9451860 King The goals of this project are: To demonstrate the applicability of expert systems to engineering education; and to improve the efficiency of the electrical engineering laboratory instruction. Use of an expert system enables the students to conduct more of their own troubleshooting. Students do not have to wait for assistance. They are able to query the expert system and receive guidance as the need arises, even during non-laboratory hours. The result is an increased opportunity for student/faculty discussions of more advanced concepts and methods of system design and development. Usually, the laboratory instructor spends most of the laboratory period with just one or two of the lab groups assisting them with troubleshooting tasks. The expert system allows the professor to service more of the students during the lab period because it copes with the routine tasks. The expert system continues to "learn" symptoms and solutions, always providing complete "recall" of troubleshooting suggestions, even for new faculty and laboratory teaching assistants who teach the course for the first time. Innovative use is made of computers and an expert system to assist electrical and computer engineering faculty by providing certain of the routine functions encountered in the microprocessor-based systems design laboratory. This application of expert systems to engineering education will be carefully evaluated to confirm its value as a "teaching assistant".
