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Curriculum Development InitiativesCurriculum development initiatives at the Center for Compuational Field Simulation (CFS) include new course development and modified courses as well as new education programs. COURSE DEVELOPMENT CFS Undergraduate Courses For several years it has been an important objective of the ERC to offer courses that help undergraduate students understand and appreciate the "computational paradigm" -- the application of computational techniques to field problems - and to the research of the Center. During the 1995-96 academic year a group of faculty (Roger Briley, Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Boyd Gatlin, Associate Professor of Aerospace Engineering; Keith Hodge, Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Jerry Rogers, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Brad Carter, Professor of Computer Science) planned a two-course sequence to be offered as technical electives to engineering students as well as other students. The first course, under the coordination of Roger Briley, is a junior-level course concentrating on the CFS problem-solving methodology. The second course, coordinated by Boyd Gatlin, is for seniors and first-year graduate students and addresses CFS applications in various domains. Both courses address the principles, practices, and tools of computational field simulation and involve a cross-disciplinary team of ERC faculty in the instruction. More specific descriptions of the two courses are: CME 3413 Introduction to Computational Field Simulation. (3) CME 4413/6413. Principles and Practices of Computational Field Simulation.
(3) Each course has now been offered. The first course was offered with Roger Briley as lead professor, and with thirteen other faculty lecturing at least once. The second course was offered in the Spring 1998 term taught by ERC researcher Boyd Gatlin. As discussed later, these two courses are also part of a new undergraduate minor in computational engineering. A third, full-graduate, advanced CFS course is envisioned, but no details of the course have been planned. It will cover advanced concepts in CFS and focus on designing, developing, maintaining, expanding, and using CFS systems. It would be open to applications-knowledgeable students from CME 4413. ERC-Related Courses The ERC has had a major impact on the curriculum of the University through course development. ERC faculty have gained formal approval for at least 18 new courses and have made significant modifications to at least 10 others. Another 14 courses have been and continue to be offered as special topics courses. The new courses proposed by ERC faculty, approved by University committees, and officially added to the University curriculum with their dates of addition are:
The courses having undergone significant revision by ERC faculty with the dates that they were revised are:
The courses taught by ERC faculty as special topics are: Topics in Applied Tensors Some of these were offered only once, while others continue to be offered as topics courses. GRADUATE PROGRAMS With the founding of the Center in 1990, the University and the College of Engineering were authorized to award Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in computational engineering and in computer engineering. These degrees complemented the newly approved doctoral program in computer science and existing doctoral programs in the other engineering disciplines. In addition, the Center played an important role in the approval of the mathematical sciences doctoral program. This array of graduate programs is necessary to support the interdisciplinary research program of the Center. Computational Engineering The computational engineering program is organized as an interdisciplinary program within the College of Engineering and managed by the ERC. It admits students from engineering, computer science, mathematics, and the physical sciences. Each student's program of study must include courses in engineering applications of computational fields (fluid dynamics, electromechanics, heat transfer, etc.), in advanced computer science (algorithms, parallel programming, etc.), and in numerical mathematics (partial differential equations, etc.) -- which will, of course, generally require a number of prerequisite courses in at least one of the areas to be completed by the student. The faculty of the ERC serve as the computational engineering faculty and advise all computational engineering students. With a few exceptions, all computational engineering students are involved in the research of the Center. The latest university enrollment figures show about 30 computational engineering graduate students of which 19 are doctoral students. The Center is currently distributing announcements of the computational engineering program to engineering and science departments throughout the country to make the program better known. Computer Engineering In 1990, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering offered, in cooperation with the Department of Computer Science, an undergraduate degree in computer engineering. To consider the computing system design issues that must be addressed for the computational applications of the new Center, it was deemed critical that research and graduate student participation in computer engineering be included. Therefore, at the same time approval was being sought for the interdisciplinary computational engineering program, the University requested approval of masters and doctoral programs for computer engineering. The computer engineering graduate program is administered by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering with additional faculty drawn from the Department of Computer Science. There are currently about 25 students enrolled in the computer engineering graduate program, of which 13 are involved in the research of the Center. UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS It is clear that effective use of computational simulation within the engineering disciplines will be critical in the next decade and beyond. No longer is it reasonable or affordable to design and test physical models in many of the disciplines, and CFS will become a routine component of the engineering design process. It is therefore important that engineering education address the underlying principles, practices, tools, technological issues, methodological issues, etc. of CFS and of computational technology. A review of most undergraduate engineering programs shows that they are moving in this direction, but very slowly. Not only is curriculum change naturally slow and tedious, but faculty must have a good understanding of the need for such change, and this takes time. To serve as a catalyst and to facilitate a vehicle for exposing undergraduate engineering students to the computational design issues, the ERC proposed and received approval to award an undergraduate minor in computational engineering to engineering majors. This minor requires completion of four courses. Included are the two CFS courses discussed earlier and two courses still under development that focus on visualization and high performance scientific computing. Four ERC faculty (Skjellum, Moorhead, Banks, and Machiraju) are designing the two new courses. The visualization course is being taught this semester by Robert Moorhead as an experimental course. Formal approval will be sought later this academic year. The specific requirements for the computational engineering minor are:
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