Abstracts for Technical Session SPEC 1

SPEC 1.1	Reflections on a Distance Education Experiment in DSP Delores M Etter (Department of Defense), Geoffrey C Orsak (Southern Methodist University) vol. 4, pp. 2017-2020 Distance Education is becoming an increasingly important means of reaching a wider variety of traditional and non-traditional students and of developing unique educational partnerships between universities. In an effort to assist engineering departments just beginning to pursue distance education, the authors reflect on an innovative four year experiment in Internet based distance education involving students and faculty from the University of Colorado at Boulder, George Mason University, Rice University, Cornell University, and Sandia National Labs. The educational and research benefits to both the students and faculty will be discussed in detail. In addition, the weaknesses and limitations of this experiment will also be addressed. It is hoped that these comments and observations will benefit other institutions beginning to pursue similar distance education programs
SPEC 1.2	REPACKAGING SIGNALS, SYSTEMS AND CIRCUITS IN THE CORE ECE CURRICULUM Thomas P Barnwell, James H McClellan, Russell M Mersereau, Ronald W Schafer (Georgia Institute of Technology) vol. 4, pp. 2021-2024 For several years, we have been teaching DSP as a first course in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. Such a dramatic rearrangement of the introductory material requires a new organization of topics and courses when teaching circuits and systems. In addition, the use of computer-enhanced course materials has a profound impact on the systems courses, which are quite mathematical and abstract in nature. This paper addresses some of the issues encountered when adopting a signal processing first approach.
SPEC 1.3	Analog Signal Processing First David C Munson, Douglas L Jones (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) vol. 4, pp. 2025-2028 The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois recently adopted new undergraduate curricula. The most radical change was the introduction of ECE 210, Analog Signal Processing, in place of both the sophomore-level circuit analysis course and the junior-level signals and systems course. The new course combines core material from these traditional courses, along with applications such as AM radio and a modest laboratory component, in a way that improves both the students' understanding and their motivation. The new course still serves well as the base of the required curriculum and as a prerequisite for subsequent courses, while realizing savings in the early curriculum and allowing more time for advanced signal processing courses in future semesters.
SPEC 1.4	A NEW COLLABORATIVE ACTIVE LEARNING TOOL for SIGNAL PROCESSING EDUCATION Saad Lamouri (Graduate Student), Yusuf Ozturk (Associate professor), Huseyin Abut (Professor) vol. 4, pp. 2029-2032 ABSTRACT This paper introduces a distributed object based collaboration system called Collaboard, which can be effectively used to conduct Signal Processing classes in an interactive fashion. Collaboard allows a group of users in a heterogeneous network environment to share multimedia objects, such as text, geometric entities, equations, images, audio/video objects, and OLEä objects. Collaboard supports multiple user groups and allows a user to actively participate in multiple learning groups. Matlabä has been integrated into this Collaboard as the computational workhorse. The Matlab programs or tasks initiated by any participant are replicated over the network to every participant. Our Collaboard architecture is a distributed object-based tool supporting object video and object audio. The current version of the system includes a RealAudioä Server to support streaming audio capability. We believe that the comprehensive and user-friendly architecture of this Collaboard will be a very powerful working tool for DSP/Communication systems classes in active learning environment.
SPEC 1.5	Design of a Guided-Asynchronous Graduate Course in Multi-Media Signal Processing Virginia L Stonick, Wojtek Kolodziej, Otto Gygax (Oregon State University) vol. 4, pp. 2033-2036 This paper describes the design of a new guided-asynchronous graduate course in Multi-Media Signal Processing (MMSP). MMSP expertise is increasingly critical for many working engineers from diverse disciplines. Targeted students have some prior DSP-related experience, but need an introduction to MMSP fundamentals before participating in more specialized courses. A modular structure, asynchronous design and application focus are used to meet the educational and logistical needs of working engineers. Industry and University partners use MMSP technologies to provide remote access to pre-configured laboratory experiments and educational resources, and support for distributed collaboration and guided learning. Thus hands-on experience with MMSP technologies is integrated with learning about underlying MMSP concepts. A central element of the course design are on-line, multi-media topical learning modules which provide evaluation of student level of expertise, guidance in choosing course activities to effectively meet learning goals, student practice and projects, and feedback and evaluation of student performance.
SPEC 1.6	DSPS Education: An Industry Leader's Experiences and Expectations C. Robert Hewes, Periagaram K Rajasekaran (Texas Instruments, Incorporated) vol. 4, pp. 2037-2040 Texas Instruments is the industry leader in providing digital signal processing solutions to a variety of system applications including wireless communications, modems, hard disk drives, and many others. In this paper, the key roles of university research and education are described. The relationship of TI to the university community is reviewed. TI's expectations from university programs are also outlined.

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Last Update:  5:29 GMT,  March 24, 1999         Ingo Höntsch