NSF Action Agenda for Systemic Eng Ed Reform: Expanding the National Engineering Education Delivery System as the Foundation for an On-Line Engineering Education Community

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University of California Berkeley Expanding the National Engineering Education Delivery System as the Foundation for an On-line Engineering Education Community The last four years have brought the explosion of the Internet and world-wide networked communications through the World Wide Web (WWW). New Internet-mediated methodologies are accelerating the paradigm shift from a teacher-centric, lecture model of instruction to a learner-centric, technology-enhanced learning model that allows the student to control more of the learning process, with professors and instructors serving as mentors and guides. Instructional technology can both enable end enhance these new modes of learning - via courseware, course Web sites, etc. Engineering educators aroung the country and around the world are all developing these materials to support their courses. Two key NSF reports urge the formation of a national resource to address these concerns by providing access to quality courseware and to disseminate successful educational practices. This system is available today in the National Engineering Education Delivery System (NEEDS). NEEDS supports an infrastructure that catalogs, indexes, searches, archives, downloads and reviews engineering education courseware. Over the last four years NEEDS has gained experience and knowledge in developing a national resource of engineering courseware. The project will: 1. Maintain NEEDS as a service to the engineering education community, expanding cataloging efforts and viewership to all U.S. Colleges of Engineering. 2. Continue to grow and evolve NEEDS as the foundation for an on-line engineering education community - adding reviews, feedback to authors on dissemination and use, discussion tools, and improved indexing for engineering education. 3. Expand review and evaluation services to improve the quality of engineering education courseware. 4. Serve as a bridge towards the development of a broader program to support the Science, Mathematics, Engineeri ng, and Technology Education (SMETE) community as a whole.