THE INTERNET AND ENGINEERING COURSES

ABSTRACT

Electronic communications are now widely available to undergraduate students in the United States. This provides a tremendous learning opportunity not available until recently. Class outlines, lecture schedules, representative old exams, and homework assignments can be posted on the internet for students to view at their convenience. The instructor may provide links to remote sites having related information. Students may submit homework via e-mail, have it graded by the instructor on a PC, and then returned via e-mail.

INTRODUCTION

With the advent of widely available internet access, it has been possible for instructors to make available an increasing amount of material to the student, and to incorporate materials from a wide variety of sources that were not readily available in the past. The internet allows instructors to easily post class notes, assignments, old exams, homework solutions, and other relevant material. It is now also possible for students to receive assignments posted on the internet, complete the assignments on a computer, and submit the computer generated file as an e-mail attachment. The instructor can then grade the assignment and return it by e-mail. An additional feature is the ability to present or post information about upcoming classes for students or prospective students to view before registration begins.

Recent surveys indicate that about 85% of our upper level undergraduate students have a personal computer in their residence. Students living outside the toll free dial in area (must call long distance to access the University's server) have the option of paying for internet access through a local provider (usually $10 to $30 per month) or using the computers on campus. Obviously, students without a computer in their residence must use the computers on campus.

An enormous amount of material is now available on the internet. Most federal agencies have internet sites with a wide variety of information including regulations. Many faculty post class notes and other relevant materials. Thus, in some instances, students may have access not only to your presentation of class materials, but also that of instructors at other educational institutions. Most professional and environmental organizations maintain web sites with extensive listings. Consulting engineering firms have web sites with information about their expertise and project work. Below are descriptions of some sites relevant to environmental engineering course work, but the concept is applicable to all branches of engineering.

Federal Government

The US Environmental Protection Agency maintains an extensive internet site. Faculty or students can access new or existing environmental regulations, information on environmental quality, status reports of various programs, download software, order paper versions of publications, or just check the latest environmental news. From the US EPA web site access can be gained to state environmental agencies, if they currently have a web site. The US EPA maintains a program on their server that allows one to check the water quality of local streams or lakes. The site is "Surf Your Watershed."⁽¹⁾ The US Geological Survey also maintains an extensive internet site with water quality and flow information, software download, etc. Most government sites, including the two just mentioned, have extensive search capabilities to assist the user in locating relevant information.

State Government

Most state governments have web sites, although they may present much less information than the federal sites and the topics available at state sites vary widely. As an example, the Illinois EPA has an extensive web site, while Arkansas' equivalent, the Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology, has no site as of this writing.

Organizations

Most national engineering organizations currently have internet sites. Typical site information includes general information about the organization, membership details, meetings, conventions, student member information, technical groups, publications, etc. Listed below are the web sites for several organizations in the civil and environmental engineering fields.

Table 1. Selected Engineering Organizations.

Consulting Engineering Firms

There are many consulting engineering firms with internet pages which offer an opportunity to the faculty member to encourage the student to learn about the profession as well as find possible job opportunities. The information presented on the internet varies, but usually includes a brief description of the firm and its expertise, former and current projects, and often, information about some or all of the engineering staff. A significant number also have an employment page listing any current openings--a nice incentive for students to browse these pages. The table below is a listing of selected environmental engineering firms with an internet presence.

Table 2. Selected Consulting Engineering Firms.

Searching for information on the internet can be both rewarding and frustrating. There are five to ten commonly used "search engines." They are free to use, receiving their support from a variety of advertising. To familiarize students with internet searches and to introduce them to the availability of material posted on the internet, my students are required to do one or two simple searches related to the course or course material. This can be anything from finding a particular piece of federal legislation to finding a few consulting engineering firms specializing in an area related to the class.

Electronic mail is an easy way to communicate with students, and have them communicate with the instructor. Students are encouraged to communicate homework or design project questions to the instructor during the evening or weekend. It is easy for a student to attach a spreadsheet and send it, along with difficulties or suspected problems. This method allows the instructor the ability to review such problems at his or her convenience and return the work with comments or suggestions in a timely manner.

AN APPLICATION EXAMPLE

In the senior level course Wastewater Treatment Design, the class schedule, lecture schedule, old exams, design project, and homework assignments are posted on the internet at the beginning of the semester. The class has its own internet page linked from the instructor's homepage. In addition, the class page has electronic links to the internet pages of several wastewater treatment plants and consulting engineering firms specializing in wastewater treatment plant design. The wastewater treatment plant pages usually provide information about the treatment processes used, unit sizes and numbers, general descriptions of processes, and site photographs. In some cases there is information about the community as well. All this information is available to the student while sitting in a computer laboratory on campus or in their residence. The first two assignments deal with e-mail and internet use. Students are required to obtain information about some facet of federal regulations and to locate six consulting engineering firms specializing in design of wastewater treatment facilities.

Students in this class are required to complete their homework on a spreadsheet, graphics program, and/or word processor. They must then submit the work as an attachment to an e-mail message. The only paper used in this class are a one page handout for the first day of class, listing the internet address of the class and how to contact the SIUC Library for introductory seminars on internet use and e-mail;, the group design projects submitted by the students, and of course; examinations. The homework is graded and returned via e-mail. For the student, this is an opportunity to utilize tools and methods in common use today.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

The basic requirements for presenting class materials on the internet include an internet site (usually provided by the university), computers with internet connections to view or download the material, some method for the instructor to create internet files, and to transfer them to the internet server. This process is greatly facilitated if the instructor has previously used computer generated notes, since it is relatively easy to convert notes in either presentation or word processor format into internet format (html).

The Details

1. Students and the instructor must have easy access to the internet and electronic communications. In effect this means:
   • Computers generally available at the university, or
   • Computers owned/available in dorm rooms, apartments, etc.
2. Students must have access to a seminar or short course on use of the internet or the instructor must incorporate this into the class lecture/laboratory
3. Students must have access to and use spreadsheet, word processor, and graphic programs compatible with those available to the instructor.
4. The instructor must have access to a server computer on the internet and a program to transfer files from a PC to the server.
5. The instructor must have a program capable of creating internet pages (html language).
   • Commonly available internet language (html) editors include add-ons for programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint, Netscape, or a program designed specifically for creating internet pages such as Microsoft FrontPage. Other software companies have similar programs. These editors do not require the user to write or read html language.
   • Since the html language used on the internet is simple compared to even BASIC, the use of a text editor is possible. However, it is time consuming and inconvenient.
6. The instructor must have a program capable of creating graphics files and then saving or converting them to internet graphics formats, commonly *.jpg or *.gif.
   • Examples of such programs are Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw, or Microsoft PowerPoint.
   • Availability of a scanner to input photographs is advantageous as well. Or alternately, a local photographic business that can scan photographs, negatives, or slides. These scanners, including ones for 35 mm negatives and slides, are commonly available and compatible with PCs.

The advantages:

For the student the advantages include:
1. access to a vast collection of easily obtainable information,
2. experience obtaining information from a variety of sources,
3. a convenient method of submitting course assignments, and
4. practical experience using communications technology in common use by many engineering firms today.

For the instructor the advantages include:
1. the ability to easily distribute homework, class notes and other materials,
2. a convenient method of receiving material to be graded,
3. all submitted materials will be legible,
4. a vast resource of current information to present to students,
5. the ability to provide the student with a realistic experience in electronic communications, and
6. the elimination of most departmental costs related to photocopying and distributing class materials.

SUPPLEMENTAL INFORMATION

Books on web authoring:

Siegel, David, Creating Killer Web Sites, The Art of Third-Generation Site Design, Hayden Books, ISBN 1-56830-289-4, http://www.killersites.com

Taylor, Dave, Creating Cool Web Pages with HTML, 2^nd Ed., IDG Books Worldwide, ISBN 1-56884-822-6.

Software:

Microsoft FrontPage for creating web pages in html. http://www.microsoft.com

Microsoft Word and PowerPoint for creating text and graphics. http://www.microsoft.com

Adobe Photoshop for creating jpeg and gif graphics.

GIF Construction Set, Alchemy MindWorks, Inc., Beeton, Ontario, Canada for creating animated gif images. http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/alchemy.html

Directly from the Internet:

Werbach, Kevin, "The Bare Bones Guide to HTML," http://www.werbach.com/barebones/, Online, Internet, April 8, 1997.

Quadzilla.com, http://www.quadzilla.com/ provides assistance with html authoring and web page design.

The HTML Writers Guild, http://www.hwg.org/, the first international organization of World Wide Web page authors and Internet Publishing professionals.

HTML Authoring Tools and Guides, http://www.cyberus.ca/~eblair/htmlg.html, provides links to several sites with assistance in developing web pages.

REFERENCES

^1. US EPA, "Surf Your Watershed," http://www.epa.gov/surf/.

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