Engineering Commons^™

The Effective Use Of Research Tools And Resources, Nader Ale Ebrahim

Nader Ale Ebrahim

This presentation is prepared to help scholars who seek to reduce the search time by extending the knowledge of researchers to more effectively use the “Research Tools" that are available through the Net.

Risk Analysis & Management In Student-Centered Spacecraft Development Projects, Jeremy Straub, Ronald Fevig, James Casler, Om Yadav

Jeremy Straub

Student involvement in any engineering project introduces an element of risk. This risk is particularly pronounced with small spacecraft projects, as a failure of the spacecraft on-orbit can result in a complete failure of the mission. However, student involvement in these projects is critical to allow research aims to be accomplished, in a university setting, and to train the next generation of spacecraft engineering professionals. The nature of risks posed by student involvement is discussed and a framework for assessing and mitigating these risks presented.

Exploring The Factors That Motivate Female Students To Enroll And Persist In A Collegiate Stem Degree Program, Rosemary L. Edzie, Moe Alahmad

Rosemary L Edzie

In the United States, collegiate enrollment in science and engineering programs continues to decline, while European and Asian universities have increased the number of science and engineering graduates. In addition, there is a growing concern over too few females enrolling and persisting in collegiate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree programs. Through increasing access to pre-collegiate STEM activities, providing a better understanding of STEM career choices, instilling of confidence in math and science, and establishing student and industry based mentoring programs, more female students will enroll and persist in collegiate STEM degree programs. This paper sets to explore the …

A Semi-Automatic Approach For Project Assignment In A Capstone Course, Mark Chang, Allen Downey

Mark L. Chang

This paper presents a semi-automatic approach to assigning students to project teams for a year-long, industry-sponsored senior capstone course. Successful assignment requires knowl- edge of at least individual project requirements, student skills, student personalities, and student project preferences. This mix of hard skills, soft skills, and interpersonal impres- sions requires human involvement to produce a high-quality assignment. The importance of faculty input often requires that the assignment process be labor- and time-intensive.

Our approach attempts to reduce the time required to perform this assignment by selectively automating parts of the task flow. An automated search uses a randomized greedy algorithm …

A Critical Perfomance Analysis Of Thin Client Platforms, Faith J. Shimba, Renatus Michael

Faith Joel Shimba

The nature of operation of Thin Client computing makes their performance to be affected by both the quality of the network and the terminals. For the past few years, there are few analyses on the performance of Thin Clients that can produce reliable, valid, and up-to-date results collected in a well designed and evaluated experiment based research. This paper analyses the performance of Thin Clients through experiment based research. The approach is to use benchmark application which is designed specifically for measurement of desktop computers by inserting delays in the visual elements of such benchmark application. In this technique, packet’s …

Ict And The Education Sector In Tanzania: Effectiveness Of Introducing And Applying Ict In Higher Learning Institutions In Tanzania: The Case Of Ardhi University, Kristofa S. Nkembo, Daniel Koloseni, Faith J. Shimba

Faith Joel Shimba

Academic Institutions are heavily investing in ICT in order to improve delivery and quality of education. But the process of introducing and applying ICT in Higher learning institutions is not effective to enable higher learning Institutions to reap fully the benefits offered by ICT. This book describes a number of factors that hindered the introduction and application of ICT at Ardhi University, which are limited ICT infrastructure, inadequate ICT personnel, inadequate training provided to staff, limited support services, inadequate financial resources,and insufficient budget for ICT infrastructure. Further it recommends among other things, improvement of ICT infrastructure, increasing the number of …

Alternative Approach To Assessing Military Training For Advanced Placement Into Engineering And Technology Programs, Kevin James Wainwright, Barbara Ellen Endicott-Popovsky, Sarah A. Rajala

Sarah A. Rajala

Both the United States and Canada invest a great deal of resources in the training of their military personal. Many of the skills and experiences accumulated by soldiers are those that are highly valued by civilian employers. Further, these skills are often embodied in academic programs, suggesting soldiers would have a comparative advantage in such programs; however, despite the efforts of government agencies, many soldiers are unable to convert their skills and training into meaningful careers. While there are several reasons why individuals leaving military duty have trouble re-integrating into work and education, one of the major obstacles is the …

Engineering Success: The Role Of Faculty Relationships With African American Undergraduates, Christopher B. Newman

Christopher B. Newman

Previous research has found that faculty–student relationships are a contributing factor to the retention of students at four-year institutions. In this study, the experiences of twelve African American engineers are explored through the lens of Fiske’s (Structures of Social Life: The Four Elementary Forms of Human Relations, Free Press, New York, 1991) social-relational models theory. The overall findings of this study suggest that faculty play an important role in encouraging or dissuading the African American engineers in this study to persist in their respective majors. Additionally, the involvement in faculty research laboratories and the referral by faculty to other opportunities …

Challenges Associated With Ict Asset Disposal In Tanzania, Faith J. Shimba, Daniel Koloseni

Faith Joel Shimba

Government and non–Government institutions are heavily investing in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance their businesses and operational activities. This trend has partially been inspired by the lift of computer ban in 1980s where millions of ICT assets had been imported. Subsequently, there is a rapid increase of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Mobile Service Providers (MSP), and ICT asset vendors’ country-wide. This implies a massive increase in imported ICT assets as well as the number of ICT assets that are going out of the ICT asset life cycle. In order to study challenges facing Tanzania in disposing end of …

Computing Without Borders? Adapting An Irish Programme For The Tanzanian Ict Market, Faraja Igira, Herman Mandari, Bosi Masamila, Salehe Mwachaka, Zanifa Omar, Jafari Said, Faith J. Shimba, Rose Tinabo, June Barret, Damian Gordon, Paul Kelly, Fredick Mtenzi, Oliver O'Connor, Patricia O'Byrne, Ciaran O'Leary

Faith Joel Shimba

A Tanzanian higher education institution (Institute of Finance Management) and an Irish higher education institutio (Dublin Institute of Technology) have worked in partnership to develop the final stage of a Computer Science programme to meet the specific needs of the Tanzanian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. The designed stage sits above three stages of a programme designed for the Irish ICT sector which was transplanted to the Tanzanian context. The final stage is crucial as it represents the final bridge between the employment market and the programme, which is informed by the best practice, needs and requirements of both …

Cloud Computing: Strategies For Cloud Computing Adoption, Faith J. Shimba

Faith Joel Shimba

The advent of cloud computing in recent years has sparked an interest from different IT stakeholders. This is a result of the new economic model for the IT department that cloud computing promises. The model promises to remove the need for heavy investment for limited IT resources towards renting IT resources and paying based on usage. Although, the adoption of cloud computing promises various benefits to organizations, a successful adoption requires an understanding of different dynamics and expertise in diverse domains. Currently there are inadequate guidelines for adoption and this book proposes a roadmap for cloud computing adoption called ROCCA. …