, history, and culture and [to] provide students an education experience with an international dimension.” This has been waived for engineering students.

Focus Classes: This identifies important additional skills and discourses which can be provided through courses across the curriculum. A more detailed description is given below.

There are four types of Focus Classes: Writing Intensive (W); Hawaiian, Asian, and Pacific Issues (H); Oral Communication (O); and Contemporary Ethical Issues (E). All students must take five W courses (minimum 2 in upper division), one H course, one O, and one E course. These requirements can be satisfied by EE and Diversification courses. An example EE course is EE 496, which is also a W course. An example of a Diversification course is SP 251, which is also an O course.

Among the four types of Focus Classes, the W, O, and E classes help facilitate EE Program Outcomes. Specifically, they contribute to Outcomes 6 (understanding of professional and ethical responsibility) and 7 (demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively). The following highlights some of the features of these Focus Classes.

Writing Intensive (W): A W course uses writing to promote the learning of course materials, and provides interaction between the instructor and students while students do assigned writing. It has a substantial amount of writing – a minimum of 4000 words or about 16 pages. Written assignments contribute significantly to a student’s course grade, typically 40% or more.

77

Oral Communication (O): In an O course, each student will conduct or participate in a minimum of three oral communication assignments, which will contribute to at least 40% of the student’s final grade. Each student will receive explicit training in oral communication and will receive feedback, critiquing and grading of the oral communication assignments.

Contemporary Ethical Issues (E): An E course will have the equivalent of one credit hour or 30% of a 3 credit hour course will be devoted to contemporary issues, and a minimum of 8 hours of class time will be dedicated to discussing the issues. The disciplinary approach(es) used in the course will give students tools for the development of responsible deliberation and ethical judgment. Students will achieve basic competency in analyzing and deliberating upon contemporary ethical issues to help make ethically determined judgments.

4.1.4. Special Topics, Directed Reading, and Inactive Courses

Special topics (EE 491 “Special Topics in Electrical Engineering” and EE 494 “Provisional Topics”) and directed reading (EE 499 “Directed Reading”) courses are offered under special circumstances. Special topics courses are typically on advanced topics, to be offered once or twice. In many cases, these offerings become regular courses, and the special topics offering is done as a trial. In directed reading, a student studies a topic under the supervision of a faculty member. This may involve following a prescribed set of reading assignments. There is no regular lecture, but it may require periodic meetings. The content of these courses varies. Therefore, we do not estimate how they contribute to the Program’s Objectives and Outcomes.

A course is inactive if it has not been offered recently nor will it be in the foreseeable future. It is not critical to the curriculum but remains in the University course catalog because it is within the interests of one or more faculty member, who may resurrect it. The following are the inactive courses.

EE 101 Electrical Engineering Skills EE 423 Computer-Aided Analysis and Design EE 425 Electronic Instrumentation II EE 427 Computer-Aided Circuit Design EE 446 Information Theory and Coding EE 455 Design of Intelligent Robots EE 477 Fundamentals of Radar, Sonar, and Navigation Systems EE 480 Introduction to Biomedical and Clinical Engineering EE 480L Biomedical Engineering Lab EE 481 Bioelectrical Phenomena EE 482 Biomedical Instrumentation

These courses are in the category of EE Technical Elective with the exception of EE 101, which could be included in the category of Engineering Required.

Before an inactive course can be offered again, it will undergo major reorganization. This will include updating the contents to the current state-of-the-art in theory, skills, and design techniques. It must conform to the current resources of the Department. It may require a change

78

in the course title, pre-requisites, and credit hours to reflect new course content. As a result, no information, such as syllabi and course assessments, were collected for inactive courses.

To prevent students from planning on taking inactive courses listed in the University Course Catalog, the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee maintains a schedule of “Planned Course Offerings.” The schedule presents the courses that are to be taught in the next three years. The schedule is updated each semester before pre-registration by the Committee, and is posted on the Department’s web site.

4.2. Design Experience in the Curriculum

The curriculum provides design experience so that students are prepared to become successful engineers. The experience has two components. First, lecture and laboratory courses have design features such as open-ended design-oriented homework problems, design methodologies and tools, and design-oriented projects, which may require team activity. They also consider engineering standards and realistic constraints.

Second, there are three required project courses at the sophomore, junior, and senior levels, which are EE 296, 396, and 496, respectively. They provide design experience through project activities. Students select their faculty advisor and project. Projects reflect real engineering problems and constraints. The project experience promotes lifelong learning because new design tools and techniques are self-learned. In many cases, projects will be a team effort, with students from different class levels (sophomores through seniors) and sub-disciplines (computers, electro-physics, and systems). Communication skills are stressed. Each project course requires 30 minutes of oral presentation to the faculty advisor. In addition, the senior design project course EE 496 is a writing intensive (W) course, which requires writing assignments totaling at least 4000 words or about 16 pages.

Note that in the sophomore and junior level project courses EE 296 and 396, students are not required to be completely responsible for a design. Instead, they may participate as a member of a design team, perhaps learning from more senior team leaders. They are expected to learn design methodologies and tools, participate in some phase of the design process, and get hands-on project experience. On the other hand, EE 496 is the Senior Capstone Design. In this course, students are expected to do a major design.

The amount of design in each course is quantified by a “design credit,” which is the amount of credit hours dedicated to design. The amount of design credits is estimated by the course coordinator. As an example of design credits, EE 361 (Digital Systems and Computer Design) has 1 design credit of its 3 credit hours, which means it has a moderate amount of design. On the other hand, EE 496 (Senior Capstone Design) has 3 design credits out of 3 credit hours, which means it is entirely dedicated to design. To graduate, a student is required to have 16 design credits, which is slightly more than a half-a-year’s worth of design. Nine of the design credits are from the Engineering Required courses, while the other seven design credits are from the EE Technical Electives. A list of the courses with design credits can be found in Figure 4.2, which is available to both faculty and students, and can be found on the Department’s web site (www-ee.eng.hawaii.edu).

79

Significant design experience starts from the sophomore level. EE 260, “Introduction to Digital Design,” is a sophomore level course that has 2 design credits out of its 4 credit hours. Its 4 credit hours are composed of 3 credit hours of lecture and 1 credit hour of laboratory. The course emphasizes design methodology, from word problems through circuit implementation using TTL circuits on protoboards. A large fraction of homework assignments (around 30%) are open-ended design problems or cover design methods, tools, and techniques. The vast majority of laboratory assignments (approximately 75%) are on designing circuits culminating in two significant designs, “Electronic Racketball” and “Memory Unit,” that cover 6-7 weeks. The other laboratories (approximately 25%) introduce students to equipment, tools, and measurement and verification of circuits. Computer-aided design (CAD) tools for schematic capture, simulation, and optimization are used extensively in both homework and laboratory assignments. Relevant standards are covered such as standard discrete parts, schematic symbols, and notation.

EE 296 (Sophomore Project) also provides project experience at the sophomore level. It has 1 credit but 0 design credits. As mentioned earlier, a student is not responsible for a complete design. Nonetheless, it provides project experience for sophomores which can help train them to develop better projects when they are seniors. Since the projects are for sophomores, their skills are limited to beginner-level computer programming and analog and digital circuits. An example project is to use micro-controllers in the design of a simple network appliance. For this project, students would self-learn micro-controllers and the associated design tools, such as compilers and simulators. Another example is to participate in a team to design a large and complex system, such as the “micro-mouse,” a robot mouse that can find its way through a maze. In this scenario, a student may help more experienced team members.

In the upper division courses, there is design in both Engineering Required courses and EE Technical Electives. The Engineering Required courses that have design credits are EE 323 (Microelectronics I), 323L (Microelectronics I Lab), 371 (Engineering Electromagnetics I), 341 (Introduction to Communication Systems), 341L (Introduction to Communication Systems Lab), 396 (Junior Project), and 496 (Capstone Design Project). EE 323, 341, and 371 have moderate amounts of design in the form of open-ended design-oriented homework. The homework often requires design tools for analysis such as Matlab.

EE 323L familiarizes the student with the ideal and non-ideal aspects of operational amplifiers (inverting and non-inverting amplifiers, voltage and current offsets, frequency effects), pn junction diodes (current-voltage characteristics), and bipolar junction and metal-oxide-semiconductor transistors (biasing, amplifier topologies, feedback). These topics are addressed in five different experiments over 11 weeks using the laboratory manual accompanying the text by Sedra and Smith.

EE 341L familiarizes the student with concepts in analog and digital communications. There are eight different experiments that are conducted over the semester, with the laboratory complementing EE 341. The laboratories cover the following topics: Fourier Analysis, linear time invariant systems and filters, amplitude modulation methods, frequency modulation methods, sampling, and Pulse Code modulation. Students get design experience by building different systems, varying parameters of the system (e.g. varying the carrier frequency and

80

modulation index for an AM transmitter). Systems are built using simple circuits and simulated via Matlab.

EE 396 is the Junior Project, which is to be taken during the junior year. It has 2 credit hours but 0 design credits. Just as in EE 296 Sophomore Project, students are not required to do a complete design but they must be involved with a design project. It is similar to EE 296 Sophomore Project except it should be more substantial because juniors have additional knowledge and skills from previous course work. Typically, the project will be oriented toward a specific Track of interest to the student. It can be the continuation of a previous EE 296 project or an entirely new one.

The Senior Capstone Design, EE 496, is to be taken during the senior year. This is described in Subsection 4.2.1.

Almost all the EE Technical Electives have some design credits. They are the second or third course in a series of EE courses towards a specialization. An example is EE 361 (Digital Systems and Computer Organization) and its accompanying laboratory EE 361L. It follows EE 260 and in turn is followed by EE 461, Computer Architecture. EE 361 has 1 design credit of its 3 credit hours. The design experience comes from open-ended assembly language programming and hardware circuit design assignments. Hardware description languages (HDL) are used in many of the design assignments. One of the more substantial assignments is the implementation of a single-cycle RISC processor in Verilog HDL which takes 4 weeks. EE 361L has 1 design credit of its 1 credit hour. Students work in teams to use micro-controllers and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to solve simple to moderately difficult design problems. In addition, there is a substantial 4-week design assignment to implement a multi-cycle RISC processor by using Verilog HDL, and the design must be synthesizeable to an FPGA. Another assignment is a 3-week research on an actual microprocessor of the student’s choice, and to give an oral presentation of the research. All laboratory assignments require written reports that have the format of a technical report. This course is a writing intensive (W) course.

Another example of an EE Technical Elective course is EE 473 (Microwave Engineering). It is a senior-elective course in the Electrophysics track that requires EE 371 as a pre-requisite and EE 323 and EE 341 as co-requisites. The fact that EE 341 is a co-requisite helps students to realize that electrical engineering ties together concepts across tracks. As such, a sizeable percentage of students enrolled in EE 473 are Systems Track students taking the course as their technical elective.

The course covers the fundamental concepts of scattering parameters and signal flow graphs in the first three weeks of the semester, and then applies these concepts in design-oriented problems for the rest of the semester. These include passive circuits such as filters, couplers, and antennas, as well as active circuits such as microwave transistor amplifiers and oscillators. Throughout the design process, the students use modern microwave CAD tools such as Microwave Office. Although there is no formal lab associated with the course, students fabricate one or two of their circuits and then measure their characteristics in the Microwave Lab. This is an essential part of the course, as they learn that simulation does not always accurately predict experimental results.

81

Figure 4.1. Engineering Breadth.

In lieu of an in-class final exam, the students are given a three-week take-home final exam that culminates in a significant design that is realistic in nature. For example, in December 2001, the final exam encompassed the following scenario: American soldiers in Afghanistan are hampered from ground-to-ground communications due to the mountainous environment. Readily deployable small satellites are therefore launched into low-earth orbit to aid in the communications. The students were asked to design a satellite transmitter and ground receiver, and to consider an enemy jamming signal (originating from a conventional microwave oven) that was also aimed towards that receiver. The design was somewhat open-ended: the receiver block

82

Engineering Breadth

Approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Department of Electrical EngineeringOctober 15, 2002

Engineering Breadth (3 hrs). This is satisfied by CEE 270 Applied Mechanics I, ME 311 Thermodynamics, or a CEE, ME, OE or BE course that is at the 300 level or higher.

It may also be satisfied by one of the following approved physical or biological science course that is at the 300 level or higher. Note that the courses are lecture courses on specific topics (not directed reading, research, or seminar) and at least 3 credits. The topics must be technical rather than, e.g., historical perspectives, environmental issues, etc. In addition, they must be useful for engineering design.

Biochemistry (BIOC)BIOC 341 Elements of Biochemistry (3)BIOC 441 Basic Biochemistry (4)

Chemistry (CHEM)CHEM 351 Physical Chemistry I (3)

Microbiology (MICR)MICR 351 Biology of Microorganisms (3)MICR 394 Marine Biotechnology (3)MICR 485 Microbes and Their Environment (3)

Molecular Biosciences and Biosystems Engineering (MBBE)MBBE 401 Molecular Biotechnology (3)MBBE 402 Principles of Biochemistry (4)MBBE 412 Environmental Biochemistry (3)

Physics (PHYS)PHYS 310 Theoretical Mechanics I (3)PHYS 350 Electricity and Magnetism (3)

Figure 4.2. Design Credits.

diagram consisted of an anti-jamming filter, low-noise amplifier, gain stages, and the transmitter block diagram consisted of an oscillator and power amplifier. The student had to make design tradeoffs on power consumption, cost, design complexity, all in the context of communication link analysis.

83

4.2.1. Required Major Design Experience

The Senior Capstone Design, EE 496, is the major design experience in the curriculum. It is based on knowledge and skills obtained in previous course work and incorporates engineering standards and realistic constraints. It should include most of the following considerations: economic; environmental; sustainability; manufacturability; ethical; health and safety; social; and political.

EE 496 has 3 design credits out of its 3 credit hours. It may be a continuation of an EE 396 project or an entirely new project. It should be a major effort, often requiring a team. Students typically need less supervision than in the previous EE 296 and EE 396 courses.

There is a substantial communication component to the course. As with all project courses, 30 minutes of oral presentation is required. In addition, it is a writing intensive (W) course. Thus, it has written assignments that total at least 4000 words (or 16 pages), at least 40% of the final grade is based on writing, and there must be effective writing instruction and feedback to students.

An example of a large design project which serves as the basis for EE 496 projects is the UH CubeSat Project, whose objective is to design, manufacture, and test a 1-kg picosatellite for launch into low-earth orbit. Over 60 undergraduate students in electrical engineering (EE), mechanical engineering (ME), and civil and environmental engineering (CEE) are involved, making it the largest multidisciplinary undergraduate engineering project in the College of Engineering. The entire project is run by students (under the supervision of faculty members). This includes project management, fundraising of the $120,000 budget, presentations to sponsors and at international conferences, and conducting design reviews with representatives from industry. The students have had to deal with all of the constraints and experiences of a real-world engineering project, including:

Across-the-board electrical engineering: Students from all EE tracks find that they need to work together, as the satellite combines subsystems in command software, programmable controllers, solar cells, power distribution, thermal sensors, antennas, and RF transceivers.

Multidisciplinary, across-the-board engineering: Electrical engineering students are exposed to other typically non-EE manufacturability constraints such as vibration, thermal dissipation, outgassing, and deployable structures. In a like manner, CEE students learn how to tailor their antenna ground station structure to optimize signal reception and ME students learn how the choice of epoxy affects dielectric properties of the on-board active antenna.

Mentoring: Seniors using CubeSat as their EE 496 project serve as team leaders for the various subsystems. Younger students taking CubeSat for their EE 196, EE 296, and EE 396 projects are mentored by the seniors and serve as apprentices. Last summer, two high school students served as summer interns on the project, working on the on-board gas gauge and dipole antennas.

84

Undergraduate research opportunities: While the CubeSat project is an excellent engineering project, it has also allowed real research to be conducted at the undergraduate level. Phase I of the CubeSat program incorporates an experimental active antenna that will represent the first so-called grid oscillator in space. Two presentations were made on this topic, at the Small Satellite Symposium (Logan, UT) and at the Korea-Japan Microwave Workshop (Yokosuka, Japan). A poster on the thermal modeling of the CubeSat took first place at an ASME conference. In Phase II of the CubeSat Program, funded through a $100,000 award from NASA and the Air Force, undergraduates and graduate students will be developing self-steering antenna arrays for next-generation distributed satellite networks.

Manufacturability: Since the satellite is constrained to a relatively small 1-kg, 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm form factor, both the electrical and mechanical designs had to incorporate manufacturability from the very start. An industrial advisory board was assembled so that satellite engineers could mentor our students on real-world manufacturing issues.

Sustainability: In addition, since the satellite must survive the harsh thermal and radiation environment of an 800-km sun-synchronous orbit, the design had to include considerations for surviving the extreme temperature variations and van Allen Belt radiation.

Economic constraints: The students themselves organized an aggressive campaign to secure $120,000 from industry, academic, and government sources to fund expenses for materials and supplies, launch costs, and student summer stipends. Decisions had to be made between a more expensive domestic launch vs. a less expensive Russian launch.

Political constraints: As a result of deciding with the Russian launch, the students have had to deal with the ramifications of export licensing under the International Trafficking and Arms Regulations (ITAR), as satellites are classified by the US as sensitive technology. Some of the problems with ITAR resulted in launch delays, so the students became acutely aware of how the political environment affected their project.

Ethical: As in any large organization, issues of ethics often came up. As an example, NASA offered to provide summer stipends to some of our students, but only if they were US citizens. When it was found out that a non-US student tried to get his US student friend to submit his proposal, the faculty mentors and student project directors intervened to explain the unethical nature of this act. In another case, a local TV reporter attempted to scoop the CubeSat story from a TV reporter on a different station based on inside information, and the students had to learn how to deal with such unethical practices not under their control.

Health and Safety: In Phase I of our CubeSat project, students learned the FCC safety regulations regarding radio-frequency emissions prior to conducting antenna tests. In Phase II of our CubeSat project, the intended launch vehicle is the Space Shuttle. NASA has required all of our students to study and pass an extensive and exhaustive set of NASA safety exams and safety reviews to ensure that our satellite and its deployables pose no hazard to the Shuttle crew.

85

Social: UH is one of about 20 institutions worldwide that are working on CubeSat projects. As such, our team has had numerous meetings with other CubeSat teams, including those from Japan, Europe, and the mainland US. Such technical interactions also aid in helping our students understand different cultures. Two trips to Japan and three trips to the mainland US have already taken place for the specific purpose of having students exchange technical and cultural information. As a specific example of cultural exchange, the University Space Systems Symposium allowed students from Japan and the US to exchange gifts and cultural colloquialisms after the technical sessions.

Environmental: Although the impact of CubeSat on Earth’s environment is minimal, the issue of space junk is of growing concern within the international space community. Students have had to consider lower orbits so that the decay rate could be faster and so that the satellite could burn up on its own after two years.

Communications: Throughout the project, students held weekly subsystems team meetings. Leaders of each subsystem team met with each other weekly as well. Documentation was archived in the form of written reports and web pages. A preliminary design review and critical design review involving all 60 students and the industrial advisory board also took place. All of these activities reinforced the fact that communication was essential to project success.

An example of a design project with a moderate sized team is a recently completed project on echo cancellation. This was a team project consisting of five students that worked on implementing an adaptive filter to perform echo cancellation. The students first implemented adaptive learning algorithms in Matlab and then implemented the algorithms on a digital signal processing (DSP) chip. Students started with the simple least mean square (LMS) algorithm and proceeded to implement the more complex, recursive least square (RLS) algorithm and fast transversal filter (FTF) algorithm. Students were confronted with many design issues including determining parameters of the adaptive filter (e.g. step size value and order of filter). The students also compared the performance of the different algorithms and observed tradeoffs between error performance and computational complexity.

Students on the echo cancellation project developed communication skills by having weekly meetings, giving oral presentations and writing a final report. Students received experience in working in multidisciplinary teams as each student had different expertise and the project required knowledge of adaptive signal processing algorithms, computer software tools (Matlab and C programming), and DSP chips. Issues such as economics and feasibility of their designs were considered in detail. The FTF algorithm was judged to be the best algorithm, but it was the most complex to implement. Other broader issues were considered and confronted including societal, ethical, and reliability issues. The students worked with Texas Instruments in getting the DSP board. The students found that implementing the algorithms on the DSP board was more difficult. In the middle of the project they had to replace the DSP board with a new DSP board. The new DSP board required additional debugging as it was different from the original board. With the DSP board the students achieved success in the echo generation and partial success in the algorithm implementation.

86

5. FACULTY

5.1. Number and Competencies to Cover the Curricular Areas

There are currently 20 tenured or tenure track faculty in the Department. There are 3 emeritus faculty members teaching regularly, and (depending on the semester) 3-4 visiting instructors. An analysis of our current faculty is summarized in Table I-4 in Appendix I. Faculty CV’s can be found in Appendix I-C.

As can be seen from their vitae, the members of the faculty of this department are highly qualified. All have Ph.D.’s from reputable institutions. Many have extensive industrial experience as well, either as regular employees at some point in their careers, or as consultants. Their dedication and skills in teaching are reflected by a number of teaching awards, and a generally high level of student satisfaction. Most have active research programs, and are involved with professional societies (particularly the IEEE).

However, we have had a very high turnover rate the last four years. Of the twenty-four faculty present in 1999, twelve have resigned or retired. The primary reason for this high turnover is that the University of Hawaii Electrical Engineering salaries and support have not been competitive with industry and other academic organizations. Other reasons for leaving include a high teaching load, declining University of Hawaii budgets, instability of administration (since 1999 we have seen a turnover in every administrative position from Chairman to Dean to VP to President), and the good mainland economy in 1999 and 2000.

We have invested a great deal of time and effort to hire eight talented new faculty members in the last three years, but in order to maintain the quality and quantity of faculty, resources must be expended to boost Electrical Engineering salaries, infrastructure, and the quality of students.

A shortage of faculty members in some key areas, particularly in digital and analog circuits and control systems, remains. We have just received authorization to recruit three additional faculty members, one in each of these areas. Assuming we are successful in filling these positions and that there are no further retirements or resignations, we will have 23 faculty members by sometime next year. It is felt that this is the minimum number needed to maintain a viable program.

A listing of faculty members hired and those that have resigned or retired (together with an indication of the reasons for leaving in the case of resignations) follows.

Tenure-track and tenured faculty hired (Jan. 1997 – August 2003)

Jung-Chih Chiao: Assistant Professor. August 1997. Research: Microwave/Millimeter-wave electronics, micromachining (MEMS) Applications, quasi-optics, optoelectronics, and optical networks.

Douglas Summerville: Assistant Professor. August 1997. Research: Computer engineering, parallel processing, computer architecture, networking.

87

Zixiang Xiong: Assistant Professor. August 1997. Research: Data compression, multimedia, digital communications, image processing.

Audra Bullock: Assistant Professor. August 2000. Research: laser spectroscopy, remote sensing, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), and optical communication. Other interests include bioelectric phenomena and biomedical applications of lasers.

Anders Host-Madsen: Assistant Professor. February 2001. Research: statistical signal processing, and applications to wireless communications, including multi-user detection, equalization and echo cancellation.

Magdy Iskander: Professor and Director of the Hawaii Center for Advanced Communication. January 2002. Research: Numerical techniques in electromagnetics, antenna design for medical applications, dielectric properties measurements, and scattering and diffraction of electromagnetic waves.

Nancy Reed: Assistant Professor. January 2002. Research: artificial intelligence, autonomous agents, cognitive modeling, diagnosis, expert systems, knowledge-based systems, knowledge acquisition, medical informatics, and real-time systems.

Todd Reed: Professor. January 2002. Research: Signal, image and image sequence processing, multidimensional digital signal processing, and computer vision.

Olga Boric-Lubecke: Associate Professor. January 2003. Research: RF integrated circuit technology and biomedical applications of wireless systems.

Victor Lubecke: Associate Professor. January 2003. Research: micromechanical systems (MEMS) for wireless and optical communications, and monitoring technologies for biomedical and industrial applications.

Yingfei Dong: Assistant Professor. August 2003. Research: computer architecture, networking, and security.

Tenure-track and tenured faculty resigned or retired (Jan. 1997 – August 2003)

Douglas Summerville: June 1999. Assistant Professor SUNY Binghamton. Reasons: better educational and research opportunities, personal reasons (originally from northeast).

Kazutoshi Najita: August 1999. Retired (currently teaches as Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawaii).

Zixiang Xiong: December 1999. Assistant Professor, Texas A&M. Better educational and research opportunities, attractive startup package, better infrastructure.

88

Shu Lin: January 2000. Retired (currently visiting Professor at the University of California, Davis).

Jung-Chih Chiao: December 2001. Engineer, Chorum Technologies (startup optical company in Dallas, TX). Better compensation and career opportunities.

Gregory Uehara: January 2001. Director, Silicon Labs (integrated circuit communication company in Austin, TX). Better compensation and career opportunities.

Eun Sok Kim: January 2001. Associate Professor, USC. Better educational and research opportunities, attractive startup package, better infrastructure.

Alex Quilici: July 2001. Former CEO Quack.com. Bought out by AOL, now an employee of AOL (Quack.com was an internet startup company supplying voice activated internet products). Better compensation and career opportunities.

Frank Koide: July 2002. Retired (currently teaches as Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawaii).

Michael Smith: September 2002. CTO IReady (network communications company in San Jose, CA). Better compensation and career opportunities.

Michael DeLisio: January 2003. CTO Wavestream Wireless (Broadband wireless communication chip company). Better compensation and career opportunities, personal reasons (family from California).

Rahul Chattergy: August 2003. Retired.

Average instructional workload of current faculty

Until the Fall of 2002, the normal instructional workload for faculty was two courses per semester plus supervising undergraduate projects and advising graduate students. This is a significantly higher teaching load than is typical at institutions with which we compete for faculty (and research funds), and was a major issue in both recruiting and retention. In the past, lighter workloads were given to new faculty in their first year, junior faculty that were active in research, and administrators such as the department chair that had heavy service responsibilities.

At the beginning of this academic year, course offerings were reorganized to reduce the number of courses taught by pre-tenure and mid-rank faculty members. We are currently in a transition phase in implementing a new teaching load policy. By a vote of the faculty, pre-tenure faculty members now teach two courses per year. The target teaching load for Associate Professors is now three courses per year. The teaching load for Full Professors remains at four courses per year, although it is hoped that three courses per year will be possible in the near future. These teaching loads are predicated on an active research program and an appropriate level of service activity.

89

In the last two years the Electrical Engineering department has offered approximately 30 courses per semester with about 70% undergraduate courses and 30% graduate courses. Lower division courses and required courses typically have had enrollments of between 20 and 45 students. Upper division track and elective courses typically have between 10 and 35 students. Graduate courses typically have between 5 and 15 students enrolled. A summary of course and section sizes is shown in Table I-2, Appendix I. Faculty workload is summarized in Table I-3.

Student advising

Students are assigned to a faculty advisor when they enter the program and keep the same advisor until they decide on an emphasis area around the junior year. At that point they may be assigned to an advisor within their area of interest. Students may also choose their advisor if they have a preference. Advising is mandatory every semester prior to registration for the following semester. Advising sessions consist of checking the student's progress in the EE curriculum, identifying any academic problems, and helping the student select courses for the following semester to ensure satisfactory progress toward the degree. In addition, one EE faculty member (currently Prof. Tep Dobry) is assigned as the Undergraduate Advisor for the department. This task includes coordinating advising, assigning advisors and assisting faculty during advising week. The Undergraduate Advisor is available to all EE students for academic consulting throughout the semester, and typically advises 25-30% of the undergraduate students in place of, or in addition to, advising sessions with the assigned advisor each semester.

With an average of eighteen to nineteen (including emeritus) teaching faculty and with between 260 and 300 undergraduate students, the average number of students each faculty member advises is between fourteen and seventeen each semester. However, the Assistant Dean and faculty that are active with undergraduate students generally advise many more students than the average. We have about twenty faculty members that supervise graduate students. Our graduate student population has varied between 60 and 80 the last two years. Therefore, on average, each faculty member also advises and supervises between three and four graduate students. This is a relatively low student-to-faculty ratio, so that student-faculty interaction, advising and counseling are well supported.

5.2. Department, College, and University Service Activities

Due to the modest number of faculty members in the department, the departmental service load on each member is comparatively high. In addition to the ABET Core, Assessment and Interface Committees and the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, we maintain a Graduate Program Committee, Space Committee, Department Personnel Committee, and a Recruiting Committee. The Computer Engineering, Systems, and Physical Electronics groups meet as committees, to establish research and educational objectives. Members of our faculty also serve as advisors to the IEEE and HKN student chapters, and for the Micromouse and CubeSat projects (most particularly Prof. Dobry and Prof. Wayne Shiroma).

At the College level, members of the faculty serve on the College Equipment Committee (chaired by Prof. Tep Dobry, who also serves as Interim Assistant Dean), the Donald Kim Multimedia Lab Committee (chaired from 1998 – 2000 by Prof. Dobry), the College of

90

Engineering Scholarship Committee (also chaired by Prof. Dobry), the College Computer Facilities Committee and the Undergraduate Student Retention Committee. Prof. Vassilis Syrmos from our department serves as Interim Associate Dean, in addition to serving as Senior Advisor to the Manoa Chancellor and Interim Director of the Science and Technology Division of the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii. Members of our faculty are also active in the development of new programs at the College and Campus level, most notably Prof. David Yun (Biomedical Engineering) and Prof. Audra Bullock (Graduate Outreach Program in Optics).

We also work with the College of Engineering and their outreach program, which connects with high schools and intermediate schools in Hawaii. This program has many annual activities during which prospective students, parents, teachers and counselors visit and tour our facilities. We also visit high schools to give presentations to the students, teachers, and counselors. High school students have also participated in activities and summer programs at the University of Hawaii working in Electrical Engineering research laboratories. The outreach program has an interactive web site: http://xtreme.eng.hawaii.edu/ .

At the University level, members of our faculty have served on numerous committees, including the University Ethics Committee, the New Faculty Orientation Committee, the Tenure and Promotion Review Panel (chaired by Prof. Najita in 1998 and 1999), the Committee on Establishing a Technical Training Program on the Manoa Campus, and the Panel for Review of UH Post-Tenure Review (American Association of Higher Education). It is expected that University-level service will increase further as our new faculty members become more integrated with the campus community.

5.3. Professional Development

The University provides a number of opportunities for professional development, including a mentorship program for new faculty, workshops for the development of teaching skills, and sessions with funding agency representatives to facilitate research connections and proposal preparation. All members of the department are encouraged to take advantage of these opportunities.

Sabbatical leaves are one of the most important means for professional development available to faculty members. Although the size of the department sometimes makes it difficult, we are committed to making sabbatical leaves available to all qualified faculty members.

5.4. Interaction with Practitioners and Employers

The department recently formed an Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) with constituents from both mainland and local companies. The companies hire many of our undergraduate and graduate students. The Industrial Advisory Board also includes several former students who now have successful careers in industry. The IAB meets at the University of Hawaii once each year to evaluate our undergraduate electrical engineering program. We get feedback from the board on what directions they would like to see our program take. This feedback is then used to make appropriate changes in our program.

91

A Physical Electronics Laboratory Advisory Board has also been formed, to facilitate communications with practitioners and employers in the integrated circuit and associated industries.

In 1999 the Hawaii Center for Advanced Communications (HCAC) was formed, which is a multidisciplinary research and education center conducting research in wireless and broadband communications. The Center has received funds from the state and has also started an industrial partners program to form joint partnerships with industry. Since the inception of the Center four companies have joined the industrial partners program: Spirent-Adtech, NEC, Orincon, and Lockheed Martin. The website for HCAC can be found at www.hcac.edu .

UHM Electrical Engineering graduates are highly sought after by industry, both locally and on the mainland. The informal feedback we get from industries that hire our students indicates that those students who complete the degree perform well as engineers and do well in their careers. An informal poll of our graduates in the past 5 years shows that 30% find engineering jobs in Hawaii. These graduates (whether local, on the mainland, or abroad) provide an important communication channel to industry.

Local companies that hire our students include Adtech, SPAWAR, NAVSEA, Orincon, Boeing, Oceanit, Pearl Harbor and others, including utilities and consulting companies in the construction industry. About 20% of our graduates find jobs in mainland companies including TRW, Raytheon, Boeing, ON Semiconductor and others. About 12% of our graduates go on to graduate programs at schools including MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona State, and UHM. Many of our graduates complete a Masters degree while working in their first engineering position, particularly with mainland companies. The recently approved Intern Plus program provides a means for students employed in local industry to complete a Masters degree at UHM while continuing to work. We do not have employment information on 38% of our graduates. The department is working on programs to better track our alumni as they progress through their careers. This includes the institution of the above mentioned Industrial Advisory Board to provide outcomes assessment of our program and updates on the changing needs of industry for engineers.

The faculty interact with the professional community in many other ways. Most are active in one or more professional societies (most commonly the IEEE). Many are active in bringing international conferences and workshops to Hawaii. We also interact with the community through our alumni via the College of Engineering Alumni Association.

92

6. FACILITIES

6.1 Space and equipment for faculty

Electrical engineering has more than 20,000 square feet of space with about 7500 square feet of office space for faculty, staff, and students and the remainder of the space for instructional and research laboratories. Equipment for faculty includes computers and laboratory equipment for research and instruction. We have research labs in circuits, microwave / millimeter waves, physical electronics, optical communications, computers, and communications. Research equipment includes items ranging from a sputtering machine, to an anechoic chamber, to optical laser communication systems. Research laboratories are supported by the University, federal grants, and industry donations. Instructional laboratories are supported by the University and private donations. We have about 4700 square feet in research labs, 2400 square feet in combined instructional and research labs, and 4600 square feet in instructional labs. A new physical electronics lab will be opening later this year in the basement of the POST building.

There are two major concerns about space and equipment. As we recruit new faculty and seek to increase the size of both our undergraduate and graduate programs, we are experiencing space shortages. The Department of Electrical Engineering lost a significant amount of space in Krauss Hall this past year. While have managed (with difficulty) to deal with this loss of space, we will need additional space for newly recruited faculty and our growing program. The second concern is about our ability to maintain undergraduate instructional labs and is addressed in the next section.

6.2 Undergraduate and Project Laboratories

We have several instructional labs to enable our undergraduate students to obtain hands-on experience with electrical engineering principles. These include the basic circuits lab, analog circuits lab, digital circuits lab, communications lab, physical electronics lab, and computer labs. Laboratory sessions are also held in some of our research laboratories (particularly in microwaves and optics). We also have laboratory space set aside for undergraduate projects and design courses. The labs are equipped with a wide range of equipment including computers, spectrum analyzers, oscilloscopes, and facilities for fabricating electronic devices. An inventory of equipment available in each laboratory follows.

6.2.1 Basic circuits lab (Holmes 357)

Computers:1 each Gateway 2000 PC1 each Gateway P5-166 PC1 each PDCS PC

Printers:1 each HP Laserjet II1 each HP Laserjet IID

93

Function Generators:12 each HP 3312A Function Generator or Agilent 33120A 15MHz Function/Arbitrary Waveform Generator

Power Supplies:12 each DC Power Supply, HP 6205C Dual, HP 6236B Triple, or Agilent E3631A Triple

Digital Multimeters:12 each Fluke 8050A or 45 Dual Display

Oscilloscopes:12 each Tektronix 2225 50 MHz, 2230 100MHz, or TDS 3012 Dual Channel Color Digital 100MHz

Analog Multimeters:12 each Simpson 260 or Triplett 630A

Note: The laboratory has 12 work benches. Each work bench has an equipment set consisting of a function generator, oscilloscope, digital multimeter, DC power supply, and analog multimeter. New benches, oscilloscopes, and power supplies are on order. It is planned to install PC’s as funding permits.

6.2.2 Analog circuits lab (Holmes 358)

Computers:1 each Dell Dimension XPS P90

Printers:1 each HP Laserjet III

Function Generators:10 each HP 3312A

Power Supplies:10 each DC Power Supply, HP6205C Dual or Agilent E3620A Dual

Digital Multimeters:10 each Fluke 8050A or 45 Dual Display

Oscilloscopes:10 each Tektronix 2245A 100 MHz

Curve Tracers:3 each Tektronix 577 W/ 177 Standard Test Fixture1 each Tektronix 576

94

Note: The laboratory has 10 work benches. Each work bench is equipped with a function generator, oscilloscope, digital multimeter, and DC power supply.

6.2.3 Digital circuits lab (Holmes 451)

Computers:1 each Gateway P5-166 w/ EPP-04AE EPROM Programmer1 each Tower PC10 each Gateway E4600 w/ 15.7” LCD display (Pentium 4, 1.2GHz, 256MB 133MHz SDRAM) and PC-based logic analyzers2 each Macintiosh Centris 650

Printers:1 each Apple Laserwriter II

Function Generators:10 each HP 3312A

Power Supplies:10 each HP 6205B Dual DC Power Supply

Digital Multimeters:10 each Fluke 45 Dual Display Multimeter

Oscilloscopes:10 each Tektronix 2225 50MHz

Misc.:2 each EPROM Erasers

Note: The laboratory has 10 work benches. Each work benches has an equipment set consisting of a function generator, oscilloscope, digital multimeter, DC power supply, and PC.

6.2.4 Communications lab (Holmes 386)

Computers:10 each Gateway E3600 W/15” LCD flat panel display (Pentium 4, 1.8GHz, 256MB 133MHz SDRAM). Matlab, OfficeXP, Exceed Xwindows installed.

Function Generators:4 each HP 3312A 15 MHz Function/Arbitrary Function Generator4 each Sony/Tektronix AFG310 Arbitrary Function Generator

Power Supplies:4 each Agilent E3631A Triple Output DC Power Supply

95

Digital Multimeters:4 each Fluke 45 Dual Display Multimeter

Oscilloscopes:4 each Tektronix 2232 100 MHz Digital Storage Oscilloscope

Spectrum Analyzers:4 each Agilent E4401B 9kHz – 1.5 GHz

Note: Four work benches are used for the Communication Lab, with an equipment set including two function generators, power supply, oscilloscope, digital multimeter, and spectrum analyzer. The Control Lab uses all ten work benches, where each bench has a PC.

6.2.5 Physical electronics lab (POST Building)

1 each Veeco 4 Source Filament Evaporation System (Refurbished 1999)1 each 4-pt Probe Station4 each Chemical Fume Hoods (New in POST)2 each HP Digital Oscilloscope1 each HP LCR Meter1 each Agilent 4155C Semiconductor Parameter Analyzer (New 6/03)1 each HP Spectrum Analyzer2 each Agilent Precision Power Supplies (new 6/03)2 each Fluke 45 DMM's (new 6/03)1 each K&S Thermosonic Wire Bonder2 each Laminar Flow Hoods1 each Micromanipulator Wafer Probing Station1 each Probing Solutions Wafer Probing Station (New 6/03)1 each Nikon photomicrography system (Refurbished 7/03)1 each Union Carbide Parylene Deposition System2 each OAI and JBA Contact Mask Aligners4 each Ovens/Incubators (New 6/03)1 each PC-based Instrumentation Controller1 each Solitec Photoresist Spinner1 each Reverse Osmosis/Deionized Water System (New in POST)1 each Rudolf Ellipsometer2 each Tektronix Curve Tracer (Refurbished and Calibrated 1/03)5 each Tektronix Function Generators1 each Thermco Diffusion Furnaces

6.2.6 Casual Use Computer lab (Holmes 486, soon to be moved to Holmes 387)

5 each Pentium 4 Processor 1.6GHz, 256MB 133MHz SDRAM W/19” CRT Monitor. Matlab, OfficeXP, Exceed Xwindows, Adobe Acrobat, MS Visual C++ installed.

96

6 each Pentium 4 Processor 2.40GHz, 384MB PC1200 SDRAM W/18” UltraSharp LCD Flat Panel Display. Matlab, OfficeXP, PowerLAN X-Windows, Adobe Acrobat, MS Visual Studio .Net installed.

6 each Sun Blade 500-MHz UltraSPARC-IIe, 256-KB External Cache, 384-MB RAM W/19” CRT Monitor. Solaris 9, Sun Workshop Compilers (C, Fortran, etc.), Matlab, StarOffice, Opera installed.

4-6 each Apple Macintosh G3 500 MHz W/19” CRT Monitor. Matlab, MSOffice installed.

1 each HP C7670A scanner1 each HP 5M LaserJet printer

Other software available through server: Cadence (electronic design), Synopsys (electronic design), Opnet (network modeling), Allegro Common LISP (object-oriented software development), Xilinx (for programmable logic devices), Verilog, GNU compilers, LaTeX, Prolog, Perl.

In addition, we have laboratories dedicated to undergraduate student projects (Holmes 447 and 450), Micromouse (Holmes 408A), CubeSat (Holmes 406 and 412), and IEEE/HKN (Holmes 411).

The integration of computer-aided design has been a major focus of the department in the past several years. Students are introduced to computing very early in their careers (C programming in EE160). Computer-aided design tools including PSpice and Electronics Workbench (Multisim) are used in the basic circuits class (EE211) as well as in later courses (such as EE326 and EE422). MatLab is used extensively throughout the curriculum, beginning in EE211. The use of these software tools in multiple classes allows students to gain a significant degree of sophistication in their use.

Later courses make use of more specialized tools. Examples include Xilinx or Logicworks in EE260, the Cadence software suit (EE328), and specialized routing simulation software from Cisco (EE344). The MatLab toolboxes have proven useful (EE351, EE452, EE453) as has Simulink (EE452, EE453). Students use the SPIM RISC processor simulator to run and debug assembly language programs, use the "mcc" MIPS C compiler to compile C programs into assembly language programs, and design, simulate, and debug digital circuits using an HDL simulator software tool (e.g., veriwell or Xilinx Student Edition) in EE361. They use the Simple Scalar Simulator to simulate the impact on processor performance by changing various design parameters in EE461. In addition to the above examples, more conventional software tools (C, C++ and Java) are in widely used, particularly in our computer engineering courses.

Computer-aided design tools have also had an immense impact on the microwave and optics fields. Freeware available on the web is used to visualize waves on transmission lines and in material media in EE371. Students use the ZeMax or Optica ray optics programs to simulate

97

optical systems in EE372. Microwave Office is used as the primary design tool for designing all of the microwave circuits in EE473.

We have been very fortunate in receiving a major infusion of funds over the past year for the upgrading of our undergraduate laboratories. However, there is serious doubt about the availability of funds to maintain these laboratories in the future. The decrease in support we have experienced over the past several years seems likely to continue, so that the gains we have made recently may be lost over time. We will return to this issue in Section 7, below.

6.3 Space and equipment for teaching or research assistants

Graduate students have access to our research laboratories and have office space. Currently there is about 3000 square feet of office space for graduate student teaching and research assistants. These offices include computers, peripherals, desks, and bookshelves. As we recruit new faculty members and increase the extramural funding coming into our department, our graduate student population will increase. This will result in a need for additional graduate student office space.

98

7. INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT AND FINANCIAL RESOURCES

7.1 Institutional support, financial resources, and constructive leadership.

The University of Hawaii, as many public educational institutions, faces some very serious budgetary challenges. The College of Engineering has received budget cuts for the past several years, and it unfortunately looks likely that this will continue.

With the help of the Interim Associate Dean and the Chancellor, we have managed to address some of our most serious immediate needs (particularly undergraduate laboratory upgrades) to keep our program viable. We have managed to attract two very talented new faculty members this past year and hope to be joined by another this fall, by virtue of being able to make competitive salary and startup package offers as approved by the Dean. We have recently received permission to advertise for three additional critically needed faculty positions.

There are very serious concerns, however, about our ability to make offers sufficiently attractive to fill these positions in the face of continued budget cuts. Startup funding is of particular concern. Retention of our current faculty members is also a potential issue. Although the salaries of most recently hired faculty members are competitive, others are not (particularly given the cost of living in Hawaii). The merit increase system recently instituted by the College of Engineering is excellent in principle and could be used to address this issue, but it is seriously under-funded. The shortage of research support (both administrative and financial) is also of major concern. While the reduction in course load instituted recently in the department is expected to be helpful in retaining faculty, it cannot replace competitive salaries and support. Needless to say, concerns about our ability to make competitive offers to fill our currently open positions extend to our ability to replace our current faculty members should they leave.

7.2 Processes used to determine the budget.

Funds are allocated on a College-by-College basis by the Manoa budget office. Once these funds are received, the Dean’s Office’s first priority is to provide the departments with needed funds for salaries. Faculty/staff/TA needs for all the departments are considered in allocating those funds. Second, recurring costs like phone bills, maintenance contracts, and software license renewals are considered and funds allocated. Remaining funds become the College operating budget, which is allocated according to what the Dean perceives as the needs of the departments. In the future, this last step may become more formal, based on faculty teaching loads, research dollars generated, etc.

Once the department receives its budget, it is presented to the faculty. Uses for the discretionary portion of the budget are proposed by individual faculty members or groups of faculty members for consideration by the chair. Establishing a committee or committees for this purpose (e.g., an undergraduate laboratory equipment committee, a computer equipment committee, etc.) is under consideration, but may not be practical in the near future due to the already heavy service load on the faculty.

99

7.3 Faculty professional development.

There are a number of programs at the campus level provided through the Office of Faculty Development and Academic Support, (http://www.ofdas.hawaii.edu/ofdasH.html). Examples include the New Faculty Orientation Program, the Junior Women Faculty Mentoring Program, the Technology and Teaching Series, the Departmental Leadership Workshop, Conflict Management at the University, and Instruction and Course Evaluation. A new web-based Course and Faculty Evaluation system (CAFÉ) has recently been introduced. All are excellent programs.

At the departmental level, the primary means of professional development is through sabbatical leaves. As the department does not receive funds when faculty members take sabbaticals, these leaves are supported (in the sense of covering the teaching loads of faculty members on leave) either by other faculty members, or (when funds permit) by hiring temporary instructors.

7.4 Plan and sufficiency of resources to acquire, maintain, and operate facilities and equipment.

The laboratories described in Section 6.2 are maintained using departmental equipment funds, as (and when) available and according to need. E.g., new oscilloscopes and workbenches were ordered for Holmes 357, and new power supplies for all instructional laboratories were purchased this year. In addition, a microwave/optics instructional laboratory (tentatively to be housed in Holmes 455) is planned, to be funded by a combination of departmental funds and funds requested from the College of Engineering.

A comprehensive plan (available on request) for equipment acquisition, maintenance, and operation of the Physical Electronics Laboratory has been developed, with initial funding requested from the UH Manoa Chancellor’s Office. Of the approximately $2 million dollars needed, $280,000 has been allocated at this point. After the initial funding, a recharge system is planned to make the laboratory self-sufficient.

7.5 Support personnel and institutional services.

The department currently has three fulltime office staff positions, and three fulltime technical staff (one supporting our computing facilities, one supporting the Physical Electronics laboratory, and one providing general engineering support). Assuming 20 faculty members, this corresponds to .15 office staff, and .05 each computer, laboratory, and general support staff per faculty member. According to the Computing Research News November 2000 survey of CS/CE Ph.D. granting departments (which have needs similar to EE departments), average secretarial support per faculty member among public institutions is .36/faculty member. Computer support averages .23/faculty member. Data for laboratory and general support were unavailable. By these figures, office staff support in the department is approximately 42% of the national average. Computer support is approximately 22% of the national average. The department has been seeking to improve this situation by hiring student aides for our existing staff members, but the level of responsibility that can be assigned to students is of course limited. We have also seen a steady increase in administrative workload in the department, some of which was at one time dealt with by other administrative units.

100

8. PROGRAM CRITERIA

The curriculum satisfies the program criteria for an electrical engineering program. As described in Section 4 (“Professional Component”), it provides depth and breadth across a range of electrical engineering topics. Engineering Required courses cover the breadth of electrical engineering fundamentals, while EE Technical Electives provide the depth.

Students gain knowledge of probability and statistics as applied to electrical engineering in EE 342 (EE Probability and Statistics). In addition, a solid foundation of mathematics through differential and integral calculus is ensured by the required mathematics courses (MATH 241, 242, 242L, 243, and 244).

CHEM 161, 161L, and 162 and PHYS 170, 170L, 272, 272L, and 274 ensure that students understand basic science. The EE courses ensure knowledge of engineering sciences necessary to analyze and design complex electrical and electronic devices.

In EE 160 (Programming for Engineers), students are introduced to the analysis and design of complex computer software by learning and practicing the art of programming using the C language.

Students gain an understanding of aspects of computer science in EE 160, EE 260 (Introduction to Digital Design), and EE 342. EE 160 introduces students to programming language, computation, and algorithms. EE 260 covers logic, Boolean algebra, the binary number system, simple algorithms for computer arithmetic, digital circuits, and the elements of computer architecture. Students learn and derive formulas to count discrete objects in EE 342.

In EE 260, students study systems containing hardware and software components. The course covers a simple computer including its hardware architecture, machine instructions, and machine language programs.

The curriculum ensures that graduates have knowledge of advanced mathematics such as differential equations, complex variables, discrete mathematics, and linear algebra. This is partly accomplished by required courses that specifically cover the math. In particular, all EEs must take Math 302 (Introduction to Differential Equations I) and EE 342. Math 302 covers differential equations, and EE 342 covers probability and statistics.

Students also learn advanced mathematics in required EE courses as they arise in applications. EE 213 (Basic Circuit Analysis II), EE 315 (Signal and System Analysis), and EE 342 ensure knowledge of linear systems in the time and frequency domains, e.g., Fourier and Laplace transforms. These courses cover many concepts in complex variables including manipulation of complex functions and calculation of residues when inverting Fourier and Laplace Transforms. EE 213 introduces topics in linear algebra including matrix manipulation, eigenvectors and eigenvalues. It also discusses state space representations and solutions.

EE 211 (Basic Circuit Analysis I) and EE 371 (Engineering Electromagnetics I) covers first- and second-order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients for characterizing

101

RLC and transmission-line circuits, as well as plane wave propagation. EE 324 (Physical Electronics) and 371 covers partial differential equations. In EE 324 the context is with respect to Schrodinger’s equation, while in EE 371 the context is with respect to Maxwell’s equations. The diffusion equation is also covered in EE 324.

Students gain some knowledge discrete mathematics in EE 342 and EE 260. As mentioned earlier EE 342 covers formulas for counting discrete objects and EE 260 covers logic, Boolean algebra, and the binary number system.

Many EE Technical Electives will also increase a student’s knowledge of advanced mathematics towards a specialization. For example, EE 315 and EE 415 (Digital Signal Processing) builds upon knowledge in linear systems. EE 415 is a course on signal processing that has additional topics in complex variables including the Z transform (Laurent Series). EE 351 (Linear Systems and Control) is control theory course that provides more exposure to topics in linear algebra. Both EE 315 and 415 are Group I in the Systems Track (recall that Group I are the required courses for a Track).

EE 372 (Engineering Electromagnetics II) and EE 475 (Optical Communications) will further a students understanding of differential equations in the context of Maxwell’s equations, and EE 327 (Theory and Design of IC Devices) continue with the diffusion equation covered in EE 324. Both EE 372 and EE 327 are Group I in the Electro-Physics Track.

An example of an EE Technical Elective that is not in Group I and has advanced math topics is EE 473 (Microwave Engineering). It is in Group II in the Electro-Physics Track. It covers complex matrix representation of two-port networks (via y-, z-, h-, ABCD-, and s-parameters) and the manipulation of those networks. Roughly half of the course deals with networks that can be represented via unitary matrices.

102

APPENDIX I

PROGRAM DATA

Part A: Curriculum, Faculty and Expenditure Information I-2Part B: Course Syllabi I-14Part C: Faculty Curriculum Vitae I-111

APPENDIX I-A

CURRICULUM, FACULTY AND EXPENDITUREINFORMATION

Table I-1. Basic-Level CurriculumElectrical Engineering

Semester

Category (Credit Hours)

Course(Department, Number, Title)

Math & Basic Sciences

Engineering Topics

Check if Contains Significant

Design (ü)1General

Education OtherFreshman ENG 100 Composition I ( ) 3Fall MATH 241 Calculus I 4 ( )

CHEM 161 & 161L General Chemistry I and Lab 4 ( )

SP 251 Principles of Effective Public Speaking ( ) 3

Freshman EE 160 Programming for Engineers 4 ( )Spring MATH 242 & 242L Calculus II and

Computer Lab 4 ( )

PHYS 170 & 170L General Physics I and Lab 5 ( )

CHEM 162 General Chemistry II 3 ( )Sophomore EE 211 Basic Circuit Analysis I 4 ( )Fall EE 260 Introduction to Digital Design 4 ( ü)

MATH 243 Calculus III 3 ( )PHYS 272 & 272L General Physics II and Lab 4 ( )

Sophomore EE 213 Basic Circuit Analysis II 4 ( )Spring MATH 244 Calculus IV 3 ( )

PHYS 274 General Physics III 3 ( )EE 296 Sophomore Project 1 ( )FG (Foundation Course) ( ) 3Economics Elective2 ( ) 3

Junior EE 315 Signal and Systems Analysis 3 ( )Fall EE 323 & 323L Microelectronic

Circuits I and Lab 4 ( ü)

EE 324 Physical Electronics 3 ( )EE 371 Engineering Elecgtromagnetics I 3 ( ü)MATH 302 Introduction to Differential Equations I 3 ( )

(continued on next page)

1 Courses with design credits (0.5 design credits or higher) are designated as having significant design. Note that all EE students are required to have a sum of 16 design credits to graduate.2 The Economics Elective is satisfied by one of either ECON 120 Introduction to Economics, ECON 130 Principles of Economics, or ECON 131 Principles of Economics.Appendix I, Part A 2

Table I-1. Basic-Level Curriculum (continued)Electrical Engineering

SemesterCourse

(Department, Number, Title)

Category (Credit Hours)

Math & Basic Science

Engineering Topics

Check if Contains

Significant Design (ü)

General Education Other

Junior EE 342 EE Probability and Statistics 3 ( )Spring EE 396 Junior Project 2( )

EE 341 & 341L Introduction to Communication Systems and Lab

4( ü)

EE Technical Elective and Lab (Major Track)

4( )

Engineering Breadth3 ( ) 3Senior EE Technical Elective (Major Track) 3( )Fall EE Technical Elective and Lab

(Major Track)4( )

EE Technical Elective (Outside Major Track)

3( )

Humanities Elective ( ) 3Social Sciences Elective ( ) 3

Senior EE 496 Capstone Design Project 3( ü)Spring EE Technical Elective (Major Track) 3( )

EE Technical Elective (Major Track) 3( )FG (Foundation Course) ( ) 3

TOTALS-ABET BASIC-LEVEL REQUIREMENTS 39 59 21 3OVERALL TOTAL FOR DEGREE

122

PERCENT OF TOTAL 32.0% 48.4% 17.2% 2.5%Totals must Minimum semester credit hours 32 hrs 48 hrs

satisfy one set Minimum percentage 25% 37.5 %

3 Engineering breadth is an engineering or science course. It either satisfies Basic Science/Math or Engineering Topics but it depends on the course. Therefore, we categorized it under “Other”.Appendix I, Part A 3

Significant Design in EE Technical Electives: The following is a list of EE Technical Electives that have significant design (i.e., some design credits, 0.5 design credits and higher). There is at least two classes in each of the Tracks (Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems) with 3 credit hours or higher that are in Group I. Recall that all of Group I are required for a Track.

Computer Track Group I (11 hrs)

EE 361 Digital Systems and Computer Design (3 hrs)EE 361L Digital Systems and Computer Design Lab (1 hr)EE 366 CMOS VLSI Design (3 hrs)EE 367 Computer Data Structures and Algorithms (3 hrs)EE 367L Computer Data Structures and Algorithms Lab (1 hr)

Group II

EE 344 Networking I (4 hrs)EE 461 Computer Architecture (3 hrs)EE 467 Object-Oriented Software Engineering (3 hrs)EE 468 Introduction to Operating Systems (3 hrs)EE 469 Wireless Data Networks (3 hrs)

Electro-Physics Track

Group I (11 hrs)

EE 326 Microelectronics Circuits II (3 hrs)EE 326L Microelectronics Circuits II Lab (1 hr)EE 327 Theory and Design of IC Devices (3 hrs)EE 372 Engineering Electromagnetics II (3 hrs)EE 372L Engineering Electromagnetics II Lab (1 hr)

Group II

EE 328 (3 hrs) Physical Electronics Lab TechniquesEE 328L (1 hr) Physical Electronics LabEE 422 (3 hrs) Electronic InstrumentationEE 422L (1 hr) Instrumentation LabEE 426 (3 hrs) Advanced Si IC and Solid State DevicesEE 473 (3 hrs) Microwave EngineeringEE 475 (3 hrs) Optical Communications

System Track Group I (8 hrs)

EE 351 Linear Systems and Control (3 hrs)EE 351L Linear Systems and Control Lab (1 hr)EE 415 Digital Signal Processing (4 hrs)

Group II

EE 344 Networks I (4 hrs)EE 442 Digital Communications (3 hrs)EE 452 Digital Control Systems (3 hrs)EE 453 Modern Control Theory (3 hrs)

Appendix I, Part A 4

Table I-2. Course and Section Size SummaryElectrical Engineering

Course No. Title

No. of Sectionsoffered in

Current YearAvg. Section Enrollment

Type of Class

Lecture Laboratory Recitation OtherEE 160 Programming for Engineers 6 20 50% 50%EE 196 Freshman Project 43 0 100%EE 211 Basic Circuit Analysis I 6 17 50% 50%EE 213 Basic Circuit Analysis II 4 19 50% 50%EE 244 Networking I 1 7 50% 50%EE 260 Intro to Digital Design 4 20 50% 50%EE 296 Sophomore Project 46 1.5 100%EE 315 Signal & System Analysis 2 35 100%EE 323 Microelectronic Circuits I 2 33 100%EE 323L Microelectronic Circuits I Lab 4 16 100%EE 324 Physical Electronics 2 34 100%EE 326 Microelectronic Circuits II 1 21 100%EE 326L Microelectronic Circuits II Lab 1 19 100%EE 327 Theory & Design IC Devices 2 18 100%EE 328 Physical Electronic Lab Technq 1 8 100%EE 331 Electric Machines and Drives 1 19 100%EE 341 Intro to Communication Systems 2 35 100%EE 341L Communication Systems Lab 4 17 100%EE 342 EE Probability & Statistics 2 31 100%EE 351 Linear Systems & Control 1 29 100%EE 351L Linear Systems & Control Lab 1 18 100%EE 361 Digital Sys & Computer Design 1 37 100%

(continued on next page)

Appendix I, Part A 5

Table I-2. Course and Section Size Summary (continued)Electrical Engineering

Course No. Title

No. of Sectionsoffered in

Current YearAvg. Section Enrollment

Type of Class

Lecture Laboratory Recitation OtherEE 361L Digital Sys & Comp Des Lab 2 17 100%EE 366 CMOS VLSI Design 1 25 100%EE 367 Comp Data Struct & Algrthm 1 17 100%EE 367L Comp Data Struct & Alg Lab 1 16 100%EE 371 Engineering Electromagnetics I 2 35 100%EE 372 Engineering Electromagnetics II 1 29 100%EE 372L Eng Electromagnetics II Lab 1 24 100%EE 396 Junior Project 47 1.5 100%EE 415 Digital Signal Processing 1 17 50% 50%EE 426 Adv SI IC & Solid State Devices 1 6 100%EE 449 Computer Communication Nets 1 13 100%EE 452 Digital Control Systems 1 16 100%EE 453 Modern Control Theory 1 10 100%EE 461 Computer Architecture 1 15 100%EE 467 Object-Oriented Software Eng 1 19 100%EE 468 Intro to Operating Systems 1 15 100%EE 473 Microwave Engineering 1 26 100%EE 475 Optical Communications 1 16 100%EE 491F Spec Topics: Comp Soft 1 4 100%EE 496 Capstone Design Project 51 1.3 100%EE 499 Directed Reading 7 .43 100%EE 500 Master’s Plan B/C Studies 2 .5 100%

(continued on next page)

Appendix I, Part A 6

Table I-2. Course and Section Size Summary (continued)Electrical Engineering

Course No. Title

No. of Sectionsoffered in

Current YearAvg. Section Enrollment

Type of Class

Lecture Laboratory Recitation OtherEE 602 Algorithms I 1 6 100%EE 604 Artificial Intelligence 1 4 100%EE 607 Advanced Network Algorithms 1 12 100%EE 620 Advanced Electronic Circuits 1 4 100%EE 621 Advanced Solid State Devices 1 3 100%EE 622 Optical Electronics I 1 5 100%EE 640 Applied Random Processes 1 8 100%EE 642 Detection & Estimation Theory 1 11 100%EE 644 Computer Communication Nets 1 8 100%EE 645 Neural Nets & Learning Theory 1 5 100%EE 646 Advanced Information Theory 1 5 100%EE 650 Linear System Theory 1 10 100%EE 660 Computer Architecture I 1 8 100%EE 665 Computer Systems 1 4 100%EE 668 Telecommunication Networks 1 7 100%EE 671 Electromagnetic Theory & App 1 7 100%EE 673 Advanced Microwave Eng 1 8 100%EE 693D Special Topics: Communications 1 1 100%EE 693F Special Topics: Comp Software 1 5 100%EE 693F Special Topics: Comp Software 1 5 100%EE 699 Directed Reading or Research 49 1.1 100%EE 700 Thesis Research 49 .65 100%

(continued on next page)

Appendix I, Part A 7

Table I-2. Course and Section Size Summary (continued)Electrical Engineering

Course No. Title

No. of Sectionsoffered in

Current YearAvg. Section Enrollment

Type of Class

Lecture Laboratory Recitation OtherEE 790 Directed Instruction 16 .31 100%EE 800 Dissertation Research 7 .14 100%

Appendix I, Part A 8

Table I-3. Faculty Workload SummaryElectrical Engineering

Faculty Member (Name)

FT or PT (%)

Classes Taught (Course No./Credit Hrs.)Term and Year

Total Activity DistributionTeaching Research Other

Boric-Lubecke, Olga 100 EE620 (3cr) S’03 50 40 10 (New hire S’03)Bullock, Audra 100 EE475 (3cr) , EE622 (3cr) F’02 50 30 20

Chattergy, Rahul 100 EE211 (4cr), EE331 (3cr) F’02EE351/L (4cr), EE452 (3cr) S’03 80 10 10

Dobry, Tep 100 EE260 (4cr) F’02, EE160 (3cr) S’03 50 10 40 (Int. Assist. Dean)Dong, Yingfei 100 0 0 0 (New hire F’03)Fossorier, Marc 100 0 0 100 (Sabbatical)Gaarder, N. Thomas 100 EE213 (4cr), EE646 (3cr) F’02 30 10 60 (Sabbatical S’03)

Hac, Anna 100 EE468 (3cr), EE668 (3cr) F’02EE491F (3cr), EE665 (3cr) S’03 50 40 10

Holm-Kennedy, James 100 EE324 (3cr), EE327 (3cr) F’02EE324 (3cr), EE426 (3cr) S’03 30 20 50 (Sick leave F’02)

Host-Madsen, Anders 100 EE415 (4cr) F’02, EE642 (3cr) S’03 50 40 10Iskander, Magdy 100 EE671 (3cr) F’02, EE371 (3cr) S’03 30 20 50 (Director HCAC)Koide, Frank 40 EE211 (4cr) F’02, S’03 80 10 10 (Emeritus)

Kuh, Anthony 100 EE315 (3cr), EE342 (3cr) F’02EE341/L (4cr), EE645 (3cr) S’03 50 30 20

Malhotra, Vinod 100 EE621 (3cr) F’02EE327 (3cr) S’03 50 20

30 (Grad. Chair F’02, Emergency class F’02

EE327 (3cr))

Najita, Kazutoshi (emeritus) 40 EE326/L (4cr) F’02EE323/L (4cr) S’03 70 10 20 (Emeritus, Emergency

class F’02 EE324 (3cr))

(continued on next page)Appendix I, Part A 9

1. Table I-3. Faculty Workload Summary (continued)Electrical Engineering

Faculty Member (Name)

FT or PT (%)

Classes Taught (Course No./Credit Hrs.)Term and Year

Total Activity DistributionTeaching Research Other

Lubecke, Victor 100 EE328 (3cr) S’03 50 40 10 (New hire S’03)

Reed, Nancy 100 EE467 (3cr) F’02EE693F (3cr) S’03 50 30 20

Reed, Todd 100 0 2080 (Chair, Graduate Chair S’03, ABET Chair S’03)

Sasaki, Galen 100 EE361/L (4cr), EE607 (3cr) F’02EE260 (4cr), EE693F (3cr) S’03 50 25 25

Shiroma, Wayne 100 EE371 (3cr) F’02 EE473 (3cr), EE673 (3cr) S’03 45 25 30

Syrmos, Vassilis 100 EE453 (3cr), EE650 (3cr) F’02 25 25 50 (Leave S’03)Weldon, Edward 20 EE449 (3cr) F’02 80 10 10 (Emeritus)

Yee, James 100 EE244 (4cr), EE640 (3cr) F’02EE342 (3cr), EE644 (3cr) S’03 80 10 10

Yun, David 100 EE602 (3cr), EE660 (3cr) F’02EE367/L (4cr), EE604 (3cr) S’03 45 40 15

Jinghu Chen 25 EE213 (4cr) S’03 100 0 0 (Instructor)Mu Feng 25 EE315 (3cr) S’03 100 0 0 (Instructor)

Claudio Talarico 50 EE323/L (4cr) F’02EE366 (4cr) S’03 100 0 0 (Instructor)

Masahiro Tsuchiya 50 EE160 (4cr) F’02, EE461 (3cr) S’03 80 10 10 (Visiting Assist. Prof.)

Zhengqing Yun 100 EE372/L (4cr) S’03 25 75 0 (Assist. Res., HCAC)

Appendix I, Part A 10

Zhijun Zhang 100 EE341/L (4cr) F’02 25 75 0 (Assist. Res., HCAC)

Appendix I, Part A 11

Table I-4. Faculty AnalysisElectrical Engineering

Name Ran

k

FT o

r PT

Hig

hest

Deg

ree

Inst

itutio

n fr

om

whi

ch H

ighe

st

Deg

ree

Earn

ed &

Y

ear

Years of Experience

Stat

e in

whi

ch

Reg

iste

red

Level of Activity(high, med, low, none)

Gov

t./

Indu

stry

Pr

actic

e

Tota

l Fa

culty

This

Inst

itutio

n

Prof

essi

onal

Soc

iety

(I

ndic

ate

Soci

ety)

Res

earc

h

Con

sulti

ng/

Sum

mer

Wor

k in

In

dust

ry

Boric-Lubecke, Olga I4 100 Ph.D. UCLA, 1995 8 .5 .5 None H (IEEE) H NBullock, Audra I3 100 Ph.D. Old Dominion, 2000 0 3 3 None H (SWE) H NChattergy, Rahul I5 100 Ph.D. UCLA, 1968 0 35 35 None L (IEEE) L N

Dobry, Tep I3 100 Ph.D. UC Berkeley, 1987 7.3 15 14 None H (IEEE, HKN) L N

Dong, Yingfei I3 100 Ph.D. U of MN (pending) 2.6 0 0 None M (IEEE) H HFossorier, Marc I4 100 Ph.D. U of Hawai’i, 1994 0 7 7 None H (IEEE) H HGaarder, N. Thomas I5 100 Ph.D. Stanford, 1965 2 38 35 None L (IEEE) N NHac, Anna I5 100 Ph.D. Warsaw Univ., 1982 5 15 12 None H (IEEE) H MHolm-Kennedy, James I5 100 Ph.D. U of MN, 1968 0 34 26 None L (IEEE) M LHost-Madsen, Anders I3 100 Ph.D. TU Denmark, 1993 4.3 7 2.3 None H (IEEE) H LIskander, Magdy I5 100 Ph.D. U of Manitoba, 1975 1.5 27 1.5 None H (IEEE) H LKoide, Frank (emeritus) I5 100 Ph.D. U of Iowa, 1966 3 37 34 None L (IEEE) N NKuh, Anthony I5 100 Ph.D. Princeton, 1987 3 17 17 None H (IEEE) H MLubecke, Victor I4 100 Ph.D. CalTech, 1995 10 .5 .5 None H (IEEE) H NMalhotra, Vinod I4 100 Ph.D. Colorado State, 1987 .3 16 16 None M (ECS) L NNajita, Kazutoshi (emeritus) I5 40 Ph.D. U of Hawai’I, 1969 5 44 44 None M (HKN) L N

Reed, Nancy I3 100 Ph.D. U of MN, 1995 0 10 1.5 None H (AAAI, ACM) H L

Reed, Todd I5 100 Ph.D. U of MN, 1988 8 15 1.5 None H (IEEE) M N

(continued on next page)

Appendix I, Part A 12

Table I-4. Faculty Analysis (continued)Electrical Engineering

Name Ran

k

FT o

r PT

Hig

hest

Deg

ree

Inst

itutio

n fr

om

whi

ch H

ighe

st

Deg

ree

Earn

ed &

Y

ear

Years of Experience

Stat

e in

whi

ch

Reg

iste

red

Level of Activity(high, med, low, none)

Gov

t./

Indu

stry

Pr

actic

e

Tota

l Fa

culty

This

Inst

itutio

n

Prof

essi

onal

Soc

iety

(I

ndic

ate

Soci

ety)

Res

earc

h

Con

sulti

ng/

Sum

mer

Wor

k in

In

dust

ry

Sasaki, Galen I4 100 Ph.D. U of Illinois, 1987 .5 16 16 None H (IEEE) H HShiroma, Wayne I4 100 Ph.D. U of Colorado, 1996 5 7 7 None H (IEEE,

HKN) H M

Syrmos, Vassilis I5 100 Ph.D. Georgia Tech, 1991 1 12 12 None H (IEEE) H HWeldon, Edward (emeritus) I5 20? Ph.D. U of Florida, 1963 39 37 37 HI, NY M (IEEE) L HYee, James I4 100 Ph.D. MIT, 1986 0 22 12 None L (IEEE) N NYun, David I5 100 Ph.D. MIT, 1973 10 20 14 None H (various) H N

Jinghu Chen I2 M.S. UH Manoa, 2003 .5 .5 .5 None L (IEEE) H HMu Feng I2 M.S. X’ian Jiaotong, 1998 3 .5 .5 None N H HClaudio Talarico I2 M.S. U of Genova, 1992 7 1.5 1.5 None L (IEEE) M HMasahiro Tsuchiya I3 Ph.D. U of Texas, 1974 22 3.5 3.5 None L (IEEE) N MZhengqing Yun R3 Ph.D. Chongqing Yun, 1994 8 1.5 1.5 None M (IEEE) H NZhijun Zhang R3 Ph.D. Tsinghua U, 1999 2 1 1 None M (IEEE) H N

Appendix I, Part A 13

Table I-5. Support ExpendituresElectrical Engineering

Fiscal Year1 2 3 4

2001 2002 2003 2004 (est.)Expenditure CategoryOperations(not including staff)

121,182 210,952 233,039 233,039

Travel 8.955 8,648 17,275 17,275Equipment 193,039 143,019 115,548 115,548 Institutional Funds 193,039 143,019 90,548 90,548 Grants and Gifts - - 25,000 25,000Graduate Teaching Assistants

99,424 103,027 104,853 104,853

Part-time Assistance(other than teaching)

44,161 70,202 40,000 40,000

Appendix I, Part A 14

APPENDIX I-B

COURSE SYLLABI

Number Course Title

EE 160 Programming for Engineers

EE 196 Freshmen Project

EE 211 Basic Circuit Analysis I

EE 213 Basic Circuit Analysis II

EE 260 Introduction to Digital Design

EE 296 Sophomore Project

EE 315 Signal and Systems Analysis

EE 323 Microelectronic Circuits I

EE 323L Microelectronic Circuits I Laboratory

EE 324 Physical Electronics

EE 326 Microelectronic Circuits II

EE326L Microelectronics Circuits II Lab

EE 327 Theory and Design of IC Devices I

EE 328 Physical Electronics Lab Techniques

EE 328L Physical Electronics Lab

EE 341: Introduction to Communication Systems

EE 341L: Communication Systems Lab

EE 342 EE Probability and Statistics

EE 344: Networking I

EE 351 Linear Systems and Control

EE 351L Linear Systems and Control Lab

EE 361 Digital Systems and Computer Design

EE 361L Digital Systems and Computer Design Lab

EE 366 CMOS VLSI Design

EE367 Computer Data Structure and Algorithms

EE367L Computer Data Structure and Algorithms Lab

EE 371 Engineering Electromagnetics I

EE 372 Engineering Electromagnetics II

EE 372L Engineering Electromagnetics Laboratory

EE 396 Junior Project

EE 415 Digital Signal Processing

EE 422 Electronic Instrumentation

EE 422L Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory

EE 426 Theory and Design of IC Devices II

EE 442 Digital Communications

EE 449 Computer Communication Networks

EE 452 Digital Control Systems

EE 453 Modern Control Theory

EE 455 Design of Intelligent Robots

EE 461 Computer Architecture

EE 467 Object-Oriented Software Engineering

EE 468 Introduction to Operating Systems

EE 469 Wireless Data Networks

EE 473 Microwave Engineering

EE 475 Optical Communications

EE 491 (Alpha) Special Topics in Electrical Engineering

EE 494 Provisional Topics

EE 496 Capstone Design Project

APPENDIX I-C

FACULTY CURRICULUM VITAE

Name Title

Boric-Lubecke, Olga Associate Professor

Bullock, Audra Assistant Professor

Chattergy, Rahul Professor

Chen, Jinghu Instructor

Dobry, Tep Assistant Professor

Feng, Mu Instructor

Fossorier, Marc Associate Professor

Gaarder, N. T. Professor

Hać, Anna Professor

Holm-Kennedy, James Professor

Host-Madsen, Anders Assistant Professor

Iskander, Magdy Professor

Koide, Frank Emeritus Professor

Kuh, Anthony Professor

Lubecke, Victor Associate Professor

Malhotra, Vinod Associate Professor

Najita, Kazutoshi Emeritus Professor

Reed, Nancy E. Assistant Professor

Reed, Todd R. Professor

Sasaki, Galen Associate Professor

Shiroma, Wayne Associate Professor

Syrmos, Vassilis Professor

Talarico, Claudio Instructor

Tsuchiya, Masahiro Visiting Assistant Professor

Weldon, E. J. Emeritus Professor

Yee, James R. Associate Professor

Yun, David Y.Y. Professor

Yun, Zhengquing Instructor/Assistant Researcher

Zhang, Zhijun Instructor/Assistant Researcher

APPENDIX II

INSTITUTIONAL PROFILE

APPENDIX III

ROLE OF COMMITTEES

ABET CORE COMMITTEE (ACC)

At least one member from each of the other committees must be on ABET Core Committee.

In addition to determining the overall departmental framework of ABET evaluation process and its logistics, the primary responsibility of the ABET Core Committee is to do the following: 1) develop the undergraduate educational objectives, 2) develop a mechanism by which these objectives are determined and evaluated, 3) develop a system of ongoing assessment that leads to continuous improvement of the undergraduate curriculum, and 4) evaluate outcomes and provide recommendations to insure the objectives are achieved.

The ACC has the responsibility to oversee the whole process, implement programs and prepare documents as required by ABET. It must prepare and update documents on educational objectives and outcomes, and describe how these meet the mission of the program. It should describe the processes used to establish and review the objectives and the extent to which the program's various constituencies are involved in these processes.

It should prepare documentation that describes the ongoing evaluation of the level of achievement of these objectives, the results obtained by this periodic evaluation and the evidence that the results are being used to improve the effectiveness of the program.

It should define all committees involved with ABET accreditation. Currently, these committees include Assessment, Undergraduate Curriculum, and Interface Committees. Defining a committee includes describing its responsibilities, why it is needed, how it interacts with other committees, and how it fits into the ABET accreditation processes.

After reviewing all the internal and external assessment data, it should provide recommendations to the following committees:

o To the Assessment Committee, recommend performances to measure in accordance to the objectives and outcomes.

o To the Interface Committee, recommend feedback/interaction mechanisms with the stakeholders. Any changes to the constituency list must be documented including the reasons for the changes.

o To the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, recommend changes to be made in the undergraduate curriculum.

A secondary responsibility of the ABET Core Committee is to establish a schedule for completing tasks and preparing for the ABET visit. It should disseminate information about activities both in public and internally. It should document any processes that are outside of the responsibilities of any of the other committees.

The committee will prepare an annual report summarizing its activities related to its mission. The report must include the following: 1) the state of the overall undergraduate program related to the department’s undergraduate educational objectives, 2) document changes, if any, in the objectives and provide reasons for modification, 3) summary and analyses of all the external and internal assessment data, 4) and the recommendations, with supporting reasons, made to the various committees. The report should also include an evaluation of whether the overall undergraduate program is meeting, or failing to meet, the objectives.

ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE (AC)

At least one member (preferably the coordinator of the AC) must participate in the ABET Core Committee.

The Assessment Committee’s primary responsibility is the assessment of the outcomes

obtained from the undergraduate students to verify that the undergraduate curriculum satisfies the department’s objectives.

The committee should consider gathering both qualitative and quantitative data on a regular basis to assess the quality of achievement of each of the outcomes by the students.

The assessments should indicate whether or not the students will ultimately satisfy each of the department’s objectives.

A secondary responsibility is the continual modification of the metrics, methods and procedures used to assess the outcomes.

It includes development of metrics, methods, and collection procedures to insure that the quality of achievement of each of the department’s objectives is illustrated in the gathered data. Continual refinement and modification of the metrics, methods, and collection procedures is expected to be an on-going process.

The committee should consider the recommendations of the ABET Core Committee.

The committee will prepare an annual report summarizing its activities related to monitoring and assessment of the collected data. It should describe how the students are evaluated and monitored in a manner consistent with the department’s objectives. The

Appendix III 2

report should also include the state of the undergraduate program and how it is meeting, or failing to meet, these objectives.

UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM COMMITTEE (UCC)

At least one member (preferably the coordinator/chairperson) must participate in the ABET Core Committee.

The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee’s primary responsibility is to insure continual improvement of the undergraduate curriculum, such that it meets the department’s objectives.

The UCC must consider, and if feasible, implement and oversee modifications in the curriculum based upon the recommendations of the ABET Core Committee. The recommendations will be based upon reports from the other participating committees (Assessment, External Interface Committees, etc) and the overall assessment of the state of the curriculum and the department’s objectives.

Efforts to implement any major changes in the undergraduate curriculum should require faculty and Department Chairman’s approval.

The secondary responsibility of the UCC is to update documents for the undergraduate curriculum. This includes, UH Catalog, planned course offerings for each semester and the undergraduate information on the EE web site.

The committee will prepare an annual report that describes its accomplishments for the year. The report should highlight any changes made to the curriculum, the reasons for the changes and provide quantitative and qualitative data, whenever possible, to support the reasons.

INTERFACE COMMITTEE (IC)

At least one member must participate in the ABET Core Committee. The primary responsibility of the committee is to identify, interface with and get

feedback from the constituencies on the department’s performance in educating undergraduate students. The current constituencies are students, industry, alumni, and community. The committee may also interact with other stakeholders to get input and feedback.

The committee may form constituency advisory boards. Currently there are two boards: Student Advisory Board (SAB) and Industrial Advisory Board (IAB).

Appendix III 3

The committee’s role is to provide necessary logistical support to the boards. To each of them, they should provide the following: 1) objectives, responsibilities, and mission statements, 2) help in organizing meetings and hosting their visit to the department, and 3) developing respective evaluation surveys or forms to facilitate their feedback to the department. The committee is also responsible for organizing, whenever necessary, the documents for the constituency boards. This may include general information on the department and reports on the state of the undergraduate program.

The committee may seek the Department Chairperson’s help, whenever necessary, in financing its activities, such as hosting boards’ visit to the department.

The committee will prepare an annual report summarizing its activities related to its interactions and with the constituencies. It should include a description of how the feedback was sought, and a quantitative and qualitative data of the feedback itself. The nature of the report must focus on the undergraduate program and the department’s effectiveness in meeting, or failing to meet, its objectives.

Recommendations from the ABET Core committee should be taken into account.

Appendix III 4

APPENDIX IV

SUMMARY REPORT TO CONSTITUENTSFY 2001 - 2002

This document summarizes major changes or improvements that have taken place since the last review provided by the Industrial Advisory board (IAB) and the Student Advisory Board (SAB) in Fall 2001. The department has carefully studied the feedback provided by IAB and SAB, and in the context of ABET requirements, has addressed them in the manner described below.

IMPLEMENTED

Based on the requirements set by ABET, and the inputs received from IAB/SAB, the department has established a new set of educational objectives and anticipated outcomes. This is attached as Appendix I and II of this document. The department has also formed several committees so that there is a systematic approach to receiving inputs from constituents, evaluating these inputs, and then acting upon them to achieve an on-going improvement in the curriculum. The committees are the following: Interface Committee, Assessment Committee, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, and the ABET Core Committee.

This past year we successfully recruited Drs. Olga Lubecke and Victor Lubecke. Olga Lubecke’s area is in analog circuit design, with applications in the wireless communications field. Victor Lubecke’s area is in MEMS, and semiconductor devices. They will significantly enhance our teaching and research capabilities in the Electrophysics area. These additions also address the issue of upgrading the analog circuit curriculum as was suggested during the previous IAB/SAB feedback sessions.

We are currently recruiting faculty in the computer hardware and wireless communications areas to further strengthen the department in course offerings and research. We are looking forward to incorporating student feedback in the recruitment process.

Over the last three years the EE dept. has spent roughly $250,000 to upgrade undergraduate instructional and computer labs. We have made improvements by buying new equipment and computers for the basic circuits, analog circuits, digital circuits, and communications labs. Further improvements are needed and we are exploring additional ways and resources to realize these improvements. Although, this issue was part of the IAB/SAB feedback, the year to year improvements in the laboratory infrastructure is subject to the availability of funds.

This past year we opened a new multimedia facility (Holmes 389) with distance learning capabilities to enhance classroom instruction. It is somewhat fortuitous that this room has

Appendix IV 1

capabilities similar to the Donald Kim room in POST building: as desired by the SAB.

Design Your Own Track (DYOT): It was suggested by IAB/SAB that they found the existing track system, namely the three tracks Electrophysics, Computers, and Systems, to be restrictive. It did not encourage students to take other courses that better define their career goals. As a result, the department has implemented a new system that gives the students, in consultation with their advisor, an option to design their own program. A faculty member or a student along with a faculty advisor may propose an alternate set of courses to one of the existing tracks. The set must be equivalent to a track, and then approved by the department’s Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. It is anticipated that this will improve mentoring and provide open-ended career possibilities for the students.

At the present time, our plan is to leave the core EE requirements more or less the same except for the changes mentioned below. However, improvement in the core courses will be worked upon with more opportunities for integration and intra department communication to address the fundamental topics in the curriculum (example: successful co-operation with the Mathematics department in the past).

CE 270/ME 311 requirement: Based on the feedback received, it appears that the usefulness of these courses is somewhat questionable and that a change in these requirements is necessary. Since ABET requires that the students take at least one 3 credit course in engineering which is non EE, the scope of this has now been expanded to include many other options. The requirement may be satisfied through not only CE 270, ME 311, but also any CE, ME, OE (Ocean Engineering), or BE (Biosystems Engineering) course that is at the 300 level or higher. It may also be satisfied by a physical or biological science course that is at the 300 level or higher and approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

EE 342 (Probability and Statistics) requirement: The department will continue to keep this course mandatory for the students. A course such as this is required by ABET. The issue of including Design of Experiments in this particular course was found to be beyond the scope and level of the course.

Design Projects and Communication Skills: EE 296, EE 396, and EE 496 design project courses provide practical hands-on training for the students. The systems track did not have many projects during the last IAB visit and this fact has been taken note of. The department is working on having a broad selection of projects in the future. The development of communication skills, through writing and oral presentations, has been made mandatory for these courses.

General issues: a) The department chair will make efforts to ensure that the same book is used for a given course if two different faculty teach the same course during a semester. b) Training of teaching assistants is being considered by the Graduate Division, and the department may supplement this training if it finds it necessary to do so. A large majority of the TAs are foreign students and they will be encouraged to take courses in

Appendix III 2

English. c) The foreign language requirement has been waived for EE students. d) EE 213 will require the use of MATLAB.

IN-PROCESS

A committee has been formed to study the need to add an advanced mathematics course in the curriculum. The course may include topics from Linear Algebra and Discrete Mathematics.

It is generally believed that technical writing skills of the students need significant improvement. A group of faculty is evaluating the methods with which this can be accomplished.

ISSUES THAT NEED FURTHER THOUGHT

Lifelong-learning: The feedback from IAB/SAB, during their visit in 2001, included ‘lifelong-learning’ as a quality that the students should acquire during the course of their education. This is also one of the objectives of the department. A somewhat related issue that also needs careful thought and planning are how best to make them ‘independent learners’ so that they have the ability to adapt to changing engineering technology.

Pre-selection of students for IAB: It was felt that IAB had an opportunity to meet only with students that were pre-selected by the department. The logistics of how best to implement a random selection of students or perhaps selection of the students by IAB itself needs to be worked upon.

We are exploring the ways in which societal, environmental, and ethical issues may be incorporated in the curriculum.

Appendix III 3

APPENDIX V

UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM COMMITTEEREPORTS

In this appendix are reports from the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC). The report in Appendix V-A is a proposal by the UCC for changes to the curriculum in response inputs from the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB), Student Advisory Board (SAB), and faculty during the Academic Year 2001-02. The report was submitted in May 2002. The proposal was discussed in a departmental faculty meeting in September 2002. Some of the proposed changes were accepted by the faculty, and this is explained in the report in Appendix V-B.

Appendices V-C and V-D have the final reports of the UCC for Academic Years 2001-02 and 2002-03, respectively. These reports summarize the activities of the committee during the year.

APPENDIX V-A. UCC Proposal: May 2002

Proposed Changes to the Undergraduate Curriculum

Date: May 8, 2002By: Undergraduate Curriculum Committee: G. Sasaki (Chair), T. Gaarder, and J. Holm-Kennedy.

1. Introduction

We are proposing changes to the undergraduate curriculum. The changes respond to a report by the Interface Committee (IC) and input from faculty. The report from the IC is an Excel spread sheet titled "IAB SAB F01 Task Summary". It is a list of numbered items, that are comments and suggestions from the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and Student Advisory Board (SAB). For brevity, we will refer to it as the IC 2002 Report.

We suggest open faculty discussion (or forum) about the changes, and fully expect revisions. We recommend EE faculty approval before any changes are implemented. The changes are organized into the following categories (a)-(d). They are discussed in more detail in Sections 2 through 5. Actually, the last category (d) is not a curriculum change but a suggestion to improve the program.

a) Course requirements (see Section 2)i) EE 213 course requirements will include Matlab as a tool.ii) Applied Linear Algebra will be required of all EE students.iii) The CE 270/ME 311 requirement will be changed to a 3 credit engineering or

physical/biological science requirement at the 300 level or higher.b) Curriculum organization and coordination (see Section 3)

i) A student along with a faculty advisor may propose an alternate set of courses to one of the existing Tracks (Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems). The set must be equivalent to a track, and must be approved by another faculty and then by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

c) Communication skills (see Section 4)i) A student must take three EE courses that are writing intensive (WI). At least two must be

300 level or higher. Note that this includes EE 496.ii) The speaking intensive (SI) requirements for EE 496 will be a total of 75 minutes. For at

least 50 of those minutes, the instructor is required to give feedback. In addition, the SI component will be a significant part of the grade.

d) Practical education (see Section 5)i) The faculty should organize a forum to exchange ideas on supervising student projects and

introducing practical experience in courses.

Sections 6 through 9 cover additional topics. Sections 6 is on life-long learning and creativity, while Section 7 discusses ethics education. Section 8 summarizes other issues in the curriculum, and Section 9 list topics that the committee is still considering.

The organization of Sections 2 through 9 is as follows. Each section will have a list of issues, including changes to the curriculum. The "items" from IC 2002 Report that correspond to the issues are listed in a subsection.

Section 10 explains how the changes relate to our program's outcomes.

Appendix V, Part A 2

2. Course Requirements

There are a number of course requirements that should be changed. Many of them are for math courses. For the convenience of the reader, we provide the requirements of the math courses.

Course DescriptionMath 241, Calculus I Basic concepts, differentiation with applications, integration.Math 242, Calculus II Integration techniques and applications, series and approximations,

differential equations. Math 242L, Calculus Computer Lab

Introduction to symbolic computer software for solving calculus problems, graphing functions and experimenting with calculus concepts. No knowledge of computers required.

Math 243, Calculus III

Vector algebra, vector-valued functions, differentiation in several variables, and optimization.

Math 244, Calculus IV

Multiple integrals, line integrals, and Green's Theorem; surface integrals, Stokes' and Gauss' theorems.

Math 302, Introduction to Differential Equation

First order ordinary differential equations, constant coefficient linear equations, oscillations, Laplace transform, convolution, Green's function.

EE 315, Signals and Systems Analysis

Discrete Fourier transform, Fourier series, Fourier transform, Laplace transform. Fast Fourier transform, analysis of linear systems.

EE 342, Probability and Statistics

Probability, statistics, random variables, distributions, densities, expectations, limit theorems, and applications to electrical engineering.

The changes to the curriculum is as follows:

The course requirements for EE 213 will include Matlab. Matlab is widely used in industry for mathematical computation and data analysis. It is appropriate to integrate it early in our curriculum. In the UH 2002-2003 Catalog, EE 213 will be described as "Laplace transforms and their applications to circuits, Fourier transforms and their applications to circuits, frequency selective circuits, introduction to active filters, convolution, state space analysis of circuits." This should be changed to "Laplace and Fourier transforms and their applications to circuits, frequency selective circuits, introduction to active filters, convolution, state space analysis of circuits, Matlab."

Introduce a new 3 Credit EE Core Course on Applied Linear Algebra: We suggest a team of experts (e.g., J. Yee, V. Syrmos, and A. Host-Madsen) identify the best options for electrical engineers with an emphasis that the course be useful to practicing engineers.

In place of the CE 270/ME 311 have a 3 credit Engineering or Physical or Biological Science Requirement. The objective of the CE 270/ME 311 was to provide breadth of engineering knowledge. We recognize technical breadth as worthwhile and that CE 270/ME 311 is useful for professional engineer (PE) certification. However, since PE certification is not required for most EE jobs, increased course selection flexibility is desirable. Thus, we propose to change the CE 270/ME 311 requirement to simply a non-EE 3-credit engineering or physical/biological science requirement. The requirement can be satisfied by CE 270, ME 311, or a CE, ME or OE course that is 300 level or higher, or by a physical or biological science course (300 level or higher).

The following topic is in regards to EE 342 (engineering probability and statistics) and Math 302.

Appendix V, Part A 3

We do not suggest any changes to EE 342 but, as we have in the past, encourage the instructors to include additional practical experiments, projects, and other applications whenever possible: In the IC 2002 Report there were two suggestions to change EE 342: eliminate it or have it cover designing experiments. We cannot eliminate it because probability and statistics are fundamental to an EE education and is required for accreditation by ABET. We cannot dedicate it to cover designing experiments because such a topic is advanced, and in many cases at the graduate level. We should note that EE 342 does cover confidence intervals and t-tests, so it introduces careful data interpretation. Math 302 will remain unchanged. Math 302 is not a pre-requisite or co-requisite to any EE courses. Thus, we considered it as possibly being unnecessary. However, we recognize it as being fundamental knowledge and essential to fulfilling our program's outcomes.

2.1. IC 2002 Report items and our responses

Item 24: Linear algebra as a program elective. [See above.] Item 25: Offer Matlab tutorial course. [EE 213 will introduce Matlab. See above.] Item 4: Statistics apps need modification. [See above.] Item 41: Math and science content too low and linkage to EE courses should be improved . [We are

currently reviewing our math and science requirements. Faculty discussion directed to this will be solicited. Further discussion with IAB and SAB in the Fall 2002 is anticipated for clarification on the specifics of this input. See Section 9.]

Item 12: Consider revision in prerequisites (math/physics) structure. [See item 41 above and Section 9.]

Item 17: Math not always needed where required. [See item 41 above.] Item 68: Make experiment design/data analysis part of EE 342. [See above.] Item 15: Eliminate CE 270 and ME 311 requirement. [See above.] Item 22: EE 101 reinstatement, address communications skill training/EE topic exposure. [EE 101

trained freshman in communication skills and allowed them to explore EE topics. Though this may have enhanced the experience of EE students early on, it is not necessary for a basic electrical engineering education. Communication skills are covered in WI and SI courses, and EE topics are covered throughout the curriculum. Since there is a faculty and staff shortage, EE 101 cannot be offered at this time.]

Item 10: Waive foreign language requirements. [There is no foreign language requirement in the curriculum.]

Item 66: Drop CE 270/ME 311. [See above.] Item 73: Satellite communications course recommended: [A satellite communications course may be

too specialized for a core or track-required offering. It may be offered as a technical elective contingent on faculty availability.]

Item 23: Power and biomed course reinstatement. [Though power and biomed are important topics, they are not necessary for an electrical engineering education. The current faculty shortage prevents the department from adding more power or biomed coures.]

Appendix V, Part A 4

3. Curriculum Organization and Coordination

There are three main issues. The first is that the track system may be too restrictive. We respond by suggesting a "Design Your Own Track" option which is explained below.

The second issue is to reduce the EE Core requirements. We have discussed dropping EE 341 and Math 302, but decided that these courses are too important. EE 341 covers communication theory, which is very relevant in the telecommunications industry. Math 302 covers differential equations which is a mathematical basis for circuit analysis.

The third issue is to better integrate courses and labs. The committee's opinion is that this issue is about implementing courses, and so it is outside the scope of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

Designing Your Own Track (DYOT) Option: The purpose of the track system is to provide guidance in taking courses for professional preparation. Upper division courses should be taken to gain expertise in an area, but the area should not be too narrow. Thus, a track covers both breadth and depth of technical topics. The current tracks are Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems.

However, for a student who has a clear education objective, which does not fit into an existing track, a curriculum composed by the student with an advisor is an alternative. We refer to this as Designing Your Own Track (DYOT) Plan. A DYOT Plan must be equivalent to one of the three tracks. To apply for a DYOT Plan, a student along with a faculty advisor must submit a proposal that explains the DYOT Plan and why it is equivalent to an existing track. It must be endorsed by an additional faculty and approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

3.1. IC 2002 Report items and our responses

Item 48: Link track system to career possibilities, provide mentoring. [To be addressed with IAB members at the F2002 meeting.]

Item 11: Track format restrictive. [See above. In addition, this topic is appropriate for the next IAB meeting (F2002).]

Item 26: Tighter integration of lab experiments with course lecture/timing. [See above.] Item 36: Curriculum should be more flexible to allow students to specialize in areas that cross track

boundaries. [See above.] Item 39: More cohesion in curriculum to reinforce use of engineering skills learned in courses . [We

are still considering this issue. See Section 9.] Item 42: Content is too low and linkage between EE courses should be improved. [This input

requires further discussion and some clarification. Which course(s), what linkage is most desirable? How should linkages of appropriate courses best be executed? …]

Item 72: Increase program flexibility (less core?). [See above.]

Appendix V, Part A 5

4. Communication Skills

Our students should be able to communicate effectively. We suggest two changes to improve the training.

Three EE courses must be WI courses and at least two must be 300 level or higher (this includes EE 496). EE courses that are WI provide the best training for written communication. Currently, there are no requirements on the number of EE courses that must be WI.

Improve speaking intensive (SI) requirements for EE 496. The oral communication requirement for our curriculum is SP 251 and three speaking intensive (SI) courses, and in particular EE 296, EE 396, and EE 496. SI means 30 minutes of oral presentation.

We believe that getting feedback about an assignment is vital, and incorporating the feedback into the next assignment is just as vital. The current SI requirement does not guarantee this training. Toward this end we propose the following SI requirement for EE 496: A student must give three presentations, each a minimum of 25 minutes. The first two presentations must include 3-5 minutes of technical dialog (e.g., questions and answers about the design, related issues, and background information). The instructor must provide feedback on these two presentations and the technical dialog. The speaking component must be a significant portion of the grade.

The following is an example format: 1. Design review -- 25 minutes of presentation that can be informal. The instructor should provide

feedback to improve technical presentation and dialog skills.2. Progress report -- 25 minutes, and similar to the format for the design review. The instructor should

note whether any improvement was made.3. Final Presentation -- 25 minutes of formal presentation. A formal PowerPoint presentation is

suitable for the final presentation with hard copy being distributed to peers. The instructor should note whether a student has sufficient technical presentation and dialog skills.

Presentation evaluation forms that have SI objectives may be used to identify speaker weaknesses. Peer evaluation is strongly encouraged, e.g., oral feedback on what worked well and what did not.

4.1. IC 2002 Report items and our responses

Item 8: Student communication skills needed/integrated with dialog re design problems . [See above for a partial solution. We are still considering this issue. See Section 9.]

Item 9: Technical writing course absent. [See above on WI requirements.] Item 76: Formal day of presentations for senior projects recommended. [This may be logistically

impossible with our current staffing. However, the changes to the SI requirement for EE 496 may satisfy this comment. In addition, we started a UH EE Design Contest which has students presenting their EE x96 projects to be judged by industry people.]

Appendix V, Part A 6

5. Practical Education

There were a number of suggestions in the IC 2002 Report to make our curriculum more useful to a practicing engineer. The main suggestions were (i) make the courses/labs more design oriented; (ii) have students use state-of-the art tools such as CAD tools; (iii) more exposure to practical engineering issues such as trade-offs, applications, and open-ended problems.

To a large extent our project courses EE 296, 396, and 496 provide this experience, especially EE 496. For many of our lecture courses, it is difficult to cover significant design experience because of time limitations. These lecture courses necessarily spend most of their time covering fundamental principles and techniques.

The following suggestion may help to improve practical experience.

Provide a forum for faculty to share ideas about practical education. This forum would facilitate sharing information among faculty about how to manage student projects and introduce additional practical experience. This can be in the form of a web site or a meeting once a semester. However, this suggestion goes beyond the scope of this committee.

5.1. IC 2002 Report items and our responses

Item 29: Make labs design oriented. [We need to take inventory on our labs and determine if they should have more design. See Section 9.]

Item 51: Hands on experience with CAD tools needed. [We need to document the labs that use CAD tools. See Section 9.]

Item 52: Exposure to packaging technology, performance, reliability. [Performance is a topic many courses will cover. Reliability could be covered better and is perhaps something that could be discussed further. Packaging seems very specialized. Perhaps it can be touched upon in an EM or circuits course (e.g., EE 371 or 323) as an example or application.]

Item 5: Course architecture, practical problem re design tradeoffs needed. [See above.] Items 75 and 71: Increase quality of projects. [See above.] Item 13: Some courses/theory emphasized, need practical features. [See above.] Item 18: More applications needed/application driven courses suggested. [See above.] Item 6: Realistic sample problems/open ended with tradeoffs. [See above.]

Appendix V, Part A 7

6. Life-Long Learning and Creative Reasoning

There are two aspects to life-long learning. The first is the ability to self-learn. This is exercised in our project courses EE 296, 396, and 496 and selected lecture courses that are project oriented. Students are often given tasks where they self-learn new tools, techniques and concepts and apply them towards creating their own designs.

The second aspect of life-long learning is the recognition that people, and especially engineers, must continually update themselves. This topic is under further consideration. See Section 9.

The ability to be creative and original is also important. Again, project courses such as EE 296, 396, and 496 allow students to exercise their ability to pose and solve design problems.

6.1. IC 2002 Report items and our responses

Item 35: Curriculum should aim to develop creative reasoning and imaginative thought. [This is partially addressed in our project courses. See Section 9.]

Appendix V, Part A 8

7. Ethics Education

Our ethics education is covered in EE 211 and EE 496 . EE 211 has two lecture periods that provide an overview of ethics in engineering. An EE 496 design project should include ethical aspects of the problem. In addition, the University of Hawaii General Education requires all students take a course with a contemporary ethical issues component. Appropriate courses will involve significant readings on and discussion of contemporary ethical issues.

7.1. IC 2002 Report items and our responses

Item 46: Inadequate overall view of engineering as a responsibility in the Dept's mission statement. [This is out of the scope of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.]

Item 7: Where is ethics best taught? [In our EE curriculum, it's covered in EE 211 and EE 496. However, we still want to improve the ethics education in our curriculum. See Section 9]

Appendix V, Part A 9

8. Other Issues That We Addressed

The following are items from the IC 2002 Report that we addressed.

Item 60: Advising process should be less confusing for first year students. [This an issue for the College of Engineering since they advise the first semester.]

Item 64: Absence of design projects in systems track. [This comment is attributed to the fact that the systems track did not have a demo during the IAB visit. Thus, this is not an issue for the UCC.]

Item 19: Student oversight on course content. [Students can input their thoughts in the course evaluations at the end of each semester. In addition, the Student Advisor Board is another venue for students to make their views known.]

Item 14: Reduce overall course load. [Currently our course load is 121 credit hours. This includes 6 credits of EE x96. Thus, the total number of class/lab credit hours is 115. That averages to less that 15 credit hours per semester for four years. This is a reasonable course load that still insures that all graduates are well trained to successfully participate in the work force.]

Item 57: Physical electronics lab should be used. [This is an issue for the Department Chairman, not the UCC.]

Item 65: Analog IC design curriculum needs upgrading. [We agree, but our first step is to hire qualified faculty who can do this. We are in the process of faculty recruiting this semester Spring 2002. Our highest priority is to find faculty who can teach circuits and computers.]

Item 69: What is the objective of computer engineering? [There is a Computer Engineering Task Force (lead by Magdy Iskander) which should provide a better picture of computer engineering.]

Item 59: Classes too large, should be max 15-20 students per class . [This is not an issue for the UCC.]

Appendix V, Part A 10

9. Issues To Be Considered Further

The following are issues that are still under consideration.

The curriculum should be integrated better. There are two types of integration.

Technical dialog training. Our students should improve their abilities to conduct dialog about technical subjects. We partially addressed this by improving the SI requirements of EE 496.

Curriculum should be more design oriented, especially laboratories. We need to reevaluate how we determine sufficient design experience. Currently we require that a student have 16 design credits. However, the assignment of those credits to courses should be more clearly defined and motivated. In addition, why is 16 design credits necessary? Why not 12 or 20?

More experience with CAD tools. We need to take inventory on how our courses take advantage of CAD tools. We may have a sufficient amount of CAD experience.

Recognition of life-long learning. Our students should recognize that life-long learning is important. We are unsure how to accomplish this in a meaningful way.

More ethics. Our ethics education is somewhat minimal, but it is unclear how we can improve it.

9.1. IC 2002 Report items that we are still considering

Item 1: UH EE students inferior with respect to concept command. Item 62: Should there be a minimum standard for students, gateway exam?

Appendix V, Part A 11

10. Program Outcomes

All graduates of the Electrical Engineering Program are expected to have:

1. Knowledge of probability and statistics, including examples relevant to Electrical Engineering (program criteria). Knowledge of mathematics through differential and integral calculus, basic sciences, and engineering sciences necessary to analyze and design complex devices and systems containing hardware and software (program criteria and 3a). Knowledge of advanced mathematics, including differential equations (program criteria).

2. Demonstrated an ability to design and conduct experiments, as well as to interpret data (3b).

3. Demonstrated an ability to design a system or component that meets a specified need (3c).

4. Demonstrated an ability to function in a multi-disciplinary team (3d).

5. Demonstrated an ability to identify, formulate and solve electrical engineering problems (3e).

6. Understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (3f).

7. Demonstrated an ability to communicate effectively (written and oral) (3g). The changes described in Section 4 should improve this outcome.

8. Demonstrated an understanding of the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context (3h).

9. Recognition of the need for life-long learning (3i).

10. Demonstrated a knowledge of contemporary issues (3j).

11. Demonstrated an ability to use the techniques, skills, and modern tools necessary for engineering practice (3k).

Appendix V, Part A 12

APPENDIX V-B. UCC Report on Curriculum Changes: September 2002

MEMORANDUM

To: EE FacultyFrom: Galen Sasaki, Chairman of

Undergraduate Curriculum CommitteeSubject: Undergraduate Curriculum Changes, Results of Faculty

Meeting on 9/16/02Date: 9/22/02

Hi folks,

This memo summarizes our EE faculty meeting on 9/16/02 (tuesday) on the proposed changes to the undergraduate curriculum by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC). The following were the proposed changes, and the results of our discussion.

Change #1. EE 213 course requirements will include Matlab as a tool:

In particular, the UH Course Catalog description of EE 213 should be changed.

The current description in the 2002-03 UH Catalog: "Laplace transforms and their applications to circuits, Fourier transforms and their applications to circuits, frequency selective circuits, introduction to active filters, convolution, state space analysis of circuits."

The new description: "Laplace and Fourier transforms and their applications to circuits, frequency selective circuits, introduction to active filters, convolution, state space analysis of circuits, use of Matlab."

This was approved

Change #2. Agree in principle to determine if linear algebra and or discrete math should be required of all EE students (i.e., be part of the EE core). They should determine how best to implement it, e.g., by Dept of Mathematics or by developing new EE courses. They may provide one or more options for the faculty consider.

This was approved.

Note: Anders has agreed to lead the study. He is the chair of the Applied Linear Algebra and Discrete Math Committee, whose members include Audra Bullock (representing EP), Nancy Reed (representing computers), and Tony Kuh (representing Systems).

Change #3. The CE 270/ME 311 requirement should be relaxed to a 3 credit non-EE engineering or physical/biological science requirement at the 300 level or higher.

The EE 270/ME 311 requirement has been amended to the following

Appendix V, Part B 13

"An EE student is required to take a non-EE 3-credit engineering course. The requirement may be satisfied by CE 270, ME 311, or a CE, ME, OE, or BE course that is at the 300 level or higher. It may also be satisfied by a physical or biological science course that is at the 300 level or higher and approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee."

The amendment was approved.

Change #4. Design Your Own Track (DYOT)

"A faculty member or a student along with a faculty advisor may propose an alternate set of courses to one of the existing tracks (Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems). The set must be equivalent to a track, and must be endorsed by another faculty and then approved by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee."

This was approved.

Change #5. A student must take three EE courses that are writing intensive (WI). At least two must be 300 level or higher.

During the meeting, it was agreed that a study is needed to determine how to improve the writing skills of our students. Audra has volunteered to look into this.

Change #6. The speaking intensive (SI) requirements for EE 496 will be a total of 75 minutes. For at least 50 of those minutes, the instructor is required to give feedback. In addition, the SI component will be a significant part of the grade.

It was agreed that this needs further study. The main drawback is that this requirement may be too intrusive (restrictive) on how a faculty manages his/her project courses.

Mahalo

Please join me in thanking Anders and Audra for graciously volunteering to study the issues of advanced math requirements and improving writing skills. We should also thank Nancy, Tony, and (again) Audra for agreeing to help Anders and to provide input from the computer, systems, and EP perspectives.

Appendix V, Part B 14

APPENDIX V-C. UCC Final Report: Academic Year 2001-02

Undergraduate Curriculum Committee: Final Report

May 26, 2002

Committee Members: Tom Gaarder, Jim Holm-Kennedy, Galen Sasaki, Chairperson and author of this report.

The purpose of this report is to summarize the activities of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) for the academic year 2002-03. The activities and responsibilities of the UCC are given in the ABET-System Organization document (submitted around December 19, 2001 by V. Malhotra). For the convenience of the reader, it is given below:

At least one member (preferably the coordinator/chairperson) must participate in the ABET Core Committee.

The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee’s primary responsibility is to insure continual improvement of the undergraduate curriculum, such that it meets the department’s objectives.

The UCC must consider, and if feasible, implement and oversee modifications in the curriculum based upon the recommendations of the ABET Core Committee. The recommendations will be based upon reports from the other participating committees (Assessment, External Interface Committees, etc) and the overall assessment of the state of the curriculum and the department’s objectives.

Efforts to implement any major changes in the undergraduate curriculum should require faculty and Department Chairman’s approval.

The secondary responsibility of the UCC is to update documents for the undergraduate curriculum. This includes, UH Catalog, planned course offerings for each semester and the undergraduate information on the EE web site.

The committee will prepare an annual report that describes its accomplishments for the year. The report should highlight any changes made to the curriculum, the reasons for the changes and provide quantitative and qualitative data, whenever possible, to support the reasons.

To fulfill these responsibilities we did the following. First, as chairperson, I attended all ABET Core Committee meetings, which were every week or every other week. Second, we proposed changes in response to the inputs of the ABET Core Committee, Interface Committee (IC), and the faculty. We got our input from the IC in the form of an Excel spread sheet titled "IAB SAB F01 Task Summary". It is a list of numbered items that are comments and suggestions from the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and Student Advisory Board (SAB). For brevity, we will refer to it as the IC 2002 Report. The report was received at the end of February.

Appendix V, Part C 15

We commenced study of the curriculum at the beginning of March, completed a proposal for curriculum changes at the beginning of May, and attempted to get EE faculty approval during the week of May 14. However, we were unsuccessful in getting any changes approved. This is described in more detail in Section 1.

Third, we improved and updated the documents describing the curriculum. This is described in Section 2.

We should note that we started a UH EE Design Contest for our undergraduates. Teams of students may enter a design. The design must fulfill a design project requirement, i.e., EE 296, EE 396, and EE 496. There was a workshop held on May 4, 2002 in Holmes Hall with four teams giving presentations before judges from industry. There were industry sponsors that provided cash prizes (totaling $2000) and judges for the judging team. The contest allowed us to get feedback from industry about our design projects, and to exchange ideas about projects between faculty.

1. Proposed Curriculum Changes

As stated earlier, we commenced study of the curriculum at the beginning of March. We had two meetings, spaced one week apart, to go over all the items in IC 2002 Report. We tried to answer each item as best we could.

From mid-March until around April 6 (about 3 weeks), we put together a draft of a proposal for changes to the curriculum. Since we had a short time frame, we focused on changes that would be easier to get faculty approval. We had a version of the draft by approximately April 6. However, it was not ready for distribution (not easy to read), so we polished it for another two weeks. Around April 26, we submitted it to the ABET Core Committee for review. After approval by the ABET Core, we submitted it to the EE faculty around May 6. This version of the proposal is titled "UCC Proposal May 6" which can be found in the ABET-UHEE Intranets site. For the convenience of the reader, the following is a summary of the proposed changes:

a) Course requirementsi) EE 213 course requirements will include Matlab as a tool.ii) Applied Linear Algebra will be required of all EE students.iii) The CE 270/ME 311 requirement will be changed to a 3 credit engineering or

physical/biological science requirement at the 300 level or higher.b) Curriculum organization and coordination

i) Design Your Own Track (DYOT): A student along with a faculty advisor may propose an alternate set of courses to one of the existing Tracks (Computers, Electro-Physics, and Systems). The set must be equivalent to a track, and must be approved by another faculty and then by the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee.

c) Communication skillsi) A student must take three EE courses that are writing intensive (WI). At least two must be

300 level or higher. Note that this includes EE 496.ii) The speaking intensive (SI) requirements for EE 496 will be a total of 75 minutes. For at

least 50 of those minutes, the instructor is required to give feedback. In addition, the SI component will be a significant part of the grade.

d) Practical education [Note: this is not a curriculum change but a vehicle to improve our advising and instruction]i) The faculty should organize a forum to exchange ideas on supervising student projects and

introducing practical experience in courses.

Appendix V, Part C 16

We had an EE Department faculty meeting on May 14, 4:30 pm to discuss the proposal, with another meeting scheduled on May 16 to decide on approval. In attendance at the May 14 meeting was W. Shiroma, K. Najita, A. Host-Madsen, T. Dobry, A. Kuh, T. Gaarder, and myself. I gave a power-point presentation explaining the changes. The meeting lasted for around 2 hours.

The faculty in attendance had some concerns about the proposal. Next is a summary of these concerns. First, it was unclear why Applied Linear Algebra should be EE core, so it was decided that further study be done which should include at least a syllabus. The new SI requirements for EE 496 were viewed as too restrictive. The requirement of 3 WI EE courses seemed to be infeasible, so it was decided to study further how to implement it.

The following proposed changes were approved subject to minor modifications. EE 213 should include Matlab in its course description. Design Your Own Track should require one less faculty approval (though it would still require UCC approval). The ME 311/CE 270 requirement should be loosened to any CE, ME, or OE engineering 300 level (or higher) course because this is consistent with the purpose of "engineering breadth." However, it should not include physical and biological sciences.

Later there were objections to these modifications because the turnout at meeting was too small to get a majority approval by the EE faculty. Therefore, it was suggested that any approval be postponed until the next academic year. There were no further meetings on the proposal and none of the changes were approved.

2. Curriculum Documents

We improved and updated the curriculum documents. There were three sets of documents. The first set is for the University of Hawaii Course Catalog 2002-2003. This was done in October 2001. We collected updates on course descriptions. Jim and Tom got updates for EP and Systems courses. I updated the "Undergraduate Study" in the catalog (for reference see page 217 in the current 2001-02 catalog. This description has been changed). The updates were significant.

The second set of documents were for the EE web site on Advising Information. They were the 3 Year Plan of Course Offerings, the Curriculum Flow Chart, and Curriculum Description. They were all updated (with significant updates) and reformatted. The 3 Year Plan was formatted into an Excel spread sheet so that it can be easily updated. The Curriculum Flow Chart was formatted as a Word document for the same reason. (Earlier it was formatted as a bit-map making it virtually impossible to change.) The Curriculum Description was rewritten to better explain the curriculum and provide web links to other information. These documents were updated at the end of every semester. They have been organized into a Windows folder for the next UCC chairperson.

The third set of documents is a sample of a course description that may be used in our next ABET report. Jim requested that we use the syllabi from the University of Illinois Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering as a model. This has been accomplished May 26, 2002 for the course EE 361 and has been uploaded onto the ABET-UHEE Intranets site.

Appendix V, Part C 17

APPENDIX V-D. UCC Final Report: Academic Year 2002-03

MEMORANDUM

TO: Todd Reed, Dept ChairFROM: Galen Sasaki, UCC ChairSUBJECT: Final Report of UCC Activities for the Academic Year 2002-03DATE: May 8, 2003CC: T. Gaarder, A. Kuh, and T. Gaarder

This memo summarizes the activities for the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (UCC) for the Academic Year 2002-03.

Members:

The UCC members were Tom Gaarder, Tony Kuh, Wayne Shiroma, and myself. Tom served in Fall 2002 but left on sabbatical in 2003. Tony took his place in Spring 2003. Wayne and I served for the whole year. Note that the membership had representation from all three tracks: Computers, EP, and Systems.

Activities:

A. Curriculum Changes

The UCC proposed a number of curriculum changes at the end of Spring 2002. They were discussed at a faculty meeting at the end of the semester, but there were not enough faculty to vote on whether to accept the changes.

The UCC discussed the proposed changes again at the beginning of Fall 2002. The following is a summary of the proposed changes.

1. EE 213 should require Matlab as a design tool: This was approved.2. Applied linear algebra should be required of all EE students: The EE faculty wanted more

details about how this would be implemented. Currently, Anders Host-Madsen is working on this and is having discussions with the Math Department.

3. The CE 270/ ME 311 requirement should be broadened to a 3 credit engineering or physical/biological science requirement at the 300 level or higher: This was approved. The UCC followed up by providing a list of non-EE courses that will satisfy the requirement.

4. A student along with a faculty advisor can propose an alternate set of courses to the current Tracks (Computers, EP, Systems). This is known as Design Your Own Track: This was approved.

5. A student must take three EE courses that are writing intensive (W), which includes EE 496. This requires that the Department require a certain number of EE courses to be designated as WI: This was rejected. However, the University requires five writing intensive courses to graduate. Audra Bullock volunteered to study how the writing intensive requirements can be implemented within our Department. I believe there is a proposal to start a writing center within the college. This will help students become better writers. However, it’s unclear how this will completely solve the writing intensive requirements, which are five W courses. But perhaps there’s more than I am unaware of.

Appendix V, Part D 18

6. The speaking requirements of EE 496 should total 75 minutes, where the instructor is to provide feedback for at least 50 of those minutes. In addition the speaking assignments should count towards the final grade: This was rejected because it was too constraining.

B. Course Catalog Updates

The UCC is responsible for updates to the UH Course Catalog. The updates were submitted around November 2002 for the 2003-04 Catalog. There were a number of updates including changes to the curriculum and course descriptions (e.g., a new wireless networks course EE 469). In addition, the Department Chairman asked the UCC to take on the responsibility of reviewing proposals of new undergraduate courses.

C. New UH Requirements (W,O,E)

In the middle of Fall 2002, the College’s Assistant Dean Tep Dobry called a meeting of the Department and Curriculum Chairs. He notified us of the new UH curriculum requirements. Of particular concern are the new ethics (E) and oral (O) requirements. In addition, starting Spring 2004, courses that satisfy the requirements must be at the 300 level or higher, i.e., junior and senior level courses.

This may present problems for our students. For example, currently Speech 251 satisfies the O requirement. However, from Spring 2004 and thereafter, it cannot satisfy the O requirement because it is a 200 level course. Thus, to satisfy the O requirement, a student may have to take a 300 level speech course, which in turn may have a sophomore level speech requirement. Thus, to satisfy the O requirement, a student may have to take two speech courses.

Ideally, EE courses will satisfy the O and E requirements. The UCC began studying this issue. For example, we found information about ethics education on an IEEE web site. We found information about a CEE course that satisfies both the O and E requirements.

We came up with two approaches to deal with the issue. The first is to find someone who is willing to develop a course that satisfies the O and E requirements. But the big obstacle is finding that person. The second approach is to for the UCC to develop the course. But this would take a fair amount of time.

Besides ABET, I felt that this was a top priority issue and the UCC should be given the time to explore the second approach. However, the Dept Chair felt there were other issues with higher priority. As a result, the Dept Chair has taken the responsibility of dealing with the O and E issue. In Fall 2002, I submitted to the Dept Chair a report explaining what the UCC found including the IEEE resources and the CEE course.

Note that the writing intensive requirement (W) is being studied by Audra Bullock, so the UCC is not considering this issue.

Also note that the Department’s Program Outcomes requires ethics education. At some point in the past, this was taken care of by students viewing a video tape on ethics in either EE 211 or 213. However, this has not been done recently. It’s also unclear where the tape is. According to Kazu, the tape came from the College but he doesn’t know whether they still have it.

D. ABET Self-Study Report

Appendix V, Part D 19

During Spring 2003, the UCC worked on the ABET Self Study Report. The UCC has completed a number of drafts of its portion of the ABET Self-Study Report. The final draft is almost complete except a few figures need a bit more data.

We collected syllabi of the EE undergraduate courses. Note that the syllabi had to conform to a single format and to the requirements of ABET. We also developed a course assessment form to map the outcomes of the courses to the curriculum outcomes. We collected course assessments for each course by the Course Coordinators. We also collected some course assessments by the actual instructors of the courses.

E. Response to IAB and SAB Feedback

The Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) and Student Advisory Board (SAB) visited the Department in Fall 2002 and provided comments about our program. One of their comments was that the labs for EE 211 and 213 should be improved. In Spring 2003, the ABET Core Committee asked the UCC to see what can be done.

The UCC visited the labs in April 2003 which are in the same lab room. We looked over the lab assignments, made available by Frank Koide (EE 211) and the 213 lab TA Diana. We also talked to Frank and the two TAs Diana (EE 213) and Anjana (EE 211)

We found the lab facilities to be adequate. The lab has been cleaned over the past year. Old equipment has been removed, new equipment (oscilloscopes) ordered, and parts are neatly stored in cabinets.

UCC has only two suggestions. First, more PCs should be in the lab to facilitate the use of CAD tools. Second, a student survey should be given at the end of the semester for improvements of the labs.

Appendix V, Part D 20

APPENDIX VI

INTERFACE COMMITTEE DOCUMENTS

Document PageSAB Student Questionnaire, Fall 2002 VI-2

IC Objectives Questionnaire, 2002 VI-4

IC Outcomes Questionnaire, 2002 VI-11

IC General Questionnaire, 2002 VI-19

SAB Final Report, Fall 2002 VI-22

IAB Responses to Objectives, 2002 VI-40

IAB Responses to Outcomes, 2002 VI-48

IAB Responses to General Questions, 2002 VI-56

CD Table of Contents, IAB Meeting 2002 VI-62

Meeting Agenda, IAB/SAB/EE, October 2002 VI-64

Interface Committee Report, 2002-2003 VI-66

APPENDIX VII

ABET Assessment Committee ActivitiesSpring 2002

Prepared by T.R. Reed on behalf of the Committee6/1/02

I. The Assessment Committee The purpose of the Assessment Committee is to evaluate the success of the program in achieving the desired outcomes. Assessment tools include surveys of key constituents, analyses of student performance, and instructor and course evaluations.

II. Key points addressed:

1. IAB-related Action Items for the Interface Committee.

There were three items raised by the IAB (numbers 47, 90, and 91) that the Interface Committee considered potentially relevant to Assessment. These items were discussed in Assessment Committee meetings on 2/25 and 4/8 (dates approximate).

The first is a request for quantitative assessment metrics. We agreed that this will be done, and appropriate scoring methods are under development.

The second and third relate to low ratings in the IAB Perception of Graduates and Demonstration of Objectives evaluations (tables on the second page of the IAB report). The feeling in Assessment was that, unless the methodology used in the polls was faulty, that this was not an Assessment issue. It was recommended that an action item be added to the fall IAB agenda to discuss these two points. These recommendations have been communicated to the Interface Committee via email.

2. Development of Assessment Methods/Tasks.

Based on an outline provided by Prof. Najita, a very productive discussion on future plans took place during the 5/6 meeting. A summary of conclusions/plans is included in Appendix I.

Appendix I: Assessment Methods and Tasks

1. Course Syllabus

Course syllabi should be reviewed and modified (if necessary) to be consistent with the expectations of ABET. The modifications should be minor in most cases, and may consist of nothing more than observing ABET’s use of the terms “objectives” and “outcomes.” E.g., it may be advisable to use the term “overall educational goals” instead of “overall educational objectives” because of ABET’s interpretation of “objectives.”

2. Course Level Assessment

A. Instructor assessmentsB. GradesC. HW, exams, project reports, lab reportsD. End-of-course student course assessment

The above assessment mechanisms are in place. A review of the end-of-course assessments is planned, to ensure consistency of terminology. Fall-only courses must be alerted to collect documentation for the review. A selection of exams, etc. representing minimum, maximum, and median performance is requested.

3. Curriculum Level Assessment of Outcomes

A. EE student survey (SAB)B. Alumni surveyC. Private benchmark senior exit surveyD. Employer survey

In the student surveys, it was felt that auxiliary questions may be needed to gauge students impressions on how well our stated outcomes are satisfied. This could be through an additional questionnaire collected during advising, or by adding to the SAB survey form.

An alumni survey is not currently done. It may be possible to have this done by the same company doing the benchmark exit survey. However, a database of alumni contact information must be built to allow this.

The benchmark senior exit survey is administered by EBI (a private firm), with results compared to a select set of comparison institutions. The Assessment Committee has suggested modifications to the set to be consistent with the mission of the department (essentially focusing on Research 1 programs with comparable characteristics to ours).

An employer survey must be designed, and distributed to primary employers. In part, this can be done through the IAB and recruiters visiting the UH campus, but a more organized

Appendix VII 2

effort (e.g., building an employer database via the information gained from alumni) may be advantageous.

4. Where Graduates Go

We do not currently ask graduating seniors about their future plans. This information is an important measure of the success of the program. One series of questions that could be asked:

At the time of graduation, students:a) Have jobs b) Expect jobs c) Are accepted to graduate schoold) Are waiting for acceptance to graduate schoole) Transfer to a different professione) Are undecided

These questions could be easily added to the EBI questionnaire.

5. A timeline for assessment activities.

The discussion above provides a framework for a timeline for next year, which is in progress. The first item on the timeline is updating syllabi to reflect ABET’s expectations.

Appendix VII 3