RAPID: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Electrical and Computer Engineering Programs at Minority Serving Institutions Served by the Inclusive Engineering Consortium

包容性工程联盟（IEC）是由15所传统黑人学院和大学的电气和计算机工程专业以及两所西班牙裔服务机构的电气和计算机工程专业组成的新合作项目。参与机构包括阿拉巴马州农工大学、安娜G.门德斯大学、佛罗里达州农工大学、汉普顿大学、霍华德大学、杰克逊州立大学、摩根州立大学、诺福克州立大学、北卡罗来纳州农工州立大学、草原景观农工大学、南方大学、田纳西州立大学、塔斯基吉大学、马里兰大学东岸分校、德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校、哥伦比亚特区大学、以及弗吉尼亚州立大学。会员学校是培养非裔美国人和西班牙裔工程专业毕业生最多的学校之一。这些学校一直在努力建立一个支持组织，使参与的教师、学生和工作人员能够通过多机构合作，充分参与国家教育和研究事业。由于2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行，校园运营转移到网上，带来了前所未有的压力，因此需要捕捉成员社区的经验。随着各大学努力改善学生的学习体验，并继续应对疫情造成的严重破坏，将在夏季和秋季吸取和应用经验教训。除了加强远程教育的努力外，几乎使用的每一个工具和应用的每一个想法都将成为进一步建立支持基础设施、计划和流程的潜在候选人，这些基础设施、计划和流程可以使新生的IEC实现其愿景，即使其合作伙伴能够作为一个虚拟的超级部门协同行动。目前的项目建立在由国家科学基金会资助的两个成功的IEC合作基础上：实验中心教学法（ECP）项目和本科生研究经验(REU)/教师研究经验（RET） Mega Site。ECP项目优先考虑在13个合作机构的电路和/或电子学课程中进行动手实验。随着向在线学习的过渡，现在的治疗方法是远程教学和学习，支持技术包括用于在线会议、论坛、作业和测验的工具以及其他远程教学兼容工具。为ECP开发的数据收集协议和仪器将用于研究和改善学生在虚拟条件下的学习。通过成功实施多机构本科研究项目，Mega Site成为了一个如何扩大工程参与的国家模式，其他机构可以采用/适应和发展。现在是第二年，Mega网站将在2020年夏季作为一个缩减的在线项目提供，教职员工、教师和学生都有能力参与数据收集活动，以更好地了解课堂外发生的关键劳动力发展项目的影响。伟大的远程学习实验正在席卷全国的学院和大学。组成包容性工程联盟的少数民族服务机构具有独特的优势，可以迅速获取少数民族工程学生及其导师的经验。利用来自17所大学的现有合作者网络，大大增加了成功开发和测试电子和计算机工程课程在线学习环境模型的潜力，该模型可以在危机时期使用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Inclusive Engineering Consortium (IEC) is a novel collaboration among fifteen Electrical and Computer Engineering programs at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and two at Hispanic Serving Institutions. Participating institutions include Alabama A&M University, Ana G. Mendez University at Gurabo, Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Howard University, Jackson State University, Morgan State University, Norfolk State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Prairie View A&M University, Southern University, Tennessee State University, Tuskegee University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, University of Texas at El Paso, University of the District of Columbia, and Virginia State University. Member schools are among the top producers of African American and Hispanic engineering graduates. These schools have been working to build a support organization to enable the participating faculty, students and staff to engage fully in the national education and research enterprise through multi-institutional collaboration. The unprecedented stress as campus operations moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic creates the need to capture the experiences of the member communities. Lessons will be learned and applied in the summer and fall as universities work to improve the learning experiences of their students and continue to respond to the extraordinary disruptions caused by the pandemic. In addition to enhancing distance education efforts, nearly every tool used and every idea applied will be a potential candidate to further build the support infrastructure, programs and processes that can make it possible for the nascent IEC to realize its vision of enabling its partners to act in concert as a virtual super department. The current project builds on two successful IEC collaborations funded by the National Science Foundation: the Experimental Centric Pedagogy (ECP) project and the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU)/Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Mega Site. The ECP project prioritized hands-on experimentation in the circuits and/or electronics courses of thirteen collaborating institutions. With the transition to online learning, the treatment is now distance delivery and learning and the enabling technologies include tools for online meetings, forums, homework and quizzes and other distance delivery compatible tools. The data collection protocols and instruments developed for the ECP will be deployed to study and improve student learning under virtual conditions. The Mega Site serves as a national model for how to broaden participation in engineering by successfully implementing multi-institution undergraduate research programs, which others can adopt/adapt and build upon. Now in its second year, the Mega Site will be offered as a scaled back, online program in summer 2020 and faculty, teachers and students are well positioned to participate in data collection activities to better understand the impact on critical workforce development programs that take place outside of the classroom. The great distance learning experiment is sweeping the nation’s colleges and universities. The Minority Serving Institutions who make up the Inclusive Engineering Consortium are uniquely positioned to rapidly capture the experiences of minority engineering students and their instructors. Leveraging the existing network of collaborators from seventeen universities significantly increases the potential to successfully develop and test a model for online learning environments in electrical and computer engineering courses that can be used in times of crisis.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.