Work in progress — Expansion of an undergraduate engineering degree program to include fully online studies at a distance

Abstract

In fall of 2007, the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Engineering and Applied Science initiated a partnership with the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) to create a new undergraduate education opportunity that would allow students to remain in their local community for all of their undergraduate engineering studies. Through the partnership, students can complete a two-year engineering associate degree in the VCCS. Successful students can then transfer to UVA for third and fourth year undergraduate studies that lead to an existing, non-ABET accredited Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Science. All necessary UVA classes are made available in a highly interactive on-line format to the students located across Virginia. The cooperative program was motivated by multiple requests from communities and engineering firms located in Virginia that wanted increased access to undergraduate engineering education and talent local to their communities. The details of the program design for the distributed learning system that blends on-campus and off-campus learners will be reviewed, and programmatic-level indicators of success to date will be given. This review reflects design-based research principles, and, in addition, the program has adopted an evaluation approach which reviews the systemic impact of the program across the state.