TRONT, Joseph G.
College of Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0111, (540) 231-5067 (voice), (540) 231-7498 (FAX), jgtront@vt.edu
Abstract: In 1984, the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech became the first engineering college in a Land-grant University to require all incoming students to have their own personal computer. This bold initiative began a process of transforming the way in which students used technology throughout their college careers. After fourteen years, the program continues to be a success in equipping students with state of the art technology. In 1998, Virginia Tech, seeing the benefits derived from personal computer ownership, joined the College of Engineering in requiring all incoming students to own a computer. Additionally, the College of Engineering's computer initiative is an inspiration and model for other universities around the country that now require students to own personal computers.
Initially, computers were used to mimic mainframe systems--they were used to compile Fortran, and to do word processing and basic spreadsheet operations. Computers then became an integral part of engineering graphics courses, math courses, and other engineering design courses. The advent of high-speed communication networks and the World Wide Web have tremendously expanded the use of PCs, bringing broad search capabilities and personal interaction to the user. As computers have evolved, the PC requirement has helped to create an atmosphere in which ready access to the personal computer allows students to treat the system as a personal computation and communication assistant.
This paper describes the history of the PC requirement program and its current status in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech. The original objectives and their development into today's strategies will be discussed. Student and faculty evaluations of the program will be presented along with comments and commendations received from the industries that employ our graduates. Suggestions for developing a successful computer requirement program will be given.
Keywords: engineering education, personal computer requirement, instructional transformation
Cardpunch stations and queuing at the high-speed card reader were an every day event for students who were fortunate enough to have access to computing facilities in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the later half of the 1970s teletype terminals operating at 110 baud took over as the portal used to access the central computing site, though punch cards were still being used by those with more than 100 lines of input. With the advent of the microprocessor in the late 1970s and the personal computer in the early 1980s, computing capability began to become more widespread. At the same time that the hardware manufacturers were developing computers affordable by individual owners, software manufacturers were developing a variety of compilers and applications packages that would make the personal computer a highly useful tool.
Before the arrival of personal computers, typical student computing jobs consisted of Fortran compilations and execution, simulation, numerical equation solving and some statistical analysis. Almost all of these programs were run in batch mode--including the occasional football game simulation. Interactive computing was fairly expensive given that valuable computing resources were spent waiting for a user to enter information in interactive mode. Lack of interactivity seriously limited the value of the use of computers in the learning process. Students were not able to easily carry out exploratory learning wherein many avenues are investigated in developing knowledge. Job turn around time severely limited the number of knowledge threads that could be explored and thus there was minimal advantage over more traditional learning methods.
Although the purchase cost of mainframe computers had decreased by the early 1980s, the cost of operating and maintaining the systems had continued to increase. This meant that the cost per student compute cycle was still relatively high and thus the availability relatively low. Other issues included that fact that computer access facilities were generally constrained to be centralized, making access rather restricted.
In 1983, the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech studied the problems of student computing and decided to take advantage of the new wave of personal computers coming onto the market by requiring all students to own a personal computer. The study found several obvious conclusions: personal computers will provide students with much greater access to computing capability; and that having students purchase their own computer would relieve the College of some of the financial burden of providing computing capability. A pilot group of 200 students were loaned computers through a program sponsored by IBM. The pilot study attempted to determine what types of new learning could be achieved through the use of the computer as a closely held support tool. In the fall of 1984, the entering class of engineering students was required to all own a personal computer.
The College of Engineering computer requirement program started life as the PC Initiative. Moving from a lab-based environment to a personal computing environment presented many problems that had to be solved before students could be expected to use the computing tool effectively. Several different pieces of infrastructure needed to be developed in order to make the PC Initiative viable. A method needed to be devised for purchasing computers, creating service and support centers, and developing faculty and student buy-in. The success of the program demanded rapid deployment and a high degree of interaction from each of these infrastructure components. Finally, the mindset of the teaching/learning community needed to be changed in order to gain acceptance of this new computational tool.
Relatively few manufacturers were in the fledgling business of producing personal computers. Those that did exist were very diverse: an Apple computers couldn't talk to an IBM, a Hewlett-Packard to an NCR, etc. A word processing file was able to be read by only the machine/software it was composed on. Besides providing a pricing advantage, the organized requirement program also attempted to solve the problem of the lack of compatibility that plagued the personal computer industry in its early days. To facilitate the student purchase, the College negotiated with a number of vendors to obtain advantageous pricing and service. The Assistant Dean for Engineering Computing provided a program for students to purchase hardware and software at substantial discounts. Although most compatibility problems have been taken care of today by the operating system, there are still some issues that crop up from time to time caused by hardware or software incompatibility. Uniformity helps to minimize these problems in a community of 4500 students and 275 faculty.
A PC Maintenance Center was created and operated under the auspices of the Department of Electrical Engineering to service the maintenance and repair needs of the faculty and the students. The PC Maintenance Center became certified to perform warranty service on a variety of computer systems and printers. Students were able to obtain repair services on-campus rather than having to take or send their computers to off-campus locations. Reducing downtime and providing a better environment for the student were the biggest advantage in having the PC Maintenance Center. Since the center was an integral part of the College, it was attuned and responsive to the faculty and student needs and could assist in directing other resources that were needed to solve student computing problems.
A SoftWare Assistance Team (SWAT) was formed to provide first level support for students experiencing difficulty with their computing system. Although primarily tasked with helping to solve software problems, the SWAT team also attempts to triage hardware problems and connect students with the appropriate entity to effect a solution. The team is typically comprised of upper-class undergraduate students who have had some experience with computer troubleshooting.
To garner faculty support, the College provided each faculty member with a personal computer and a minimal set of software packages. Faculty members were able to receive training through vendor workshops and through self-paced training materials. Most faculty members took advantage of the free computer and developed skills in the use of language compilers and word processors. Many were able to integrate at least fundamental use of the computer into their classes. Students began to be required to write more programs and to turn in reports generated on word processors. Rudimentary access to library facilities through online catalog systems like the Virginia Tech Library System (VTLS) was promoted.
Initially there was concern that the College would lose good candidate students because of the added expense created by the computer requirement. To counter this, a scholarship fund to help purchase computers for the extremely needy students was developed. Over the first five years, no more than 10 students per year out of an entering class of approximately 1000 students, took advantage of the availability of this assistance. So few students took advantage of the extra assistance because federal guidelines allow students to add the cost of the computer to their estimate of financial need if the computer is required. The number of students taking advantage of the scholarship program continued to decline so it was discontinued. Feedback from students and parents told us that they saw the PC Initiative as a forward thinking endeavor and a very positive feature of the engineering program. In fact, it is believed that in the early days, the initiative acted as a positive recruiting tool for prospective students.
Initial student feedback from the program was very positive. Students were pleased with the ease of access to computing. They repeatedly described situations in which they had an idea come to them in their dorm room that they were able to try out on their computer by simply stepping across the room rather than walking down the hall or across campus to a computer lab. We believe that this allowed them to solve for themselves the "what-if" questions that are so important in developing a solid knowledge base.
The evolution of technology is constant and rapid. In the early 1990s multimedia capabilities became an important component of most computing systems. Multimedia hardware typically includes a CD ROM reader, sound input/output facilities and the ability to play digital video files. Shortly after multimedia capabilities became widely available, the Internet began to blossom as an important resource and it became necessary to include networking capabilities in each PC. In addition to the new hardware features, software development also evolved, creating more diversified and easier to use software. Equation solvers, CAD packages, network browsers, and multimedia viewers all make computers more of an integral part of the engineering learning environment. In order to take full advantage of this improved learning environment, the College augmented its minimum specification to be a multimedia network certified computer.
Early in the PC Initiative, the minimum required computer specifications were developed to keep the price of the computer package at or below $2,000. Keeping the price down meant that the required computer was usually slightly older technology, perhaps a few months to a year behind the leading technology. Although this target minimized the initial buy-in cost, it created some difficulty in the future. By the time students were juniors and seniors, their computers were outdated, unable to run the advanced programs required in future upper level classes.
In 1993, the College moved away from specifying a minimum required system based on a $2,000 price point, specifying instead a system that was closer to the leading edge of technology. With the addition of an extremely useful collection of software, the price point rose to $2,600. The advantage to this specification was seen several years later when fewer upperclassmen were compelled to discard their original computers in order to complete their degree program. This is not to say that the problem is completely solved. Technology still evolves rapidly and there is still a need for students to have the ability to easily and inexpensively upgrade their systems and software to meet the requirements of advanced classes.
The World Wide Web, email and networking has changed the role computing plays in engineering educating today. Connectivity plays an important role in the viability of the PC Requirement program. Students are expected to connect to the campus network and interact with their professors and fellow students via email, chat rooms, and www postings. Each dorm room on campus is equipped with a 10/100 MHz ethernet connection for each room resident. This ethernet connection ties the dorm to the campus backbone network that is in turn connected to the Internet. Thus on-campus students have very high-speed access to most of the electronic materials resources they currently need for being success in their coursework.
The Blacksburg Electronic Village Project [1] was instituted to promote the installation and use of high-speed network resources throughout the town of Blacksburg. Virginia Tech started the project in collaboration with the Town of Blacksburg, Bell Atlantic, and several other business concerns. Ethernet connections are provided to most town offices, libraries, and many local businesses. Participating apartment complexes have wired their dwellings with ethernet connections for which they charge a modest fee. These apartments generally have a waiting list of potential residents. Having started the project in 1993, the BEV became an early model for wired communities and for broad area Internet Service Providers (ISP).
For those who do not find housing in a ethernet-wired dormitory or apartment, the University maintains a sizable pool of 56Kb dial-in modems. The dial-in modem pool also allows students to connect to the University when they are away on breaks. Other ISPs also service student needs throughout the town. Cable modems are becoming popular, delivering high speed outbound information while using a 56K connection for inbound information. This type of connection is primarily aimed at delivering networked digital video or other high bandwidth output information. Between BEV and the modem pool, student communication needs are well served.
The computer requirement program remains an important aspect of the undergraduate engineering education environment. Use of the personal computer has become sensibly interwoven in the basic fabric of the curriculum and individual courses. The minimum specification continues to track the leading edge of PC technology. Students entering in the fall of '99 are required to own an IBM-compatible computer with at least a Pentium II 450 MHz processor, 64 MB of memory, 6.4GB hard drive, a 32X CD ROM reader, 4MB video memory, sound, a 10/100 ethernet adapter, a 15" monitor, and a printer. The required software bundle includes AutoCAD Mechanical Desktop ver. 4.0, Matlab ver. 5.3, Mathematica ver. 4.0, Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft Visual Studio, and the VT Engineering Tools Fall '99 CD set. The VT Engineering Tools CD set is a collection of software and courseware developed by faculty at Virginia Tech. The College also sets out a recommendation for several higher level systems for those students who are able to spend more money and expect to need the additional computing capability. The current personal computer hardware and software specification can be found at [2].
Setting the minimum hardware requirement is a difficult optimization problem. Specifications are set around May 15th for computers that are to be delivered three and a half months later. For the fast moving PC industry, this about the time it takes for a new iteration in technology to occur. Consideration must be given to what products and prices will be available in the late August timeframe. The minimum system must be set low enough to be affordable by many students, yet high enough so that the system is not totally outdated before the student graduates. Systems should be upgradeable so that they can grow to meet curricular demands. Recent purchasing habits have shown that only about 20-25% of the students purchase the minimum system, while the rest purchase one of the higher level options.
Over the years, the College has found a significant advantage in setting up the purchase of hardware through a limited number of preferred vendors. Dealing with only a few vendors provides higher quantity discounts and more responsive service from manufacturers. Also, the more students who come to campus with the same computers, the easier it is to service the systems. Savings also occur since the SWAT Team does not require as broad or diverse training. Further, when a systemic problem occurs across a batch of computers, the problem can be readily identified and a mass solution can be developed and deployed.
In addition to the computer hardware and software another essential element of a successful PC requirement program is the transformation in the teaching style of the faculty. The College uses several mechanisms to provide training for the faculty in the effective use of this powerful computing and communications tool. First, the College of Engineering operates a Multimedia Lab wherein faculty can develop technology-based curriculum elements with the help of the lab director and the part-time staff [3]. The capabilities of the lab cover the full gambit of multimedia technology from simple presentation tools, to animation, to digitizing audio and video, to the use of sophisticated authoring tools for developing full length multimedia presentations. The Multimedia Lab also runs specialty workshops and provides one on one training when necessary. A second mechanism for assisting faculty in transforming their courses is the Faculty Development Institute [4]. Run by the University, this organization provides training for faculty wanting to develop in depth capabilities with various aspects of technology. Typically workshops are three to four days long and offered during the summer, with shorter refresher workshops given during the school year. Most faculty in the College of Engineering have participated in one form or another of a technology transformation workshop.
A variety of other assistance in transforming courses to technology-based or partially technology-based may be obtained from a variety of sources. Two ready resources are the Technology-Based Curriculum Delivery center of the SUCCEED coalition [5] and the catalog of technology-based courseware contained in the National Engineering Education Delivery System (NEEDS) [6].
Virginia Tech has been in the personal computer requirement business for 15 years. The program has proved itself to be forward thinking and innovative. Both students and faculty have benefited from its existence. The students' total immersion in technology makes them more marketable when they go looking for jobs upon graduation. The faculty is better able to pursue their research as well as be more innovative in classroom teaching. We foresee many more fruitful years of personal computing at Virginia Tech.
[1] http://www.cns.vt.edu/bev/index.html
[2] http://www.eng.vt.edu/eng/computer/requirement.html
[3] http://www.multimedia.vt.edu