Development of Learning Tools to Bridge Modern Economics with Chemical Engineering

开发连接现代经济学与化学工程的学习工具

• 批准号: 0737182
• 负责人: Georgia Kosmopoulou
• 金额: $ 14.99万
• 依托单位: University of Oklahoma Norman Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-05-15 至 2011-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0737182&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Development; Learning; Tools; Bridge; Modern

Engineering-Chemical (53)This collaborative project between faculty in Chemical Engineering and Economics addresses significant issues that chemical engineering students face upon entrance into the workforce (decision making under uncertainty, managing risk etc.) which are often not covered in curricula or textbooks for engineering design or engineering economics. Such challenges include (a) the management and operation of companies and plants under conditions of extreme uncertainty (due to natural disasters, international disputes, terrorism and vulnerable energy supply), (b) the move by major corporations towards the production of specialty products with high profit margins instead of commodities and chemicals, (c) the formulation of new interdisciplinary areas of professional activity, such as product design, and (d) the expected development of new products that utilize technological breakthroughs (e.g., nanotechnology, renewable energy). The project is using modern developments in Economics to address these challenges with well developed tools, such as decision theory, risk analysis, forecasting analysis, price theory etc. At the same time, analysis and simulation techniques that are being used commonly in Chemical Engineering are being utilized in this project to provide a fresh perspective for the advancement of several areas of Industrial Organization and Microeconomics. The project is accomplishing four specific objectives: (a) integrating modern economics techniques into the teaching of Engineering Design; (b) transferring analysis techniques from Chemical Engineering to Microeconomics; (c) developing illustrative classroom experiments and case studies that showcase the above and can be used in existing and in new classes; (d) assessing and improving the classroom experiments and the learning material developed throughout the project. Completion of this project is impacting the curricula in two disciplines, with the incorporation of new material in existing classes and with the creation of material for a new interdisciplinary class. In addition, the learning material generated through this project is being made available to the community through a web server. Evaluation of the project results is being conducted in peer institutions with the use of the beta versions.

工程化学 (53) 这个化学工程和经济学教师之间的合作项目解决了化学工程学生在进入劳动力市场时面临的重大问题（不确定性下的决策、管理风险等），这些问题通常没有在工程设计或工程经济学的课程或教科书中涵盖。这些挑战包括（a）在极度不确定的条件下（由于自然灾害、国际争端、恐怖主义和脆弱的能源供应）管理和运营公司和工厂，（b）大公司转向生产高利润率的特种产品而不是商品和化学品，（c）制定新的跨学科专业活动领域，例如产品设计，以及（d）利用技术突破的新产品的预期开发 （例如纳米技术、可再生能源）。该项目利用现代经济学的发展，通过成熟的工具来应对这些挑战，例如决策理论、风险分析、预测分析、价格理论等。同时，该项目还利用了化学工程中常用的分析和模拟技术，为产业组织和微观经济学多个领域的发展提供了新的视角。该项目正在实现四个具体目标：(a) 将现代经济学技术融入工程设计教学中； (b) 将分析技术从化学工程转移到微观经济学； (c) 开展说明性课堂实验和案例研究，展示上述内容并可用于现有课程和新课程； (d) 评估和改进课堂实验以及整个项目中开发的学习材料。该项目的完成将影响两个学科的课程，即在现有课程中纳入新材料，并为新的跨学科课程创建材料。此外，通过该项目生成的学习材料将通过网络服务器向社区提供。同行机构正在使用测试版本对项目结果进行评估。