MRI/RUI for Equipment Acquisition to Increase Network Engineering Laboratory Capacities for Hispanic Engineering Students

Polytechnic University Of Puerto Rico, San Juan PR

Investigators

Abstract

Impact: The Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico's MRI/RUI for Equipment Acquisition to Increase Network Engineering Laboratory Capacities for Hispanic Engineering Students will significantly impact three institutional goals: (1) Improving access to and increasing the use of modern research and research training instrumentation for our Hispanic students and faculty in Computer Engineering; (2) lessening the technological and research gap experienced by the institution's 1,330 Hispanic students in Electrical Engineering and directly over 300 Hispanic students studying Computer Engineering; and, (3) integrating education and research in Computer Engineering. These three institutional and departmental goals are consistent with the NSF-MRI program and the RUI program. The Hispanic faculty to be impacted includes 19 full-time EE faculty members and specifically 6 faculty members in Computer Engineering. Research: The research activities utilizing the Network Engineering Laboratory will be centered on Open Learning Objects and Inner Metadata. These include the design of Open LO (OLO), which is based on Open standards, mostly XML markup languages and their related tools. It exposes an interface to export the results of LO-to-Learner interaction, and for LO adaptation. Inner Metadata is the collection of layered meta-data mechanisms that are used to describe the OLOs, their adaptive features, and the Learner interaction tracing. LO objects designed according to this architecture still retain the encapsulation and modularity required to abstract those implementation aspects of a LO that researchers can investigate for future enhancement and growth, yet they provide a systematic and consistent interface for extracting the results of the interaction with the Learner and for LO adaptation. Intellectual Merit of the Proposed Activity: The proposed research project advances knowledge and understanding within the field of Computer Engineering and explores creative concepts. Several organizations most notably the IEEE and the IMS Consortium, have proposed standards for describing Learning Objects. While these efforts substantially advance the goals of interoperability, they fall short at addressing the need for accessibility to the internal composition of the Learning Objects (LO). Under present standards, the LO remains an opaque entity from which valuable information cannot be easily gleaned or harvested, nor introduced or adapted. Broader Impact of the Proposed Activity: Research in this area will fully integrate education and research activities by utilizing the IDEAL eLearning environment as a platform to test and explore these and similar issues from a unique perspective; that of a potentially very large learner pool as available through the web. The research activities to be undertaken in the enhanced Network Engineering Laboratory will equally serve to expose PUPR to collaborate in Computer Engineering research with other engineering colleges and universities in the United States.