On-site Classes Research Articles

From Classrooms to the Real Engineering World: The Training Program in the Microelectronics Research Center at Georgia Tech

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a training program that helps students transfer their classroom knowledge to hands-on equipment-operating and device-processing skills in the Microelectronics Research Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. The program is designed to bring down the barrier between engineering students and well-equipped research facilities, while decreasing the mistakes caused by new users. Since the program started three years ago, more than 500 on-site classes (a one-time class with a maximum of eight attendees per class) have been offered, and more than 3000 attendees have gone through the program. The program has had a strong impact on clean-room operation and the processing capability in the center. More importantly, students are prepared more thoroughly for the real engineering world.

Technological and Structural Characteristics, Student Learning and Satisfaction with Web-Based Courses

This article compares courses in two web-based MBA programs on student perceptions of learning and satisfaction. The primary difference between the programs is that one conducts the courses entirely on-line while the other conducts the courses primarily on-line combined with one or two on-site class meetings. The results of the study showed that larger class sizes were negatively associated with learning and course satisfaction while the perceived flexibility of the delivery medium was significantly associated with perceived learning and satisfaction. The results also indicate that more experienced on-line students were more satisfied with their course delivery medium. These findings have significant implications for the role of web-based programs in a business school's strategy. They suggest that that rather than using these courses as a means to drive down the cost of delivering education, business schools may need to identify reasons for which they can charge premiums for them.

MLIS distance education at the University of South Carolina: Report of a case study

In 1992, the University of South Carolina's College of Library and Information Science undertook the delivery of its American Library Association accredited Master of Library and Information Science degree program to a 3-year cohort of students in West Virginia and Georgia through a combination of live interactive telecommunications instruction and onsite class meetings in each state. After tracing the development of distance education at the University of South Carolina with emphasis on the College of Library and Information Science, the author describes a case study comparing the performance of this cohort of students with that of their counterparts in South Carolina. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.