Technology and Free Media Content in Post-Secondary Engineering Education

Proceedings of the 2013 Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference A. Krishnamurthy and W.K.V. Chan, eds.

Technology and Free Media Content in Post-Secondary Engineering Education
Jacob Viraldo Department of Industrial Engineering Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN [e-mail] Ali Shafaat Department of Civil Engineering Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN [e-mail]

Abstract
The traditional post-secondary engineering education model has gone relatively unchanged for generations. As technology advances, instructors have become adept at encompassing new engineering tools into the educational environment to teach and provide experience to students through the use of recorded lectures, videos, online communications, electronics, and computer software systems. Recent technological breakthroughs resulting in lowcost, high-speed internet accessibility, however, have allowed online-only universities to begin to compete with traditional degree-granting institutions, educating students within the framework of the currently established postsecondary educational model. Presently, the projected proliferation of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) suggests a substantial transformation of this educational model may be needed, due to MOOC’s emphasis on selfpaced, low-accountability, mass education via electronic, openly-available, free content from recognized subject matter experts. While this observation has led some education experts to believe that MOOCs present a danger to the survival of traditional institutions, the availability of free or near-free post-secondary educational content predates the internet age by decades, yet the current educational model endures, largely unchanged. This paper examines the history of comparable content and technology advances, and their observed effect on the educational system, in the context of various sociotechnical system criteria.

Keywords
MOOC, Theory of Diffusion, Sociotechnical Systems, Open

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