Global-HUB: A Virtual Community for Global Engineering Education, Research, and Collaboration

Purdue University, West Lafayette IN

Investigators

Abstract

Proposal Number: CBET-0742753 Principal Investigator: Hirleman, Edwin Affiliation: Purdue University Proposal Title: Global-HUB: A Virtual Community for Global Engineering Education, Research, and Collaboration Public Abstract Global engineering education can only meet the profession?fs continually expanding needs by becoming an international cyber?]community. Today?fs students seeking an international engineering experience often face financial, cultural or academic barriers. This award will establish an engineering virtual organization (EVO) called Global-HUB that will effectively eliminate these barriers. Global-HUB will use the Internet to catalyze innovative research and collaboration tools and curricular and co-curricular educational activities to strengthen the field of global engineering. Its stated mission is ?gTo establish a cybercommunity of scholars, practitioners, and students that advances global engineering education, eliminates barriers for students seeking a global education, and helps prepare a workforce of globally competent engineers.?h This mission will be fulfilled through four goals: (1) Increase undergraduate engineering students?f cultural competencies by facilitating international team design projects and related educational opportunities; (2) Provide faculty members with unprecedented tools, data, and networking capabilities for research and scholarship on educating global engineers; (3) Empower university educators and administrators by providing useful collaborative resources for developing global engineering programs; and (4) Sustain and continually strengthen the online community. Global-HUB addresses the grand challenge of globalizing engineering education by bringing together leaders in global engineering education, collaboration tools for global design projects, global program design and execution, and cybercommunity technology. All of Global-HUB?fs stakeholders will contribute to and benefit from the center?fs mutually supportive structure. The U.S. students on the engineering design teams will use Global-HUB to collaborate with overseas counterparts; faculty members studying global engineering education can evaluate the students?f interactions, using Global-HUB as a virtual ?gcultural interaction?h lab; and programmatic resources will be posted, providing university educators and administrators with much-needed information about the best methods for developing, cultivating and maintaining global engineering education programs. By 2010, Global-HUB is projected to have helped doubled the rate of growth of U.S. engineering students who graduate with an international collaboration experience. In the short-term, the Global-HUB will immediately eliminate physical and economic barriers for engineering students, researchers and administrators. In the long-term, the Global-HUB will increase the number of U.S. engineering graduates with the global competency skills needed to sustain U.S. competitiveness in the face of economic globalization.