A Multi Media Network For First Year Engineering

First-year engineering courses at The Pennsylvania State University can be completed at any one of the University's 19 campuses. Over the years the first-year engineering curriculum at Penn State Campuses has deviated significantly from the established criteria, and the course content varied significantly from campus to campus. This is primarily due to inefficient communication media, difficulties in sharing course material, and challenges involved in mapping course requirements to the local resources available at each campus. This paper outlines the project underway to build an efficient multi-media network with the 19 campuses via Internet to communicate, distribute, and acquire curriculum related multimedia information for the first-year design course. This network would provide access to course material currently used at the campuses as well as to resources that will enhance the future course content. The network will also provide video-conferencing capabilities and on-line "chat" capabilities to collaborate with industrial partners.