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)是历史上黑人学院和大学的15个电气和计算机工程项目以及西班牙裔服务机构的两个项目之间的新合作。参与的机构包括阿拉巴马农工大学、古拉博安娜·G·门德斯大学、佛罗里达农工大学、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、北卡罗来纳农工大学、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、马里兰东岸大学、德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校、哥伦比亚特区大学和弗吉尼亚州立大学。成员学校是培养非裔美国人和西班牙裔工程学毕业生的顶尖学校。这些学校一直致力于建立一个支持组织，使参与的教职员工能够通过多机构合作充分参与国家教育和研究事业。由于新冠肺炎疫情，校园运营转移到网上，带来了前所未有的压力，产生了获取成员社区经验的需求。随着大学努力改善学生的学习体验，并继续应对疫情造成的异常破坏，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，几乎每一个使用的工具和应用的每个想法都将是进一步构建支持基础设施、计划和流程的潜在候选者，这些支持基础设施、计划和流程可以使新成立的IEC实现其使其合作伙伴能够作为虚拟超级部门协同行动的愿景。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合作项目的基础上：实验中心教育学(ECP)项目和本科生研究经验(REU)/教师研究经验(RET)Mega网站。ECP项目优先考虑在13个合作机构的电路和/或电子课程中进行动手实验。随着向在线学习的过渡，现在的待遇是远程教学和学习，使能技术包括用于在线会议、论坛、家庭作业和测验的工具以及其他与远程教学兼容的工具。将部署为ECP开发的数据收集协议和仪器，以研究和改进虚拟条件下的学生学习。Mega网站是如何通过成功实施多机构本科生研究计划来扩大工程参与的全国典范，其他人可以采用/适应和建立这些计划。Mega网站现已进入第二个年头，将于2020年夏季作为一个缩减的在线项目提供，教职员工、教师和学生将处于有利地位，可以参与数据收集活动，以更好地了解课堂外发生的对关键劳动力发展项目的影响。一场伟大的远程教育实验正席卷全国高校。组成包容性工程联盟的少数族裔服务机构处于独特的地位，可以迅速获取少数族裔工程学学生及其教师的经验。利用来自17所大学的现有合作者网络，极大地增加了成功开发和测试电气和计算机工程课程在线学习环境模型的潜力，该模型可在危急时刻使用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.