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Each partner institution will assist their
Affiliate campuses to transfer the curriculum modules and
educational innovations developed by the Foundation Coalition
to those campuses. In addition, a "virtual repository"
will be established, which will enable users, via the World
Wide Web, to obtain information on any topic related to Foundation
Coalition activities.
Active dissemination of information regarding
the Foundation Coalition (FC) has always been a priority among
the partner institutions. During the first five years, dissemination
was identified as a strategic objective of the FC, and a national
Strategy Director for dissemination was appointed. This individual
worked with the partner campuses to establish a national presence
for the FC. Dissemination efforts included the development
of printed literature on the FC, a World Wide Web (WWW) presence
for the FC, and high visibility of the FC at national meetings
and conferences related to engineering education (FIE, ASEE,
etc.).
While we believe that the FC did an admirable
job of marketing itself to the engineering education community
during the first five years, we feel that both our dissemination
content and our dissemination methodology should be significantly
refocused during Years 6 through 10. First, we will shift
our dissemination paradigm from a one-way "push"
of information to a true sharing of information regarding
engineering education reform issues. We believe that effective
communication of FC products involves not only the distribution
of information to other parties but also accepting input from
these parties. This is reflected in our renaming of the strategic
objective from dissemination to sharing. Second, our sharing
efforts will be proactive, rather than reactive. We will identify
new mechanisms to provide information, mechanisms that reflect
different needs of different customers. Third, we will focus
on directed dissemination/sharing through an expanding network
of Affiliate campuses, a concept new to the Foundation Coalition
in Years 6–10. Partner and Affiliate campuses will equally
share the responsibility associated with the transfer of FC
concepts and ideas. Affiliate campuses are discussed in more
detail in Section 5, where the Year-6 Affiliates are listed.
In order to better reach the engineering
education community at large, we will establish a FC "virtual
repository." Using search engines on the FC Web site,
users will be able to obtain information on any topic related
to Foundation Coalition activities. Users can identify one
or more contact people who are available to provide assistance,
advice, and expertise. We will be able to track the use of
the repository to see what questions people are asking in
order to continuously improve our sharing mechanisms. The
groundwork for such a repository began in Years 1–5 through
our Foundation Coalition Activity Sheet (Appendix G).
The obvious avenues of sharing (conference
papers and presentations, WWW site, etc.) will continue to
be utilized by all partner institutions. Emphasis will shift,
however, from conference-based papers to papers published
in archival journals. The FC Web site (http://www.foundation.ua.edu)
will be continually refreshed, ensuring current information.
Linkages will be made not only with campus FC Web pages, as
is currently the case, but with additional campus Web sites,
such as the University of Wisconsin (UW) Learning Center (http://www.engr.wisc.edu/elc).
We have identified a number of projects directly
related to sharing that will take place on each campus.
- Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT) will focus
efforts on the construction of texts to accompany the first
two years of the integrated Foundation Coalition curriculum.
- UW has several nationally recognized Centers and Programs
associated with undergraduate engineering education: Learning
Communities, Wisconsin Emerging Scholars, LEAD Center, and
CCLE. The products of these efforts and Web sites will be
supplemented by FC-based materials.
- Arizona State University (ASU) will continue its focus
on the delivery of workshops for faculty interested in FC-based
innovations, as well as disseminating the successes of their
relationships with the community colleges, building off
the relationships established with the Maricopa Community
College District in Years 1–5.
- Texas A&M University (TAMU) will provide a model for
the relationships between partner institutions and international
Affiliate campuses.
- University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and TAMU Kingsville
will design a set of workshops and seminars for engineering
faculty in their geographical area.
- University of Alabama will remain the central distribution
site for the FC, and the backbone of the virtual repository
will be established at this site.
Finally, as mentioned previously, we envision
our sharing initiative as one that is proactive in nature.
We will actively solicit input via workshops, surveys, telephone
calls, and personal conversations. These include, but are
not limited to, other coalition institutions, Affiliate institutions,
engineering education conference participants and attendees,
and industry. Through direct interaction with these potential
customer bases, our dissemination efforts will focus on information
that is truly valuable to these individuals. The FC Sharing
Director, whose responsibilities are detailed in Section 5,
will coordinate sharing activities.
Last updated: October 24,
1998.
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