A fully online accredited undergraduate electrical engineering program

We have implemented full online delivery of the undergraduate electrical engineering program at a large public university (Arizona State University). This paper describes the objectives for the program, its implementation and an assessment of student performance. The curriculum, admissions standards, accreditation and faculty delivering the program are identical for face-to-face and online delivery. The program was initially conceived primarily to extend the access to our existing program to more underserved student populations. Our enrolment statistics show that this goal has been achieved to an extent much greater than anticipated. The characteristics of the online students enrolled in online delivery (age, professional experience, veteran/military status etc.) differ from those of the students enrolled face-to-face. Another goal of the program is to develop and instructional approach that leverage the technology of online delivery to fundamentally change how student access the material and organize it according to their individual learning styles. We have developed course materials that are very dense, highly efficient and flexibly delivered. Our approach is completely different from "lecture-capture" approaches to online delivery. Our assessment process shows that there is very little difference in student performance between the face-to-face delivery and online delivery. Significant challenges for our online delivery have been the development of laboratory experiences and the proctoring of exams. Our assessment of student outcomes shows that students enrolled online have achieved the outcomes related to the laboratory exercises. We have engaged an external proctoring company to independently verify and monitor the academic integrity of the online exam process. Another challenge is acceptance of online delivery among our constituencies. This has been achieved to a large extent as verified by the unexpectedly large demand among our students, the willingness of employers to fund tuition and fees, the enthusiastic participation among a growing group of faculty members and discussions of our external advisory board which is dominated by industry members. A recent accreditation visit provides additional evidence of acceptance among the engineering community.