Premier Courseware of 1999

Premier Courseware of 1999

West Point Bridge Designer and Project Links were announced as the Premier Courseware of 1999 at the 1999 ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Engineering Graphics

Stephen W. Crown, University of Texas, Pan American

Engineering Graphics is Web-based courseware that can serve as a stand-alone course or as a supplement to a standard textbook for an introduction to engineering graphics class. The website contains Microsoft PowerPoint lectures, CAD tutorials, and interactive multimedia games and quizzes. The Microsoft PowerPoint lectures cover the basic topics in an engineering graphics course and include videos of the author describing particular topics. The CAD tutorials and answers to the homework problems show the student how to perform the actions necessary to achieve the desired result using AutoCad. The interactive games are designed to supplement the material covered in each lecture and associated lab. The courseware elements are of high quality and can be easily modified to meet the organization and structure of other universities and other textbooks. Student surveys agree that Engineering Graphics “supports the course in a way that a textbook could not.”

Cracking Dams

Megann V. Polaha and Anthony R. Ingraffea, Cornell University

Cracking Dams makes engineering principles accessible and exciting to students from K–12 through college. It provides three levels of difficulty targeted at the different audiences, the beginning level is intended to be accessible to kindergarten students while the advanced level is aimed at upper high-school and freshman college students. Pictures of dams, film clips of broached dams and graphics of developing cracks all contribute to a lively presentation of the causes, processes and results of cracking dams. Cracking Dams contains the history and principles of dam design as well as historical examples of famous dam failures. The social, political, environmental and economic pros and cons of dams are tied in through concrete examples and a series of off-site hyperlinks to further information. Simulations help advanced students understand the science behind the forces that crack dams. Cracking Dams is easy to use and has a teacher’s guide aimed at integrating “WebQuests” (assignments using the software) into the curriculum

1999 Sponsors

About the Premier Award

The Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware was developed by NEEDS—A Digital Library for Engineering Education, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and the Synthesis Coalition to recognize high-quality, non-commercial courseware designed to enhance engineering education.