NSF continues funding online resources for Numerical Methods

NSF awarded Professor Autar Kaw and his USF colleagues, Professor Melinda Hess of Center for Research, Evaluation, Assessment and Measurement (CREAM) of College of Education and Dr. Sally Szydlo of Academic and Professional Excellence (APEX) of College of Engineering, a $500,000 grant (2008-10) to complete building the online resources for a course in Numerical Methods.  This follows two previous NSF grants – a prototype grant in 2002-03 and an expansion grant in 2004-07.  Partnering with University of South Florida are Professor Egwu Eric Kalu of Florida A&M University and Steven Barnicki of the Milwaukee School of Engineering.

 

Numerical methods is a required course for most undergraduate engineering majors.  The course involves teaching how to implement approximate methods using computers to solve engineering problems for which exact solutions either are not possible or are intractable.

 

On completion of the grant, resources would be available for eleven modules of an extended Numerical Methods course.  The resources are in the form of a) background information, b) textbooks on Numerical Methods and Introduction to Matrix Algebra, c) power point presentations, d) simulations, e) assessment tools, and f) anecdotes g) eBooks and h) videos.

 

The online resources follow two key philosophies:

1. Make online resources that are easily accessible, refined and revised based on formal student and teacher feedback, and free to use with no strings attached (even free registration is not required) so that it transforms how the web is used for engineering education,

2. Provide resources that are modular as well as pedagogically neutral so that they can be modified to suit anyone's needs.

Five of the eleven modules are already available at http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu.  The site receives 6,000 hits per month and is ranked#17 out of 2.35 million hits in Google search for numerical methods.  An online book on Introduction to Matrix Algebra has already been downloaded more than 25,000 times by users from 50 different nations.  Online book chapters on Numerical Methods with Applications are also available.

 

The site won national acclaim as winner of the 2004 ASME Curriculum Innovation Award amongst 35 nominations, which included Stanford University, University of Virginia, and Michigan State University.