Proposal

Narrative

During the past eighteen months the College of Engineering and Computer Science promoted live interactive/synchronous course delivery on web (WebEx, Zoom). Our preference in synchronous Webex/Zoom course delivery vs online content was based on three reasons: (i) Keep students engaged as a class, as groups, and individually; maintain the class bond and the comfort of schedule rigidity that is needed in times of crisis; (ii) lectures are also recorded, uploaded on Canvas and available online; (iii) minimize risk of diluting our unique attributes and becoming generic and replaceable (possible with fully online content); maintain our competitive advantage and claim to fame which is face-to-face personalized academic care of our students. Moving forward, we will continue this delivery method for a selective set of courses, likely graduate courses with no laboratory needs. We are seeking funding to acquire the technology to create 2 “Zoom Rooms”, one in EE96 and one in EE36. The rooms will be used for synchronous only course delivery (not hybrid) and still maintain their current functionality. The objective is to utilize a wall of the room as a big display to bring on screen the participating students. This will make the delivery more immediate and effective as it will be as close to as a class amphitheater with in person face-to-face instruction. We considered both projection screens and borderless led screens as options – however the latter are not as high resolution and have calibration and maintenance issues. We propose to outfit each room with a laser projector and extra-large screen on the wall. This can be used to display the matrix layout of the individual callers in a large format with minimal hardware. The size of the student pictures would be dependent on the number in the class. The pricing depends on the size of the screen and projector used. We estimate an average of $23K per individual screen set/room (the price ranges from $15K to $30K)

Facilities

Hardware Requirements

New laser projector and extra-large screen. We will utilize the equipment already in the room to run the projector.

Software Requirements

Already available

Personnel Costs

None

Other Costs

Costs should be inclusive.

Timeline

All installations will be according to availability of the equipment.

Sustainability

routine maintenance of the equipment.

Resource Matching

None expected. CoECS will contribute to any cost overruns of the project.

Implementing Organization

CoECS internal TSG group will implement the project.