LEARNING AIDS: DISTANCE LEARNING, CD-ROMs, THE INTERNET, VIRTUAL AND REAL LABORATORIES

ABSTRACT

The vision...

There is a need to examine the human input to the creation and application of know-how in its widest sense, since know-how is important in our every-day life, in our efforts of exploring nature and our environment, as well as in our business and management success.

This work on Engineering Education and Multimedia methods and technology urges the development of anthropocentric systems in which humans and machines work in harmony, each playing the appropriate and affordable (i.e. the best possible) role for the purpose of creating intellectual as well as fiscal wealth. This means creating a better educated workforce, at all levels, by building on existing skills, ingenuity and expertise, using new science and technology-based methods and tools, such as interactive multimedia.

Today, and in the forthcoming decade of our IT revolution, engineering, science and technology in combination can create an intellectually exciting environment that molds human creativity, enthusiasm, excitement and the underlying curiosity and hunger to explore, create and learn. Unfortunately, in many minds, and even in many countries technology is not considered to be culturally and socially as acceptable as law, accounting and banking. On the other hand, it is obvious that economic development is not a one dimensional process that can be measured by a narrow view of conventional accounting.

Consequently there is a need to develop new creative and stimulating multimedia-based infrastructures, products and means of production that can meet challenges now faced by many companies and even countries as natural resources become more scarce, the environment becomes more polluted and major demographic changes and movements of people are taking place.

The fundamental change, that has to be recognized, is that most existing hi-tech systems were designed with the human operator playing a passive role, and a machine being the "clever" component in the system. This is because accountant driven management considers the workforce to be a major cost item instead of a major asset!

Today, many advanced systems are only considered to be "scientifically engineered" if they are dominated by the predominant characteristics of being predictable, repeatable and mathematical quantifiable! (Unfortunately, this is not always feasible. As an example, try to create the set of mathematical equations for the best possible automobile design, from road-holding to upholstery - all of it! Difficult?)

By definition the above introduced narrow view precludes intuition, subjective judgment, imagination, "touch and feel", sensibility. This must change. Unfortunately such changes take a long time.

Anthropocentric technologies, such as flexible, interactive multimedia make the best use of science and technology, driven by the user at his or her pace and time, enabling the learner to explore and implement concepts further than that of the accountants order-bound fiscal view. Consequently, interactive multimedia is not war, but a new opportunity to put back humans into harmony with nature and "able" machines, by being better informed, educated and happier contributors, rather than efficient long-term waste creators and destroyers of nature and the society.

This paper addresses some of the above mentioned issues. The overview and the methodology with the CD-ROM-based, Internet supported examples was written by P. G. Ranky. The continuous quality improvement aspects are by G. Bengu and the NJIT Virtual classroom and distance learning examples, frameworks are by G. T. Spak. The Advance Manufacturing Laboratory aspect are by Donald H. Sebastian. The paper was edited by P G Ranky.

INTRODUCTION

What is Interactive Multimedia?

Interactive multimedia combines and integrates text, graphics, animation, video and sound. It enables learners to extend and enhance their skills and knowledge working at a time, pace and place to suit them as individuals and/or teams and should have a range of choices about the way they might be supported and assessed.

In other words:

• The student has a choice and the freedom to learn
• He, or she is supported by the multimedia based learning materials and technology
• The tutors are creating an effective, enjoyable learning environment and infrastructure

There is a major problem to be resolved...

We are living in an era when competitive advantage cannot be maintained without continued and sustained commitment to innovation, research and development and high-quality, student-centered, flexible, multimedia-based Open/Distance Learning.

In terms of corporate investment, the financial stake involved in turning good quality, flexible, Open Access Education and research into competitive advantage is enormous. As many examples show in Europe, United States, Japan, Asia and elsewhere, entire nations' future and wealth (both intellectual and material) depend on the quality of education provided to learners. This means that the wrong education, research and development strategy for product design, manufacture and management can easily spell disaster.

Consequently flexible, Distance Access Education and multimedia, or hypermedia technology must be managed as a strategic resource for competitive advantage. In a similar way we must deal with flexible manufacture, to cut batch sizes to one and Computer Integrated Manufacture (CIM), or Creative and Innovative manufacturing & Product Design, to provide an efficient and well-integrated communications, procurement, design, manufacturing, test, etc. infrastructure ([1], [2], [5], [8] and [10]).

Our main educational objective is to support the new, multi-faceted, dynamically changing learning experiences that real life imposes on us and on our life-time learners.

We have to recognize that traditional, mass-produced, highly-controlled static and rigid educational methods cannot cope with the increased amount of information, knowledge and inferencing requirements of this rapidly changing world!

The contracting life cycle...

The life cycle of critical design and manufacturing technologies is increasingly contracting. Concepts such as time to market, total quality management, local design, global manufacture, concurrent or simultaneous engineering, parallel design and manufacturing, intelligent design and intelligent manufacturing systems are widely accepted. These new technologies require multi-skilled and well-educated engineers and managers as well as flexible, and feedback controlled manufacturing technologies, such as cellular manufacture, CIM, Concurrent Engineering and FMS ([1-4] and [9-15]).

It is important to recognize that we are living in an era when the customers, not the designers or salesmen, are the kings. Customers require increasingly better products at a lower cost. In other words, products require continuous improvement and change, therefore flexible design and manufacture, and the appropriate level of automation, must be provided throughout the life cycle of product development.

In the education business the customers are the learners, i.e. students entering access courses, college and university courses, mature students who are prepared to study in the evenings at home, at the University, or in Distance Learning Centers. Furthermore, there are a large number of continuing education (i.e. mature) students and other professionals seeking new focused knowledge in this rapidly changing and extremely competitive world.

PART I: INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA LEARNING USING DESKTOP
DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE

Advances in computers have provided exciting opportunities in Desktop Publishing and Desktop Design, but we are entering now into a new era of Desktop Education and Training, Desktop Design & Manufacturing and Desktop CIM & Concurrent Engineering. The fundamental reason for this is that talented engineers find it extremely pleasing to cut down waste and rapidly create new products and machines to fabricate these products using the growing computing power, the small scale kit-based machinery, small CNCs, robots, etc. - all on the top of their desks!

There are many methods and solutions to cut down waste and to improve an organization, a design office, a manufacturing enterprise, or a product. It is important to note that, whatever we call it, CIM, Concurrent or Simultaneous Engineering, or JIT (just-in-time) means getting rid of waste, organizing our knowledge in our minds, and integrating the information flow, the material flow and the processes in our factories in order to create wealth. In other words, CIM and Concurrent Engineering address the whole enterprise, including the business systems, product design, process planning, manufacturing planning, the shop floor, packaging, maintenance and other methods and technologies.

In order to cut waste successfully and create new wealth it is necessary to deal with various types of system modeling, design, rapid prototyping, Desktop CIM and others. The most important issues in this context include the following:

• We need Desktop Design & Manufacturing and related Education to test new product and manufacturing ideas, to rapid prototype and to reduce time-to-market. Global design and local manufacturing represent the era of global industrial competition and simultaneous co-operation. In this respect Desktop CIM provides fast and low-cost prototyping as well as small batch, highly flexible manufacturing opportunities.
• Total Quality is important in every sense. Poor quality is not acceptable anymore. Desktop Education and CIM systems, besides assuring the quality of the rapid prototyping process, could be used for teaching and demonstrating Total Quality Management and Control methods ([6] and [7]).
• The modern factory is a distributed versus a centralized, rigid system. Simulation techniques coupled with Desktop Education and CIM represent an ideal solution for testing and validating integration ideas.

In order to succeed, new management methods are also needed. The "event driven, networking company" as opposed to the traditional, "do everything yourself, control centrally... and loose valuable time" approach is past. Management by objectives is a frequently used technique where able employees are guided by means of clear objectives rather than rules, regulations and military-style restrictive, rather than creative management solutions.

Teamwork is crucial too. Designers, Manufacturing, Marketing, Quality and Maintenance Engineers and the Customers working together to achieve joint success is critical. Desktop CIM and multimedia in this respect represents an excellent training, rapid prototyping as well as validation tool.

To summarize, there is a need for more freedom, more openness, better overall communication and understanding between designers, marketing, quality and manufacturing engineers and the customers. Desktop CIM and Concurrent Engineering with multimedia support this systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of products and their related processes, including manufacture and support. These methods are intended to cause developers, from the outset, to consider all elements of the product life cycle from conception through disposal, including quality, cost schedule and user requirements.

WHAT ARE STUDENT CENTERED, OPEN & DISTANCE LEARNING?

Open, student centered learning is a flexible, multimedia based and efficient extension to (i.e. not replacement of) the traditional lecture type, or workshop and laboratory based training and education. It enables learners to extend and enhance their skills and knowledge working at a time, pace and place to suit them as individuals and/or teams and should have a range of choices and sequences about the way they might be supported and assessed.

In other words, Distance Learning means that the student

• Has a choice and the freedom to learn
• Is supported by the multimedia based learning materials and technology and that
• The tutors are creating an effective learning environment and infrastructure.

Based on international experience, good Distance Learning programs offer:

• The best use of learning objectives
• User-friendly style, environment and flexibility
  (time, place and pace)
• Tutor marked assignments, and/or self-assessment
• An education process that, as far as possible, is designed and delivered to satisfy individual needs while being controlled by the individuals themselves

Distance Learning includes those situations where the learning occurs at a distance ("distance learning"), as well as where learning occurs without this being the factor for the learner and tutor ("telepresence").

THE MAIN FEATURES OF INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA, OPEN &
DISTANCE LEARNING PROGRAMS

Modern, multimedia based Open/ Distance Learning material and Laboratory oriented kit-based material have the following characteristics:

• The package is self-contained. This means that it includes all important handouts, artifacts, kit, software, books, hardware and software, that are essential for the learning process. To reduce cost, such packages often come in modular form, so that textbooks, software and videos, CD-ROMs can be shared.

  In the case of the most up-to-date solutions, CD-ROMs are often linked (either off-line, or sometimes even on-line) with the Internet. The rational for this is obvious: CD-ROMs can hold the mass information in a well structured and integrated format thus can offer the entire "show" at relatively high transfer rates (2x CD=300 Kbytes/sec, 4xCD=600 Kbytes/sec, etc.), whereas the Internet acts as the real-time support system with relatively slow transfer rates (typically 1.8 Kbytes/sec on a 14.4 modem, 3.6 Kbytes/sec on a 28.8 modem and 16 Kbytes/sec on ISDN, Integrated Services Digital Networks) for "last-minute changes" and on-line interactively (e.g. Tutor support by Email, News groups, or searching for information at various sites, libraries, download shareware software, etc.)

• Interactive Multimedia is designed for individual, or small group activities
• It can be used for educating large number of people simultaneously. (Imagine, China has over 100 million students every year!)
• It is designed for learning by exploring versus learning by listening, learning as told, or instructed
• It has a clear description of the content of the package to be used for a certain unit or module to be taught (note that there are terminology differences in different educational establishments in terms of what a "unit" or a "module" of study actually means)
• Highly interactive and non-linear navigation is supported. This is ideal to excite students about the topic as well as for "true explorers" with the option of navigating in a linear-fashion (ideal for "fist-comers").
• It has well-defined objectives and learning outcomes. Outcomes should describe both subject specific outcomes, as well as more general academic skills and abilities that are gained by working through the package
• It structures the work and, as appropriate, usually breaks down the material to the following main activities:
• The introductory section, that explains the objectives, the goals and the purpose of the package
• A review of any previously studied material, or any relevant material that might be useful to revise before diving into the deep end of the particular package
• The actual body of the study, which usually follows the programmed learning principles (e.g. using the Interactive Multimedia Talking Book style)
• The section that we call: Stop & Think! This is a consolidation section in which the learner is given opportunities to practice applying the new material in unfamiliar situations. This section is widely used to educate or just to draw attention to often complex integration issues, methods, tools and technologies.
• It supports interrogative learning (e.g. one clicks on a small photograph and it comes up as a large, almost full screen image with explanations and problems to solve).
• It is highly interactive (e.g. the videos can be controlled interactively, or jumps are "hot-spot controlled).
• A summary of the main points covered
• What is called "validation and test" in the industrial world, should apply to learners and multimedia packages too.

Since failure is not exposed in Open/ Distance Learning situations, fear should not enter into the testing process

• It allows the learners to work at their own pace, in a friendly environment (e.g. an Open/ Distance Learning Center, or at home, on the beach, on the train, or in the park)
• It explains the assessment structure, i.e. the main form of assessment adopted for the particular package in order to satisfy the objectives set at the beginning
• It provides the learner feedback and support from tutors (perhaps by means of Email and the Internet)
• It lists co-requisites, i.e. other Open/ Distance Learning Packages, multimedia material, units of study, or modules that could be valuable when requiring further study of the subject area
• It requests Evaluation Forms or Workbooks to be filled in by learners by tutors, in order to gain a realistic picture of the particular Open/ Distance Learning Package applied and to collect student feedback and the tutor's report on the class

PART II: THE TQM PERSPECTIVE ...

Although there is a need for changes in quality education the methods and the technology-based tools are still in their early stages of development. At this point of time it is important to maintain high quality education by simultaneously enhancing the educational processes.

We introduce here a perspective to the learning process that is designed based on TQM principles such as customer orientation, continuous improvement and planned use of performance measures, while recognizing the importance of critical thinking (CT), in shaping an individual's learning experience. This unified notion of TQM and CT is what we refer to as the Total Quality approach. The application of TQM principles in order to improve undergraduate engineering education was pioneered at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems at the University of Central Florida [20,21] and adopted and further developed by the NJIT team, led by Dean W. Swart.

The total quality approach views the education system as a process where the input is an entering freshman with little or no competence, and the output is a competent engineer in the given subject area.

The SKAA's Skill, Knowledge, Abilities, and Attitudes are to be learned to achieve competency. The SKAA's acquisition is facilitated through a learning process which embodies the combination of several other processes such as

1. Instructor classroom conduct
2. Instructor/learner communication
3. Technology/learner communication
4. Delivery material preparation
5. Education environment setting
6. Evaluation
7. Classroom conduct.

These individual processes may share some common process tools such as visuals, manuals, textbooks, Internet and CD-ROM-based exercises, projects, exams and homework. Such a learning process is influenced by a number of key factors that can be referred to as principal process agents. They include the instructors who are responsible for the process of classroom lectures, hands on training and the preparation/use of process tools (including multimedia tools and technology); the administrators who manage the learning process in terms of facilitating the classroom lectures, offering and scheduling courses, and defining the direction of the learning process by defining market needs; and finally the technology that plays a significant role in terms of teaching and learning aids.

There are several customers of the education system such as students that try to get educated and industry that employs the graduates, the parents who try to get the best education they can afford for their children and the society in which the students belong to.

A TQM approach to enhance engineering curriculum

Based on this TQM approach initiated by Swart [20] there are several provisions taken at NJIT to improve the education process such as

1. Customer oriented curriculum changes
2. Partnering with customers in improving education
3. Employment of CAL tools to enhance the education process and the process tools and the agents and
4. Planned use of performance tools for continuous quality improvement.

Customer oriented curriculum changes:

First the Automobile and then the Computer represent two shining examples of how the American private enterprise has capitalized on technological advancements to generate profound economic transformation and growth and positioned the US as the most powerful industrial nation in the world.

Underlying both of these examples is the primary role of manufacturing, assembly lines representing "mass production" techniques whereas the recent advanced computer integrated manufacturing systems representing "mass customization" techniques. Knowing that the main customers of the education systems are the students, the curriculum changes to educate in manufacturing is toward preparing a customer oriented education.

NJIT has developed a sequel of new innovative courses to provide freshman engineers with a comprehensive understanding of design, manufacturing processes and systems and to prepare a highly skilled workforce to take on the global challenges facing the US economy. The first course, FED, explains the Fundamentals of Engineering Design and the role of each engineering major in design, the second course, MP&I, "Manufacturing Process and Integration" introduces manufacturing-system-design and planning and the processes required to fabricate the designs. These two courses together cover all stages of the Product Life Cycle starting from concept of product through customer and environment. They cover market and cost analysis toward setting a target price and the design stages which illustrates the role of each engineering discipline and design for manufacturability (DFM) and design with respect to other related domains of product life cycle.

Following the design the manufacturing system design issues, process planning and then the processes and quality control, inspection and environmental issues are all covered at the appropriate level. The intention is to use real world engineering applications and provide hands-on-experiences beginning at early stages of the engineering curriculum.

Being able to perform complex, synergistic applications while they are trying to learn mathematical, physical and chemical principles, are an important motivation in student learning. Using a team teaching approach, group of faculty are introducing the fundamentals of each engineering disciplines in a synergistic manner and the application of these fundamentals in manufacturing [16,17]. This increased emphasis on manufacturing in the early years is hoped to complement the senior projects in the current curriculum and contribute to prepare better prepared engineers for US industry. Their problem solving capabilities as individuals and as team members is hoped to be significantly improved.

Industry as Partners in Education

In order to serve the needs of industry and to prepare the students better, local industry is involved as "Education Partners" through co-op programs. Co-op students are being asked to work for pre-defined industrial projects under the guidance of faculty and industry partners.

Use of high-tech tools to improve the learning process, process tools, and agents

Interactive multimedia tools (e.g. the Internet, CD-ROMs, computer analysis programs, etc.) as well as simulation/animation tools are used as a complementary support system for traditional classroom teaching. These tools enable the faculty to address complex issues with reduced requirement of previous knowledge or mastery and present large volumes of information in a flexible and efficient manner, a task which would otherwise be exceedingly laborious or impossible using classical teaching tools.

An interactive and comprehensive electronic courseware enables faculty to address complex issues and provide an environment for hands-on experiences. The underlying premise is that by equipping both the faculty as well as the students with effective education tools can empower the faculty in being more effective in imparting and the students in absorbing different engineering disciplines.

The opportunity to engage in industrial projects offers the student the integrative experience of using advanced software tools in the context of a genuine design experience. The Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory (AML) part of NJIT's Center for Manufacturing Systems, performs contract product and process development projects for industrial clients. Students, employed as part of the engineering team, use professional software tools to aid in the full range of services. Three-dimensional, solids modeling-based CAD software feeds finite element stress analysis as well as plastics processing simulation packages. Rapid prototypes (Stereo-lithography) are generated from the digital product description. The tooling geometry for net shape manufactured products is similarly driven from the original design, and instructions for the AML's computer numerical control (CNC) machinery generated and downloaded to create the part. A wide variety of other analysis tools may also be accessed based on the specific objectives of the design task. In a similar fashion, discrete event simulators, and factory floor layout programs are routinely used in support of process analysis and optimization projects. Throughout this experience, students learn the benefits of using advanced software systems to aid in design analysis, but also learn the difficulties that arise when information flow from one system to the next is required. They also learn by direct experience that design synthesis is not replaced by computer-based design analysis.

Continuous quality improvement tools as well as support tools

Development of continuous quality improvement tools as well as support tools are very much in need such as

• continuous feed-back tools from the users of the education system: an on-line student feedback tool to have instant customer feedback mechanism to provide teaching enhancement that is missing in the current educational system), as well as
• teaching/learning process tools: multi-agent based lectures involving class discussions, exams, assignments, grade-books, etc.

It is planned to have Multi-User Support Toolkit (MUST) that incorporates these add-on tools to supplement the current electronic teaching and learning systems as well as the classical education systems. The objective is to allow multi-user creation of hypermedia environments on the National Information Infrastructure to be shared and progressively enhanced. The MUST does allow faculty to have instant feedback in their teaching process so that they can take prompt corrective action during the semester rather than waiting till the end. provide virtual conferencing.

As one of the implementation examples, using technology-based learning and other methods and tool, let us introduce the NJIT virtual classroom.

PART III: THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM AND DISTANCE LEARNING AT NJIT

Background

Through ACCESS/NJIT-NJIT's distance learning arm-today's home electronics are used in a new way by students to pursue education. Integrating the Personal computer, video cassette recorder, television, and telephone, CD-ROMs and the Internet, the classroom can be the students home, office, or any place other than the college campus. Via distance learning, ACCESS/NJIT conducts full undergraduate and graduate degree programs, graduate certificates and individual college courses for individuals desiring an advanced education, but frustrated by such circumstantial barriers as time, geography, physical limitations, and institutional apathy toward their special needs.

By virtue of the academic quality, focus and advanced delivery format, ACCESS/NJIT helps adult men and women cross one bridge to knowledge acquisition necessary for gainful employment. With telecommunications acting as an equalizer, ACCESS/NJIT makes college education affordable and accessible to anyone possessing the motivation and commonplace electronics involved.

The Administration of Distance Learning Degrees and Courses

The NJIT Academic Colleges from whose departments distance learning courses are available are responsible for all academic aspects of faculty assignments and Course content, instruction, and grading.

NJIT Continuing Professional Education-an umbrella administrative unit under which the Offices of Distance Learning and Media Services are housed-oversees student recruitment. Following standard Protocols for matriculation, the NJIT Office Of Admission is responsible for processing all Matriculated students studying either on a full- or part-time basis.

Academic Standards, Homework Assignments and Examinations

Each ACCESS/NJIT course involves satisfactory completion of homework assignments based both on textbook readings and on the content of the tele-lecture and electronic discussion components, as well as satisfactory Performance on quizzes, examinations and projects. Students who are in a Position to reach the college's University Heights campus, its TEC branch campus, or any of its "Public Access" Extensions.

Students can take examinations locally by nominating a Proctor, or by NJIT faculty; or by electronic discussion.

The Future

The technological evolution, downsizing and demographic change are current societal realities which have put pressure on the higher education community to shift focus from traditional college education to a broader mission. Under this expanded mission, higher education is challenged to offer lifelong learning and career development to an adult population with increasingly complex time, access and curriculum preconditions.

Distance learning, supported by prepared faculty and administrators, as well as students, as a technology with its ability to overcome temporal, geographic and circumstantial barriers to education, promises to be a key for both addressing the needs of the adult learner and also Maximizing the impact of university resources.

To empower distance learning for such a role, NJIT has begun an exploration of the implications of a changing educational paradigm and a changing institutional and technological infrastructure by focusing on the Internet, CD-ROM, simulation and other technologies.

CONCLUSION AND CLOSING REMARKS

Educating others as well as ourselves is not a simple task. Since each of us is unique, it is necessary to find out more about us as well as about the "art and science" based methods, tools and technologies that relate to modern education. Open/ Distance Learning, Open/ Distance Access Flexible Learning, Distance Learning and Interactive Multimedia represent some of these methods, tools and technologies.

The world is moving away from rigid mass production systems, because industry has discovered that customers want different products that satisfy their individual or small group needs and not, as in the past necessarily those of the designer, or manufacturer.

It is strategically important to

• begin to renovate the pedagogical methods and environment in the educational institutions,
• increase the awareness of teachers and families of interactive multimedia,
• stimulate the diffusion of good practices and solutions,
• optimize the expenses in terms of hardware and software and telecommunications,
• create educational multimedia degrees,
• stimulate the interaction between producers,
• learners and educators, and
• ease both financial as well as intellectual constraints of producing good quality multimedia products for world-wide distribution.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We hereby would like to express our thanks to NSF and NJIT for their sponsorship, the Ford Motor Company, Hitachi Seiki, FESTO, BYG, Denford Machine Tools, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, HP, PSE&G, Lucent Technologies and many other corporations for their sponsorship.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Mager, Robert F.: Preparing Instructional Objectives, Kogan Page 1992

Rowntree, Derek: Teaching Through Sel-instruction, Kogan Page, 1990

Ranky, P G: Concurrent/Simultaneous Engineering, CIMware Ltd., 1994. 264 pp.

Ranky, P G: Flexible manufacturing cells and systems in CIM, CIMware Ltd., 1990. 233 pp.

Hayes-Roth ed.: Building expert systems, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1983

Ranky, P G: Total Quality control and JIT management in CIM, CIMware Ltd., 1990. 256 pp.

Ranky, P G: Manufacturing database management and knowledge based expert systems, CIMware Ltd., 1990. 233 pp.

Kaplan G and Jaikumar, R: Manufacturing a la carte: agile assembly lines, faster development cycles, IEEE Spctrum Sep 1993 30(9) 24-27p

Video series on Concurrent Engineering with Case Studies, (20 tapes of modular videos with handouts and books) by CIMware, Merrow Park, Guildford, 1992-95

Video series on Flexible Manufacturing Cells and Systems with Case Studies, (29 tapes of modular videos with handouts and books by CIMware, Merrow Park, Guildford, 1992-95

Paul G Ranky: Solid Model Simulation of Dedicated and Flexible Assembly Systems, Annals of Production Research, Basel, 1988.

Paul G Ranky: CIM Information System Modelling with Case Studies; Published by Elsevier Science Publ. B V North Holland, 1991 IFIP ed. B Z Barta and H Haugen, p. 69-88.

Paul G Ranky: A Systematic Approach to the FMS Design Problem with CIM, The Journal of Applied manufacturing Systems, Vol.4, No.2, 1991, St.Thomas Technology Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA, p. 39-45.

P G Ranky: Desktop design, manufacturing and CIM, in print: Assembly Automation, Bedford University Press, 1994

P G Ranky: A methodology for improving factories and product designs, in print: Assembly Automation, Bedford University Press, 1994

Ranky, P G: An Introduction to Flexible Manufacturing, Automation & Assembly, an Interactive Multimedia CD-ROM with off-line and on-line Internet support, over 700 interactive screens following an Interactive Multimedia Talking Book format, CIMware 1996, Email: cimware@earthlink.net and the web site: http://www.cimwareukandusa.com

Gordon, E., Geskin, E., and Elliot, N., "Manufacturing Across the Curriculum", NSF/ARPA- TRP Proposal, N.J.I.T., Newark, New Jersey, 1993.

Hiltz, S. R., "The Virtual Classroom: Learning Without Limits via Computer Networks", Ablex Publishing Corp., Norwood, New Jersey.

Elliot, N., and Lynch, R., "Professional Writing, Tasks for Undergraduate Students in Technological Universities," Ginn Press, 1993.

M.M. Jimenez, R.R. Safford, W.W. Swart, ìApplying TQM in an Academic Department: A Methodology for Improving Classroom Teaching,î Eleventh Annual Conference of Academic Chairppersons: Academic Quality Revisited, pp.175-176

W. Swart, J.Biegel, ìRe-Engineering Engineering Education- A Vision of an Educational System for the 21st Century-, ìProceedings of the 9th International Conference for Improving University Teaching , University of Maryland, University College, 1994, pp.286-295

For those readers interested in further discussion on the role of technology in education, an Internet forum on the subject can be accessed by the following email addresses: school@media.mit.edu or http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/school

Contact:

Dr. Paul G. Ranky
Industrial and Manufacturing Department
Newark College of Engineering
University Heights
Newark, NJ 07102-1982
E-mail: ranky@admin.njit.edu

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