Computer Engineering Curriculum Research Articles

A Systematic Literature Review of Entrepreneurial Education in Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering Curricula

A Systematic Literature Review of Entrepreneurial Education in Electrical, Electronic, and Computer Engineering Curricula

Effects of a Spiral Curriculum With Application-Based Project and Lab Components on Motivation and Achievement of Engineering Students in an Urban University

Background: Engineering curricula often consist of separate courses that do not form a cohesive learning experience. Researchers revised an undergraduate computer engineering curriculum at an urban university, seeking to improve motivation and achievement in an important population that is traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields. Contribution: The university serves a diverse student body with a high percentage of first-generation college students. Curriculum reform is important for improving student learning experiences and retaining students in STEM fields. This study provides evidence for benefits of such curriculum reform with this population. Research Questions: The purpose of the study was to determine if the revised curriculum improved student motivation and achievement, and to what extent students felt it prepared them for their future careers. Methodology: This was a mixed-methods, quasi-experimental study, using both within- and between-subjects designs. Quantitative data collected were pre- and post-motivational inventories and grades. Qualitative data included interview data and open-ended survey responses. Findings: Analyses revealed that post-course motivation, when controlling for precourse motivation, was significantly higher for the experimental group in three motivation subscales and students in the experimental group had significantly higher grades in the course than those in the control group. Qualitative data showed participants felt the revised courses built off of each other and helped them learn skills they would need in their careers.

Evaluación curricular de la ingeniería en Computación de una universidad mexicana desde la percepción de sus egresados

Este trabajo tuvo como finalidad evaluar el currículo de la ingeniería en Computación de una universidad mexicana. Desde la perspectiva de sus egresados, se respondieron planteamientos relacionados con el cumplimiento de los objetivos del currículo, el nivel de satisfacción académica y la identificación de fortalezas y debilidades de la carrera.
 La evaluación se llevó a cabo mediante un enfoque mixto. Para ello, se aplicó el modelo CIPP de Stufflebeam y Shinkfield (1987/2011), cuyo nombre responde a las cuatro etapas que lo integran: contexto, entrada, proceso y producto. Debido al propósito de la investigación, la evaluación se centró específicamente en la etapa de producto. La recolección de datos contempló la revisión del documento institucional en donde figuran los objetivos del currículo, la aplicación de dos cuestionarios a 63 egresados y una entrevista a un grupo focal integrado por 13 participantes. En el análisis de datos, a partir del documento institucional, se efectuó un análisis de contenido; a partir de la información obtenida de los cuestionarios, se concretó un análisis estadístico descriptivo y un análisis secuencial de discurso; a partir de los datos recabados en la entrevista con el grupo focal, se hizo también un análisis secuencial de discurso.
 Acerca de los resultados, se demostró que existe correspondencia entre los logros de la ingeniería en Computación y los objetivos enlistados en el currículo. Además, todos los egresados están siendo preparados con la mayoría de los conocimientos propios de un profesional de esta carrera. Sin embargo, en lo que respecta a las habilidades y destrezas, se está preparando adecuadamente solo a los egresados de la orientación en Software de Sistemas, y no a los de la orientación en Sistemas Digitales, ya que no existe correspondencia entre el perfil de egreso logrado por este y lo establecido en el currículo. Además, se demostró que los egresados están desarrollando actitudes y valores descritos por el currículo. Con relación a la satisfacción académica, los egresados expresaron haber tenido una buena experiencia cursando la carrera. Por último, se identificaron como fortalezas de la carrera el diseño de la malla curricular y las prácticas profesionales, mientras que las debilidades se vincularon con aspectos relacionados con la planta docente, los equipos y la infraestructura.

An intuitive, application-based, simulation-driven approach to teaching probability and random processes

Probability and random processes is considered by students to be conceptually one of the most difficult subjects in the undergraduate electrical and computer engineering curriculum. There are numerous reasons for this difficulty encountered by the students. First off, humans are not innately good at probabilistic intuition. Traditionally, this subject has been introduced in a very abstract manner without emphasis on real-world applications from electrical and computer engineering discipline. In addition, extensive use of interactive simulation and visualization tools, offering an alternative way of developing probabilistic intuition, is usually missing from traditional course offerings. This paper presents a unique pedagogical approach to teaching an introductory probability course offered to electrical and computer engineering juniors. The salient features of the proposed pedagogical approach include more emphasis on real-world electrical and computer engineering problems that show the applications of abstract probabilistic concepts; extensive hands-on and interactive MATLAB® simulations of real-world electrical and computer engineering problems that are tightly integrated into the curriculum; highlighting the frequentist approach to build probabilistic intuition using simulations; concrete examples showing how naive probabilistic intuition can be erroneous and how to develop correct probabilistic intuition based on systematically modeling, simulating, and analyzing a problem; and application-based simulations driving the abstract theory rather than the other way around. This pedagogical approach was implemented in a course offered to electrical and computer engineering undergraduates at Purdue University Northwest. The paper presents a concrete example illustrating how the salient features of the proposed pedagogical approach were implemented as part of this course and student data from the courses to validate the efficacy of the proposed approach.

The Effect of Internships on Computer Science Engineering Capstone Projects

Contribution: Internships designed to provide training and an initial period of contact with industry, prior to a computer science engineering capstone project, have a very positive impact on both industry and academic capstone projects. Background: Internships and capstone projects are widely used to integrate work-related learning in computer engineering curricula. Both activities offer numerous benefits for students, industry, and academia. Although their effects have been extensively studied separately, the interaction between them remains unexplored. Research Questions: What is the effect of internships on the development of a subsequent capstone project? Methodology: The hypothesis was that the completion of an internship will have positive effects on several aspects of the capstone projects: 1) improved student competencies; 2) improved capstone project outcomes; and 3) decreased supervision effort. Further, these positive effects were expected to be greater in industry-based projects than in academic projects. The hypothesis was tested through a quantitative study of data collected from 274 computer science engineering capstone projects. A period of time with internships was compared with another period without internships, and differentiating between academic and industry projects. Findings: Internships prior to capstone projects improve student skills in autonomy, technology, methodology, and project management; increase the complexity and technological novelty of the resulting projects; and reduce advisor involvement in practical (technology, execution) and keep-the-project-alive issues, and increase advisor involvement in monitoring student work (meetings, reports, and initial arrangements). This effect was observed in both industrial and academic projects.

A Practical and Systemic Curricular Approach to Teach Computer Systems

The design of computational systems is an important matter that must be especially present in Computer Engineering curriculum. Traditionally, Computer Engineering curriculum address this theme in a compartmentalized way in specific curricular units. This organization creates a fragmented view of the complex computational systems development, understood here as the specification, design, implementation and integration of the lines of computer architecture and organization, systems engineering, compilers, operating systems and computer networks. To avoid this fragmented view, this article proposes a systemic and curricular approach, integrating hardware and software, which allows students to design a complex computer system over three years of their academic trajectories. This approach was validated in a Computer Engineering course at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, bringing positive results in relation to students' motivation and enthusiasm, as well as encouraging creative and innovative thinking.

A “learning by design” application for modeling, implementing, and evaluating hardware architectures for artificial neural networks at undergraduate level

AbstractArtificial intelligence is currently playing an important role in engineering education. Artificial neural networks (ANNs), for example, are one of the most important topics in computer science and computer engineering curricula. The teaching of ANNs, however, is challenging and current efforts are mainly focused on providing computer systems and/or software simulators to enhance results. In the present study, we introduce a field programmable gate array‐based educational system focused on the modeling, implementation, and evaluation of hardware architectures of ANNs type Multilayer Perceptron. The system was designed by taking into account the learning by design approach to creating a modular proposal, which is composed of a set of predefined modules that describe the behavior of each element of an ANN. This feature allows various neural architectures to be easily defined and to be applied to different specific problems. The system helps the teaching‐learning process by providing a design environment where undergraduate students can apply the knowledge acquired in lecture‐based courses related to areas, such as pattern recognition and neural networks. The experimental results present the design and implementation of an ANN hardware architecture that solves the iris‐plant problem.

FPGA implementation of error control codes in VHDL: An undergraduate research project

AbstractError control codes (ECC) play an important role in the detection and correction of data errors over unreliable or noisy communication channels. The main idea of ECC is to add redundant bits to the message on the transmitter, which can be used to detect and correct certain errors on the receiver. ECC are used in numerous applications such as telecommunications, Internet, and data storage. Different types of ECC exist such as linear block, convolutional, and turbo codes. This paper presents results from an innovative undergraduate research project involving implementation of linear block, cyclic and convolutional codes in very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) using a field‐programmable gate array (FPGA). FPGA is a suitable platform for implementing ECC due to the advantages of performance, time to market, cost, reliability, and long‐term maintenance. As part of this project, (7,4) Hamming code used for linear block and cyclic codes and convolutional codes with constraint length k of 3 and code rate (k/n) of 1/2 were implemented in VHDL on a Xilinx Spartan‐6 FPGA using ISE 14.7. Two undergraduate students at Purdue University Northwest worked on this project. This was the students’ first exposure to ECC, VHDL, and FPGA, as undergraduate students are usually not introduced to these topics in traditional electrical and computer engineering curriculum. The goal of this project was to provide students with hands‐on experience using industry‐standard VHDL software and FPGA hardware platforms to implement ECC. This paper presents the results of this innovative project including register‐transfer level schematics, simulations, and VHDL code for encoders and decoders for the various ECC implemented, and students’ reflections on the project.

PID control education for computer engineering students: A step to bridge a cultural gap

In computer engineering curricula, control is typically taught only to students willing to specialise in embedded systems, real-time, and the like. Nowadays, this is becoming a problem. Control-based techniques are gaining importance as a means to manage, optimise and also design computing systems. In such a scenario, a lack of control culture is critical. However, a computer engineering curriculum may not have the time and space to introduce a suitably tailored but “complete” course on the principles of systems and control. This paper proposes a solution, based on a PID-centred activity, where the occasion is taken to introduce and stress selected general ideas.

Hardware Microprogramming Education Using Raspberry PI and Arduino Technologies

Hardware control is becoming a dominating topic in the field of engineering. Hands-on experience is one of the most crucial skills a fresh graduated engineer needs in order to find a job in industry or in academia. Raspberry PI is a new, user-friendly, open source, technology that allows developers to design and implement complex embedded systems using a small size and advanced single chip. This paper discusses the integration or Raspberry PI technology in the education of electrical and computer engineering curriculum, and its effect on the career of a freshly graduated electrical and computer engineer.

Mobile Learning According to Students of Computer Engineering and Computer Education: A Comparison of Attitudes

Mobile learning has started to perform an increasingly significant role in improving learning outcomes in education. Successful and efficient implementation of m-learning in higher education, as with all educational levels, depends on users’ acceptance of this technology. This study focuses on investigating the attitudes of undergraduate students of Computer Engineering (CENG) and Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) departments in a Turkish public university towards m-learning from three perspectives; gender, area of study, and mobile device ownership. Using a correlational survey method, a Mobile Learning Attitude Scale (MLAS) was administered to 531 students, analysis of which revealed a positive attitude to m-learning in general. A further investigation of the aforementioned three variables showed a more positive attitude for female students in terms of usability, for CEIT students in terms of advantages, usability and independence, and for those owning a mobile device in terms of usability. An important implication from the findings, among others, is supplementing Computer Engineering curriculum with elective courses on the fundamentals of mobile learning, and/or the design and development of m-learning software, so as to create, in the long run, more specialized and complementary teams comprised of trained CENG and CEIT graduates in m-learning sector.

FPGA BASED INDIVIDUAL COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE LABORATORY EXERCISES

Computer Architecture is the study of digital computers towards designing, building and operating digital computers. Digital computers are vital for the modern living because they are essential in providing the intelligences in devices such as self-driving cars and smartphones. Computer Architecture is a core subject for the Electronic (Computer) Engineering course at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah that is compliant to the requirement of the Washington Accord as accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Council of the Board of Engineers of Malaysia (EAC). An FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) based Computer Architecture Laboratory had been developed to support the curriculum of this course. FPGA allows a sustainable implementation of laboratory exercises without resorting to poisonous fabrication of microelectronic devices and installation of integrated circuits. An FPGA is just a configurable and therefore reusable digital design component. Two established organisations promoting computer engineering curriculum, ACM and IEEE, encourages the use of FPGA in digital design in their latest recommendation and together with the EAC, emphasises the grasp of the fundamentals for each student. The laboratory exercises are individual exercises where each student is given a unique assignment. A laboratory manual is provided as a guide and project specification for each student but overall the concept of the laboratory exercise is a student-centred one. Each student is allowed to pace their effort to achieve the sessions of the laboratory exercises starting from session one to session ten. A quantitative analysis of the effectiveness of these laboratory sessions is carried out based on the numbers of students completing the laboratory sessions. These sessions start from an 1:FPGA tutorial to implementations of features of a microprocessor of 2:Immediate Load, 3:Immediate Load to Multiple Registers, 4:Addition, 5:Operation Code, 6:Program Memory, 7:Jump, 8:Conditional Jump, 9:Register to Register and 10:Input-Output. The results of three batches of students show that within the time limits of a one credit hour course, students had managed to complete some aspects of the implementation of a simple microprocessor.

An Augmented Reality Application for Computer Engineering Curriculum

Today, smart phones and tablet PCs have a huge application area due to their capabilities and ease of use. One of these application areas is education. Especially, supportive technologies have brought big innovations on teaching abstract concepts to the students. One of these technologies is Augmented Reality (AR) which moves graphic&animation usage one step towards. In this study, we shared our experiments on the usage of AR in computer engineering curriculum and presented the application that developed for supporting the abstract concepts of Discrete Mathematical Structures course with AR.

Teaching concurrent and parallel programming by patterns: An interactive ICT approach

The use of programming patterns is considered to be a conceptual aid for programmers for developing understandable and testable concurrent and parallel code which is not only well built but also safe. By using programming patterns and their implementations as computer programs, difficult new concepts can be smoothly taught in lectures to students who before trying this teaching approach would have been reluctant to enroll on Parallel and Concurrent Programming courses. The approach presented in this paper consists in changing the traditional programming teaching and learning model to one where students are first introduced to syntactical constructs through selected introductory program code-patterns. In the theory lessons that follow, through the use of laptops with multi-core processors and access to the Virtual Campus services of our university, the students are easily able to implement and master the new concepts as they are taught. This teaching experiment was implemented to teach a concurrent and real-time programming course which is part of the computer engineering (CE) degree and taught during the third semester of the CE curriculum. Evaluation of the students’ academic performance when they had been taught with this approach revealed a 20.6% improvement in the students’ end-of-course grades.

Analysis of Teaching Computer Programming in Indian Context

Engineering education is given significant importance in India. A fundamental component of a computer science and engineering curriculum is computer programming and is generally studied at first year under-graduation. It is not only a difficult course but is the basic course which can affect the student prospects in the entire engineering program. It places the student in a groove and enables him to move along the correct path. Unfortunately engineering education in India is going through a turbulent period and there is need to correct it. Programming is a subject which has become essential across the disciplines. This paper analyses the reasons for the difficulties experienced by first year programming students, reviews current methods of teaching programming, identifies effective ways of teaching programming, and provides guidelines to fine tune teaching programming to individual requirements. It assumes Indian environment.

Developing Activities for Teaching Cloud Computing and Virtualization

Cloud computing and virtualization are new but indispensable components of computer engineering and information systems curricula for universities and higher education institutions. Learning about these topics is important for students preparing to work in the IT industry. In many companies, information technology operates under tight financial constraints. Virtualization, (for example storage, desktop, and server virtualization), reduces overall IT costs through the consolidation of systems. It also results in reduced loads and energy savings in terms of the power and cooling infrastructure. Therefore it is important to investigate the practical aspects of this topic both for industry practice and for teaching purposes. This paper demonstrates some activities undertaken recently by students at the Eastern Institute of Technology New Zealand and concludes with general recommendations for IT educators, software developers, and other IT professionals.

Development of an educationally oriented open-source embedded systems laboratory kit: A hybrid hands-on and virtual experimentation approach

Embedded microcontroller (MCU) systems is one of the most important topics in undergraduate electrical and electronics engineering and computer engineering curricula. Laboratory sessions are vitally important in teaching/learning of MCUs. Unfortunately, most commercially available MCU development kits are not well designed for educational purposes. In this paper, we report on the design and implementation of an educationally oriented MCU kit. The design aimed to produce a fairly universal training board that can cover a range of experiments for different topics, which resulted in embedding a rich group of peripherals. Furthermore, the kit was associated with student-centric lab manuals, training exercise, video materials, and virtual MCU experiments. This paper presents a pedagogical investigation of the impact of using the embedded systems virtual labs for preparation. The quantitative results show statistical evidence that preparation with a virtual embedded systems lab results in higher learning outcomes.

Introducing Creativity In A Design Laboratory For A Freshman Level Electrical And Computer Engineering Course

In the electrical and computer engineering (ECE) curriculum at The University of Alabama, freshmen are introduced to fundamental electrical concepts and units, DC circuit analysis techniques, operational amplifiers, circuit simulation, design, and professional ethics. The two credit course has both lecture and laboratory components that address these topics. The laboratory has been used, in this project, to provide students an experience in design. In one of the laboratory assignments, students work in teams to design and build products giving attention to both function and aesthetics. Creativity is an important attribute for engineers practicing their profession in a global society. The creative process was exercised in the design lab by progressively engaging students through various stages including: brainstorming, formation of a construction plan, producing schematic representations, and implementing their design. In a two- year period, four laboratory exercises were developed to provide design experiences in our introductory ECE course. Assessment results show that the majority of students enjoy several aspects of the laboratory on design and creativity. At the same time, they consider this lab to be one of the most difficult ones due to its open-ended nature. Students who experienced the creative lab were somewhat more likely to state they would continue in their major. Overall, the project team concluded that the creative lab was valuable and did raise awareness of the creative process.

Stakeholder’s Program Evaluation and Review: Leading to the Enhancement of Computer Engineering Curricular Program

<p>As a response to the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU) recommendation that the University of the Immaculate Conception conduct a program evaluation to assess the relevance and effectiveness of its Computer Engineering (CpE) curriculum, this study was ventured into to draw out the significant insights of faculty, alumni industry practitioners, and upper-class students regarding their expectations of the said curriculum, to level up its content and instruction for competitiveness and efficacy. Employing a focus group discussion (FGD) involving 3 faculty members, 3 alumni industry practitioners, and 6 upperclass students from the CpE program, queries bordering on the relevance and responsiveness of the curriculum, expectations of the industry from CpE graduates, as well as the level of competence of these graduates, were addressed by the researchers. Findings revealed that majority of participants believed that a relevant curriculum is one that is responsive to the needs of the present times. Alumni industry practitioners pointed out the significant gap between theory and practice--- a missing link between vision and reality. This result implies strongly that the framework upon which the program was founded does not assure competence in application. On the other hand, the peripheral views of the students highlighted the inadequacies of instruction eclipsing the ideal nature of subject sequencing and evolution.</p>

MASTERS: A Virtual Lab on Multimedia Systems for Telecommunications, Medical, and Remote Sensing Applications

Digital signal processing (DSP) has been an integral part of most electrical, electronic, and computer engineering curricula. The applications of DSP in multimedia (audio, image, video) storage, transmission, and analysis are also widely taught at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels, as digital multimedia can be encountered in most human daily activities. In this paper, a virtual lab on multimedia systems for telecommunications, medical, and remote sensing applications is presented; consisting of 20 graphical user interfaces, it can support teaching activities for various DSP concepts. The virtual lab developed was used as a teaching companion for a post-graduate course on multimedia content management, to enhancing student comprehension of the material taught; it has been made freely available for similar educational or research purposes.