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Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

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Articles 151 - 180 of 220

Full-Text Articles in Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering

Special Session - Team Training To Promote Constructive (Not Destructive) Conflict, Ray Luechtefeld, Steve Eugene Watkins Jan 2005

Special Session - Team Training To Promote Constructive (Not Destructive) Conflict, Ray Luechtefeld, Steve Eugene Watkins

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Advancing technology increases the need for engineering students to perform effectively on multidisciplinary teams. While conflict is a normal, and even necessary, component of team dynamics, if not managed effectively it can lead to destructive (rather than constructive) outcomes. An Action Science approach to group and individual effectiveness can help teams handle conflict constructively. This session uses a "Teach the Teacher" approach to give participants a basic understanding of skills underlying the approach. It provides practice in Action Science through a set of learning modules. These skills can be brought back and integrated into the participants' courses to provide student …

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Taxonomy Of Systems-Of-Systems, James Gideon, Cihan H. Dagli, Ann K. Miller Jan 2005

Taxonomy Of Systems-Of-Systems, James Gideon, Cihan H. Dagli, Ann K. Miller

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The study of systems-of-systems is an increasingly important topic in systems engineering. Though there is not complete agreement, a more precise definition of what these highly evolved systems are and what attributes they possess has certainly emerged. However, there are still areas in the study where the topic can be advanced by a more rigorous presentation of the basic elements. One such area is the taxonomy of systems-ofsystems. This paper will begin with the definition of systems-of-systems as it currently stands and will present the taxonomy from a broader view with additional considerations for classification. These taxonomic categories will consider …

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A "Theory Of Action" Perspective On Effective Organizational Change, Ray Luechtefeld Jan 2005

A "Theory Of Action" Perspective On Effective Organizational Change, Ray Luechtefeld

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

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A Generic, Adaptive Systems Engineering Information Model I, Ann K. Miller, Joseph J. Simpson, Scott Erwin Grasman, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2005

A Generic, Adaptive Systems Engineering Information Model I, Ann K. Miller, Joseph J. Simpson, Scott Erwin Grasman, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a new network centric architecture that can be used by first responders to effectively respond to crisis situations. The powerful network-centric concept originally developed for and mainly used in the military environment, can be effectively used for civilian security and emergency response missions. This paper also proposes the use of a swarm of intelligent robots as a part of the network-centric architecture to aid the first responders. The swarm of robots works in tandem with the first responders and provides them with the necessary information on a real time basis. The proposed network centric architecture with a …

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An Sds Modeling Approach For Simulation-Based Control, Sreeram Ramakrishnan, Kumar Mayur Thakur Jan 2005

An Sds Modeling Approach For Simulation-Based Control, Sreeram Ramakrishnan, Kumar Mayur Thakur

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We initiate a study of mathematical models for specifying (discrete) simulation-based control systems. It is desirable to specify simulation-based control systems using a model that is intuitive, succinct, expressive, and whose state space properties are relatively easy computationally. We compare automata-based models for specifying control systems and find that all systems that are currently used (such as finite state machines, communicating hierarchical finite state machines (FSM), communicating finite state machines, and Turing machines) lack at least one of the abovementioned features. We propose using sequential dynamical systems (SDS) - a formalism for representing discrete simulations - to specify simulation-based control …

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Network-Centric First Responder Architecture With Swarming Robots Entity, Lakshmanan Meyyappan, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2005

Network-Centric First Responder Architecture With Swarming Robots Entity, Lakshmanan Meyyappan, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a new network centric architecture that can be used by first responders to effectively respond to crisis situations. The powerful network-centric concept originally developed for and mainly used in the military environment, can be effectively used for civilian security and emergency response missions. This paper also proposes the use of a swarm of intelligent robots as a part of the network-centric architecture to aid the first responders. The swarm of robots works in tandem with the first responders and provides them with the necessary information on a real time basis. The proposed network centric architecture with a …

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Successfully Blending Distance Students Into The On-Campus Classroom, Susan L. Murray, David Lee Enke, Sreeram Ramakrishnan Jun 2004

Successfully Blending Distance Students Into The On-Campus Classroom, Susan L. Murray, David Lee Enke, Sreeram Ramakrishnan

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

As universities are increasingly embracing distance education technology, it is useful to examine the challenges and opportunities of technology in the classroom. This is especially true when the course contains on-campus local students in addition to students learning at a distance. A significant challenge commonly faced is how to remain flexible in presenting course materials while still having notes and other handouts in electronic format available before the lecture. Other challenges include creating and using lecture material that can be viewed at low resolution and low bandwidth, and getting distance students to interact with the instructor, on-campus students, and fellow …

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Forecasting Series-Based Stock Price Data Using Direct Reinforcement Learning, H. Li, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke Jan 2004

Forecasting Series-Based Stock Price Data Using Direct Reinforcement Learning, H. Li, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A significant amount of work has been done in the area of price series forecasting using soft computing techniques, most of which are based upon supervised learning. Unfortunately, there has been evidence that such models suffer from fundamental drawbacks. Given that the short-term performance of the financial forecasting architecture can be immediately measured, it is possible to integrate reinforcement learning into such applications. In this paper, we present the novel hybrid view for a financial series and critic adaptation stock price forecasting architecture using direct reinforcement. A new utility function called policies-matching ratio is also proposed. The need for the …

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Cost Allocation For Transmission Investment Using Agent-Based Game Theory, Jakapun Mepokee, David Lee Enke, Badrul H. Chowdhury Jan 2004

Cost Allocation For Transmission Investment Using Agent-Based Game Theory, Jakapun Mepokee, David Lee Enke, Badrul H. Chowdhury

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Due to electrical power restructuring, a dramatic change has been made to the generation and transmission sectors of the power industry. Rules and legislation are continuously changing. To promote more competition, transmission has to be expanded or upgraded to remove congestion and market power. The cost allocation of new investment in transmission has to be recalculated. The socialization methods of the past have been shown to be unfair to some market and network participants. The decentralization of cost allocation must be considered. The proposed paper provides a comparison between traditional cost allocation methods and a new cost allocation method based …

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An Enhanced Least-Squares Approach For Reinforcement Learning, Hailin Li, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2003

An Enhanced Least-Squares Approach For Reinforcement Learning, Hailin Li, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents an enhanced least-squares approach for solving reinforcement learning control problems. Model-free least-squares policy iteration (LSPI) method has been successfully used for this learning domain. Although LSPI is a promising algorithm that uses linear approximator architecture to achieve policy optimization in the spirit of Q-learning, it faces challenging issues in terms of the selection of basis functions and training samples. Inspired by orthogonal least-squares regression (OLSR) method for selecting the centers of RBF neural network, we propose a new hybrid learning method. The suggested approach combines LSPI algorithm with OLSR strategy and uses simulation as a tool to …

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Combining Evolving Neural Network Classifiers Using Bagging, Sunghwan Sohn, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2003

Combining Evolving Neural Network Classifiers Using Bagging, Sunghwan Sohn, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The performance of the neural network classifier significantly depends on its architecture and generalization. It is usual to find the proper architecture by trial and error. This is time consuming and may not always find the optimal network. For this reason, we apply genetic algorithms to the automatic generation of neural networks. Many researchers have provided that combining multiple classifiers improves generalization. One of the most effective combining methods is bagging. In bagging, training sets are selected by resampling from the original training set and classifiers trained with these sets are combined by voting. We implement the bagging technique into …

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Cooperative Cleaning For Distributed Autonomous Robot Systems Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, H. Subramanian, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2003

Cooperative Cleaning For Distributed Autonomous Robot Systems Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, H. Subramanian, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Cooperative Autonomous Cleaning is a simple challenge that can be implemented with the help of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCM) by simulating the actual thinking process of the human. The human mind organizes its thoughts in priorities and this feature could be exploited well if a priori knowledge of the system exists. This technique has been attempted here for a DARS.

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Emergence And Artificial Life, Nil H. Kilicay, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2003

Emergence And Artificial Life, Nil H. Kilicay, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper focuses on emergent phenomena and the utilization of computer simulations, basically agent-based modeling to understand emergent phenomena. Agent-based simulation models have a promising future in the social sciences, from management to economies, political science, sociology and anthropology. This paper attempts to realize their full scientific potential by reviewing recent applications in engineering management and addresses the set of challenges confronted by this method. Common methodology for constructing an agent-based model is also discussed with the aim of highlighting how artificial life and management can be brought together to develop decision making aid tools.

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Web Personalization Using Neuro-Fuzzy Clustering Algorithms, Kartik Menon, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2003

Web Personalization Using Neuro-Fuzzy Clustering Algorithms, Kartik Menon, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Different users have different needs from the same web page and hence it is necessary to develop a system which understands the needs and demands of the users. Web server logs have abundant information about the nature of users accessing it. In this paper we discussed how to mine these web server logs for a given period of time using unsupervised and competitive learning algorithm like Kohonen''s self organizing maps (SOM) and interpreting those results using Unified distance Matrix (U-matrix). These algorithms help us in efficiently clustering users based on similar web access patterns and each cluster having users with …

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Engineering Management At Umr -- Alumni Voices, Stephen A. Raper Jun 2002

Engineering Management At Umr -- Alumni Voices, Stephen A. Raper

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Department of Engineering Management at the University of Missouri-Rolla is among the oldest of its kind in the United States, and has over 2000 Bachelors level alumni graduates. The Department will undergo ABET accreditation under the new assessment based criteria in the fall of 2002. The new criteria specify that engineering programs should seek to continuously improve their degree offerings through an ongoing assessment process that includes constituent input. Our own department has specified undergraduate alumni as one of the prime or key constituents that will be queried for input into our own processes. For the first time in …

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Retention Of Female Faculty Members, Susan L. Murray, Mariesa Crow, Suzanna M. Rose Jun 2001

Retention Of Female Faculty Members, Susan L. Murray, Mariesa Crow, Suzanna M. Rose

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The recruitment and the retention of female undergraduate and graduate students into engineering courses is discussed. A similar challenge lies in recruiting female faculty member from the limited pool of candidates in several fields at most universities. It is found that about half the females who were hired did not stay at the university. It is suggested that programs should be introduced to encourage mentoring and career development as such improvements would benefit all faculty members both female and male.

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Using A Neuro-Fuzzy-Genetic Data Mining Architecture To Determine A Marketing Strategy In A Charitable Organization's Donor Database, Korakot Hemsathapat, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke Jan 2001

Using A Neuro-Fuzzy-Genetic Data Mining Architecture To Determine A Marketing Strategy In A Charitable Organization's Donor Database, Korakot Hemsathapat, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper describes the use of a neuro-fuzzy-genetic data mining architecture for finding hidden knowledge and modeling the data of the 1997 donation campaign of an American charitable organization. This data was used during the 1998 KDD Cup competition. In the architecture, all input variables are first preprocessed and all continuous variables are fuzzified. Principal component analysis (PCA) is then applied to reduce the dimensions of the input variables in finding combinations of variables, or factors, that describe major trends in the data. The reduced dimensions of the input variables are then used to train probabilistic neural networks (PNN) to …

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Advantages Of Using Fuzzy Class Memberships In Self-Organizing Map And Support Vector Machines, Sunghwan Sohn, Cihan H. Dagli Jan 2001

Advantages Of Using Fuzzy Class Memberships In Self-Organizing Map And Support Vector Machines, Sunghwan Sohn, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The self-organizing map (SOM) is naturally unsupervised learning, but if a class label is known, it can be used as the classifier. In a SOM classifier, each neuron is assigned a class label based on the maximum class frequency and classified by a nearest neighbor strategy. The drawback when using this strategy is that each pattern is treated by equal importance in counting class frequency regardless of its typicalness. For this reason, the fuzzy class membership can be used instead of crisp class frequency and this fuzzy membership-label neuron provides another perspective of a feature map. This fuzzy class membership …

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Analysis Of Intangible Factors In Waste Minimization Projects, Halvard E. Nystrom, William Ralph Kehr Jan 2000

Analysis Of Intangible Factors In Waste Minimization Projects, Halvard E. Nystrom, William Ralph Kehr

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Continual population growth and rising standards of living that accelerate the consumption of limited resources, are forcing society to encourage conservation of these resources. These resources not only include raw material, but also the areas to dispose of the wastes. As a result, communities are driving industries towards waste minimization by limiting waste generation and landfill availability. Firms'' environmentally friendly strategies can gain competitive advantage by leading in environmental practices. This advantage emanates from the reduction of risk of environmental regulatory overreaction, as well as improved asset utilization and landfill utilization. However, these intangible benefits are difficult to identify and …

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Exercising Real Unit Operational Options Under Price Uncertainty, Chung-Li Tseng Jan 2000

Exercising Real Unit Operational Options Under Price Uncertainty, Chung-Li Tseng

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, we use the real options framework to value the operation flexibility of a power plant. The power plant operation is formulated as a multi-stage stochastic problem. We assume that there are hourly spot markets for both electricity and the fuel used by the generator, and that their prices follow some Ito processes. At each hour, the power plant operator must decide whether or not to run the unit so as to maximize expected profit. However, the unit operation is subject to decision lead times and minimum uptime and downtime constraints, so the commitment decision must take into …

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Strategy Planning For Technological Discontinuities In A Changing Regulatory Environment, William Ralph Kehr, Halvard E. Nystrom Jan 2000

Strategy Planning For Technological Discontinuities In A Changing Regulatory Environment, William Ralph Kehr, Halvard E. Nystrom

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper describes an approach to the analysis of publicly available financial data for individual industries. These methods enable the analyst to assess past practices and the historical rate of technological diffusion during the transition period of discontinuous technological change. This assessment can provide a basis of comparison for current changes in their industry. These methods are applied to small rural telephone companies during the period of 1960 to 1996. Annual data is presented detailing the change from aerial distribution cable to buried cable by the roughly 600 rural telephone companies financed through loans from the Rural Utilities Services, a …

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Simple Ensemble-Averaging Model Based On Generalized Regression Neural Network In Financial Forecasting Problems, Cihan H. Dagli, Parinya Disorntetiwat Jan 2000

Simple Ensemble-Averaging Model Based On Generalized Regression Neural Network In Financial Forecasting Problems, Cihan H. Dagli, Parinya Disorntetiwat

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Introduces an ensemble-averaging model based on a GRNN (generalized regression neural network) for financial forecasting. The model trains all input individually using GRNNs and uses a simple ensemble-averaging committee machine to improve the accuracy performance. In a financial problem, there are many different factors that can effect the asset price movement at different times. An experiment is implemented in two different data sets, S&P 500 index and currency exchange rate. The predictive abilities of the model are evaluated on the basis of root mean squared error, standard deviation and percent direction correctness. The study shows a promising result of the …

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The Effectiveness Of An On-Line Graduate Engineering Management Course, Rosemarie Maffei Evans, Madison Daily, Susan L. Murray Jun 1999

The Effectiveness Of An On-Line Graduate Engineering Management Course, Rosemarie Maffei Evans, Madison Daily, Susan L. Murray

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the summer of 1997, the Engineering Management Department of the University of Missouri-Rolla's (UMR) began offering its first Internet-based graduate level course. This course, Advanced Production Management, was designed to utilize a combination of Internet-based tools, such as EMail and Chat rooms to create a alternative means for the delivery of course material. This paper will draw these following conclusions from more than a year of research, which included over 100 students in six different course offerings. First, the Internet-based students performed equally as well as the control group students. Second, students tend to have exaggerated time requirement expectations …

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Moving Transportation Toward Sustainable Development: The Need For A Paradigm Shift, Bahador Ghahramani, Stephen A. Raper Jun 1999

Moving Transportation Toward Sustainable Development: The Need For A Paradigm Shift, Bahador Ghahramani, Stephen A. Raper

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Despite progress in controlling exhaust emissions, the increase of cars on the road will surpass progress in emission control technology. The automobile is currently responsible for 50% of world fossil fuel consumption, 15-20% of CO2 emissions worldwide and overwhelming particulate air pollution in many urban centers. Current efforts in emissions control have been focused on improving the efficiency of fuels and automobiles and their emissions. However, as a mode of transportation, the automobile is one of the most inefficient, both in environmental and economic costs. Even the most efficient cars developed today will still significantly contribute to the amount …

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Value-Based Product Structure Evaluation For Disassembly, Shivakumar Viswanathan, Venkat Allada Jan 1999

Value-Based Product Structure Evaluation For Disassembly, Shivakumar Viswanathan, Venkat Allada

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Designing for the ease of end of life (EOL) disassembly is an important design function. The product structure that is the spatial relationships between the parts of the product and the value distribution over them plays an important role in determining the ease and profitability of disassembly. This paper presents a conceptual methodology to determine the effect of the spatial precedence on the desired value precedence of the product. The methodology introduces a digraph called the bureau graph to model this relationship between the spatial and value precedence structures. Based on this modeling indices are derived that provide a holistic …

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A Biologically Inspired Connectionist Model For Image Feature Extraction In 2d Pattern Recognition, Cihan H. Dagli, Raymond K. Chafin Jan 1999

A Biologically Inspired Connectionist Model For Image Feature Extraction In 2d Pattern Recognition, Cihan H. Dagli, Raymond K. Chafin

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new edge detection method is presented which borrows from recent research into primate vision biology, and offers improved noise performance over classical methods. Beginning with spatio-temporal shunting models for retinal cones, horizontal cells, bipolar cells, and retinal ganglions, a set of simplified steady-state solutions are developed which lend themselves to efficient computation on standard computer equipment. The retinal model output is found to be nominally equivalent to the classical edge detector, but is produced differently. A simplified model of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) has been produced. Taking the output of the retinal model, the LGN simple cell and …

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Short-Term Generation Asset Valuation, Chung-Li Tseng, G. Barz Jan 1999

Short-Term Generation Asset Valuation, Chung-Li Tseng, G. Barz

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a method for valuing a power plant over a short term period using Monte Carlo simulation. The power plant valuation problem is formulated as a multi stage stochastic problem. We assume there are hourly markets for both electricity and the fuel used by the generator, and their prices follow some Ito processes. At each hour, the power plant operator must decide to run or not to run the unit so as to maximize expected profit. A certain lead time for commitment decision is necessary to start up a unit. The commitment decision, once made, is subject to physical …

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Productivity Improvement At A High-Tech State-Owned Industry--An Indonesian Case Study Of Employee Motivation, Adik A. Soedarsono, Susan L. Murray, Yildirim Omurtag Nov 1998

Productivity Improvement At A High-Tech State-Owned Industry--An Indonesian Case Study Of Employee Motivation, Adik A. Soedarsono, Susan L. Murray, Yildirim Omurtag

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The purpose of this case study was to identify the level of employee motivation at an Indonesian high-tech state-owned company. Comparisons were drawn between labor and management as well as Indonesian and Western industrial environments. The overall results provide insight into employee motivation and the potential for productivity improvement that should prove beneficial to management at state-owned and privately owned companies in Indonesia and the Pacific Rim. The study can also help Westerners appreciate culture differences and productivity challenges in this developing country.

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A Mentoring Guide For Female Faculty In Engineering, Susan L. Murray, Linda M. Manning, Catherine A. Riordan, Elizabeth Cummins, Philip B. Thompson Jul 1998

A Mentoring Guide For Female Faculty In Engineering, Susan L. Murray, Linda M. Manning, Catherine A. Riordan, Elizabeth Cummins, Philip B. Thompson

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

One widely accepted method for increasing the chances of success of female engineering and science students and faculty alike is to provide access to female role models and mentors. In this article we offer to new female faculty, and to those who would mentor them, an annotated list of text and electronic resources that address most of the most important challenges facing new female faculty in science and engineering.

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A Technology Assessment Survey For Web Based Higher Education Programs, Earl A. Evans, Susan L. Murray Jul 1998

A Technology Assessment Survey For Web Based Higher Education Programs, Earl A. Evans, Susan L. Murray

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Advances in communications and computer technology, as well as in human-computer interfaces, have enabled concurrent advances in Web-based education. A number of case studies concerning applications of Web-based education for both distance learning and on-campus programs have been published. Primarily, these studies have focused on individual assessments of the web-based technologies. In contrast, this paper will provide a broad based assessment of applied web-based technology for higher education. This research was conducted via a survey completed by university and college faculty from numerous 4-year institutions. To gain an effective assessment, eleven categories of web-based course delivery tools, such as chatrooms …

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