Engineering students are expected to be not only technically proficient, but, also to exhibit a sound awareness of real-world issues such as marketing, finance, communications, and interpersonal relations. We found that this is best learned by participating in a case study method of instruction. This paper describes the results of a research undertaken by the authors to develop a teaching methodology to bring real-world issues into engineering classrooms. It describes the steps taken in developing an engineeringmanagement case study, administering this case study in a classroom, and results of evaluating the effectiveness of this method of instruction. In particular, it focuses on the students' and professional engineers' perceptions on the utility of the case study method of instruction in engineering classes. The results of the research lead to recommendations to funding agencies and educators on the need to develop interdisciplinary technical case studies so that the innovations happening in the engineering world can be communicated to the students in the classrooms.
New information technology-based teaching methods are essential to bring the issues faced by a project manager to the classrooms electronically. This paper describes implementation of a method to achieve this objective and compares its learning effectiveness with lectures and written case study methods. The major findings were that the information technology-based method was more effective compared to written case studies and lectures in developing higher-level cognitive skills and triggering interest in learning about project management. This research shows that information technology-based methods need to be deployed in order to impart higher-level cognitive skills to potential project managers.
Researchers disagree on the impact of multimedia on perceived skill development. This research investigated whether intervening variables such as task-technology factors might explain the difference in the research findings. An experiment was conducted where thirty-nine students worked on a case study using both paper-based and multimedia-based technologies. An exploratory factor analysis design employing a structural equation model was utilized to analyze the data. The findings from this study suggest a strong indirect relationship between multimedia and perceived skill development with learning-driven constructs (challenging, learning interest, self-reported learning, and learned from others). The study concludes that it is critical to consider these factors in developing multimedia instructional materials.
This paper describes the experience of a large bank in designing and implementing an information systems strategy that is based on the concept of resuability. The design and implementation was performed in two stages: (1) building prototype to investigate the feasibility and attractiveness of reusability concept for the bank; and (2) its subsequent implementation using a library of reusable entities and a programmer's workbench. The implementation experience confirmed that applying the reusability concept to all stages of the system's life cycle results in both strategic (e.g., improving programmer productivity and increasing the bank's capacity for timely response to market opportunities) and operational (e.g., reducing and controlling system development and maintenance costs) benefits. It is estimated that the library of reusable entities embedded within the programmer workbench saved the bank over $1.5 million in development costs in 1989 alone. Two of the most important lessons learned in implementing the reusabilitybased strategy are: (1) reusability comes in many flavors and should be applied to all stages of systems fife cycle; and (2) major challenges implementing the reusability-based strategy are managerial, not technical.
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