Formerly, he was a faculty member at the University of Central Florida, Orlando. Ali is an avid distance learner and has extensive background in distance learning instructional methods and delivery systems in engineering and technology. He has been a mentor and an advisor in distance learning and online education delivery systems conversions and modifications throughout his professional life.
In recent years distance education and learning have emerged as a popular method of instructional delivery in engineering and technology-related fields. Many faculties of engineering and technology may found themselves teaching online classes or thinking about teaching one. In this process, crafting and preparation of online exams without sacrificing the educational quality and exam security is a crucial issue to the faculty. Psychological setbacks and barriers among engineering students also add another concern for the faculty teaching in a distance education environment, i.e., students may have fears of losing partial credit in an online multiple-choice exam. The asynchronous and economical advantages of distance education and learning that make offering and taking them very popular force the profession to reexamine and re-engineer some of these exam-related issues. In this paper we discuss issues as they relate to crafting online exams for the distance learning students in engineering and technology. More specifically, we discuss one major theme: how should faculty craft and design online exams for students studying in engineering and technology-related fields? We use some accurate but crude empirical data and evaluation methodologies to draw our conclusions. The data used are collected from more recent sample courses that have been taught by the authors over the last five years. This facilitates the evaluation of the latest challenges, development of new methodologies, and monitoring the current trends.
This paper shows the importance of networking and building relationships to further development activities in an engineering technology department at a public institution, so that the department can increase in quality for its graduates. It will also show the results of what this process can bring about, i.e., creating a margin of excellence so that the department's programs can move to a higher level with the extra funds that this process can bring about.
Public institutions are getting less of their budgets from their state legislatures in recent times. To find a solution to this problem programs at state institutions have been forced to get funding from alternate sources. This can mean grants from federal or private sources, royalties from patents obtained by the faculty, and gifts from philanthropic foundations. Engineering and engineering technology programs have another source. Due to their close contacts with industry, these departments can work with their industrial supporters to obtain funding from them, both equipment and cash donations. These departments also have many alumni at technical companies, who are very loyal to their alma maters. These alumni are very receptive to appeals from the departments from which they obtained their education, to help these departments in increasing the quality of their programs. In fact, it is more than loyalty that motivates these alumni. If the program from which they came increases in quality and status, this can only result in increasing the value to the alumni's degrees. This paper will show the importance of networking and building relationships to further development activities in an engineering technology department at public institution, so that the department can increase in quality for future graduates. One method that works very well at Texas A&M University is to take prospects and donors to football games! This paper will show the results of what this process can bring about.
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