|
|  |
 |
| |
|
| |
| ECE On-Site Program/Course Delivery | |
- Setting Up An On-Site Graduate Program:
- Stevens Institute of Technology (and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering) run a number of on-site graduate programs for various regional companies, including delivery at centralized sites more local to students in various NJ locations. This experience in working with companies to deliver the kind of program (and the sequence of courses) most desireable to a company has created a company-friendly approach to setting up such on-site programs.
|
- Developing a Course Plan:
- The first step is to contact Dean Charles Suffel at the Graduate School at Stevens. Typically, a minimum of at least 10-15 students is required to cover the cost of the on-site delivery of a course. This constraint generally leads to a planned set of courses, scheduled appropriately, to ensure the necessary enrollment. Graduate courses can be directed towards either full Master's degrees or shorter Graduate Certificate degrees. The planned sequence of courses usually also involves consideration of a new group of students entering the program each year, impacting the scheduling of core courses that students are required to complete for a Master's degree. The course plan can also include a mixture of on-site courses and courses delivered at Stevens (all graduate courses are offered in the evening to ensure that the courses do not interfere with work schedules). If the on-site
facility has a video classroom capability, courses given on campus can be scheduled to use one of the Stevens' video classrooms, with synchronous transmission to the remote site. Synchronous delivery of on-campus course offerings to remote sites is an approach under continuing development and, if the remote site lacks a video classroom, other techniques to deliver the course synchronously via Web-enabled video conferencing may be able to be arranged. Beyond these lecture-based courses, there are several Web-based on-line courses delivered asynchrounously. The course plan developed by the company in collaboration with Stevens can be based on a mixture of these delivery mechanisms or on a single delivery mechanism. In the case of Web-based course delivery, not all core courses in the Electrical Engineerng and in the Computer Engineering programs are available as Web-based courses.
|
- Meeting with Graduate School and ECE Department Representatives:
- Many possible questions can best be answered by arranging a meeting with representatives of the Graduate School and the ECE Department. As providers of the courses, it is important for us to understand the needs of a company and the best set of courses and programs to deploy. All off-campus graduate courses are required to have the same depth and general content as the standard on-campus courses. However, there may be particular components of a given course that can be adjusted to best meet the objectives of the company. In addition, there is the option of a Master's degree with thesis. In this case, policies and practice related to the student completing a thesis in the area of his/her job activities can be discussed. The Master's degree with thesis in the ECE Department requires a public defense of the thesis, along with a committee of faculty members (a company employee can serve as member of the committee and can be the primary member giving day-to-day advice to the student as the thesis project unfolds).
The Director of the ECE Department working with the Graduate School, will assist the company in understanding the courses that might be used, the various mechanisms for course delivery, and suggestions based on requests from the company. Following the meeting recommended here between the representatives of the company and the representatives of Stevens to define a course plan and schedule, the next step is to register students for the program.
|
- Stevens Staff Meeting with Interested Students:
- Assuming that the company has defined a course plan and schedule, information is distributed within the company to advise students of the program being developed. The Graduate School typically arranges with the company a convenient time to visit the company and handle the course registration tasks with the students. At that time, individual questions of students can be addressed. It is important to establish as best possible a sufficient number of students for the on-campus program before registration is started. To the extent that meetings by the Stevens' stafff and/or representatives from the ECE Department can participate in the pre-registration discussions with students, such meetings can be arranged.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Print
