Digital Commons Network^™

Scholarly Collaboration In Engineering Education: From Big-Data Scientometrics To User-Centered Software Design, Hanjun Xian

Open Access Dissertations

Engineering education research has grown into a flourishing community with an-ever increasing number of publications and scholars. However, recent studies show that a significant amount of engineering education knowledge retains a clear disciplinary orientation. If the gaps in scholarly collaboration continue to be prevalent within the entire community, it will become increasingly difficult to sustain community memory. This will eventually inhibit the propagation of innovations and slow the movement of research findings into practice.

This dissertation studies scholarly collaboration in the engineering education research community. It provides a clear characterization of collaboration problems and proposes potential solutions. The dissertation is …

Integrating The Sap Software Into The Manufacturing Engineering Curriculum, Lin Qian

Open Access Theses

The concept of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) was developed to integrate data efficiently and eliminate redundancy within organizations. Worldwide industries rely on ERP systems to keep a competitive advantage in world market place. Besides, cross-functional knowledge is required in industry. It is critical that schools integrate ERP concepts and methods in to academic curricula for Technology and Engineering School.

This thesis examined the effectiveness of a simulation game as a method for teaching for ERP systems in Technology and Engineering. The quasi-experimental design was used in this study to determine if the SAP simulation game had an impact on students' …

Modeling Tools For Conformal Orthotic Devices, Steven David Riddle

Open Access Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to advance the design of conformal orthotic devices through the development of two modeling tools to address knowledge gaps in the field.

The field of human orthotics has been continually troubled by identifying successful methods of harnessing devices to the body. Past orthotics have utilized a rigid framework with minimal degrees of freedom (DOFs) driven by hard actuators attached to the body at select anchor points. Many devices design the structure and anchor points such that they reduce the degrees of freedom of a targeted joint, limiting the user's mobility and often causing the …

Scheduling In Mohs Micrographic Surgery Clinics, Stephen Vincent Steidle

Open Access Theses

Mohs Micrographic Surgery (MMS) is a surgical method used for the excision of aggressive skin cancers in areas of high cosmetic importance, such as the face and hands. The practice has been gaining popularity worldwide for its low recurrence rates and cosmetic results. Current clinics though are plagued by extreme wait times and an overall poor patient experience. In this paper we look to explore this problem by applying systems engineering principles including optimization and scheduling with the goal of improving the patient experience. Currently, little literature exists exploring the difficulties associated with scheduling for MMS clinic which primarily revolve …