BY IRENE KIM
This material originally appeared in Chemical Engineering, Volume 105, Number 4, April, 1998; pp. 32-34. © 1998 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10020. All rights reserved.
In a few years, you may be able to complete your master's degree in chemical engineering without ever setting foot on a university campus. The "virtual classroom," enabled by Internet, broadcast television and videoconferencing technology, is making distance learning a convenient and economical learning tool for engineers to continue their education, whether at work, at an off-campus site or at home.
For employers, distance learning ensures that education and training don't stop with the doffing of the traditional cap and gown. "We need to see that our engineers stay current in the latest technologies," says John O'Rourke, director of education & development for National Starch & Chemical Co. (Bridgewater, N.J.). Almost as soon as students graduate, he says, "their skills become obsolete."
Besides keeping engineers and their employers skilled in engineering technology and management, distance learning is a boon for those whose work and travel schedules conflict with traditional class times, observes Ted Wiesner, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Tex). His Web-based course in advanced chemical engineering techniques is popular with practicing engineers who want to study for a master's degree, but need the flexibility do it on their own time.
With communication networks that provide information on demand, virtual classrooms are expected to expand dramatically in size and numbers by 2000. According to data compiled in 1995 and released last February by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES; Washington, D.C.), 33% of U.S. colleges and universities offer distance-education courses, with 25% planning to make remote education classes available within the next few years.
Among the schools surveyed, 50% reported using two-way interactive video, with an equal percentage teaching by videotape. Only 25% reported using the Internet and computers, but that figure is increasing rapidly as more homes and businesses acquire online services.
Plans to build bigger and faster systems to accommodate the projected increase in demand for Internet are in high gear. For example, the U.S. government has commissioned research and development of the Next Generation Internet (NGI), an advanced network that would operate 100-1,000 times faster than the current Internet. The government is also collaborating with more than 120 U.S. universities, and representatives from industry and government to develop Internet2, an advanced network technology to support higher education. Similarly, Canada is developing a next-generation network, called CA-net II, that will link together its major universities.
Meanwhile, companies in the chemical process industries (CPI) are implementing curricula for virtual learning. In most cases, courses ranging from chemical engineering and operator training, to business management and personal development, are being offered in collaboration with an established institute of higher learning.
For example, at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (Akron, Ohio), employees can take online classes through the Interactive Distance Learning Group (IDL), sponsored by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (Ann Arbor, Mich.). Goodyear likes the virtual classroom because it minimizes disruption of the normal workday and saves time and travel costs, says Linda Baer, Goodyear's manager of staff and computer training.
Technical and business subjects are taught via video in classrooms that are equipped with a video monitor, site controller and eight 'response keypads" and two analog telephone lines: On one, students can talk, to the instructor, as well as to students at remote sites. The other telephone line is for data transmission. Baer says the interactive system is web-designed and implemented.
More than 40 interactive courses on environmental and safety training are offered by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE; Rugby, U.K.). Packages can be tailored to meet specific educational needs, using video, slide, open-learning and computer-based techniques. Unlike in-house training, interactive programs can be used repeatedly, cutting the overall cost of training as more employees access the program.
For training purposes, A.W. Chesterton (Stoneham, Mass.) has developed an Internet-based system to teach end-users how to use its seals and pumps. The company is also preparing courses on how to use some of its other products, as well as courses in operations and maintenance, and best practices. Electronic documentation that students have completed the course may be used to satisfy government-mandated training requirements, says Jeff Phillips, Chesterton's manager of internet educational development.
Soon, National Starch, through its ties with New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT; Newark, N.J.), expects to make remote education available to many of employees. A teaching system, based on Internet-based videoconferencing technology by PictureTel Corp. (Andover, Mass.), will link NJIT classrooms with several of the polymer processor's larger sites. "Students can be anywhere in the world at any time; taking tests, watching lectures and downloading homework," says John O'Rourke, the company's director of education and development.
The online offerings are a natural extension of National Starch's ongoing relationship with NJIT's continuing professional education division, which conducts graduate level courses at the company's Bridgewater headquarters. With online learning opportunities, the company expects to break down the barriers of the conventional classroom.
For 10 years, Lockheed Martin Corp. (Bethesda, Md.) has sponsored a distance-learning program in engineering management at the University of Colorado (Boulder). Since then, several other engineering-intensive companies have signed on. While the program is global, engineers and business managers within a 50-mile radius of campus can access live links that allow them to monitor classes and participate in discussions, says Michael Usrey, an engineering professor at Colorado.
In collaboration with Amersham Pharmacia Biotech (Uppsala, Sweden), the University of Waikato, (New Zealand), uses distance learning to teach a master's level course on biotechnology proteins and protein purification. In addition to six modules of required reading, a one-time on-campus appearance is necessary for three days of lectures and coursework, says Conan Fee, a senior lecturer and biotechnology coordinator at Waikato.
For those teaching via distance learning, the tools are limited only by the imagination - and the budget. In Europe, online institutions, such as the Open University (Milton Keynes, U.K.), let students take courses offered by schools in other countries (CE, September 1995, p. 35). Students enrolled in Staffordshire University's (Beaconside, U.K.) engineering school can access a Web-based environment called Ednet. The system is ideal for learning design, says David Whitworth, an professor who specializes in design and manufacturing.
At the University of Wisconsin (Stout) this summer, students taking strength of materials will have to maintain their own Web pages, says physics professor Robert Foley. He will use Microsoft NetMeeting software to let students talk to each other, and, when used with a camera, see each other.
Free software packages, or freeware, are useful, says Texas Tech's Wiesner. On his Web page are Pumpsel software from Duriron (Angola, N.Y.) and an insulation-design package from the North American Insulation Manufacturers' Assn. (Alexandria, Va.). His students download the freeware to design pumps and insulation.
Dynamic simulation programs are another appealing tool. Chemical engineering professor Nam Sun Wang at the University of Maryland (College Park) plans to write simulation programs that will prompt students to enter parameters for a given experiment. Simply by pressing "Run," students can see the results.
Practically unlimited data storage space makes the Internet a natural tool for providing references and documentation. At the University of Nebraska (Lincoln), professor Mehrdad Negahban posts reference pages of review math on a Web page for his dynamics and statics courses. Many professors also post syllabi, lecture notes, homework assignments and sample exams for students to download.
In Australia, a distance-learning pilot program created by the University of Canberra and the nearby Australian Defense Force Academy University College, uses the Web's multimedia capabilities to illustrate fluid mechanics and other engineering processes. Spatial and time-dependent concepts are virtually impossible to explain with static texts and graphics, says Thuy-Linh Nguyen, a Ph.D. candidate at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia) and the project's lead developer.
Indeed, many instructors like the fluidity of Web pages. "You can fix mistakes right on the desktop," says Texas Tech's Wiesner. In addition, students can click on the hypertext links with the information they need, rather than reading linearly through a textbook.
But these very features can handicap teaching and learning. 'It's harder to put together good online classes,' says Negahban, because one has to anticipate everything, but not overwhelm the students. Instructors must spend more time preparing materials.
Another worry about using the Web is that students become too dependent on it for information, says Wang. "They give up looking for something after hitting a few search buttons when they could have found it by opening a book.' Decreased interaction is another issue when the students are off-site. Even with video, it is difficult to interpret nonverbal signals. 'When I'm going over a multi-step process, I can pause and ask the class, 'what's the next step?'" says Usrey. "When they're out there in space, I don't know if they're following or not."