Remote Delivery Of Ece/Cs Degree Education In China

Abstract

The Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University (PSU) has begun to deliver undergraduate ECE and CS courses to students in Shanghai, China at the International Institute for Information, Science & Technology (IIIST) in an innovative experiment in international collaborative education. The courses consist of current lectures recorded in PSU classrooms, delivered with support materials by CD-ROM and Internet streaming, to students at the IIIST in Shanghai. All courses are taught in English by PSU faculty, with classroom assistance provided by local faculty drawn from Fudan and Shanghai JiaoTong Universities. IIIST provides classroom and administrative infrastructure, and collaborates with Fudan as well as Shanghai JiaoTong for most of the lower division non-technical program for the student. IIIST also provides instruction in English as a Second Language. Students who successfully complete the lower division program requirements can apply to become fully admitted to PSU at the junior year (upper division), and progress toward graduation from Portland State University. The program fosters faculty exchange between the two institutions, and presents computer science and engineering students enhanced opportunity for educational exchange and internships. An additional outcome of the program is that nearly all of the PSU ECE and CS undergraduate courses will be available online (or on CD) to students and other potential collaborators. The paper will provide details of the program’s organization, administration and industry collaborations, and discuss challenges and successes of the program to date.

The program began through a conversation on the topic of international education over a period of two days at conferences in Sweden and Germany in 2001. At the time, IIIST was running a BSCS program in cooperation with the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), with the intent of providing a U.S. university degree, taught entirely in English, to prepare students for employment opportunities in the rapidly growing Shanghai high–tech market. IIIST was also interested in adding educational programs focused on VLSI design, which matched a strength in the PSU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE.)

PSU and IIIST agreed that PSU would deliver undergraduate courses in ECE to IIIST students. When University of Nebraska at Omaha stopped offering CS courses in Shanghai, PSU began to offer CS courses there. ECE courses followed shortly thereafter. The initial plan was to also deliver graduate level courses at IIIIST, since both institutions were

“Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”