This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated engineers and technicians in production engineering. It will do so by supporting the design, development, and evaluation of online courses in mechatronics. The project team includes educators at Oregon State University and Clackamas Community College, as well as partnerships with industry and other organizations. The overall goal is to develop a set of online course modules that include in-person labs. Each module will build competence in a specific mechatronics concept. The in-person, hands-on labs will use a "lab-in-a-box" approach, which will give students the option of conducting labs at Oregon State University or at community colleges close to their own location. The course modules will be organized into four groupings that can be stacked within a mechatronics curriculum. These groupings will enable students at two-year and four-year institutions, as well as working professionals, to obtain certifications in mechatronics. The project will investigate how modular courses and remote labs influence student learning and success. The results of this analysis will contribute to understanding best practices for delivering a high-quality online education that meets the professional goals of students, as well as the needs of mechatronics and manufacturing industries. The project will help make mechatronics education more accessible to a wider range of students across the country.
The overall goal of this project is to improve the preparation of current and prospective engineers and technicians in key fields that are important for production engineering. The project will pursue five objectives: 1) Identify and confirm essential content areas and learning objectives in mechatronics; 2) Develop a modular online program for certification or re-certification in current areas of mechatronics; 3) Expand educational opportunities beyond professional certification for community college and university students, and for open-education delivery; 4) Research and evaluate student learning outcomes resulting from the modular course delivery and remote laboratories; and 5) Distribute course materials, performance analysis methods, and anonymized data for subsequent users. The course modules will be structured and vertically integrated to offer a Mechatronics Career Pathway Certificate or a Mechatronics Engineering Certificate. Data about students' interaction with course components will be collected and analyzed, and will include site navigation workflows, student progress via predictive analytics, and learner engagement. Specific variables of interest will include: time and rate of completion; overall achievement; learner satisfaction; and employer satisfaction. Demographic variables will be explored to identify for whom the proposed hybrid online approach works best. Student performance in remote labs will be compared to that of students in traditional labs, to determine whether the remote options are equivalent and viable alternatives. The research will provide greater insights into how different learners achieve success within the modularized curriculum. Project results will be made available through faculty training, conference presentations, peer-reviewed publications, and a one-day workshop to scale the program beyond the state of Oregon.
This project is funded by NSF's EHR Core Research: Production Engineering Education and Research (ECR: PEER) program, which seeks to improve the education of future and current professionals in production engineering. It also aims to study the effectiveness of the innovative educational strategies adopted by these projects.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
