This project is developing the best possible undergraduate curriculum for Duke students, and is providing a model for peer institutions by streamlining the entire ECE curriculum and updating it with particular focus on the students. The goals of this effort are to maintain curricular flexibility while introducing a theme-based structure focused on major concepts and principles, and to integrate this theme throughout the core and the technical focus areas. This theme, Integrated Sensing and Information Processing (ISIP), reflects the active research areas of the majority of the ECE faculty, embodies the key concepts of all critical components of electrical and computer engineering within an easily understandable real-world framework, and reflects the future of electrical and computer engineering. As such, it is providing a unique and innovative educational platform upon which to educate Duke students, and thus it can become a model of ECE education for years to come.
The major tasks associated with this innovative curricular reform effort are: 1) Developing a theme-based introductory course that introduces fundamental concepts of ECE through coursework and a real-world design project and laboratory experience; 2) Restructuring the core curriculum so that it is more balanced and emphasizes fundamental ECE concepts within the construct of the instructional theme; 3) Modifying the structure and/or content of upper-level technical courses to be consistent with the curricular theme; 4) Developing new theme-based design courses that integrate core technical competency achieved in the various technical tracks and draw upon the active research programs of the faculty; 5) Integrating MATLAB throughout the curriculum in order to provide a modern cohesive simulation and analysis platform.
