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Distance education programs in Information Technology (IT) suffer from several unique challenges. First, technology equipment like computers, routers, switches, and Information Security hardware is expensive and could easily consume a large portion of a department's annual budget. Second, suitable access to the equipment by students is often limited to normal faculty workdays, excluding evenings and weekends. Finally, adapting labs for delivery through any means other than the traditional classroom environment is extremely difficult in terms of resources, development time, and commitment from faculty and administrators. In this paper, the authors present an in-house solution that was developed to allow students to reserve computers, routers, and switches via the internet; conduct their hands-on exercises at their convenience, save/restore their configurations and exercises, and automatically restore the equipment to neutral state for the next user.

In this paper, we establish the need (based on literature and anecdotal evidence) for an infrastructure for CS1 courses to visually support problem solving from the initial problem statement to the code. Then, we describe how using Unified Modeling Language supported by CASE software (Rational Rose) can be used with carefully prepared course materials (selected projects, prepared databases, written lab manuals), to create this infrastructure. The advantage of this infrastructure is that it can be used throughout the student's academic career in software development to support problem solving and collaborative learning. The authors' extensive experience in developing and teaching the Software Engineering and IT courses were the major factor in implementation of the Object-Orientation with Unified Modeling Language in entry level software development courses.

The information technology (IT) field is perhaps one of the most dynamic professions in modern history.Rapid advances in technology, along with dynamic nature of IT content have placed colleges and universities in a major predicament relative to procuring needed equipment and maintaining currency. On one hand, there is an increased need for trained IT professionals with current skills; on the other hand there is a major threat as academic institution are unable to meet the market demands due to limitation of available resources. Our solution to this challenge was to create an avenue for institutions to share resources in very innovative and mutually beneficial ways. In the wake of budget cuts and shrinking resources, our solution will ultimately allow schools to capitalize on the technologies available at each institution by pooling them into a large network of heterogeneous facilities that can be accessed over the Internet. A key feature of this process is the fact that everything is handled automatically by our locally developed in-house solution, thus freeing instructors of the burden of trying to locate needed resources for their students

Model estimation and prediction of a river flow system are investigated using nonlinear system identification techniques. We demonstrate how the dynamics of the system, rainfall, and river flow can be modeled using NARMAX (Nonlinear Autoregressive Moving Average with eXogenuous input) models. The parameters of the model are estimated using an orthogonal least squares algorithm with intelligent structure detection. The identification of the nonlinear model is described to represent the relationship between local rainfall and river flow at Enoree station (inputs) and river flow at Whitmire (output) for a river flow system in South Carolina.

Students in software engineering need experiences that prepare them for a global work environment that is more and more likely to be structured around team work in which team members may come from a variety of disciplines and cultures and be geographically dispersed. New grads in software engineering are more and more likely to communicate with team members and managers solely via electronic means (e.g. teleconference, videoconference, e-mail, e-file sharing). This paper describes a highly successful international collaboration of students from two universities enrolled in undergraduate software engineering classes, one in the USA and the other in India. Within a semester, these students collaborated remotely to produce software for a leading international software development company. This collaboration, repeated for two semesters and planned for a third, met all learning objectives while successfully producing the desired software. This experience truly engaged our students and enabled the students to learn via a standard course in software engineering about many aspects of professional practice without resorting to special programs like co-op/internships, honors /research independent study, or capstones.

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In order to examine current online course delivery systems, the authors created and conducted a survey that examined both face-to-face (FTF) and online education (OE) classes offered at 46 universities and some community colleges in the United States, as well as at some foreign universities. Students were asked whether they preferred FTF or OE classes, and related questions (convenience, self-pacing, etc.). The results showed that 47.5 % preferred FTF classes, 33.5% preferred OE classes and 19% had no preference (N = 1876). The authors hypothesized that students' preference for OE classes had strong correlations with other variables in the survey. The purpose of the research is twofold, involving, first, the identification of these variables. The authors found that gender, stated reasons for having taken an OE class, student perception of pedagogical characteristics of OE classes, frequency of use of certain OE technologies, rated quality and reliability of the OE course delivery system, number of OE classes the student had taken, and speed of Internet connection were significantly correlated with preference for OE classes. Second, the authors suggest how these OE features should be implemented to improve current OE course delivery systems. Current Status of Online Education (OE) Learning OE and TechnologyIn the latter half of the twentieth century, following the development and widespread adoption of the personal computer, many classrooms moved from face-to-face (FTF) to online education (OE), creating new opportunities for both learners and teachers and altering the manner in which students and instructors interact. OE is expected to continue to shape the way people learn in this new century. Furthermore, in a global economy where professionals need to update their technical skills and knowledge constantly and where communication across large distances is often very desirable, OE will be delivered wherever and whenever needed.The computer has been one of the most powerful agents of change in human behavior over the past few decades, yet understanding the complex interaction between the use of computers and the dynamics of user behavior continues to be a challenge, and one which is particularly acute in OE. OE evolves constantly, and both instructors and students must be adaptable, knowledgeable, and willing to keep up with the pace of technological advances. Not surprisingly, students in OE classes are likely to express dissatisfaction when they are taking their very first OE course (Wisan et al, 2001). Wisan found that students having a single OE experience were much less satisfied with OE than students who had completed four or more OE classes (Wisan et al, 2001). This effect may be due to students having learned how to function better in the OE environment or because of those students most dissatisfied with OE simply not taking any more OE classes after their first bad experience with such a class. Murray J. Williams (2008) also found that number of previous online